FRANCE AND ITALY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23692, 27 December 1938, Page 9

FRANCE AND ITALY

VALIDITY OF AGREEMENT ACTION TAKEN BY ROME LAVAL PACT NOT RATIFIED (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) PARIS, Dec. 23. The newspapers affirm that the Laval Pact is still valid, although it was not ratified; Italy received 2500 shares in the Djibouti-Addis Ababa Railway, which should be relumed ir. the event of invalidation. It was officially stated that Italy sent a Note to M. Poncet advising that it no longer considered the Laval-Mussolini agreements valid. FRANCE'S ATTITUDE JUSTIFIED LONDON, Dec. 24. (Received Dec. 26, at 6.30 p.m.) The Times Paris correspondent states that official circles justify France's attitude with regard to Italy's denunciation of the 1935 agreement by the Duce's own words when the documents were drawn up in December, 1936: "All African accounts are now settled to the last farthing," but though there has been no ratification and Italy has not received strips of territory in Libya, Eritrea, or the Island of Dumeira, those conce:sions represented the limit beyond which imperially-minded France to-day was not prepared to go, especially in the light of Djibouti being the only French port on the route to Indo-China and Madagascar. "PROVOCATION" TO ITALY t ROME, Dec. 25. (Received Dec. 27, at 1 a.m.) Dr Gayda, in La Voce d'ltalia, declared that M. Daladier's plans to visit Corsica and Tunisia were a "povocation" to Italy. He added that France's attitude towards Italy's renunciation of the 1935 agreement tended to " aggravate her threatening and combative intransigence towards Italy."