NEW AGREEMENT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 107, 8 May 1941, Page 7

NEW AGREEMENT

FRANCE AND GERMANY One-Sided Concessions By Vichy Reported I'll it i>il Prt-KS Assni'iiitinn.. c..p\ riulit. Rec. noon. VICHY, May 7. It is officially announced that Admiral Daiian, Vice-Premier, lias signed an agreement with Germany opening the border between occupied and unoccupied France for the passage of foodstuffs, coal, iron and other merchandise and permitting relatives to travel between the two zones in the event of sickness or death. The agreement also grants soldiers and airmen the same facilities of movement as sailors now enjoy. The agreement "envisages" a reduction in the daily payment for upkeep of the army of occupation from . 400,000,000 francs to 300.000,900. The discussions are continuing. The announcement does not mention French concessions to Germany. French Prisoners of War While sympathising with Vichy's problem of choosing between further concessions to Germany and the pathetic continuance of the spectacle of large numbers of able-bodied young Frenchmen in German prison camps, says the British Official Wireless, "The Times" insists that the people of France should remember that, however specious the Xazi proposals, they amount to no more than an offer to shorten the temporary captivity of their sons in order that they may help toward the lasting enslavement of their country. "The Times" adds that, according to reports from the United States, Admiral Darlan has probably been sent home from Paris with peremptory demands for further submission to the Nazi will. L'nder threats that Vichy has little power to resist. unoccupied France is to be harnessed to Hitler's war machine. By the terms of the armistice Hitler cunningly limited the extent of his responsibility for the affairs of the starving and resentful pe >ple. ■while providing himself with ample instruments for bending them at any time to serve his purposes. While young Frenchmen remain imprisoned, Hitler is precluded by the Gene\a Convention of 1020 from employing them directly in any war industry, but he has discovered that he can use them indirectly as a most powerful lever in his plot to force the war industries of France to work for him.

A message from London earlier this week said it was understood that the alternative threatened if France refused to accept full integration in Germany's new order was the retention in German prison camps of 500.000 French farmers needed for the restoration of France's food supply.