TENSE SITUATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 August 1938, Page 6

TENSE SITUATION

BROADCAST BV CZECH GOVERNMENT HENLEIN PROCLAMATION DENOUNCED GERMANY SOUNDING BALKAN STATES (Recd This Day, 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, August 26. The “Times's'’ Prague correspondent says there is no doubt the situation is more tense that at any time since the dispute began. The Henlfeinist proclamation drew a stern broadcast warning from the Government, declaring that the signatories had assumed ah unauthorised role, and that the proclamation was a violation of the law. Anyone endangering the peace under the proclamation would meet most energetic police measures. Germany is reported to have informed the Powers that she still desired a peaceful solution, but if delay were prolonged would give every support to the Sudetens. The German Foreign Office denies this reported remarche, which has not been received directly by France or Britain, but the “Daily Telegraph’s” Prague correspondent and the “Daily Mail’s” Paris representative say that Germany approached Russia, Rumania and Yugoslavia to ascertain their attitude in the event of the intervention. The “Telegraph’s” Prague correspondent says Moscow replied that Russia would aid the Czechs, emphasised that France was similarly placed under an obligation, and 'recalled Mr Neville Chamberla”in’s declaration of March 24 last (to the effect that he could not then say whether or not Britain might find it necessary to support Czechoslovakia.) Replied from Belgrade and Bucharest are uncertain, but it is pointed out that Rumania is unlikely to limit her backing to the Czechs under the terms of the Little Entente Pact, and that it would also be impossible for Yugoslavia to resist pressure by the Slavic feeling aroused by a conflict involving Czechoslovakia and Russia. The “Daily Mail’s” Paris representative understands that Germany asked

Yugoslavia and Rumania for undertakings of neutrality, basing her request on an assertion that intervention for the purpose of protecting minorities could not be construed as an attack.