VICHY SURRENDER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 257, 27 September 1940, Page 7

VICHY SURRENDER

COLONIAL TERRITORIES. GROWING RESENTMENT. (United Press Association—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 9 a.m.) RUGBY, Sept 26. “In Africa Vichy shows fig'ht, if only in defence of its chains. At the other side of the Eastern Hemisphere, however, where they are not stiffened by the support of their masters, the Vichy Government have allowed the firm stand at first made by their commander on the spot to fall away into a collapse.” This opinion is expressed by the Times in referring to the setback suffered by General de Gaulle in his first attempt to seize the initiative in Africa. The paper adds: “Indo-China occupies a strategic position of first importance in the Par East and its fate cannot be a matter of indifference to either Britain or the United States, while, of course, the interest of China is immediate. “Helpless as Vichy would have been at this distance if they were unassisted, it is clear that in making firm resistance to the Japanese encroachments they would not have stood alone. The precise extent of the concessions they have made has not been made public, but it is certain that a new and grave threat to the Burma Road has been opened, and no one who knows the methods of/Tokio supposes that the whittling away of the French empire in Asia will cease at the point laid down in the agreement. POLICY DEPLORED.

‘‘The policy of surrender is bringing no less shame on the Vichy Government in its application to Mediterranean lands. The people of Syria are showing that they resent the dishonour to France more than do the men who occupy the seiits of authority, ltather than submit to the Italians who, since the rape of Albania, have ranked as the arch-enemies of Islam, Bedouin soldiers are slipping away on their camels from the camps near Damascus in search of liberty, and many try to achieve it in union with their old rival the Arabs of Iraq. “No less significant is the movement among Senegalese sharp-shooters of what was General AVeygand’s army for General de Gaulle ”