The Germans
The inevitable approach of the day when the Germans must be accepted as people making national decisions for themselves, and not as people carrying out (more or less willingly) the orders of the occupying authorities, was emphasised during this week's visit of inspection to the West German coal and steel industries carried out by the British and American Military Governors. Time after time it was made clear that German views on such matters as the control of the Ruhr mines, the size of steel output, the dismantling of factories, and even the military organisation of Western Union will be more and more freely expressed and finally harden into a positive policy. It was equally clear that the adjustment to that fact will not be easy. General Robertson expressed himself with extreme caution on the question of the nationalisation of the Ruhr coal mines, which most German miners want. The German proposal that the permitted level of steel production should be raised from 1o,7oo,000 to 14,000,000 tons got an even colder reception. That might have been expected. Present production is going up but it has only just topped an annual rate of 7,000,000 tons ; European steel production as a whole cannot be expanded much faster than ore supplies ; and it would be wrong in this case to accept a policy which runs counter to French wishes. On the question of dismantling, the Germans are sensitive to a point which not so many months ago would have aroused suspicions of their ultimate intentions in the matter of arms produc- tion, but the fact remains that their wishes cannot be entirely ignored, if only because Mr. Hoffman has again arrived in Europe and is anxious to make changes in the reparations programme. A certain haste to forget about reparations runs through all American policy since the war. Germans know this. Western Germans also know that the steady improvement in their production, and their growing support for the Western policy in Berlin are factors which cannot be ignored. And out of all this must arise a new relationship between Germany and the Western Powers.
