AXIS AGGRESSION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 267, 9 October 1940, Page 7

AXIS AGGRESSION

POLICY IN RUMANIA.

FAMILIAR TECHNIQUE

(United Press Association—Copyright.) . (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 9.53 a.m.) RUGBY, Oct. 8. The report that Italian troops are associated with the Germans in the advance into Rumania is regarded here rather as an Axis gesture than as an indication that Italy is playing an important part in the latest aggression. Scant attention is also paid here to the form of words in whic'ii the new development was announced to the world, and it is treated merely as a continuation of the policy with which the world is familiar. ' The pretext for the aggression is too flimsy for serious consideration. Some of the circumstances attending the new development are, however, a matter of direct concern to Britain. Several leading British businessmen in Rumania have been arrested and subjected to physical violence, in order to extort confessions that they intended sabotage in the oil fields. These charges, says the Times, are a hollow sham. “It would have been criminal negligence on the part of Rumania not to have made plans lor the destruction of the oil wells and other objects of military value,” says the paper. “In drawing such plans, the British and French managers and engineers on the oil fields may well have been consulted, but the Rumanian authorities are guilty of the most revolting hypocrisy when they make such projects the pretext for the brutal maltreatment of British subjects.

“These things will be remembered in tjae days of reckoning. The latest movement may be the first of deeds not words. “We were warned to expect a result from the Brenner meeting. If l so, it is neither a very terrifying nor a very significant contribution to the Nazi campaign against Britain.”