PLOT AND COUNTER PLOT.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13178, 10 February 1936, Page 2

PLOT AND COUNTER PLOT.

AUSTRIAN MONARCHY QUESTION. SPEAKINO OUT OF TURN. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, February 7. The Manchester Guardian’s Paris correspondent says the Quai Oorsay heaved a sigh of relief as soon as Prince Star hem berg departed for Vienna, as Paris was fast becoming a hotbed of Austrian political intrigue, culminating in Archduke Otto’s dash from Belgium to Paris, despite the police advice that a meeting with Prince Star hem berg would do the Hapsburg cause more harm than good. It is almost impossible to get any real truth of the situation, which is abounding with contradiction and blunders. Archblunders seem to have been committed by Archduke Otto, but everyone else concerned has made mistakes. Prince Starhembei g’s reported assurances to M. Flinden on February 2, that Austria would not attempt to restore the Hapsburgs without first consulting the Little Entente, are now hotly denied by the Austrian Government spokesman, who pointed out that for Austria to ask permission of States that had formerly been part of her Empire would be unworthy of her great past traditions. Everyone is now asking whether M. Flindin misunderstood the Prince or whether the journalists misunderstood M. Flindin.' or Starhemberg who, in a moment of aberration, actually made a promise which he now wants to recall. Starhemberg declared at the final interview that Austria has not abandoned heir inonarchial principle, and she intended as a sovereign state, to order her own affairs which included the monarchist question. Nevertheless she would do nothing to disturb the peace of Europe. It is equally obscure whether Archduke Otto saw Starhemberg, though the Austrian Legation flatly denied a meeting. It appears that there are some direct contacts, if not between Starhemberg and Otto, at least between Starhemberg and Baron Weisner, head of the Monarchist Party, who also “happened to be in Paris.” Weisner made a statement to the Press in addition to his conversation with Starhemberg, and when repeating the almost identical words of Starhemberg’s final interview, ho emphasised that the restoration of the monarchy could be carried off at a moment’s notice.