NAVAL COMPROMISE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20536, 11 October 1928, Page 9

NAVAL COMPROMISE

LEAKAGE OF INFORMATION. MR HEARS! RESPONSIBLE. (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, October 9. (Received Oct. 10, at 10 p.m.) The Paris correspondent of the Morning Post says that there is considerable sympathy with Harold Horan, and Mr Hearst is regarded as the grand criminal of the piece. It is generally believed that he obtained the document at Geneva, and his conduct is even more inexcusable when it is realised that on his return from Geneva he was welcomed officially by the French Government as an honoured guest, and at the very moment of dining with M. Bertlielot at Quai d’Orsay he had in his pocket a document from M. Berthelot’s department to which he had no moral right, and which he intended to use to the detriment of France in other quarters. It is stated that the document bore the imprint “ French section of the League of Nations,” therefore it is held it was not the property of the French Foreign Office, but of the .League. It is stated that it had been handed to Mr Hearst at a private luncheon party by a high official of Quai d’Orsay, who, it is believed, was hostile to the idea of the Naval Pact.—Australian Press Association. A previous message stated that there was a surprising development in the leakage of the Anglo-French naval compromise when detectives arrested Harold Horan, chief Paris correspondent of the Universal International News Services, which serve the Hearst press. Horan was questioned and released, but later he was given the alternative of signing an agreement to leave France before Thursday, or committal to the Sante Prison pending trial on a charge of being in possession of stolen documents. He chose .to quit, and he will depart on Thursday unless there are further developments. Horan received the document from Mr Hearst, who was recently in Paris, therefore he had no option but to transmit it to New York. Mr Hearst has since telegraphed to the American Embassy taking full responsibility for publication, and the Embassy has lodged a protest against the expulsion of Horan.