FRANCE AND SOVIET

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 79, 27 December 1929, Page 11

FRANCE AND SOVIET

SENSATIONAL STORIES REPORTED RUPTURE OF RELATIONS ' OFFICIAL DENIAL (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Rec. December 26, 9.45 p>mj Paris, December 25. Sensational stories published ’ in certain .organs of the French Nationalist press, to the effect that the French Ambassador at Moscow, M. Herbette, had broken off relations with M. Litvinoff, and was returning to Paris, are flatly denied by official quarters to-night. The incident, if it can be described as such, is said to have resulted from the French envoy’s effort to deliver to the Soviet Rumania’s communication regarding the Russo-Chinese crisis. According to accounts reaching here, M. Litvinoff informed M. Herbette that he would not even accept a note from a “third-rate power.’ 7 To-night’s “Temps,” reflecting the Foreign Office view, says: “What it is well to bear in mind is that with a Government such that of Moscow it is a singularly delicate and ungrateful task to attempt to perform good offices, whether as simple intermediary, or in conformity with pure international courtesy.”