FRENCH VISIT TO SMALL POWERS

Southland Times, Issue 23374, 4 December 1937, Page 7

FRENCH VISIT TO SMALL POWERS

TOUR BY M. DELBOS WATCHED KEENLY

CZECH RELATIONS WITH POLAND ONE REASON

(United Press Assn.— Telegraph Copyright)

(Received December 3, 7.5 p.m.)

LONDON, December 3.

The greatest importance is attached to the tour of the Central European and Balkan countries on which the French Foreign Minister (M. Yvon Delbos) left Paris last evening.

The Paris correspondent of The Times says M. Delbos will visit the capitals of Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Responsible circles emphasize the purely general nature of the conversations contemplated, but there is little doubt that one of M. Delbos’s principal aims will be to secure an improvement in the strained relations between Poland and Czechoslovakia.

First of all M. Delbos will visit Warsaw to confer with the heads of the Polish Government. From Warsaw he will go to Cracow and afterwards to

Bucharest, Belgrade and Prague, spending two to three days in each and returning to Paris on December 19. It is officially announced that the Prime Minister (M. Camille Chautemps) will act as Foreign Minister while M. Delbos is away.

After the talks between the British and French Ministers on Monday and Tuesday the diplomatic correspondent of The Daily Herald said that British and French experts would begin immediately to examine Germany’s colonial claims and- seek a solution which could be submitted to Herr Hitler and later, probably, to some form of international conference on colonies.

The correspondent affirmed that both Britain and France were agreed that Germany’s colonial claims must be considered as an immediate political issue. The general idea was that the French Foreign Minister (M. Yvon Delbos) should learn what concessions the statesmen of Central Europe were prepared to make, if any. to satisfy Herr Hitler’s demands, after which there would be a pooling of ideas between London and Paris before any approach was made to Italy and Germany to ascertain what contributions they were prepared to make in the interests of world peace.