FRANCE AND BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 December 1921, Page 8

FRANCE AND BRITAIN.

CAUSES OF DISAGREEMENT. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—CoDyrlgTit. Melbourne, Dec. 7. The first direct wireless message from London was received yesterday by the Postmaster-General. It contained the following among a number of news items: The newspapers are surprised here at reports which have appeared in the French Press of recent conversations between Lord Curzon and the French Ambassador in London and contradict the suggestion that Lord Curzon more or less apologised for what he said in his recent speech. The newspapers understand that Lord Curzon, at his interview with the French Ambassador, fully maintained the standpoint he adopted in his speech, but showed that he was pnly too anxious to take the French at their word when they protested the solidarity of the Entente. What Lord Curzon suggested therefore was that the French Government should agree to a meeting of the British, French and Italian Foreign 'Ministers as early as possible with the determination that they should not part until an agreement had been reached on Allied policy in the Near East. The Manchester Guardian explains that the British Government has all along felt that only by close collaboration between* the three Powers can peace be brought about in the Near East. It was precisely because the action of France in endorsing the Frank-lin-Bouillon agreement with Turkey appeared to them a complete departure from this principle and had been interpreted, especially by the Turks, as meaning that it would be possible to carry on entirely separate negotiations with the French Government and with the British Government that they had been disquieted. It was strongly understood from their Note of reply, adds. the Guardian, that the French Government accepted the principle of close Allied collaboration in this matter, but the British idea was that the assurances should be translated into action.