MINED AREAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 April 1940, Page 5

MINED AREAS

SAFEGUARDING NEUTRAL SHIPS * FREE ACCESS TO PORTS ENSURED. PRESS COMMENT IN BRITAIN. LONDON. April. 8. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Norwegian Parliament has met to consider the position and a statement of its views is expected shortly. The announcement of the Allied action came too late for the Scandinavian morning papers and the public in these countries is not yet generally aware of the position. A Daventry announcement describing the areas in which mines have been laid", states that the first is at the northernmost point of Norway projecting into the North Sea. covering 48. square miles and projecting six miles from the shore. The second area is 70 miles to the north-east, projecting 10 miles from the shore and covering 35 square miles. The third and largest area is further north, ai.d part of the way across the entrance to the West Fiord. The area is 20 miles long and projects from the north-west coast. To avoid the minefields shipping must go well outside territorial waters. The utmost care is being taken to ensure that Norwegian and other ships do not steam into the mined areas. The areas have been chosen with a view to not preventing free access by Norwegian ships to their own ports. British Press comment is devoted to the determination of the Allies to tighten the blockade. It is asked if the neutral countries had considered the alternative to an Allied victory and stated that the answer to this was given on Saturday by the murder of Norwegian seamen of the ship, Navarro, when a submarine crashed into it without warning. The “Yorkshire Post” comments that the Norwegian and Swedish fears of German aggression can be fully understood and that the Allies were determined not to use Nazi methods against them. But they were entitled to expect on their side an understanding of their position. Norway had stated that she would defend any violation of her territorial waters, but if Norway could and would fulfil that state-, ment of her intentions the Allies might reasonably be content. The Allies did not want to interfere with the neutrality of other countries; all they asked was that this neutrality be fair. The law was made to curb the gangster, not to protect and reward him.