NOT FOR DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1937, Page 9

NOT FOR DEFENCE

ITALO-GERMAN PACT

FRONT AGAINST REDS

REPORTS IN LONDON

United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. (Received June 7, 1 p.m.) LONDON, June 6. " When Signor Virginio Gayda proclaimed that an "Italian-German defensive entente had been reached as a sequel to the German Defence Minister's visit to Rome, British official quarters were convinced that no such pact had been concluded, and the Australian Associated Press agency learns that this is now confirmed. Signor Mussolini, the agency states, is using every opportunity to provoke public opinion here and to capitalise and exaggerate the Italo-German rapprochement. On the contrary, Germany's, and particularly Herr Hitler's, mistrust and dislike of Italians is in no wise lessened. Herr Hitler is making strenuous efforts to follow up Marshal yon Blomberg's successful Coronation visit to London by wooing Britain. A speech by the new British Ambassador in Berlin (Sir Neville Henderson) caused a flutter in the European Chancelleries, being interpreted as a new British move to improve the relations between Britain and Germany, and certainly, in the light of that speech, Herr Hitler is anxious to do nothing to offend Britain, and is even desirous of pleasing London in connection with the easing of tension in Spain. The "Daily Telegraph" says that the Italo-German entente is confined to common defensive action against future aggression by Moscow or by Reds in Spain. Writing in the "Giornale d'ltalia," Signor Gayda announced that Italy and Germany had formed a defensive entente, and declared that Italy and Germany were associating their spirits and forces in defence of their great national principles. "The entente will one day be revealed in its true worth as a protective force," he stated. "It is not only in our mutual interests, but ilso in the interests of the whole of uropean civilisation."