Youngstown Vindicator (January 1, 1947)
On the Record…
Custom union is the hope of a viable, free Europe
By Dorothy Thompson
The question of whether or not an action is “unilateral” does not, it seems to me, dispose of any matter satisfactorily. Many actions have been taken in the last months by united decision of the great powers which will not bear the test of reference to any standards of reason or justice. But we have become accustomed to welcoming with joy any program that represents “agreement” among the Big Three or Four, no matter how preposterous it may be, from the viewpoint of equity, morality, or common sense, or how inducive to further troubles and retroactive remorse.
One such agreement was made secretly, as we now know, at Yalta, between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, as “compensation” for the USSR entering the Japanese war when Germany was defeated.
Just why any bribe should have been offered Stalin to do what he intended to do anyhow, since it was obviously to Soviet interests to participate in the Far Eastern settlement, is incomprehensible.
However, with that generosity which characterizes the disposition to give away other peoples’ property, it was agreed that the USSR should have special privileges in Manchuria – which we held since 1931 to belong to China – and extraterritorial rights in the Port of Dairen, though we favored the abandonment of extraterritorial rights in China, and so acted, for ourselves.
Just as there were no Czech representatives at the Munich conference which disposed of that country to the mutual satisfaction of the Big Three of those days, so there was no Chinese representative at Yalta. Indeed, it was part of the agreement that the Chinese government should not even be informed of the deal until Soviet troops were on Manchurian soil.
Now an American naval vessel, unarmed, has been chased out of Dairen port, and I, for one, cannot register moral indignation when one partner in a shady deal is betrayed by another. It was to be expected.
None of the agreements made at Yalta has been kept by the Russians, if words have any meaning, but neither have they been sustained except by ourselves. According to Yalta, the present government of Poland is purely provisional, awaiting the “free and untrammeled” elections scheduled for next month. But this government has already been accorded all the rights of complete sovereignty; it sits in the U.N. as though it were fully representative.
The reports to our State Department from our embassy in Warsaw offer no hope whatever that the forthcoming election will comply with President Roosevelt’s stipulations. In district after district the only opposition party, the Peasant Party headed by Mr. Mikolajczyk, has been dissolved.
But just to make it easier for the Beirut usurpers we have unfrozen for their benefit the Polish funds in this country, thereby enabling that government to draw the benefit of an American stamp of approval in advance of the elections. Mr. Mikolajczyk, once President Roosevelt’s honored guest in the White House, is thus given a slap just when he needs whatever encouragement we might give.
I recall – since I was present – that Mr. Mikolajczyk, in response to a toast at the White House dinner, said, very simply, that he hoped only that Poles in Poland would one day enjoy the human rights that Americans of Polish descent enjoyed in the United States.
But, by unfreezing the Polish funds for the benefit of the Beirut election campaign, we have further undercut Yalta.
The “unilateral” decision which has occasioned Big Three protest is the French action in embodying the German Saar in economic union with France, in advance of peace conference decisions. The only thing wrong with this action, in reason, is that it does not go far enough.
The people of the Saar hailed it with joy though in 1934 they voted overwhelmingly for union with Germany, when their internationalized states ended. But economic union with anything viable is what splintered Europe needs. Why not economic union with France and all Western Germany? And all Western Europe? Including Great Britain? As far as I can see, the only objection is that would be eminently sensible.
But while we talk continually of “one world,” any attempt even to get one Europe occasions alarm in all circles unless it is one Marxian Europe, against which the only objection is that the Europeans don’t want it. Apparently, the very notion of union by free consent must be forbidden, perhaps because the notion of “free” consent implies opposition to unfree consent by which Eastern Europe is being united.
It is too bad to cut the Saar off from the rest of Germany by establishing a customs frontier between it and the rest of the French zone. We may only hope that the economic frontiers will finally be stretched to include not only the Saar with France but everything else left hanging loose.
Despite the fact that the Russians wouldn’t like it, there is nothing to prove that the Russians are always right in their own interests and much to prove they are no brighter than the rest of us.
If there is ever another war, which God forbid, it will be – according to Russian theorists – between the USSR and the USA. European satellites are a menace to both and, by again turning Europe into a battleground, would finally end Europe forever.
A united, viable Europe, would therefore have to maintain a neutral position of balance between the Titans, and make international peace the foundation stone of its policy.
Therefore, any step toward a European customs union should be greeted, not opposed.