SUGGESTED TERMS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 137, 6 December 1935, Page 9

SUGGESTED TERMS

BILATERAL TREATY

A FRENCH REPORT

LONDON, December 5.

Newspapers mention the posibility of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Samuel Hoare, and the Prime Minister of Italy, Signor Mussolini, meeting. , A Paris message states that AngloFrench settlement suggestions are reported to include:—

1. That Abyssinia should be granted Port Assab with a strip of territory through which a railway • could be built uniting Addis Ababa and Assab.

2. That Abyssinia should cede to Italy part (some reports say the whole) of the Ogaden province and also part of the Tigre and Harrar provinces, but leaving the holy city of Aksum, Adowa, and perhaps Makale in Abyssinian territory.

3. The agreement to take the form of a bilateral Italo-Abyssinian treaty.

The rest of Abyssinia, it is stated, would remain entirely independent, but it would be open for the Emperor to conclude a "treaty of assistance" with the League.

The diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says that even if Signor Mussolini consents to negotiate thare remains difficulty in deciding in what circumstances the conversations should be conducted. The League will doubtless insist on an armistice with Abyssinia, while Signor Mussolini would certainly demand an armistice in the operation of sanctions.

' If the peace' talks failed hostilities might be resumed,, but could sanctions then be applied afresh or extended?