FRANCE AND ALSACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20171, 4 February 1929, Page 9

FRANCE AND ALSACE.

REPLY TO AUTONOMISTS.

ECHOES ACROSS THE RHINE.

POINCARE'S LENGTHY SPEECH.

Australian and N.Z. Press Association. (Received February 2, 5.5 p.m.) PARIS, Feb. 2

The Premier, M. Poincaro, spoke for 10 hours in the Chamber of Deputies on tho subject of Alsace. He aroused the anger of those who are in favour of autonomy for tho Alsatians by giving quotations from their speeches which clearly showed a separatist' tendency.

Each time the autonomists endeavoured to minimise tho importance of these quotations M. Poincaro retortedOh, you disavow them." The Premier argued that when the Alsatian autonomists supported tho thesis of national minorities they awoke the echoes ■across the Rhine. The speech is to be published in pamphlet form and distributed throughout Alsace.

GERMAN PROPAGANDA, POINCARE UTTERS A TAUNT. HERR STRESEMANN IN REPLY. Australian and N.Z. Press Association. (Received February 3, 5.5 p.m.) BERLIN, Feb. 2. It is reported in Berlin that M.' Poincaro, in tho course of his speech in the French Chamber of Deputies, taunted Germany with having a propaganda fund amounting to £4,525,000. The German Foreign Minister, Herr Stresemann, states that the fund only amounts to £1,075,000. The chief items are: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, secret service, £300,000; promotion of news services abroad, £120,000; news services at home, £20,800; promotion of humanitarian and cultural relations in foreign countries, £300,000.

Ilerr Stresemann argues that the £400,000 allotted to tho Ministry in charge of Occupied Territories could hardly be regarded as propaganda money, because, after all, the occupied zones are part of tho German Empire and require special care.