Spurs to Action

Delegates to the Western Union conference of Foreign Ministers at The Hague last week got a small practical demonstration of the need for Western Union. On the Etoile du Nord, the international luxury express which makes a daily Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam run, they had to show their passports, railroad tickets or cash 16 times to 16 different officials in the three countries. At a Dutch border town the train was held up for an hour while inspectors made sure, the passengers had not bought too many U.S. cigarettes during the 20-minute stop at Brussels.

In France, the delegates could lunch on the train and pay in French francs. In Belgium a little later they could eat the same lunch, but the Belgian rate of exchange made the meal cost three times as much. If a delegate had a cup of coffee while the train was in France, he got one lump of sugar. In Belgium, he could have two lumps. In The Netherlands, he got as much sugar as he liked--not because the Dutch have more sugar, but because they have a different tourist policy.

The conferees had weightier matters than lumps of sugar to discuss, but the sugar symbolized how little progress toward real unity their five nations had made since signing the Brussels pact last March. In four months Western Union had gone a little way toward military integration, but hardly a step toward economic or political unity.

Measuring with the Feet. Grim was the only word for the two-day meeting round the green-clothed, rectangular table in Room No. 49 of the Dutch Foreign Office. Britain's Ernest Bevin was unsmiling and the nervous twitch at the right corner of his mouth was more pronounced than ever. France's Georges Bidault (about to lose his job, partly because he had lost popularity by going along with the U.S. on a program of German recovery) made his points tensely, striking the table with the edge of his hand. The Dutch host-chairman, Baron van Boetzelaer van Oosterhout, fiddled nervously with his papers. Luxemburg's

Pierre Dupong was fidgety. Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak was poised but gloomy as he gazed at an ornate gold clock on the wall which had stopped at 5 minutes past 2 nobody knew how long ago. The Berlin crisis had reminded everyone that it was later than they had thought.

An almost wartime secrecy encased the meeting. Black-jacketed, blue-breeched Dutch state police in peaked caps reached for delegates' passes with their left hands, kept their right hands close to their revolver holsters. In hotel lobbies plainclothesmen sipped Bols gin, eyed everyone coming through the revolving doors. Remarked one stolid Dutch cop at the Hotel des Indes: "I don't know what we're watching for, but whatever it is, he won't get away with it."

The conference even had a code name --"Metric." Said a disappointed French delegate after the conference: "We regarded it as a hopeful sign that the British, who usually insist on measuring things with their feet, invented this code name 'Metric'; we thought they were coming over to continental ideas. We came here with the idea de bousculer les Anglais. We should know by now you can't light fires under the British."

The Unique Moment. Bidault tried hardest to light a fire. Said he: "This moment is perhaps unique in history. It is the moment to make Europe." Concretely, he proposed "the convocation of a European assembly, chosen by the parliaments of the participating nations . . . to advise on the immediate practical measures to bring about progressively the necessary economic and political union of Europe."

Bevin tossed cold water on this. Spaak wanted to know how the conference could hope to move toward political union when member nations could not even get a small regional customs union to work effectively (as the delegates had learned at the Dutch border).

Then Bevin got around to what was in everybody's mind--Berlin. He read a long statement of the British attitudes towards the Berlin crisis. Most of it recommended firmness. But the kicker came in the closing sentences--which opened the door to negotiations with the Russians.

The unanimous view of The Hague powers was that such negotiations should be resumed as soon as possible, even if talks covered subjects other than Berlin--which the Western powers had at first refused to do. It was recognized as desirable that the blockade should be lifted before the negotiations began.

Bevin was well pleased. He had not wanted to bear the brunt of the responsibility of suggesting to Washington even a partial climbdown. Now the French and Benelux would at least share that responsibility, and might even assume most of it.

Until October. Before they reached this conclusion on Berlin, the delegates reviewed the armed strength of the nations represented at the table. The answer was nothing that would impress the Russians. Luxemburg has an army of 5,000 and no air force. Belgium's army of 55,000 includes only two combat divisions. Three-fourths of the Dutch army and most of its navy and air force are in Indonesia. Less than half the French army is in Europe; its navy and air force are small and antiquated. Britain has only 900,000 men in uniform, over half of them partly trained draftees.

However, The Hague conference brought some hope of progress toward military cooperation. For the first time U.S. and Canadian military experts sat down with military experts of the five Western nations.

The conference, having accomplished little, adjourned, probably until October.

The U.S. showed signs last week that it intended to step up Western Union's pace. In Paris, EGA Administrator Paul Hoffman demanded more economic cooperation between European countries (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Headway was being made toward a more or less free currency exchange and there was a hope that by October the 16 Marshall Plan nations would be allocating U.S. aid among themselves, rather than queueing up to get it on an individual basis.

Things were moving--but hardly fast enough.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.