which the French could make at the last moment and which would persuade the
doubtful voter to vote for the Statute. At present the French in Saarbrücken, the
C.V.P. and the S.P.S. profess certainty that the Statute will be approved with a
comfortable majority. Schneider speaks as though it will be rejected but the other
parties are not so definite - but then one could not expect the C.D.U. to be in the
first half of last week when I was in the Saar. My own view is that, apart from a
French deus ex machina, the issue depends on two factors: the way in which the
C.D.U. argues the „Nein zum Statut“ case and Hoffmann’s tactical sense. There is
no doubt that Hoffmann knows his Saarländers and has a solid appeal for them. At
the moment it seems superficially to be „Nein, Nein“ all the way but in the next
month or so things will begin to look rather different. I do not think there is as yet
any very good reason to modify the view hitherto held by this post that the Statute
should be approved in the Referendum.
14. You also raised the question of what would happen if the Statute were rejected.
The S.P.S. is the chief exponent of the status quo ante school, maintaining that the
four laws promulgated on July 23 will lapse after the Referendum. Hector, the
Minister of the Interior, however, at the same meeting on August 1 as that at which
Hoffmann spoke answered criticisms that it was intended to suppress the newly
granted freedoms after the Referendum by saying that naturally after the Statute
was approved it would be necessary to re-write the Constitution of the Saar and
that it was for this reason that the new freedom laws were only intended to cover
the Referendum period.
15. The last Landtag elections took place on November 30, 1952 and the Landtag
has a life of 5 years. There would thus be no legal obligation on the Saar Government
to hold new Landtag elections if the Statute were rejected, although there
would be a strong moral one since the Government would, so to speak, have lost a
vote of confidence. Local elections are now two years overdue and it would be
hard for the Government to resist pressure for these to be held.
16. The German parties say that there would also be new negotiations (presumably
between Germany and France). The C.V.P. and S.P.S. say that this by no means
follows and in this connexion the remark in the „Deutschland-Union-Dienst“ that
„no one can guarantee that after the wreck of the Statute France will be ready for
new negotiations for the improvement of relations over the Saar“ came very opportunely.
I must say it seems to me impossible that Western European Union could
allow just nothing to happen - it would obviously be asking for trouble in the Saar
itself. I fear that after the shipwreck another salvage operation would have to be
mounted as happened in the case of the European Defence Community, a parallel
which the German parties are fond of drawing. They also say - and this prompts
those remarks which can only be harmful to the Chancellor - that Germany will
now be in a better position to safeguard the Saar’s real interests. They do not propose
a „Heim ins Reich“ formula; they are even prepared to have „Europe“ but
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