STILL INCOMPLETE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 May 1939, Page 6

STILL INCOMPLETE

BRITISH DISCUSSIONS WITH RUSSIA MEETING AT GENEVA LORD HALIFAX AND SOVIET REPRESENTATIVE. MR CHAMBERLAIN QUESTIONED IN COMMONS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, May 15. A further communication has been received at the Foreign Office from the Soviet regarding the Anglo-Russian negotiations and is under examination. The reply had not. ' arrived when Mr Chamberlain answered questions in the House of Commons. The Premier said he was unable to amplify Wednesday's statement, adding that Lord Halifax would have an opportunity to pursue conversations with a Soviet representative at Geneva. Mr Chamberlain also answered a question relative to the attitudes of Poland and Rumania towards the Anglo-Russian negotiations, which, he said, were well known to Britain, though they had not been given formal shape. He insisted that it would be inappropriate for him to disclose these views, all the more since the recent visits of M. Potemkin (Soviet Assistant Commissar for Foreign Affairs) to Bucharest and Warsaw would have given an opportunity for an exchange of views between the Soviet representative and the two Governments. Mr R. A. Butler (Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs) was asked what were Britain’s obligations towards Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and whether, in the event of Russia beinginvolved in war as a result of defending any of these States against aggression, Britain was under an obligation to come to the aid of Russia. Mr Butler replied: “The Government is under no obligations to these States except such as they may derive from their membership of the League of Nations. I can add nothing to Mr Chamberlain’s statement on the progress of the Anglo-Soviet discussions.”

THE RUSSIAN VIEW DESIRE FOR COMPREHENSIVE PACT. CRITICISM OF BRITISH PROPOSALS. (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, May 15. Reuter learns from Russian quarters in London that the Soviet communication regards the British proposals as unsatisfactory, not going far enough and not even indirectly guaranteeing Soviet territory, besides leaving a wide gap between Poland and Finland, where border States are not covered; also that no account has been taken of ,the. possibility of a direct attack against Soviet territory. The Soviet presses for a pact of mutual assistance, covering both direct and indirect attacks, not only upon the territories of guaranteed States but upon that of the contracting parties.