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Show Economic Highlights Hanneninas That Affect Dinner Pails-And Pay Checks At the request of General Lucius Lu-cius D. Clay, Commander-in-Chief of the European Command, U, S. Army Forces, Lewis H. Brown recently made a trip .to Europe to study Western Germany's Ger-many's postwar industrial potential. poten-tial. Mr. Brown, who is Chairman Chair-man of the Board of the Johns-Manville Johns-Manville Corporation, is preparing prepar-ing a 250-pagc report which will go to General Clay, Secretary Marshall and other high officials. In the meantime, he has released a brief summary of his findings. It adds up to one of the most thorough and realistic proposals yet made concerning the vexing German situation. Mr. Brown's purpose is to indicate in-dicate what must be done if the Marshall Plan is to succeed, and a program developed which will be acceptable to Congress. His basic point is that German industry in-dustry must be Restored and the German people must be given new . hope. That involves a number num-ber of specific steps, which include: in-clude: An end to the reparations of capital goods; an end to the denazification proceedings except ex-cept for the 80,000 top Nazis in Category 1; untying of the com- nlav t it-i'iTir.i'al anH hi irpn linrri t ir shackles which now prevent German exports; German participation parti-cipation in Marshall Plan discussions dis-cussions so far as they affect German needs; a central banking bank-ing system and a new currency for German as soon as a central government with a balanced budget can be effected. That program, Mr. Brown believes, would mark the first effective step to stop the spread of Communism Com-munism west" of the Iron Curtain. The key to the revival of German Ger-man industry is coal. The key to coal production is adequate food. The average German is living on a starvation diet of 1,200 calories a day a third of the American level. Mr. Brown recommends that the diet for all Germans be progressively progressive-ly improved, and that special incentive in-centive diets be given to specialized special-ized groups starting with the miners in the Ruhr. This would be accomplished by providing the miners coupons enabling them to get a 75 per cent increase in rations in return for a 50 per cent increase in coal production. Annual coal production in the Ruhr is now 66,000,000 tons. Mr. Brown's plan would increase it to 99,000,000 tons by the end of 1948. But that is only the beginning of his solution for Germany's economic problem. The German transportation system, due to terrific war damage, cannot haul the coal away 'from the mines. We have been attemtping to export ex-port 10,000,000 tons of coal from Germany to Russia, France, Switzerland Swit-zerland and other countries. The rail hauls have been unnaturally unnatural-ly long and have tied up railroad rail-road equipment that is already short and is vitally'needed elsewhere. else-where. And this is where, in Mr. Rrnwn's rminion. Grat Britain comes into the picture. Prior to the war, England was the principal supplier of coal to Western Europe. The coal was brought by water to the large ports, around which major industrial indus-trial areas grew up. Transportation Transporta-tion to other areas was by short rail haul or by barge. Now England Eng-land no longer supplies coSl to Western Europe, and that, Mr. Brown says, is both a barrier to German industrial recovery and one of the biggest contributing factors to the British dollar shortage. His solution is to declare de-clare a moratorium of from 12 to 15 months on the shipment of coal out of Germany so that all German coal can be employed inside the country. If that is done, he writes, "The restoration of not only Germany but of Western Europe could be assured." as-sured." The only way it can be done is for Western Europe to again be supplied with British coal. Thus the problem comes home to England and her Labor government. England has great coal resources re-sources and a great coal industry. indus-try. But production has been diminishing. That, Mr. Brown thinks, is in large part caused by Labor's nationalization pro gram and the policy of an equal amount of austerity for everyone. every-one. His point is that, "Austerity "Auster-ity cannot.take the place of production." pro-duction." , He believes strongly that Britain should give her miners min-ers direct -incentives to go to the 6-day-, week and to sharply step up production. This would be a boon to the British economy econo-my 30,000,000 tons of coal exported at current prices would almost bridge the gap that now exists between England's imports and exports. The United States, Mr, Brown continues will have to contribute heavily if his plan is to succeed. But he wants our contributions to be made as part of an organized organ-ized program whose end result is to put Europe on her feet. He thinks that food must be supplied to Germany, not primarily as relief, re-lief, but on a five-year plan under un-der which the food will be used as an incentive to get German industry Into production. Loans to Great Britain must be made on the same basis, and be used as an inceptive to get production. Then, theC loans can finally be repaid through the transfer of goods to .us. The mechanics of repayment, he feels, should be established at the beginning. Lastly, Mr. Brown considers what Russia might do in the face of such a plan for the reconstruction re-construction of Western Europe. He does riot believe she will go to-war. He does believe that if we fail, a worldwide economic depression will result, and then Russia, trading on misery and unrest, will achieve her aims. The foregoing touches th2 high spots of a brilliant and constructive con-structive survey. As Mr. Brown says at the end, it is imperative for "the leaders of our government govern-ment and the committees of Congress Con-gress to act with the utmost promptness in developing a plan that can "be submitted to a special spe-cial session of Congress this fall." |