which took place in the Bundestag the same afternoon, and some appreciation of
the case put forward by the Saarbrücken Government for the suppression of the
Democratic Party of the Saar, was given in my despatch No. 105 of 30th May.~s
2. In the final paragraph of his note, Dr. Adenauer calls upon the governments of
the three occupying powers to take suitable steps to restore in the Saar area
unrestricted freedom for the population to express its opinion and to make up its
mind on those questions which are to be settled definitively in the peace treaty.
Although the Chancellor’s further statement that the three governments have by
reason of their occupation of Germany and of the agreement of 20th February,
1948 assumed responsibility for the safeguarding of the democratic basic rights in
the Saar may represent some elaboration of the truth, it can hardly be denied that
recent events in the Saar are of direct concern to the three powers in their capacity
as holders of supreme authority in the Federal territory. I observe too that M.
Schuman, if he is correctly reported in the German press, declared at his press
conference on 30th May that the French Government felt itself responsible for the
maintenance of order in the Saar territory not merely towards the territory itself but
also to France and the other occupying powers. The French Foreign Minister is
reported to have continued „it must be made clear that the Saar question is no
bilateral affair between France and Gennany“.
3. The Chancellor’s request, together with Mr. Schuman’s statement, suggest that if
Flis Majesty’s Government should desire to exercise any influence upon the future
development of the Saar question, the present is the moment to take action. I shall
endeavour in this despatch to suggest lines upon which any intervention by His
Majesty’s Government at the present moment might proceed.
4. The agreements of 1947 and 1948 relating to the separation of the Saar territory
from Germany and ist economic integration into the French currency and customs
area were specifically described as being provisional until the conclusion of the
peace treaty. This qualification, originally inserted for formal reasons, has received
increasingly serious emphasis in the communications and statements of His
Majesty’s Government in the last two years. This change of emphasis reflects the
fact that the conditions in which the agreements were made have changed and
continue to change today. The policy of subordinating the fate of the Saar to the
eventual conclusion of a peace treaty was a satisfactory expedient in 1947, but has
lost some of its reality in view of the increasingly distant prospect of a treaty being
signed. Moreover, in view of the delay that has occurred it has become increasingly
hard for the French and the Germans alike to maintain the Provisorium without
taking measures calculated to prejudice the final decision in one direction or the
other. 1 observe indeed that in his communication to the Federal Chancellor on the
occasion of the signature of the Schuman Plan Treaty, M. Schuman spoke for the
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