SECRET ARMING

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 18 December 1926, Page 5

SECRET ARMING

GERMANY ACCUSED.

SOCIALIST ALLEGATIONS HASTENS POLITICAL CRISTS. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION- COB YRIGIII BERLIN, Dec. 16. A sudden political crisis is due to the Social Democrats submitting to the Reichstag a motion of no-confidence in the Government and declaring that Herr Gessler (Minister of Defence), was permitting the Nationalists to make the army their tools. Herr Schneidemann was greeted with howls of rage and cries of “Traitor!’’ and “Scoundrel!” from the Nationalists, who accused Herr Gessler of permitting officers to obtain money and munitions from Russia thereby thwarting Dr. Stresemann’s foreign policy. _ Dr. Marx denied the allegations and protested that a crisis must he avoided in view of the important international questions remaining unsettled. It is expected that a vote will he taken in the Reichstag to-morrow, when the fate of the Government will be decided. The speech of the Socialist leader (Herr Seheidemann) to-day created a sensation, and he was 'greeted with cries of ‘‘knave” and “traitor,” the uproar culminating in the Nationalists walking out in a body. Herr Schneidemann accused the Government of permitting secret co-opera-tion between the army and Russia, notably for the manufacture of German war material on Soviet soil. He alleged that the Reichswehr had developed a State within a State, and followed its own policy and laws. It had relations with an aeroplane factory in Moscow and with an undertaking started for the purpose of establishing the armament industry in Russia, to which officers had gone with false passports. He gave the names of four ships which in September and October _ arrived at Stettin from Leningrad with cargoes of shells. Such secret arming, he declared. had Droceeded on a colossal scale. Socialists desired 1 good relations with Russia, but they must lie clean and honest.

Dr. Marx, in reuly. outined the measures taken to reform the Reichswehr, but declined to answer Herr Scheidemann’s speech, observing that its details related to past events which had been brought forward publicly before the Government had time to investigate them. Herr AYirth defended the policy or securing the Polish frontier on which most of the irregularities mentioned had their origin. A Communist speaker emphatically denied on** dealing’ between the Roiehswor and Russia. NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE CARRIED. GOVERNMENT RESIGNS. Received 9.55 a.m. to-day. BERLIN, Dec. 17. The Reichstag passed the vote of no-confidence in the Government, which has resigned.