NOT WELL TIMED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23686, 19 December 1938, Page 9

NOT WELL TIMED

ITALIAN COLONIAL CLAIM OUTBURST AGAINST FRANCE LONDON WELCOMES MODERATION (British Official Wireless) (United Hress Association) (By Electric Telegraon Coovrtshti RUGBY, Dec. 17. (Received Dec. 18, at 7 p.m.) Further details of the visit to Rome next month of the Prime Minister (Mr Chamberlain) and the Foreign Secretary (Lord Halifax) were, it is understood, discussed yesterday when the British Ambassador in Rome (Lord Perth) visited Count Ciano. . No Formal Demand The more moderate tone now adopted towards France in the Italian press is welcomed in London, as it is felt that an improved atmosphere for the visit will result. The Times, discussing editorially the territorial claims recently advanced spectacularly but unofficially by Italy, draws attention to the statement by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs (M. Bonnet) that no formal demand for the cession of any territory has been made by Italy, and to Mr Chamberlain's announcement that Britain's view of the undertaking to respect the status quo in the Mediterranean embodied in the Anglo-Italian agreement applied to Tunis. Object Defeated

"The Italian design entirely defeats its object," The Times adds, "for there can be little doubt that the external menace helped M. Daladier to overcome his internal difficulties. And from the British point of view, the Italan move has seemed no less ill-timed, for it contradict* both the letter and the spirit of the agreement finally concluded just a fortnight before." The Times doubts whether the moment was really opportune from the Italian point of view, as " an immense tract of African country further south has only recently been acquired and is as yet neither fully organised nor even fully absorbed."