OFFICIAL DENIALS

Hokitika Guardian, 27 September 1928, Page 5

OFFICIAL DENIALS

BY BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE. ' _ •• _'• t- - . OF ANY SECRET AGREEMENT. (British Official Wireless.) (Received this day at 10.30. a.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 27. • The Foreign Office states:—“There is no agreement or understanding of any kind with France in regard to aerial matters that has not been pu(blished. Any and all rumours to the contrary, are entirely untrue.” This categorical denial has been issued as the result of a revival of rumours already denied, of a secret Anglo-French air understanding. At the end of last month, Lord Cushendun found it necessary also to refute newspaper statements implying a secret Anglo-French naval agreement. In explaining the scope of the Anglo-French naval compromise which had been submitted to other Powers concerned for their consideration as a basis for discussions at a preparatory commission on disarmament, Lord Cushendun said, “Speculations as to secret clauses and so forth have no foundation whatever. It has been suggested, for instance, that we are going to arrange for pooling our Navy with the French. There is absolutely nothing in any such suggestion, nor is there anything at all in the shape of an agreed policy between ourselves and the French. It is not a question of policy. That h.as never been discussed. There are no secret clauses nor any arrangement as to an alliance for co-opera-tion of the navies.”