OT long ago I was
standing 900 yards be-

Kamien pit, in Lower Silesia,
watching the ee 4 Black
coal glide past on a mile-long”
conveyor belt.

The faint noise of the drills
and coal-cutters came up from
the galleries leading to seams of
the finest coking coal in Europe.

Three thousands tons a day of
the precious stuff is cut by these
Polish miners, hauled to the top,
and immediately coked. Then
away goes the coke to Polish steel
works and to the great plants tu
the south in Czechoslovakia.

Nearby pits ‘working at full
pressure, are sending coal up to
Szezcin and Gdynia on the Baltic.
From here it is shipped to Scan-
‘dinavia, and soon will be going
to Britain.

More coal is being loaded in
trucks sent specially from Franc?
and Italy and Yugoslavia.

Polish coal today is flowing to
the fuel-starved factories of
Europe at the rate of 20,000,009
tonsa year. By 1949, at the end
of the three year plan, 35,990,000
tons will be exported annually. ,

This Polish coal is the basis of
an industria] revolution in East-
ern Europe which has become
Possible because Poland and her
neighbors now have, for the first
time in’ their histories, truly de-
mocratiec governments.

This and nothing else accounts
for the fact that Poland is chief
‘among those countries of Eur-
ope which ‘have been able to keep
themselves free from crippling
* dependence on the United States.

And it accounts for the fact
that while Britain staggers in the
grip of acute economic crisis and
other countries of Western Eur-
ope stagnate beneath crushing
Political and economic problems,
Poland and her neighbors have
rolled up their sleeves and got

to work.

_ They have far more to do than
the countries of the West, and
they have far fewer tools with
which to do it. Dollars on free
terms have been denied them.
The technical resources for re-
construction are largely absent.

It was only a few weeks ago
that Poland turned out her first
dozen tractors. It was only the
same week that the third great
bridge over the Vistula at War-
‘Saw was reopened.

Everything is against the peo-
ple of Poland, and yet they have
‘made progress beside which
- Western Europe begins to look
like ‘a failure.

‘And in making that progress
* they are changing the economic
and political map of Europe.

@

--ReR when the Colonels ruled

Poland and kept her in semi-
feudal backwardness it was Ger-
man industry in the main which
_ dominated Poland’s life. It was
therefore German policy which
_ dominated her too.
This pattern throughout the
. Balkans which was one of the
bases of Hitler’s rapid war of

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conquest, has been broken by the
Polish miners,

Tnese miners, like everyone
else in Poland, are working to a
plan. Winston Churchill undoubt-
edly would denounce this plan
as “totalitarian regimentation”
and it is questionable if Herbert
Morrison would call it a “demo-
cratic’ plan since it places con-
siderable restrictions on the lib-
erties of some individuals. Z

The individuals in question are
the manufacturers
The restricted liberty is that of
squeezing profit out of the na-,
tional needs and running their
businesses without regard to the
national interest. i

This plan aims in its three
years to “raise the standard of
living of the working people
above the pre-war level.” And
it has to do this side by side with
tne biggest reconstruction job in
history. :

@

RIDE by side with the national-
ized sector, which includes
the main industries of the coun-
try, there is considerable private
enterprise.

Warsaw already has thousands

‘of small one-storey shops which

have been built under govern-
ment license by private builders
‘and are now run by private shop-

keepers.

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and traders. |

The distributive industries, too,
have many private traders, The
government considers that this
type of initiative is an important
part of the national effort.

But it draws a sharp distinc-
ston between initiative, and specu-
lation.

On the walls of the Polish
towns you will see long price
lists posted by the government
for guidance of the housewives.
In every town you will find gov-
ernment. shops, _ selling high
quality goods at controlled prices
in order to keep down, by straight
competition, the prices in the
private shops.

Prices have dropped 30 percent
in recent months.
market is no problem. The work-
ers are able to buy the food they
need at tine prices they can afford
to pay.

As a result the Polish miner

is making his present mighty ef-

fort to get more coal. For he
hias confidence in his govern-
ment.

©

HE miners at the coal-face at

-Bialy Kamien told me about
their conditions—good pay, secur-
ity schemes, free holidays, hous-
ing, joint control of the pit.
_ It was the best the country
could give,

In return the miners of Bialy
Kamien are turning out as much
coal as the Germans once pro-
duced in this mine, and they
are doing it with fewer men.
Their contribution is two-fold.
They hew the coal and they
plan, with the ‘management, the
best. working method-for the pit.
(heir brains and their brawn

are producing Eastern Europe's

industrial revolution, and pro-

ducing it at incredible speed.
This pattern is repeated in

every industry of Poland today.

Everywhere the workers are
planning production. ~
' Everywhere their conditions

and standards of life are exactly
as good as the country can af-
ford to make them.

And because they know ‘this
and understand what a splendid
future Poland now has, they are

The black

putting forward this immense
effort.

Poland’s industrial future, and
with it the economic and political
independence of Poland and her
neighbors, is based_in no small
measure on the regained terri-
tories in the West.

This region’ is now. populated
with over five million Poles, and
in the course of several days’
journey I never saw an unculti-
vated field.

Most of the Germans have now
gone from these lands, and those
few that are left are due to go
this summer. Ps
‘ e :

HEN Foreign Minister Ernest

Bevin made ‘nis speech cast-
ing doubt on the permanence of
the new frontiers, two significant
things happened in Western Po-
land:

The
eens that Britain baits soon

‘An intrusion on ‘liberty’

-- WASHINGTON.
\OLSTON E. WARNE, professor
of economics at Amherst Col-
lege and consultant to President
Truman’s Council of Economic
Advisers, ‘nas refused to take the
federal ‘loyalty test” which Presi-
dent Truman has prescribed for
all government employees

In a blistering 1,400-word letter
to Edwin G. Nourse, council
chairman, he denounced the test
as “an intrusion upon personal
liberties.” :

“I am indeed shocked,” he
wrote, “that for the first time in
American history, heresy hunting’
has received official sanction of
the President of the United
States ., . (it) is so completely
repugnant to the political insti-

remaining Germans told

requires federal workers ta sub- —

tutions of our country tnat I can-

not comply with its terms.”
He noted that President Tru-

opposes a return to price control
because it is “evidence of a police
state,” and added:

“He apparently fails to recog-
nize that loyalty orders, Such as

man recently indicated that he

return Silesia to the Reich. The
Poles responded :.by.. working a
Sunday without- pay.
But the Poles know, and secret- —
ly’ all the Germans: know too,
that it will take “mere than a
speech by Bevin ‘to ‘change the
new frontiers of ‘Poland.
The new Polish economy | of
industrial independence and
friendly. trading. relations with
all. European countries depends
in large measure of resources
of, the Western. .'Perritories. eosct
The Polish people. are not going
to tear..up their. plans and make ©
their country dependent once
again upon Germany at the be- _
hest of Bevin or of anyone else::
And they do not believe that —
Bevin could : be: serious ' about —
‘frontier -revision,- since it: isin —
no small measure thanks to the —
new frontiers that “Britain ‘her-
self will now recéive coal and _
other BOOS ‘trom ‘Poland. :

‘the one. he has. promuigated, are
the requisite concomitants Sos an
police states.” c
Warne told reporters that oe
has no intention of resigning;
that the next move is up” i es
Nourse. —
President Truman ordered the i
loyalty test in his drive to purge
the government of subversives. It

mit to fingerprinting and to make ©
statements covering their life
history and naming any organ-_
izations they have joined.

Warne said the tests were
clearly designed to “weed out _
Communists and alleged sympa-
thizers from the federal service” —
but that they completely ignore
the. fact that the Contariesiet
Party “remains legal.” j s

“I am not a Communist and
never have been,” he added. “I
do feel, however, that even Com-
munists, as citizens, have a right
to the fullest possible expression
of their ideas and that efforts to
silence them by loyalty tests are
blundering in conception and
dangerous in execution.”

‘