CABINET RESIGNS IN LITHUANIA

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 157, 29 March 1939, Page 9

CABINET RESIGNS IN LITHUANIA

Non-Party Government To Be Formed (Received March 28. 9.30 p.m.) LONDON. March 28. The Warsaw correspondent of “The Times” states that Father Mironas’s Government in Lithuania has resigned. The Commander-in-Chief, General Rastikis, declined to form a new Cabinet, but Colonel Tschenius, Chief of the General Staff, has accepted and will form a Ministry on a non-party national basis, including members of the Opposition.

General Rastikis later broadcast an appeal for contributions for national arms. These would not be directed against any country, since Lithuania would fight only in defence of her independence. He added that the task of the new Government would be to organize national unity.

A British official wireless message states that, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr. R. A. Butler, told the House of Commons that the British Government had now been informed officially by the Lithuanian Government of the cession of Memelland to Germany. On receiving this communication, the British Government had expressed to the Lithuanian Government its sympathy in the situation in which it had been placed. Mr. Butler added that, as both last December and on March 16, the British Government had made it clear in reply to inquiries addressed to it as a signatory of the Memel Convention by the Lithuanian Government that Britain could only endaveour to secure respect for the Memel Statute insofar as this lay' in her power, it was understandable, in the circumstances, that the Lithuanian Government had acted in signing the treaty with Germany on the evening of March 22 without consulting the signatory Powers.