STORM BREWING

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 131, 15 March 1935, Page 5

STORM BREWING

GERMAN REARMAMENT FRANCE AND AIR STRENGTH. OBLIGATIONS UNDER TREATY. "NO RIGHT OF MODIFICATION.” "BLACKMAIL” OF THE POWERS. (United Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 9.20 a.m.) PARIS, March 14. A storm is brewing over Germany’s air rearmament, France maintaining that the cardinal point of policy decided- at Rome and London is that no Power has the right to modify her obligations unilaterally. Newspapers describe the position as the first official violation of the Versailles Treaty. The "Echo de Paris” says that doubtless Herr Hitler flatters himself on having revenge for the White Paper, but it remains to be seen whether France, Britain and Italy will submit to blackmail. “Le Matin” says that Germany has anticipated advantages which ought to have been granted her only after her participation in other instruments of peace.

THE GERMAN POINT OF VIEW. SAME RIGHTS AS OTHER POWERS RELIANCE ON MILITARY STRENGTH. (Received This Day, 9.20 a.m.) LONDON, March 14. The Berlin correspondent of the “Guardian” says that the German view is that German rearmament in general and air armaments in particular indisputably legal. No Power, it is declared, has the. slightest right to complain. Germany is'insisting only on the same rights as those of other Powers whose failure to disarm compelled Germany to rearm. “There is now no chance of reducing either air or land armaments by means of the Treaty,” says one commentator. “Germany, in fact, is sceptical regarding the possibility of any useful convention and is not without confidence in her own military strength.”