Schuman and Soda
The proposals of the British Conservative Party for the control of the European coal and steel industries may well put new life into both the Schuman Plan and the Council of Europe, to which they are to be submitted. The scheme drawn up by Mr. David Eccles, M.P., who is the rapporteur of the Economic Commission of the Consultative Assembly, serves both to dilute the over-strong draught of the Schuman Plan, with its insistence on the surrender of sovereignty to a supra-national authority, and to enliven a dis- cussion which has become stale and flat. The further the industrial realities of coal and steel production have been left behind, and the higher the Governments concerned have built the political super- structure above those realities, the smaller the chance of British participation has become. In the circumstances the continental Governments who profess to desire British co-operation would do well either to consider measures for securing that co-operation or to stop professing. The resolution standing in the name of seven British Conservative members of the Assembly, together with Lord Layton, Hr. Ohlin of Sweden and Hr. Smitt-Ingebretsen of Norway, is against the setting up of any new sovereign body. It proposes that there should be separate authorities for coal and steel and that they shall be controlled by an economic sub-committee of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. There is proper provision for appeal from the decisions of the authorities, but for the time being the question of surrender of sovereignty is ruled out. If one country only is affected by a decision the repre- sentative of that country can, if he wishes, veto it. This represents, of course, a head-on collision with the French ideas on the nature of the plan—ideas which are also accepted by the Germans—and it should very quickly be seen, in the light of this test, whether any accommodation at all is possible. But the Conservative group have certainly been wise to raise the matter at Strasbourg, for the French Government attaches importance to the success of the Council of Europe. And they have not been unwise in presenting the British Socialist members with a reasonable set of proposals, which they can hardly disagree with except by indicating that they do not want any Schuman Plan at all, effective or ineffective.
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