FORGED DOCUMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 80, 4 March 1929, Page 9

FORGED DOCUMENT

MILITARY PACT STORY. \ MAN ARRESTED AND CONFESSES. DUTCH PAPER PAID GOOD PRICE (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). (Australian Press Association.) Received March 4, 9.5 a.m. LONDON, March 3. A man was arrested on the Brussels -Amsterdam express at midnight tonight and charged with being the author of the alleged secret military convention between France and Belgium, which was recently published in a Dutch newspaper and which caused a diplomatic sensation. A cable message from Brussels stated that tho newspapers in the capital give the name of the arrested man as Frank Heine. Heine confessed that he forged the document, using a seal made from the impression of a French twenty-five centime piece. He intended to sell the forgery to a German espionage service, but, instead, he sold it to the Dutch newspnper for a good price. Heine is alleged to have a bad record. It is stated that he was born in 1896 near Brussels of a Dutch-Jew-ish father and German mother.

HEINE ADMITS RESPONSIBILITY. PRE-WAR TREATY PLAGIARISED. “SIMPLY CHEATED A BUYER.” (Australian Press Association.) BRUSSELS, March 3. Heine admits that he is entirely responsible for the Dutch paper’s forgeries. The treaty was a plagiarism of a pre-war treaty between France and Russia. This treaty was recently published by the Soviet. It did not concern Belgium and Holland. Heine declares that the German Espionage Bureau at Mhillieim, to which he first offered the documents, disbelieved their authenticity and refused them. He negotiated with the headquarters of the Activists, of which he was a member, and sold the documents through the good offices of an Antwerp journalist, whose arrest is shortly expected. “I do not consider that I sold France and Belgium. I simply cheated a buyer, which is a venial swindle, Heine declared.

WORD SHOULD NOT BE DOUBTED. BELGIAN PREMIER’S STATEMENT. (Australian Press Association. —United Service.) Received March 4, 9.5 a.m. BRUSSELS, March 2. The Premier, M. Hymans, speaking at a municipal banquet at Brussels, declared that Belgium had been carrying on delicate, but friendly, economic negotiations with Holland. In consequence of the publication of the forged documents, voices had been raised attributing aggressive schemes and manoeuvres to Belgium. M. Hymans added: . “\V r c have categorically, and solemnly, contradicteu these aprocryphal documents upon all points. We have got the right ‘to ask that our word should not be doubted. Belgium personified the cause of right during the war.. Who imagines that slie is squandering her patrimony of honour in occult machinations threatening the peace of the world ? The Belgian public are wholly behind our protests.”

“FORGERY FROM BEGINNING TO END.” General Gallet, chief of tho Belgian General Staff, whoso name figures largely in tho alleged minutes of the military conference between France and Belgium, categorically denounces tlie newspaper Dagblad’s documents as a “forgery from beginning to end.” General Gallet reserves the right to demand compensation for the libel.

GERMAN ATTITUDE,

DR STRESEMANN ACCEPTS ASSURANCES. i Australian Press Association.) LONDON, March 2. The Foreign Ministers of the nations arc on their way to Geneva in readiness for the League Council on Monday. T)r. Stresemann has left Berlin, which is a sign that he accepts the assurances regarding the Dagblad documents, for he declaerd that he would not go unless the matter was cleared up. Close friends of Dr. Stresemann say that he is specially gratified with his conversation with Sir Hamer Greenwood, of the British Foreign Office. Tho interview with Paris was also cordial, but it is believed that the interview between the German Minister and the Belgian Foreign Minister took a stormy course. According to the German version, the Belgian Minister . adopted a rather gruff attitude and at last admitted that Belgium’s patience had been sorely tried. The Observer comments: “Tho denials of tho alleged treaty’s authentity aye not comprehensive enough to he accepted, but it is unfortunate that disquiet is periodically provoked in Europe by disclosures which have not been unfounded. Public opinion is right on the qui vive, for secret military commitments are the straight path to anotner disaster ” The Observer concludes by referring to a new Hearst Press scare, dealing with an alleged kindred secret understanding, which Whitehall has promptly declared to be false as far aa Britain is concerned. DENIALS ACCEPTED. (Australian Press Association.) AMSTERDAM, March 2. A message from Tho Hague states that, questioned in the Second Chamber the Foreign Minister declared that in view of the denials on behalf of the French, Belgian, and British Governments, there was no reason for the Dutch Government to make any representations to the countries named.