NOT DISCLOSED

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

NOT DISCLOSED

THE BRITISH PLANS

PRESS COMMENTS

INCREASED NAVAL PATROLS

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received September 10, 12^45 p.m.) RUGBY, September 9.

The plans of the British Government for freeing the Mediterranean of the present menace will not be disclosed until, the Conference assembles, and

the newspapers anticipate that their nature will depend to some extent on the composition of the Conference.

The possible absence of the Italian and German representatives from the Conference was in contemplation when the British proposals were considered by Cabinet yesterday. ."The Times" remarks that a scheme for confining, by agreement among the Powers, all submarines to certain specified areas, recognising that operations ■ outside them would be suspect, would become impracticable in the absence of Germany, and Italy.

Various other measures which might be adopted are expounded. "The Times" dismissed the possibility of a convoy system owing to the practical difficulties involved, and adds, "The need in the present situation is to make piratical attacks so dangerous to the attackers that they will be abandoned. For this purpose the number of men-of-war in the Mediterranean engaged on the defence of merchant ships will have to be still further increased. But it is evidently desirable that the burden should not be born by this country alone. International cooperation should have a deterrent effect on the perpetrators of illegitimate attacks, even more marked in the moral sphere perhaps than the material. The forces of certain other nations are already protecting their own merchant ships, and all those so engaged, whether or not they are to be reinforced by others, could be directed to afford protection to any ship known or seen to be attacked, regardless of nationality."