LEAVING THE LEAGUE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 January 1939, Page 5

LEAVING THE LEAGUE

HUNGARY’S DECISION

JOINING ANTI-COMINTERN GROUP. SATISFACTION IN BERLIN. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. LONDON. January 14. It is officially stated in Berlin that Hungary has joined the Anti-Comin-tern Pact. It had been previously announced in Budapest, at a meeting of the Government Party, that Hungary would join the Anti-Comintern Pact if invited, and that this would involve her withdrawal from the League of Nations. The Hungarian Foreign Minister. Count Csaky, will go to Berlin on February 15 for discussions with the German Foreign Minister. Herr von Ribbentrop. The Berlin correspondent of the “Daily Mail,” says that Hungary’s decision to join the Anti-Comintern Pact is welcomed in Berlin. It is cautiously predicted that Poland will be the next adherent, thus creating a FivePower Bloc (Germany, Italy, Japan. Poland, and Hungary), greatly strengthening the original Rome-Berlin axis. The latest Anti-Communist Pact was signed by representatives of Germany, Italy, and Japan at the Palazzo Chigi. Rome, on November 6, 1937, and its revealed form is merely that of suppressing internal Communist activities and exchanging information as to Communist activities.

The pact has been in operation between Germany and Japan since 1936, and Italy, on joining, was regarded as an original signatory. However, as Italian intervention in Spain and Japanese intervention in China are professedly for the suppression of Communism, the pact obviously has significance beyond the borders of the States concerned.