EXPELLED JOURNALIST

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 488, 18 October 1928, Page 9

EXPELLED JOURNALIST

CASE OF MR. HORAN FRENCH CABINET DISCUSSION (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) PARIS, Wednesday. The case of Mr. Harold Horan, implicated in the dispatch to the Hearst Press in America of a document relating to the Franco-British naval compromise, was to-day discussed by thq French Cabinet. The Quai d’Orsay contends that Mr. Horan and his employer, Mr. W. R. Hearst, tried to distort the facts and that justified the former’s expulsion. It has issued a detailed communique setting 1 out that' Mr. Horan, having personally failed, instructed his em-, ployee, M. de la Planque, to procure the naval document. Mr. Horan promised a reward which M. de la Planque hoped would be £ 80. M. de la Planque told Mr. Horan he had procured the document from an official ac the Quai d’Orsay, M. Noblet. Mr. Horan informed Mr. Hearst of the method of obtaining the letter, and Mr. Hearst instructed him to dispatch it urgently to America for the maximum of publicity. The prefecture scrupulously kept its promise not to divulge its knowledge when it was interrogating M. de la Planque and M. Noblet, yet Mr. Horan himself revealed the existence of the statement. He also dishonestly sought to enlist the support of the Journalists’ Association. The Foreign Minister, M. Briand, has handed the documents in the case to the judicial authorities to decide if further action sfaaM be _t§£en. _____