NEW POLICY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23175, 22 October 1938, Page 13

NEW POLICY

FRANCE'S AIM PACT WITH HITLER I strum; inducements DROP SOVIET ALLIANCE return of cameboons By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received October 21, 9.5 p.m.) PARIS. Oct. 21 , Far-reaching steps to achieve a close understanding with Germany and possibly with Italy, are reported to have been discussed at a conference between the French Prime Minister, M. Daladier, and the Foreign Minister, M. Bonnet, and also in talks between M. t Bonnet and the British Ambassador, Sir Eric Phipps. The Times' Paris correspondent says it is believed M. Bonnet's probable aims are:— (1) Mutual renunciation of war on the lines of tho Anglo-German cjeclaration. (21 The granting of a free hand to Germany in Central and F.astern Europe. (3) The unobtrusive abandonment of the Franco-Soviet Pact. (4) The possible cession to Germany of the Cameroons, her former West African colony. The Daily Telegraph's Paris correspondent says it is understood that Herr Hitler in bidding farewell to M. Andre Francois Poncet, the French Ambassador to Berlin, who is being transferred to Rome, renewed his offer of t Franco-German non-aggression pact. The German protectorate of Kainerun (known as the Cameroons) on the West Coast of Africa between British Nigeria and the French Congo was obtained by conquest by Franco-British forces during the Great War. In 1913 the whole area was divided into a French sphere (about 143,415 square miles) and a British sphere (about 34,081 square miles), and .the following year the territories were placed by the League of Nations under French *nd British mandates. - The only other ex-German territory in Africa "now held by France is Togoland (20,464 square miles) lying between Dahomej' and the Gold Coast Colony.