FRANCE & GERMANY

Hokitika Guardian, 24 February 1923, Page 3

FRANCE & GERMANY

[DY TELEGRAPH —PER PRESS ASSOCIATION] SITUATION MullE CRITICAL. LONDON, Feb. 23. ‘Mr Bench Thomas, the* ■ Daily (Express ” Cologne correspondent, continues his sensational dispatches, foretenting the gravest 'developments in the Ruhr. Ho accuses the French of suppressing nows, and declares American and British business men cannot handle goods without heavy payments to the French. Even then,” lw stiys. " transport is unavailable. The Ruhr is now a dead region, the French hat - ing apparently abandoned any real .attempt to export an adequate coal supply. The passive resistance stiffens daily inside and outside the Ruhr. A ' mass meeting of railwayman here unanimously resolved not to obey j •foreign orders, demanding that all rail-; wayiNOli should face banishment and prison, and declaring that foreign power will find tin iron German fie-' fence. There is no use in concealing i the fact that the Germans expect a j declaration of war .and a m-w treaty j under which the Ruhr area "ill he sej ■/. j ed for reparations.” i RHINELAND RAILWAYS. PARIS. February 2:i. A Franco-Bclgian civilian commission is immediately taking over all the railways in their occupied zones mi the Rhine.