MODIFIED TERMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25303, 13 August 1943, Page 5

MODIFIED TERMS

ITALIAN EXPECTATIONS GERMANS’ CLOSE WATCH (Rec. 1.30 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 12.. “The Italian press hints that modified British and American terms will issue from the Quebec talks, but the German forces in Northern Italy are poised for a coup de grace should Italy more than flirt with such terms," reports the Berne correspondent of the New York Times. Meanwhile, the Italian Minister' of Commerce has ordered the ‘temporary suspension of all deliveries of war materials and foodstuffs to the Reich, and issued a decree to slow down Italian industry from a seven-day week to one of six days. Semi-official sources explain that the latter measure is the first of other impending measures to place Italian economy on a peace-time basis.” The correspondent says that the real reason, however, is the 82 per cent, deficit in German coal deliveries i; recent months, which, incidentally, completely stopped after Mussotini \vas ousted.

The Istanbul correspondent of the Daily Express says that Badoglio’s temporising has fulfilled its intended purpose—namely, to assist Hitler’s secret preparations for regaining air supremacy by building vast numbers of aircraft in centres unable to be reached by Allied bombers. Intelligence reports reaching neutral diplomatic circles in Istanbul, which are remarkably well informed of events in Italy and Germany, show that tne

German High Command planned new aircraft factories in Czechoslovakia, Austria, south-west Poland, and Jugoslavia. These factories to-day are nearly ready.