BLOCKADE OF FRANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 89, 14 March 1941, Page 5

BLOCKADE OF FRANCE.

ATTEMPTS AT REMOVAL. AMERICAN HELP SOUGHT. LONDON, March 13. The Vichy Government has expressed satisfaction with the efforts to loosen the British blockade, referring to the speech bv Mr W. C. Bullitt, former Ambassador to France, urging the relaxation of the blockade. Reuteri reports that ii.ii.ndreds l of children, carrying the French flag and the Stars and Stripes, greeted the American ship Coldharbour, which the British authorities permitted to pass through the blockade to Marseilles with comforts. There is a strong contrast between the comments on the situation by the Vichy authorities and the Germancontrolled Paris radio. The latter’s attitude supports the view that Germany would like a clash between Prance ajid Britain. Vichy hopes the blockade will be lifted and that the United States will use her influence to get supplies through. HELPING GERMANY. FRENCH MUNITION FIRMS. LONDON, March 12. A British spokesman said to-day that it was known that a number of firms in Unoccupied France arc working on orders for the German High Command, making aeroplane parts, sections of tanks, aluminium fittings, munitions, ad motor-boats. It was also known, he said, that Axis commissions at the Vichy ports see that there is no delay in sending to Germany cargoes of cereals, oil, copra, and phosphates from French North Africa. The Vichy Cabinet have issued a semi-official statement denying that they have put naval and air bases in Morocco at the disposal of Germany.

Free French circles in London say that a party of nearly 80 military and economic experts have recently been added to the Armistice Commission at Casablanca. Though the German infiltration into North Africa has grown somewhat, the view expressed by Official Free French circles is that it is unlikely that the Germans will try to attack North Africa.