STILL CRITICAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 32, 17 November 1943, Page 3

STILL CRITICAL.

POSITION AT LEBANON. NORMAL CONDITION ON SURFACE (Rec. 9.50 a.m.) LONDON, Nov. 16. A press message from Cairo announcing the arrival of General Catroux at Beirut adds that it is officially stated that conditions in Lebanon are returning to normal. The shops are reopening and no disturbances occurred yesterday. In London the political situation in Lebanon is regarded as remaining critical and urgent measures on the part of General Catroux appear to be essential to resolve the crisis caused by the arrest of the Lebanese President and' his Minister. —British Official Wireless. ACTION BY DE GAULLE PLAMED. PROTEST BY ARAB COUNTRIES. LONDON, November 16. The French delegate in Lebanon (M. Helleu), at a press conference in Beirut, said that the decision to arrest the Lebanese President and the Cabinet had been taken by the French Committee in Algiers. He had warned General de Gaulle that there might be trouble, but General de Gaulle had instructed him to go ahead and make the arrests.

M. Emile Edde, a Lebanese lawyer, has formed a provisional Government in Lebanon, composed of seven directors of public services, five district administrators, and one each from the offices of the Administrative Services and the Internal Secuiity Forces. The French appointed M. Edde leader of the temporary Government after the arrest of the President and others last week.

M. Edde, in a statement, said that the first task of the Government would be to ensure adequate food supplies. When the situation was normal again he would attempt to make the Government more representative of the country’s different political tendencies."

In reply to the protest from the Prime Minister of Egypt (Nahas Pasha) against the French action in Lebanon, the French Committee of National Liberation said that the question would best be solved by the French and Lebanese alone. “The matter is uqderstood by the real friends of Lebanon.”

To this Nahas Pasha has replied: “The fact that the world condemns the French action affords the best distinction between the real friends of Lebanon and those who sacrifice truth and justice from selfish motives.” The London “Daily Express” political correspondent says that Mr Harold Macmillan has been instructed to protest vigorously to General de Gaulle about the shooting of students outside the British Embassy in Beirut. The “Daily Express” says that Mr Macmillan was told to protest in direct and unmistakeable terms. The Ankara radio reports that King Ibn Saul, or Saudi Arabia, has joined King Farouk and the Government of Iraq in a protest to the French Committee against the events in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia and Iraq have already both protested against the French action in Lebanon. The Saudi Arabia protest took the form of a telegram from King Ibn Sand to Mr Churchill, in which King Ibn Saud appealed to the Prime Minister to use his influence with the French authorities to restore the situation. King Ibn Saud said that the Free French action had created the worst possible impression on the Arab people.

The Arab Legation in London expressed confidence that the British Government would support Lebanon's just cause and aspirations. The French Committee of National Liberation is meeting in Algiers today. General Catroux is in Beirut with full powers to act. The Beirut radio has broadcast an appeal to the business community to

reopen shops, and to citizens to restore normal life. Compensation was promised for damage done during the disturbances.

Reports from Beirut say that there were no further clashes there on Sunday and yesterday. All shops and offices are closed and communications with outside suspended. Str >ng military patrols, with tanks, are patrolling the streets.

The Ankara correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Agency says that according to travellers from Syria and Lebanon, serious rioting with firing was still going on on Sunday in Beirut and Lebanese Tripoli. All shops in Aleppo were closed and traffic was at a standstill. “The air has been cleared by plain speaking by the British Government and some explanations by the French Committee,” says “The Times,” discussing the situation in Lebanon. “It has been established that M. Helleu, the French delegate in Lebanon, took the final steps and arrested the Lebanese leaders without reference to the committee.

“The hard kernel of the dispute between the French authorities and the Lebanese leaders is that the committee, as trustee for France, still enslaved, says that it cannot abolish one of France’s mandates. The Allies complain that they were not consulted in a problem in which they were concerned for every reason of military security.”

“Greater calm seems to prevail in Lebanon,” states the diplomatic correspondent of “The Times.” “This should ease the task of General Catroux, the far-sighted, patient nego tiator who, in 1941, in General de Gaulle’s name, promised the Lebanese and their neighbours, the Syrians, their independence.”