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.

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--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. :

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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-

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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.

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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

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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.”

‘