HIS MASTER'S VOICE

Evening Star, Issue 24003, 30 September 1941, Page 7

HIS MASTER'S VOICE

SEMAK DEMANDS OH MUSSOLINI NAZIS FEAR SEPARATE PEACE LONDON, September 29. The correspondent of the * Daily Express ’ on the Italian frontier says Mussolini has summoned an immediate conference of the' Fascist Party leaders m Rome. He is faced with a German demand to extend martial law throughout Ijtaly and allow German advisers to sit on all courts martial. Already there have been mass arrests in Milan and Trieste, where martial la w was introduced. The Germans fear the Italian people want a separate peace, and the Nazis threaten completely to oooupv. Ttalv if the Gestapo and tha S.S. arc not enabled to carry out control duty. Most of the Germans do not understand that Italy’s way of fighting is due to lack of knowledge of the real strategic positions in the Mediterranean, savs the ‘ Frankfurter Zeitung,’ discussing Italv’s difficulties. It added that the Luftwaffe, after much hard fighting, knows why -Malta is still ,in English hands. “.'Our pilots know that only by constant attacks can Malta’s strategic value be reduced, and the same applies to the Mediterranean bases from which the British Fleet is constantly menacing the Italian merchant fleet. Our advantage in the Aliddle East lies in the fact that a great part of the British forces is tied up there. Germany wants to keep Italy as a war partner, and we can assure Italy that the fighting m Russia is nqt making ns; forget Italy s worries in Africa.” . FOSTERING PARTY CRISIS SUSPECTED NAZI ACTION LONDON, Sept. 29. A correspondent on the Italian frontier says the reports of an Italian break-up should not be converted by. wishful thinking into -the belief that this will hasten the end of the war. Hitler, for instance, has his own candidate for leaderhsip in Italy—* namely, the . Italiair Minister of. State, Signor Fariiiacci, who has been in Berlin three times for talks with Ribbentrop and Goebbels. There is also evit deuce that German agents are actually fostering a party crisis and betraying Mussolini. DISTRUST OF -MUSSOLINI« . GAULEITER ACTING UNDER BERLIN'S ORDERS (Rec. 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, September 29. “ Poverty, defeatism, and distrust of| Mussolini "are increasing daily in Italy,” says the ‘Daily Mail.’ “ I*pr thousands of Italians no enemy name is held, in greater, contempt than Mussolini's. They blame him for dragging them.into, war and for the poverty and hunger which have followed. At the moment, however, there is not a leader in sight strong enough to marshal forces for a revolution. The. Italians now regard Mussolini merely’ as a gauleiter acting under orders from Berlin. They recall that Mussolini once said he would rather be a German gauleiter in Italy than make peace with Britain.

FOOD SHORTAGE AND NO FIRES LONDON, September 30. The sale of textile goods has been stopped in Italy for a week. The people have been told that at the end of that time the goods will .be rationed. The Italian people, too, are getting familiar with a food shortage, and a family is lucky if it gets half a pint of milk a day. However cold it might be. no fires are to bo allowed in house* till December 1. VISITING LONDON MR MYRON TAYLOR (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 10.20 a.m.) RUGBY,. Sept. 29. Mr Myron (Taylor,, - President Roosevelt’s personal envoy to the Vatican* who is on a- brief visit to London, saw. Mr Eden to-day. AFFECTED BY HEAT JAPANESE IK INDO-CHIHA MANILA, September 29. A traveller from Saigon said that Japanese troops were unable to stand the heat there, and in the last hma weeks 600 troops have returned to Saigon from the Thai .border with tropical ailments. The traveller said there were onlv 23,000 Japanese in ludoChina, although Japan expected originally to have a garrison of at least 40,000 by" August. THAILAND’S FIRMER ATTITUDE HONOLULU, September 29. Mr Hugh Grant, formerly United States Minister at Bangkok, interviewed en route home, declared: “Thailand will certainly resist a Japanese invasion, which is now unlikely because of the probability of Allied opposition.”