SHAME OF VICHY

Taranaki Daily News, 28 September 1940, Page 8

SHAME OF VICHY

British Official Wireless.

nazi masters obeyed '

Rugby, Sept. 26, Referring to the setback suffered by General de Gaulle's first attempt to seize the initlative in Africa, The Times says: "In Africa Viehy shows fight, if only in defence of ite chains. At the other side of the eastern hemisphere, however, where they are not stiffened by the support of their masters, the Vichy Government has allowed the firm stand at first made by their commander on the spot to fall away into a collapse. "Indo-Chlna occupies a strategic position of the first importance in the Fa? East and its fate cannot be a matter of indifference to either Britain or the United States, while, of course, the interest of China is immediate. Helpless as Vichy would have been at this distance, In that they were unassisted, it is clear that in making firm resistance to the Japanese encroachments they would not have stood alone. "The preclse extent of the concessions they have made has not been made public but It is certain a new grave threat to the Burma Road has been opened and no one who knows the methods of Tokiq supposes that the whittling away of the French Empire in Asia will cease at the polnt laid down in the agreement. "The policy of surrender Is bringing no less shame on the Vichy Government in its application to Mediterranean lands. The people of Syria are showing that they resent the dishonour to France more than do the men who occupy the seat of authority. Rather than submit to the Itallans, who since the rape of Albania have ranked as the arch enemies of Islam, Bedouin soldiers are slipping away on their camels from camps near Damascus in search of liberty and many try to achieve it in union with their , old rivals, the Arabs of Iraq. No less signiflcant is the movement among Senegalese sharpshooters of what was General Weygand's army for General de Gaulle."