CABINET DEFIED.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 March 1922, Page 5

CABINET DEFIED.

THE MONTAGU INCIDENT. NEAR EAST PROBLEM. A GRAVE INFLUENCE By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received March 15, 8.30 p.m. London, March 14. In the House of Lords, Lord Curzon (Secretary for Foreign Affairs) referred to the Montagu incident, declaring that Mr. Montagu’s action gravely affected the position of the British delegates at the forthcoming Near East Conference at Paris. Proceeding, Lord Curzon said that at a Cabinet meeting held on March 5 he suggested to Mr. Montagu that the publication of Lord Reading’s despatch should not be authorised without reference to Cabinet, and he was dumbfounded to learn that Mr. Montagu had already authorised its publication. He naturally thought it was too late to intervene. Subsequently he wrote to Mr. Montagu privately, protesting against a repetition of such an occurrence. He regretted that Mr. Montagu, instead of speaking in the House of Commons, went to his constituency and traversed both their conversation and his letter, in which, after deploring Mr. Montagu’s action, he said that if he, when Viceroy, had ventured thus to publicly refer to a European country’s foreign policy he would have been recalled.

The letter went on to state that Mr. Chamberlain agreed that it was intolerable that a subordinate Government like that of India should seek to dictate the lines it thought Britain ought to follow as regards Thrace and Smyrna. Lord Crewe agreed that Mr. Montagu had broken Cabinet proprieties, the effect of which on Europe and India was most important. The opinions of the Government of India were well known, and therefore he thought the publication was not likely to affect the Near East Conference.