TALKS IN ROME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1939, Page 5

TALKS IN ROME

* ALL TRUMP CARDS HELD BY BRITAIN ACCORDING TO FRENCH NEWSPAPERS DEMANDS MADE IN BRITAIN FOR FIRM STAND. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, January 8. It is announced officially that the Prime Minister, Mr Chamberlain, and the Foreign- Secretary, Lord Halifax, will meet the French Premier, M. Daladier, and the French Foreign Minister. M. Bonnet, in Paris on January 10 on their way to visit Signor Mussolini in Rome. In view of Mr Chamberlain's visit to Paris, which is universally welcomed by the French newspapers, the meeting of the French Higher War Council, which will follow M. Daladier's return from his tour of France’s Mediterranean possessions, is regarded as most important. The newspapers express the opinion that Mr Chamberlain will hold all the trump cards at Rome, as he knows Italian weaknesses, poverty and heavy taxation and the fact that the army, detesting the Blackshirts, does not desire a war with France. The conversations with the Duce will, it is felt, prove Anglo-French solidarity. The diplomatic correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says it is believed that Mr Chamberlain and Lord Halifax will leave no doubt in Signor Mussolini’s rnind that the Paris-London axis is as strong as the Rome-Berlin axis and that they will bluntly discountenance any territorial changes at the expense of France, such changes being opposed to the Anglo-Italian agreement, while any non-territorial concessions are purely an Italo-French question.

The “Sunday Dispatch” says that Mr Chamberlain will offer Italy financial and economic assistance if Italy withdraws from Spain, after which Mr Chamberlain will suggest a Spanish armistice as a preliminary to mediation between the rebels and the loyalists, but will not grant General Franco belligerent rights. The diplomatic correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian” says it is becoming increasingly more difficult to see how the Rome meeting can produce any tangible result except an ending to Mr Chamberlain’s appeasement policy. If Mr Chamberlain goes home without surrendering anything, and is resolved to continue this policy, his prestige at home and abroad will become very strong.

Led by Viscount Cecil and accompanied by the Duchess 'of Atholl, a peace campaign deputation submitted to No 10 Downing Street today a resolution begging the Government to emphasise in the course of the Chamber-lain-Mussolini conversations that Britain could not be friends with Italy till Italian intervention in Spain had ceased, that belligerent rights cannot be granted to General Franco and that protection inside and outside territorial waters must be extended to British ships and sailors on lawful occasions.