CALL FOR PEACE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 110, 11 May 1943, Page 3

CALL FOR PEACE

FRANCO'S FEELER Cool Reception In United States Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, May 10. General Franco, Chief of the Spanish State, has called on the belligerent nations to seek peace. Forecasting a deadlock in the war, General Franco, in a speech at Almeria, in the South of Spain, said: "Those of us who are serenely witnessing the struggle consider it senseless to delay peace. The world war has reached the point where neither belligerent group has power to destroy its opponent. There may be victories at great sacrifices, but sooner or later a deadlock will force the belligerents to listen to voices calling for peace—like those of Spain and the Vatican."

Cabling from Washington, the United Press correspondent says General Franco's. peace. suggestions met with the cool reception which greeted earlier peace feelers from Europe. United States officials, when questioned, directed attention to the United Nations' Casablanca pledge of "unconditional Axis surrender." An earlier report from Tangier stated that General Franco had gone to Melilla, Spanish Morocco, for the first time since the Spanish Civil War. It was believed that he intended to inspect the fortifications on the border of Spanish and French Morocco and also to make contact with General D. D. Eisenhower, Allied Commander-in-Chief in North Africa,