Ruhr Priorities
By presenting a comprehensive memorandum on the Ruhr economy to Mr. Marshall and Mr. Hector McNeil in Paris last Saturday, M. Schuman, the French Foreign Minister, put the question on a proper basis. The French Memorandum neatly chops the subject into the three issues of ownership of the Ruhr industries, management, and security questions, including the dis- mantling programme. It quite rightly regards the ownership as the least urgent of these. It is therefore difficult to see how the British and American Governments can at this point press the decision of the military governors that ownership must be taken over by a future German Government, although the latest reports from Washington show that Mr. Marshall is in no mood for universal concessions to the French view. But the memorandum includes a failure, also French and also typical, to square paper logic with hard facts. It claims that questions of ownership can only be settled by the peace treaty. On the present showing that probably means that it can never be settled at all, since the Russians show not the slightest inclination to open the road to a fresh peace con- ference by lifting their blockade of Berlin. And although questions of security and day-to-day 'operations must come first, the question of ownership cannot be left in the air for ever. The Anglo-American compromise may not be the right one. It smells slightly of a deal between the advocates of nationalisation and of private enterprise. But the French must at least begin to think of an alternative. In the meantime the six-Power conference in London is going ahead with distribution schemes. The question of security is likely to be sensibly clarified when the Atlantic pact is drafted, discussed and agreed. In any case there is no possibility of fundamental dis- agreement there. And even the sharp differences about ownership may yield to a little patience.
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