Letter from Josephine McNeill to Frederick H. Boland (Dublin)
'The Schuman Proposal'

Schuman's proposal for a Franco-German authority over the heavy industries of the two countries created a sensation here and was given front-page space in Thursday's Newspapers.

The news was regarded as being far more important than the London talks.¹

While most of the Liberal papers welcomed the proposal with enthusiasm, the Catholic papers showed a certain reserve and the Conservative papers on the whole played for safety, said little and are obviously waiting to see.

The speed of the French thinking left the Dutch slightly stunned. They are amazed to see the political initiative passing to the French from whom they have ceased to expect anything but a negative and even destructive attitude. They are wondering if the Plan is a genuine French move or if the Americans have pushed them from behind.

There is no doubt the Americans have been exerting pressure of some kind on France.

France's insistence on Big Power status has been proving a seriously obstructive factor to European co-operation.

Americans in particular take the view that it no longer corresponds with reality. I gather they told them that plainly - first of all during the war when Roosevelt said as much to De Gaulle.

De Gaulle did not take it well as can be imagined.

The American Ambassador, Mr. Chapin² referred to this incident when talking to me the other day at a lunch at the Nuncio's and in this context of France's untenable pretensions.

I got the impression from him that the Americans felt this strongly and were making known their views to the French.

At that stage he got a little mysterious in his references and I could not press him further. But I gathered there was something going on.

I think it is quite possible (in view of the general talk here of France's obstructive behaviour and of Mr. Chapin's clearly expressed opinions which were not merely personal) that a major concession was demanded of France vis-à-vis Germany and that the Schuman Plan was produced under this pressure.

It is noticeable that the step forward represented by the Schuman Plan comes immediately after America promised financial support and a general sharing of the burden of the French in Indo-China (where it is said the French are at present in a very precarious way).

There may have been a little bargaining.

The Dutch who regard the French as a slender reed and who have good reason to know the strength and ruthlessness of the Germans commercially as well as militarily are nervous lest in a Franco-German combine, Germany will dominate and the French get the worst of it and the small nations will between them be snowed under.

Nevertheless the boldest Dutch opinion hails the Schuman Plan as a really solid foundation for true European co-operation and the ending of Franco-German enmity which was a constant threat to European peace.