'Britain and the Schuman Plan
As the Schuman Plan for a European coal and steel community progresses from the stage of political negotiation to the stage of economic experiment, the need for a consistent and comprehen- sive British policy towards the new organisation grows more .urgent. The treaty setting up the community was signed in Paris last week. Present indications are that the Governments of the six countries taking part—France, Germany, Italy and the „Benelux group—will ratify it without undue delay. Then follows ..a period of six months during which the new High Authority, whose powers have been greatly modified since the British Government refused to be associated with any suprit-national body of this kind, is set up. And then comes the real test of trying to work the coal and steel industries of six countries under a single direction. Before that happens the British Government must rid itself of its rather negative attitude. Mr. Kenneth Younger's statement on Tuesday to the effect that the Govern- ment is willing to enter into discussions with the Schuman organi- sation in due course was long overdue. It is simply not good enough for the British Government to warn the French—as it has done—that the existing controls on German industry must not be altered. without formal notice and agreement, or to make heavy weather of the modification of the Ruhr Statute which will inevitably have to come, And as to the statement made in Paris by Mr. Lincoln Evans, the secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, that the question of political sovereignty comes first, with economic unity second, it must mean—if it means anything at all—that the British policy is purely obstruc- tive ; for it was on a refusal to admit any modification of sovereignty that the official British objection to the Schuman Plan was based. All this bodes little good for independent relations between Britain and the new iron and steel community. There are already fears that the clauses in the treaty which permit the signatories to raise protective barriers against third parties in times of crisis might be awkward for British industry. Such a situation would be very dangerous, and the sooner the British Government and the new High Authority begin discussions about it the better.
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