FRENCH ANXIETY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 57, 7 March 1936, Page 9

FRENCH ANXIETY.

GERMAN AGGRESSION. Assurance of British Support Sought. COMPLICATED SITUATION. United • Press Association. —Copyright. (Received 10 a.m.) LONDON, March 6. The British Cabinet has considered the French Government's request for an assurance of immediate British support in ' the event of German aggression, even if ' Italy should repudiate Locarno. According to the "News-Chronicle" no final decisions were reached. The political correspondent of "The Times" states that Mr. Eden's report to the Cabinet confirmed the report that Signor Mussolini had indicated that an oil embargo would be met by countermeasures oil the part of Italy. The -correspondent ■ says that France asked for compensatory • assurances to balance the retaliatory actions Italy has threatened to take should an oil embargo become necessary. France also warned Signor Mussolini that she will be forced to support an oil embargo if he rejects the Geneva appeal. Mussolini's Desire for Peace. Interviewed by the Paris newspaper "Excelsior," Signor Mussolini declared that the storm cloud at Geneva was very grave. "I hope the crisis will not destroy Franco-Italian friendship, whiph is necessary to world peace. I will do my utmost to prevent this," remarked II Duce. The Paris correspondent of "The Times" says the British reply to the French request is regarded as no less vital than the Italian response to the Committee of Thirteen. France contends that as the Locarno Treaty can be annulled only by the League Italy's defection could not weaken Britain's obligations under it. Moreover, France is convinced that if Britain were to construe an Italian repudiation of Locarno as in any way modifying her own engagements Germany would instantly claim that she was no longer bound by the provisions of that treaty, especially the one relating to the demilitarised Rhineland zone.

What is undoubtedly exercising French opinion, says the correspondent, is the rapidity with which British support would be given against flagrant German aggression. The development of the Abyssinian dispute is held to prove the League's inability to act quickly enough to produce adequate support in the first few critical days of a war.