FRANCE REPLIES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 102, 31 March 1936, Page 8

FRANCE REPLIES

QUESTIONS FOR GERMANY. SANCTITY OF TREATIES. • (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) » Received March 30, 12.25 p.m. PARIS, March 29. “Franco is willing to discuss peace with Germany if a solid basis for discussion is created,” declared M. Flandin (Foreign Minsitcr) when speaking at Vezelay. Tie added: “We are no less resolved to establish a durable peace than to denounce tricks and manoeuvres menacing peace and preparing new wars. Wliat will be the value of any treaty if Germany reserves the right to repudiate it in the name of the moral, vital rights of her people? What will be her attitude regarding any treaty she signs if she does not recognise an independent impartial judge? What judge will she accept? “Herr Hitler must explain what is meant by the vital necessity for Germany to obtain full equality of rights. If Germany claims the right to possess and exploit colonies, to which colonies does she refer? Does she demand an important colonial empire? _ At whose expense will she constitute’ it? It is significant that at the moment Herr Hitler appeals for peace Nazi propaganda redoubles in Austria, Danish Schleswig, Silesia, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland. Has he, in order to prepare for 25 years’ peace, remilitarised and fortified the demilitarised zone? _ “Tlie German conception of international life is force; that of the remainder of the world is the conception of right. France is convinced that mutual assistance, obligatory and immediate, in the event of unprovoked aggression is the surest preventive of war,” M. Flandin added. PRO-HITLER VOTE. PRACTICALLY 100 PER CENT. Received March 30, 1.50 p.m.' BERLIN, March 29. Tlie result of the elections —a foregone conclusion-—is hailed throughout Germany with jubilation, the pro-Hitler poll being nearly 100 jier cent, as compared with 88.1 per cent, affirmatives when 95 per cent, of the electorate polled in the 1934 jilebiscite. Complete calm marked the voting, which was conducted with correctness, orderliness, and dignity, despite it being tlie first for many years in which the sale of beer and spirits was permitted. Many polling booths were situated in hotels and beer gardens. Several Communists and Socialists in Frankfurt were arrested for inserting anti-Hitler pamphlets in private letter boxets.

The voting was practically completed by 4 p.m. The most prompt community was Wiebelsdorf (Thuringia), whose 54 adults had all voted for Herr Hitler by 9.40 a.m. Many districts equalled this percentage. Results arrived from all parts of the world. The first negative votes recorded were from Egypt, where the German residents of Alexandria embarked on a ‘liner and steamed twenty miles out to sea. They voted 1200 for and ten against Hitler. Germans in Rumania, who also voted on shipboard, polled 1052 for and thirteen against. Coblenz, in the Rhineland, voted 5700 for and 386 against; the Saar voted 99.7 per cent. pro-Hitler. The 104 passengers and crew on the Zeppelin Rindenburg, polling aboard, cast a 100 per cent. pro-Hitler vote. Ex-Prince Ruppreeht and his wife did not vote. Frau Fritzpaatsch, living in the Berlin suburb' of Langwitz, gave birth to a son at 8.15 and a daughter at 8.30. She voted in bed at 10 o’clock. An elderly male invalid resident of Neukolln was taken to the polls. He voted and went home and died of heart-failure. Special portable booths surrounded hospital patients. Tlie inmates of the Dachau concentration camp were allowed to vote at booths within a locked enclosure. The citizens of Munich, where Hitler was in gaol in 1923, were so eager to vote for him that they did not bother to observe the secrecy of the ballot. GERMAN’S COMMENT. “NOTHING GOING TO HAPPEN.” Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, March 30. The opinion that the occupation of the Rhinland was no more significant than the reintroduction of conscription in Germany a year ago was expressed by Herr E. Von Dziegielewski, an officer of the German Qonsular Service, lvlio arrived by the Maunganui qp route to Sydney, where he will be stationed. Although he only knew the developments in the Rhineland from the cable news, he was satisfied that nothing serious was going to happen.