§ 11. Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will explain the object of the Military Government Ordinance No. 188, dated 30th May, 1949, for Lands Nieder-Sachsen and Hansestadt Hamburg.
§ Mr. YoungerSince the legislatures of the two Lands in question had failed to carry out the provisions of Ordinance No. 103 it became necessary for the military Government to promulgate legislation covering land reform in Lower Saxony and Hamburg.
§ Lord Malcolm Douglas-HamiltonDid not this Ordinance come out on 20th June, 1949, and did not the basic law of the Federal Republic of Germany, published in May, 1949, state that the Germans would have control over the transfer of land?
§ Mr. YoungerI should require notice of that question, but the Ordinance, which was not carried into effect by these legislatures, was dated in 1947, and ample time was given for them to give effect to it. As no effect was given by the legislatures it was thought right to give effect to it by a new ordinance.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterWas not the order mentioned in the Question made at the time when the subject matter of it—dealings in land—had been handed over to the German Republic?
§ Mr. YoungerI should require notice of that.