SECURITY OF FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1921, Page 5

SECURITY OF FRANCE.

MISTRUST OF GERMANY.

TROOPS ON THE RHINE.

LONGER PERIOD URGED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received September 12, 8 p.m. Paris, Sept. 12. Ex-President Poincare, whose many articles in newspapers show the deepest distrust of Germany, and insist on the security of France, demands the strictest application of the penalties provided for in the Peace Treaty for any default by Germany.

M. Poincare contributes to Le Temps a lengthy article revealing secret negotiations at the Peace Conference between M. Clemenceau, Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson regarding the military occupation of the Rhine provinces. M. Poincare, as President, with the aid of M. Clemenceau and Marshal Foch, used the utmost influence to secure the insertion in the Peace Treaty of a clause enabling the Allies to occupy the Rhine provinces until Germany had carried out all the Treaty’s conditions, including the full payment of reparations, which would take a minimum of thirty years. Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson refused to extend the period for the occupation of the Rhine beyond fifteen years, preferring a still shorter period. M. Clemenceau reluctantly agreed to fifteen years, after Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson had signed an' agreement by which Britain and America undertook to send France military aid if she were attacked without provocation by Germany. This agreement, which was dependent on ratification by the British and American Parliaments, became a dead letter by the American Senate’s refusal to ratify the Treaty. M. Poincare’s article in Le Temps suggests that France should now demand new guarantees in regard to Germany’s fulfilment of the Treaty, as the terms under which France agreed that the occupation of the Rhine should be reduced to fifteen years have been broken.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.