Evening star., 1931-05-13
BY DIR. JOHANN sCHoBER,

Foreisn minister Inatr,n and vice chancellor OF
VIENNA. May 15 tN.ANA).-When
| the German and Austrian governments
on March IL informed other govern
4 ments and the European public Of their
4 customs equalization plan, the first OBJ
4 iections raised against it were not OF
a specific, but Of formal nature.
] The accusation was made that these
\ two governments had taken. the rest OF
4 the world, as it were, by surprise. TO
4 this day I have not been able to un-
derstand this reproach.
Several times I have attempted TO
weaken the objections by describing
the background and explaining the
/ this fact, however, the. idea has been
spread that we have been guilty OF
some kind of conspiracy and that we
should not wonder that ether nations
are not favorably disposed toward our
Nothing was more foreign to our in
| tentions than to. create an erect py
surprise This I have stated over ana
over and I repeat it once again.
Two governments, weary OF years OF OF
| fruitless talking and discussion. OF SO
many congresses and resolutions, deter
! mined upon a course of action which
would be bSneficial to everybody.
Wherein lies the surprise?
Mistake Was OverIOyalty.
Our mistake, If any was made. was
! of a formal nature and consisted OF an
overloyal attitude toward others ano
undue consideration OF al KlnoS oA
possible SenSibilities.
our original intention was to lay our
plan before the study commission OF
the Pan-European Union, which meets
| in Geneva this month. Then we
| realized that several features OF our
proposal had already leaked out and
| intimations of its contents had been
published in various newspapers.
On March "a the Preparatory organ
| ization Committee of the aforementioned
/ commission was to meet in Paris ana,
out of respect for this commission. we
considered it more. correct to inform
the governments officially before this
date.
Cites Basic Mistrust.
This wish Of ours to act correctly was
| INTERPRETED on many sides as a wish TO
surprise and as coTitravention OF the
, spirit of European cooperation. To
| this I. can answer only that such a
wiHful and Injurious Interpretation
bears witness to basic mistrust against
which the greatest foresight and loyalty
must remain powerleSs.
Without mutual truStfulneSS there can
be no international cooperation, no
pan-Europa. The reproaches made
against uS-and, due to distrust, re-
peated at frequent intervals - nave
shown US that the pan-Europa idea has
| not yet become deeply enough rooted
| and that lack of the necessary pSycho-
! logical presuppositions stand in the way
of its development. The fault for this
state of affairs is, however, not ours.
In. effect We have been told: your
customs plan is an isolated action.
You are occupied with the tormatlon
/ of . group which will be against other
| FsIropean countries. Your action Is,
| therefore, q blow against Pan-Europa."
| This is only another arbitrary thesis.
/ In reply thereto it. is sufficient to
state that already in our first ofhcial
announcement we asked other Euro
pean states to Join US and appealed
to them for cooperation.
/ Ground for Protest.
What would be said If we should
show enmity to the proposed BRAND
| counter plan on the ground that a
rather large number of European states
were named as original participants,
whereas neither Germany nor Austria
was mentioned? Would We not be
| justified in objecting to it as excluding
| the states which have q German
| speaking population?
Such an objection would have been
all the more pertinent because the
| newspapers which spread the announce
ment Of the BRAND counter plan ad-
mitted explicitly that it was a ques-