TALK AT FLORENCE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 174, 19 April 1929, Page 9

TALK AT FLORENCE

CHAMBERLAIN AND MUSSOLINI EUROPEAN SITUATION REVIEWED EXPLANATION IN HOUSE OF COMMONS (British Official Wireless,) Rugby, April 17. Sir Austen Chamberlain was asked in the House of Commons to give the substance of his conversation with Signor Mussolini at Florence. He-said: “Having decided for personal reasons to spend Easter week at Florence, I asked His Majesty’s Ambassador to inform Signor Mussolini of my intention and to say what a pleasure it would give me to see him again, if, as I thought possible, he himself were to be in the neighbourhood. Signor Mussolini, who was spending a few days at Forli, was good enough to motor over to see me. This was the fifth occasion on which we have met, including pur first meeting at Rome in 1924, and I welcomed it as giving me another opportunity for such an exchange of views with him as I habitually have with other Foreign Ministers at Geneva. No special importance was attached to the meeting, and no subjects were proposed for discussion at it, but, as was natural, we passed in review the general European situation as well as the relations between our two countries, which are happily of the most cordial character. It will not be forgotten that Great Britain and Italy are guarantors of the Treaty of Locarno, and have thus a common interest in the maintenance of peace and the promotion of good relations among all the signatories of that Treaty.”