As the Ruhr Goes . . .

For months before Allied soldiers breached Festung Europa at Normandy, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt stubbornly argued over who would occupy the industry-rich Ruhr. After the invasion, Churchill's claim was reinforced by the top-level political and military decision to give Field Marshal Montgomery command of the sweep along the lowlands toward northeast Germany. Roosevelt finally yielded, let Churchill have the Ruhr.

Had the British bitten off more than they could occupationally chew? The answer, underlined by last week's formalization of the U.S.-British zonal economic merger, was yes. The British zone had been a liability for Britain and a road block to Western European reconstruction. Coal production had declined steadily from a January 1946 high of 5,045,058 tons. Lack of steel, timber and building materials had halted reconstruction. Food rations, cut in February, were still at starvation levels.

Falling Concern. Western Europe's economy (and possibly her hopes for political democracy) hinged on making the Ruhr a going concern. In a peak pre-Hitler year (1929), Germany sent half her exports to western Europe, including Britain and Scandinavia, and most of these came from the great Ruhr basin. The western European steel industry depended on Ruhr coke; Dutch and Belgian ports depended on Ruhr traffic. In a single year the Ruhr produced 128,000,000 tons of coal, 16,000,000 tons of steel, 13,000,000 tons of pig iron. War-ravaged Britain Had neither the food nor the money for quick restoration of the Ruhr's industrial complex.

Going Concern. The agreement signed by Secretary of State James Byrnes and British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin formalizes a setup devised by the U.S. Army's Lieut. General Lucius D. Clay and his British opposite number, Lieut. General Sir Brian Robertson. The Clay-Robertson plan established five bipartite, interzonal policy committees to supervise finance, economics, transport, communications, food and agriculture. Actual administration is left to six-man German joint committees in each of these fields. Clay and Robertson guessed that the program would cost the U.S. and Britain $1,000,000,000 over the next three years. If it paid off, the western zones would be economically self-sufficient by 1950. If it did not, Germany would continue to be a drain on the occupying powers.

The payoff would come in expanding German exports of china and ceramics, of optical goods, leather goods, pharmaceuticals, and, of course, coal. To make some of these exports possible, the Joint German Economics Committee would have to import petroleum products, crude rubber, lead, hides, wool and cotton.

What About Russia? Were the Anglo-Americans trying to establish an anti-Russian western economic and political bloc? The answer to that was "No, but--." The "no" lay in Anglo-U.S. policy, which for months has consistently favored joint four-power administration of Germany. The "but" was implicit in what would happen if the Russians (and the French) still refused to come in. The merger puts the U.S. and Britain in effective, working control of two-thirds of Germany's population, three-fourths of her industrial resources. Most top U.S. officials believe that the Soviet Union, left with 18.000,000 Germans in an area largely stripped of its resources, will want to come in--not only to share in prospective reparations from Ruhr production, but to share the credit for the only plan that gives Germans hope.

Said a Russian in Berlin: "It is a good thing your bizonal merger is officially formulated. This will force our procrastinators to do something."

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