FRENCH DEVELOPMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 August 1940, Page 8

FRENCH DEVELOPMENTS

FOOD SHORTAGE

[BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.]

RUGBY, August 17

Suggestions were made by M. Bau'douin (French Foreign Minister) who in a speech yesterday appealed for the raising of the blockade, that the shortage of food in France is due to the British blockade. The suggestions are not borne out by statements of other prominent representatives of the Vichy regime. On the same day M. Caziot, French Minister for Agriculture, declared: “There is an abundance of elementary foodstuffs in France, but everything depends upon transportation. The winter will be hard, but there is no need to dramatise the situation.”

Still more significant is a recent article in the paper “Action Francaise” by M. Georges Calson, stating that a food shortage is beginning to make itself felt in France, and that it is due to numerous troops of the German garrison, German officials, military authorities and tourists, who have first right to all food supplies. German attempts to repudiate responsibility attaching to the occupying forces continue. In a talk in English to North America on August 14, a speaker on the German radio declared: “It is the duty of the German authorities to consider their own people first. Germany cannot be held responsible for feeding nations who willingly let themselves be drawn into war on the English side.” ANTI-HERRIOT DEMONSTRATION (Received August 19, 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, August 18. The German radio reports street demonstrations in Lyons against M. Herriot, after the publication of a new law against Freemasons and secret societies. M. Herriot’s position has become somewhat delicate. MARTINIQUE AGREEMENT WASHINGTON, August 17. French sources report a French and British agreement for the disarming of the aircraft-carrier Bearn and the cruiser Emile Bertin, now at Martinique. Under this agreement the flight mechanism would be dismantled and I powder partly dumped. Of the 100 aeroplanes aboard the Bearn, which had been bought in the United States, those below decks will remain on board, and 40 others will be incorporated in the Martinique defences. MONEY FROM ARGENTINE. BUENOS AIRES, August 18. • The Argentine Central Bank has authorised the transfer to France ofFrench funds blocked in the Argentine Bank after the French surrender.