MR EDEN’S STATEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 June 1941, Page 5

MR EDEN’S STATEMENT

NAZI ATTACK FORSEEN WARNING GIVEN TO SOVIET, PLANS FOR MUTUAL ACTION. (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) LONDON, June 24. In the House of Commons, Mr Anthony Eden said: “Some lime before the events of the past few days the Foreign Office was already convinced, from information at its disposal, that Hitler was going to attack Russia from 1 behind the smoke-screen of a nonaggression pact. With the Prime Minister’s consent I told the Russian Ambassador to Britain, M. Maisky, of the danger confronting Russia. The Soviet Government, even at that late hour, were careful to avoid any expression of opinion seeming to throw out their observance of their engagement to Germany. It was this assessment of pending events that caused me to ask the British Ambassador to Russia, Sir Stafford Cripps, to return to England for consultation. He will be able, when he returns to Moscow to direct the help which it is the clear intention of the British Government to give the Soviet Union. We sympathise with Poland, whose soil is again a battlefield. Turkey, our friend and ally, kept us informed of her recent negotiations with Germany; therefore the conclusion of her agreement with Germany did not cause surprise. The Turkish Government has assured us again, within the past twenty-four hours, that our treaty is intact.” It is authoritatively stated that conversations have been proceeding between Britain and the Soviet and that the latter has accepted an offer to send military and economic missions to Russia, to co-ordinate efforts with the Soviet. It has been made plain that future help will be on a mutual reciprocal basis. Britain accepts and endorses that view.