EAST EUROPE

Grey River Argus, 27 July 1940, Page 8

EAST EUROPE

TURKISH TREATY Trade with Germany [Aust. '& N.Z. Cable Assn.] ANKARA, July 25. The Turkish-German trade agreement has been signed. LONDON, July 25. It is pointed out that the TurkishGerman agreement will complete the harmony of Turkey’s foreign political undertakings. ISTANBUL, July 25. The National Assembly has voted an additional extraordinary credit of £13,000,000 for defence. ROUMANIAN HEADS Consult Axis (Received July 26, 9.25 p.m.) LONDON, July 26. The “Daily Express” says: Herr Hitler and Count Ciano (Italian Foreign Minister) received M. Giguiha and M. Manoiiescu, the heads of the Roumanian Government. ai Salzburg Hitler’s Visit TO MUNICH (Received July 27, 12.8 a.m.) MUNICH, July 26. Herr Hitler has arrived here. It is understood his visit is in connection with the Salzburg talks with'Balkan statesmen. He will also open the House of German Art here on Sunday. Alleged Oil Plot ROUMANIA ARRESTS FRENCH EXPERTS. (Received July 26, 8 p.m.) BUCHAREST, July 26. The police have arrested nine French managers and technicians who have been employed in the Roumanian oil industry. All of these ar e mentioned in the German White Book alleging the British ana French plot to sabotage the production of oil. The French Ambassador has protested. FRENCH OIL DIRECTORS EXPELLED. (Received, July 26, 9 p.m.) BUCHAREST. July 26. Roumania has expelled twenty Frenchmen who have been directors and engineers of French and Belgian oil companies, the Columbia ana Concordia companies, including the managing director of the Concordia Company. Britain and Roumania LONDON MINISTER RECALLED. GERMAN INFLUENCE. RUGBY, J’uly 25. M. Tilea, the . Roumanan Minister in London, has been recalled by the Roumanian Government. The question of his successor is now under consideration. Regret is expressed in official quarters at M. Tilea’s recall. He wap appointed to London in Feburary last year. During his term oi office he has been well known for his efforts to maintain and mprove relations between Britain and Roumania.

Recent developments in Roumania, inclined to link the recall of M. Tilea, and the feverish activity of German diplomacy in south-eastern Europe, are back into the forefront of interest in diplomatic circles in London. The British policy there, as elsewhere, has for long been directed to the maintenance of the principle that outstanding questions between States should be submitted to peaceful settlement, in a spirit of mutual respect and goodwll. As the menace of Nazi aggression grew, and its sinister shadow lengthened across Europe, the British Government sought to exercise a stabilising influence, and found its efforts seconded with comprehension and loyalty by the Turkish Government. It will, for example, be recalled how in April, 1939, the British Government gave a guarantee to Roumania, after Hitler unloosed his war in Europe. British diplomacy never faltered in its counsels on behalf of Balkan solidarity, as s. safeguard against Nazi exploitation and attack. In so far as some accommodation between the States concerned, on some matters long at issue between them, was a condition of their closer co-operation and unified front, the good offices of the British Government would never be refused. On the other hand in cases where good sense enjoined that, in the face of the common danger, questions liable to' arouse passion and suspicion should be postponed, or claims should be held in restraint, against the return of conditions where a settlement by negotiation without resort to violence could be expected, the Britsh Government did not permit its sympathies and opinions on the merits of the questions themselves—sympathies often well known —prejudice its moderating influence. The Roumanian-Bulgarian frontier question may be cited as an illustr'aion. The justice of the Bulgarian claims in this region, for some time past, has been recognised by the British Government, and in the British Press they have always received sympathetic notice. But, while the strengthening of Roumanian resistance to encroach-i ments from Berlin presented itself as one of the most-important contributions to Balkan peace—Britain felt obliged to place first the safeguard-' ing of justice and freedom of Europe as a whole, and to relegate to second place the realisation of justice in one case in one part of Europe. It I is believed in London that this at-i titude is not misunderstood in Sofia. More-recent events have gone far to[ destroy the hopes on which this atti-j tude was founded, and, if the result' should be the earlier restitution to, Bulgaria, in accordance with her just' claims, British satisfaction will not be withheld, even if justice should paradoxically be aided by outside intervention, inspired by motives the reverse of just.