SAAR PLEBISCITE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21315, 7 November 1934, Page 11

SAAR PLEBISCITE

BRITAIN SATISFIED WITH PROSPECTS OF ORDER PROMISES BY FRANCE AND GERMANY (Janisn official wihilbss.) (Received November 6, 5.5 p.m.) RUGBY, November 5. Sir John Simon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, replying to a question in the House of Commons about the maintenance of order in the Saar territory, where a plebiscite is to be held on January 13, said: "The responsibility .for maintaining order rests with the Governing Commission of the Saar and this responsibility continues to be successfully discharged. A situation in which the Government of the Saar found itself unable to maintain order ought not to occur. "There never has been any question of the use of British troops and any French dispositions in the part of France bordering on the Saar territory on the west are purely precautionary, and there can be no question of the use of external force for preserving order unless the Saar Governing Commission is unable to discharge the task laid upon it and is compelled to ask for assistance.

"The German Ambassador (Dr. Leopold von Hoesch) saw me at my request and confirmed that the German Government and authorities had issued an order to Storm Troop and Protective Guard formations on the German side of the Saar frontier prohibiting, over a belt 25 miles wide and over the period which covers the date of the taking of the plebiscite, the wearing of uniforms, parades, processions or gatherings of any kind. "At the same time the German Government issued a solemn assurance that there is no danger of an invasion on the territory of the Saar. "I expressed both to Dr. von Hoesch and to the French Ambassador (M. Charles Corbin) the satisfaction of his Majesty's Government at this announcement. "At the same time I received from the French Ambassador an assurance that the French arrangements are of a purely precautionary kind. "In these circumstances we have the right to expect that with due restraint in all quarters the plebiscite, which it is the duty of the Council of the League of Nations, to conduct, will be carried through properly and in order."

STATEMENT RESENTED IN BERLIN DENIAL THAT DANGER EVER EXISTED (Received November 6, 10.40 p.m.) LONDON, November 6. The Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Mail" says that an official communique protests against Sir John Simon's statement because it implies that German orders were necessary to eliminate the danger of threatened disorders on the German side. "It must be emphatically repeated that such a danger has never existed," says the communique.