MINISTERS LEAVE FOR GENEVA

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 201, 10 September 1937, Page 5

MINISTERS LEAVE FOR GENEVA

(Britisb Official Wireless.)

Effect of German and Italian Withdrawals REGRET IN LONDON

(Received 10, 1.15 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 9. Sir Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Atf'airs, left London this morning by train for Geneva to attend the conference on Mediterranean piracy. Mr. Anthony Eden, Foreign Minister, tlew to Paris this aftcrnoou. This evening he mct tho French Alinisters MAI. Ghuutenips and Blum at dinncr before procceding by niglit train to Geneva. Another passcnger in the acroplane was Lord Chatlield, First Sea Lord. The plans of the British Government will not be disclosed uutil the conference ussembles, and newspapers anticipate that their nature will to some cxtent depend on the composition of tho conference. The Times remarks that a scheme for coniining, by agreement among the A'owers, all submarines to certain specilied areas and recognising that operations outside them would be suspect and would bccome impracticable in tho absence of Germany and Italy. "The need in the proscnt situation," The Times adds-, "is to make piratical attacks so dangerous to attackers that they will be abandoned. For this purpose the number of men-of-war in the Mediterranean engaged in the defence of merchant ships will have to be still further increased, but it is evidently desirable that the burden should not be borne by this country alone." The news that Germany and Italy will not be ropresented has been received with regret in London. No reply has yet been received from Albama. Britain, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Turkey and Egypt have intimated that they will take parfc,