FRONTIER CLOSED

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 59, 11 March 1937, Page 10

FRONTIER CLOSED

FLYING PROHIBITED

An area1 of 2000 square miles along the German-Polish frontier, covering a great part of the border province and running along the frontier for about fifty miles between the Rivers Warthe and Oder, has been declared "forbidden area for aircraft of all kinds," says the "Manchester Guardian."

German military aeroplanes alone will be permitted to fly over this district. Pssenger aeroplanes, including German machines, must take either a northern or a southern course outside this area. It is the first time that such a decree has been made without a timelimit.

An official explanation of the prohibition is not available, but it is being connected with Colonel Beck's speech to the Polish Diet on the renewal of the Franco-Polish agreement. The speech has caused considerable excitement in Germany, especially Colonel Beck's assurance that in view of the negotiations about a new Locarno Pact, he will see that "our alliance will retain its full value." The "Kolnische Zeitung" states: —

Poland. ■ France, and Great Britain would like to include in a new Western pact certain exceptions from those unconditional renunciations of war which Germany wants to make the basis of such a pact. Germany cannot be asked to make workable an alliance between two States at the cost of violating the principle of the Western Pact.