Vital Moment

Was Western Europe moribund? Did it have neither the heart nor the vigor to save itself? Was it, as the Communists would have the world believe, waiting supinely for a blood transfusion from across the Atlantic to keep it tottering on a few years longer before it finally fell?

Last week Western Europe was astir. It was moving farther and faster toward the union which was its best chance for survival than anyone would have thought possible a few years, or even a few weeks, ago. Old notions of sovereignty were sloughed off, old jealousies pushed aside.

In London, 71 M.P.s signed an appeal for the merger of Western Europe (see below). In Brussels, the defense pact between Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxemburg (TIME, March 15) was ready for signing. Said Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak: "The moment is vital. . . . [But] the best treaty in the world is worth only what its execution is worth. A diplomatic formula is not hard to find. A military agreement is not hard to make. But economic collaboration between people . . . that is the obstacle which must be surmounted."

Opening of a Workshop. This week in Paris the 16 nations which will receive Marshall Plan aid met to grapple with that obstacle. As they met in the Salon de l'Horloge of the Foreign Ministry, the conference chairman, Ernest Bevin, told them: "I think the world might be assured that this organization is not a conference but a workshop. It will be charged with the duty of determining practical steps to build up European production [and] to reduce the dollar deficit."*

Then they got down to business. Chief items on the agenda: 1) to set up a European body to supervise Marshall Plan aid; 2) to work out a declaration of economic policy. They would try to decide just what each nation could best produce with its machines and men, how to reduce tariff barriers, how to bring the official value of national currencies into line with real purchasing power.

The nations which had been hardest hit by World War II (e.g., Britain, France, Belgium, Italy) were ready to go farthest in international cooperation. The nations which had suffered least (e.g., Sweden and Switzerland) acted as a brake. Apparently suffering was the surest solvent for stubborn nationalism.

Breath of Determination. Two old rivals had set a shining example for the 16 nations. For five months a French-Italian commission had talked over possibilities of gearing the French and Italian economies together as an efficient machine. Last week some details leaked out; they indicated far more progress than observers had expected.

France needs labor, and Italy has a labor surplus. So the two have undertaken to organize a labor migration. France and Italy will go into the market as one unit to buy essential imports. Together they will try to build up markets for their export industries. A committee is working out ways to share port trade between the two great rivals, Genoa and Marseille.

Economic cooperation would be a big, perhaps the hardest, step toward Western Union. Now Europe looked to the U.S., which had been waiting for such a sign, to give them military strength and economic backing. Without these, Western Europe's best efforts would result in a grand but futile gesture.

*All was not smooth. Roughest point: at the space reserved for Eire's delegation, a conference flunky put a card marked Irlande du Nord. The indignant Irish delegate, Foreign Minister Sean MacBride, suspected a British plot. The head usher hastily repaired this gaffe by sending for scissors, cutting off the last two words.

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