SPECIAL POWERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1939, Page 5

SPECIAL POWERS

GRANTED TO THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT M. DALADIER’S RESOLVE. NATION TO BECOME IMMENSE WORKSHOP. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. PARIS, March 19, The Chamber of Deputies approved by 334 votes to 258 the Plenary Powers Bill, in which the Prime Minister, M Daladier, sought special. powers till November 30. The operative clause in the Bill is as follows: “The Government is authorised by decree, with the approval of the Council of Ministers, to take all necessary measures to consolidate and increase the strength of France.” M. Daladier. in a speech in . the Chamber, said: “It is my firm determination that France shall become an immen-e workshop. That is the only way Io safeguard peace. We will not yield to force ' v threats—not a single one of our rights and not an acre of territory. Il is because we are pacific that we have decided to subordinate everything to service to our country.

“I wish to increase the French forces and be able to take useful measures at maximum speed. In the face of danger, democracy must cease 1o be a regime of contradictions.- The Government demands special powers to enable us still to assure the country’s safety. M Bonnet told the deputies that France was informed on March 11 of the .first concentrations of German troops and immediately discussed the situation with Britain.

Cabinet unproved M Daladior’s Bill for strengthening the armed forces, /ill Ministers must at present remain in Paris.

FRIENDS OF FRANCE. DEMONSTRATIONS BY CZECHS IN PARIS. PARIS, March 19. Tearful Czech residents and Parisian sympathisers, chanting the Czech anthem and the “Marseillaise,” marched from Madeleine Church to the Czechoslovakia tourist offices, where they left inscribed bouquets under a prominent poster which read: “Frenchmen, if you have lost forty Czech divisions, you retain eleven million friends.” MORAL FORCES EMERGENCY POWERS BILL IN FRANCE. APPROVED BY SENATE COMMITTEE. (Independent Cable Service.) (Received This Day, 10.10 a.m.) PARIS, March 19. The Senate Finance Committee by 25 votes to two, approved .the granting of full powers to the Government, after a speech by M. Daladier in which he declared that the position adopted by England and France gave them today, now that the Munich Agreement had been violated, an incomparable moral force.