FANTASTIC RUMOUB

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 46, 23 August 1939, Page 13

FANTASTIC RUMOUB

LOAN-TO-GERMANY

ORIGIN IN A CONVERSATIOr

(By Air Mail From "The Post's" London Representative.) LONDON, July 27. The President of the Board of Trade, Mr. R. S. Hudson, who is regarded as one of the strongest personalities in the House of Commons and a decidedly "coming" man, figured in a sensational sequel to a flock of fantastic rumours. It was said among other things, that Britain was preparing, to lend Germany £1.000,000,000 if she would begin disarming. When Mr. Hudson revealed that he had been talking to his "opposite number" in Germany, Herr Wohltat, and that they had discussed in a private and personal way a plan for co-opera-tion with Germany if she would return to a path of peace, the popular Press again showed its often faulty judgment in suggesting that the President of the Board of Trade would be called upon to retire. Mr. Hudson did not retire, and there was never a serious suggestion that he would, for there was a fairly general impression that the private conversation had been, as the "Manchester Guardian" said, "no more than common sense." The gist of the talk was that if it was understood that Britain would not give away any overseas possession, nor return German colonies, and would resist by force a German attempt to dominate Europe; if Germany would return to the '^path of peace and diplomatic negotiation," would agree to disarmament or arms limitation, and would withdraw from Czecho-Slovakia; if "world peace instead of world war" were assured, then Britain would join other countries in finding "loan credits" for Germany in order to play her part in a new co-operative world. The interesting point about the whole incident was, who was responsible for disclosing the text of these conversations? "That is a question to which I should like to know the answer myself," Mr. Chamberlain said in the House. The "Daily Express" declared that the leakage came from Herr Wohltat himself and that he told German diplomats and journalists in London that he was in touch with Mr. Hudson. "Ribbentrop's men passed the news around as propaganda in London and Berlin, with effect," said the "Daily Express." "It was offered to the 'Daily Express' and also to the 'Evening | Standard.' Both newspapers refused to print it."