ON FOUR-POWER CONFERENCE PROPOSAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1939, Page 6

ON FOUR-POWER CONFERENCE PROPOSAL

British Views on Danzig Problem ASSERTION OF POLAND’S RIGHTS ATTEMPTS AT INTIMIDATION CONDEMNED (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.35 a.m.) RUGBY, August 17. The suggestions for a Four Power Conference over Danzig, which has been much canvassed in the Foreign Press in the (last few (lavs, and currency to which is reported to have been given among others by Mr Hamilton Fish, who met Herr von Ribbentrop in Germany, continues to be the subject of unfavourable comment in the newspapers. It can be stated that no plan for such a conference as has been recommended in these reports lias been officially brought to the notice of London, where the inclination is to regard the reports as incidents in a campaign of rumour designed to maintain tension and divert attention from the incontrovertible facts of the situation.

German pressure on Poland, the mobilisation of the German Army and German encouragement of the Danzig Senate in its demands, figure no less prominently among these factors than do reciprocal undertakings among Ihe peace trout Powers.' Yesterday’s preliminary conversation on Danzig between 31. Chodacki (Polish Commissioner in Danzig) and Herr Greiser (President of the Danzig Senate) also takes its place in the events of which, as distinct from rumours, note is taken here. “The Times” notes that it would of course be beyond the province of these officials, who hold posts within the framework of the present Danzig system, to discuss officially any suggestions for a modification of the status of the Free City. That larger issue, it remarks, raised by Herr Hitler, could only usefully be discussed by plenipotentiaries of the countries concernecl—in the first instance Poland and Germany. In no circumstances can useful discussions be imagined at which Poland is not fully and formally represented. After discussing the recent history of the Danzig question, “The Times” emphasises the desirability of having the whole position regularised and adds: “Nothing whatever can he done without Poland’s full agreement. That is the fundamental condition which concerns this country and on which it is irrevocably united. There must be an end of intimidation and intimidatory propaganda, which can only be met by increased preparations for self-defence on the other side.