CABLE BREVITIES French Anti-Communist Leaders To Meet

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 December 1947, Page 7

CABLE BREVITIES French Anti-Communist Leaders To Meet

Two hundred and fifty French antiCommunist trade union leaders will meet in Paris on December 18, to examine the situation of unions after the recent strikes, and to decide on the methods of freeing unions from Communist influence.' Mr Leon Jouhaux, leader- of the non-Com-munist minority in the Confederation of Trade Unions, will attend.—Paris, December 15. Czechs Release Suspect The Prague correspondent of Reuters says that security police have released Major Polak, a Czech employed by the British Council, who was one of 36 detained last month on suspicion of being implicated in a plot against the State—London, December 15.

The Pope to Broadcast The British United Press correspondent qt Vatican City states: Pope Pius XII will make a world-wide broadcast on Christmas Eve, when he will receive the members of the Sacred College of Cardinals. Midnight Mass at Saint Peter’s, which the Pope will celebrate, will also be broadcast. —London, Dec. 13., Death Sentences In Greece

“Sixty-one persons were sentenced to death in Greece yesterday,” says the Athens correspondent of The Times. “They comprised 29 alleged Communists, including five women, who were sentenced by the Salonika military tribunal for capital offences, 21 sentenced by another Salonika Court for collaboration, and 11 sentenced in Athens for murders committed during the 1944 revolution.— London, Dec. 13. British Films Mr J. Arthur Rank has decided to dispense with expensive prestige films and to increase his output with cheaper productions, says the Daily Herald. “Hamlet,” which was completed recently at a cost of £400,000, will .probably be Mr Rank’s last expensive production. Because no Hollywood film has entered Britain after the imposition of the tax on imported films four months ago, Mr Rand intends to make 48 films in 1948, compared with 30 in 1947. — London, Dec. 13. Economic Differences

' “There is no reason why the differences in the British and American economic systems should hamper the natural developments of British and American relations,” said the United States Secretary of State (General Marshall) in a speech in London. In different circumstances the two nations had evolved different approaches to modern economic problems, but he was confident that this offered no serious difficulties between two peoples enjoying a common heritage. They should proclaim the existence of the benefit of a relationship unique in history.—London, Dec. 12.

Appeal To Industrialists - The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps), in a message to British industrial leaders, urges them to postpone unessential replacements and rely a little longer on the maintenance and adaptation of their existing plant, as part of the Government’s plan to reduce capital expenditure. Schemes for expanding exports and supplying the basic industries like coal, steel, and agriculture, should continue, but the expansion of production for the home market generally must be deferred. The Federation of British Industries and the National Union of Manufacturers support Sir Stafford Cripps’s appeal. —London, December 13.