REGRET IN LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 9

REGRET IN LONDON

OTHER POWERS AGREE

NO REPLY FROM ALBANIA

BRIEF DISCUSSION

(British • Official Wireless.)

(Received September 10, 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, September 9.

The news that Germany and Italy | will not be represented in the discussions on the proposals to secure respect for international law in the Mediterranean and safety for the shipping of all nations from piratical attack has been received with regret in London. The replies of . those two Powers to the joint Anglo-French invitation to the conference at Nyon did not reach the Foreign Office till early this afternoon. No reply has yet come from Albania. The other Powers —Great Britain, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Turkey, and Egypt—have intimated that; they will take part in the Conference, which may well be transferred to Geneva as a more convenient centre for the representatives, who will all be there already for the purpose of the League meetings.

The discussions are not expected to be prolonged, as the purpose of the meeting is severely practical and technical and the British delegation is known to have prepared proposals which, with modifications • which may be necessitated by the non-participa-tion of Italy r.nd Germany, are likely to provide a suitable basis for the conference's work.

In the British view, the subject before the conference is of the greatest urgency but of limited scope, and it may be assumed that any tendency to deviate from the immediate and .concrete goal into political or "ideological" side-play will be resisted.

POINTS AGAINST ITALO-GERMAN

SUGGESTION.

Both the German and Italian Governments, in notifying the French and United Kingdom Governments that they cannot accept the invitation to the Nyon Conference, suggest tflat the questions to be discussed be referred to the London Non-intervention Committee. The German Government welcomes the attempt to put an end to insecurity in the Mediterranean, and the Italian Government states that it was favourably considering acceptance of the invitation before receipt of the Russian Note of September 6.

The possibility of reference of the problem to the Non-intervention Committee would not have been overlooked in London and Paris before fhe pro posals for the conference were made, and the same cogent reasons which led the two Governments to reject tht? first procedure would not preclude their accepting the German and Italian counter-proposal. The question of the safety of the shipping of all nations far beyond the territorial waters of Spain goes outside the scops of the committee set up to deal with the special problems of non-interven-tion, even if the gravity and urgency of the circumstances in which the question has arisen did not demand a more authoritative and direct mode oi' negotiation.

Similar necessity was recognised in the case' of the patrol Powers in .Lhe agreement reached after the Deutschland incident regarding the procedure for dealing with • serious incidents of concern to those four Powers, and this procedure vvas in fact invoked in the Leipzig incident. Apart from these considerations, the proceedings of the Non-intervention Committee have not always been free from an atmosphere of recrimination which would be most inappropriate to a case where quick action is required on principles of law and humanity, upon which all the Powers may be assumed to be agreed fo- a purpose which it is the undoubted interest likewise of all the Powers to see carried out.