Towards German Stability
There is a certain incongruity between the arrangements which are being made to put into effect the new administrative scheme for Western Germany and the present state of the area. It is not easy for anyone, and least of all for Germans, to cope simultaneously with the barely suppressed labour unrest in the Ruhr, the new and un- precedentedly drastic law passed by the German Economic Council requiring the declaration of domestic food stocks, and the strikes in Bavaria against the weakness of the food policy of the Land Govern- ment, and still at the same time to keep track of the official German comments (to say nothing of the French misgivings) on the latest bi-zonal proposals. When political proposals for a stronger Economic Council, a new organisation to represent the Lander and the setting up of a Supreme Court have to compete for attention with the stark fact of hunger, there is no doubt as to which will win. Nevertheless, the political discussions must go on and the new arrangements must be put into effect as soon as possible, for without fusther progress towards full German responsibility in both economic and political matters there will be no real recovery. Meanwhile, both the British and the American Military Governors are back in Berlin, there is a suppressed eagerness to know whether the Russian reaction to Mr. Bevin's speech will issue in even more serious gestures than the recent interference with German passengers on British trains, and the tension is mounting to a crisis. Whether the German people will surmount it depends on whether they can be given anything to hope for. Perhaps in the immediate circumstances some specific plan for overcoming the paralysing currency difficulties would do as much as anything, and there is some reason to hope that such a plan will soon be forthcoming.
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