RUMOURS IN FRANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 May 1938, Page 7

RUMOURS IN FRANCE

DENOUNCED BY PREMIER SCARE STORIES OF COMING ATTACKS. GOVERNMENT TO PUNISH DISSEMINATORS. (Recd This Day, 9.30 a.m.) PARIS, May 19. The Prime Minister, M. Daladier, has issued a statement to the Press that the Government will punish the dissemination of false rumours. He gave as an instance a recent announcement that a certain foreign country (believed to be Germany) was mobilising and that another (Italy) had issued an ultimatum to France. M. Daladier said these rumours were not always disinterested and pointed out that ' the Franco-British Entente threatens nobody, but on the contrary serves European peace. Under whatever circumstances, France is capable of assuring the inviolability of her frontiers, he declared. The Foreign Office denies the allegation that Russian and Czech war material is going to Spain via France, or that the French General Staff has assisted the Republicans to prepare their defences. It also denies that Signor Mussolini has demanded that France should recognise a nationalist victory in Spain. ANOTHER SAMPLE SOVIET AND THE SPANISH REPUBLICANS. (Recd This Day, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, May 19. The “Epoque” states that the Soviet Ambassador has issued a demarche, threatening that if France abandoned the Spanish Republicans Russia would seek a rapprochement with Germany.