MYSTERY MACHINE-GUNS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19879, 24 February 1928, Page 11

MYSTERY MACHINE-GUNS.

ST. GOTHARD DISCOVERY.

DESTRUCTION CARRIED OUT.

COMPLICATIONS POSSIBLE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received February 23, 8.45 p.m.) A. and N.Z. LONDON, Feb. £-3. A message from Bud a Pest says the machine-guns which were seized at St. Gothard on January 21 were destroyed under the supervision of a local magistrate and experts, including an engineer from an Austrian arms factory. The diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Telegraph expresses the opinion that this action wilf intensify suspicions of the Little Entente and complicate the matter when it is discussed by the Council of the League of Nations. It was reported on January 21 that there had been a great mystery about some truckloads of camouflaged Italian machine-guns which were discovered in transit at the frontier railway station of St. Gothard. Nobody knew to whom they belonged, and nobody would admit ownership. An Austro-Hungarian commission of investigation reported that Poland was their destination. In Little Entente circles, however, the finding was scoffed at. The members of the Little ♦•Entente lodged a protest at Geneva against the smuggling of arms by Hungary. They said that under the peace treaties permission must be obtained to import arms. The presentation of the Note was postponed out of 4 deference to one of the Great Powers, which was described as being-not wholly uninterested. Czecho-Slovakia disclaimed ownership of ,the machine-guns. The Little Entente is tbe alliance between the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) Rumania, and the Czechoslovak Republic, which was created by treaties between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in August, 1920, and 1922, and between Rumania and the other two Powers in 1921.