RELEASE CONDITIONAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 121, 25 May 1939, Page 14

RELEASE CONDITIONAL

CZECH ASSETS IN LONDON

OBLIGATIONS TO BRITAIN

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received May 25, 11 a.m.)

RUGBY, May 24,

In the House of Commons, Sir John Simon replied to questions in reference to the informal conversations between the Treasury and representatives of the German Foreign Office and the Ministry of Economics regarding the Czecho-Slovak assets blocked in London after the German seizure of Bohemia and Moravia.

Sir John Simon gave an assurance that there would be no general release of the blocked assets unless and until a satisfactory arrangement had been made regarding financial obligations due from Czecho-Slovakia to British j holders. If an agreement were reached it would be laid before Parliament. TRANSFERS OF GOLD. Sir John Simon also explained the position regarding the transfer of gold, about which, he said, there had been misleading reports, This question of the release of assets of the Bank of International Settlements was not, he pointed out, covered by the legislation passed before Easter, nor did it concern the Treasury in any way. The Bank of England was bound to accept its depositors' instructions, and gold deposited there" by the Bank of International Settlements was fully protected from seizure or embargo by The Hague Protocol, 1930, and the Brussels Protocol, 1936.

In another answer, Sir John Simon made it clear that the conversations in London had already shown that there was no intention on the part of Germany to repudiate the Czechoslovak Government debts.