Birth of a Colossus

Prussia's greatest statesman, Prince Otto von Bismarck, often maintained that the squabbling states of Germany would never be united except by blood and iron, but lived to acknowledge that coal and iron played the larger role. Last week six Western European nations, including the ancient enemies France and Germany who have three times tried blood and iron, gave coal and iron a chance to unite them.

In the sharp spired city of Luxembourg (pop. 65,000), Sunday-suited burghers, many of them heavy workers from the Grand Duchy's steel mills, stolidly watched the nine-man High Authority of the European Coal-Steel Community take charge of an industrial colossus which will outproduce Russia in steel and rival her in coal. The Schuman Plan had become fact, and with it the ceiling imposed by the Allies on Ruhr steel production was finally lifted. Behind a battery of red gladioli in Luxembourg's City Hall, the men whose job it will be to sweep away Western Europe's tariff walls, crush its cartels, modernize its production methods and sell its coal and steel to all members of the Community on "equal terms" sat together for the first time. They were:

JEAN MONNET, 63, "Mr. Europe" (TIME, Aug. 11), president of the High Authority;

FRANZ ETZEL, 50, German lawyer and chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on Economic Affairs, vice president;

ALBERT COPPE, 41, Belgian Minister of Reconstruction, second vice president;

PAUL FINET, 55, boss of Belgium's all-powerful General Federation of Labor;

ENZO GIACCHERO, 40, Italian Christian Democrat and professor of engineering;

HEINZ POTTHOFF, 48, labor-minded German steelmaker and German delegate to the Allied Ruhr Authority;

LEON DAUM, 65, French steel magnate and Marshall Plan adviser;

DIRK SPIERENBURG, 43, Dutch delegate to the Benelux Council;

ALBERT WEHRER, 57, Luxembourg minister to France.

Shrewd and practical men, selected for their devotion to the cause of Europe, Inc., they were the first to admit that the squalls of doubt and suspicion that lay behind the Community were as nothing to the storms that lay ahead. Before the High Authority can come to grips with miners and steelmen, it must:

P: Patch up the blistering feud between France and Germany over the coal-rich Saar which the French control and the Germans covet;

P: Establish a price-equalization fund whereby Belgium's high-cost coal mines can be modernized and made competitive;

P: Negotiate a commercial accord with Britain, the only major coal and steel producer which shunned the Schuman Plan.

Yet the directors of Europe, Inc., who consider themselves responsible not to the governments but to the people of Europe, regard the Schuman Plan Treaty not only as a mandate to set up the Coal-Steel Community but also as a mandate to lay the foundations for a new supernation. Its name: the United States of Europe.

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