After consulting their home governments, the delegates of six nations met again in Paris last week to move the Schuman Plan a step nearer reality. West Germany and Italy were ready to accept the supranational coal-steel authority which France's Jean Monnet had proposed as "the first foundation of a European community." The Benelux group still had doubts.
Monnet listened to the objections with the tactful, judicial air of an architect aware that he can still learn something from other builders. The Dutch, the principal objectors, wanted the governments to have more of a check on the new body. Said they:...