IMPORTANT STEP

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 70, 15 December 1939, Page 9

IMPORTANT STEP

Allies’ Financial Agreement VALUE MAY EXTEND BEYOND WARTIME (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 13. The statement Iby the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, in the House of Commons yesterday on the new financial agreement with France is universally welcomed in the morning’s Press. “The Times” says: “The intimate co-operation now established between the British and French Governments is essential to the victorious conduct of the war and will be no less essential for the successful handling of the economic difficulties which will have to be faced when the war has been won. “Taken together with previous agreements for the joint purchase of goods and material required from foreign countries, it creates a solidarity between them which is more than an alliance,” “The Times” continues. “It is perhaps not a visionary hope that the economic and financial co-operation it has established between the two countries may long outlast the war and may in time be extended to embrace other countries with the same interests in peace and prosperity.” “One thing was missing from the comprehensive agreement between Britain and France which the Supreme War Council announced on Noyember 17,” says the “Manchester Guardian.” “There was no reference to finance. The gap has now been filled by the highly important agreement announced yesterday by Sir John Simon and M. Reynaud.”

The “News-Chronicle” considers that Die “agreement is a comprehensive one and represents a great step forward toward common administrative action by the two countries. There could hardly be stronger proof of the community of purpose between the British and French people.”