Franco-British Accord On Policy

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 221, 19 September 1938, Page 9

Franco-British Accord On Policy

PROLONGED PARLEYS AIMED AT PROMOTING PEACEFUL SOLUTION BIG PARADE IN LONDON (Received 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, September 18. An official statement issued from No. 10, Downing Street, was as follows: "After a full discussion of the present international situation, representatives of France and Britain are in complete agreement as to the policy to be adopted with the view of promoting a peaceful solution of the Czechoslovak question. The two Governments hope thereafter that it will be possible to consider a more general settlement in the interests of European peace." The announcement was issued at 1 5 minutes after midnight. The conference between MM. Daladier, Prime Minister of France, and Bonnet, Foreign Minister, and the British Cabinet adjourned from 7.40 p.m. until 9.30, when it was resumed. The meeting broke up at eight minutes after midnight, having lasted eight hours twenty minutes. While the conference sat, motor cyclists carried dispatches to the King at the Royal Lodge, Windsor. Public Demonstration. A crowd filled Trafalgar Square when Miss Ellen Wilkinson and others, flanked by standard-bearers with flags of Czechoslovakia, Britain, the United States, France and Russia, spoke under the auspices of the International Peace Campaign, after which a procession a mile long marched to the Czechoslovak legation and repeatedly cheered as women on the balcony waved acknowledgment. The procession's delegates later handed in to Downing Street a resolution assuring the Government of support in any action to resist the German'attempt to settle the Sudeten question by military force' and to oppose proposals affecting the integrity of Czechoslovakia and defying the principles of the League Covenant. Three people were arrested in Whitehall in consequence of the demonstration.