FRENCH DISPUTE CONTINUES

Southland Times, Issue 23406, 13 January 1938, Page 5

FRENCH DISPUTE CONTINUES

INDUSTRIAL LEADERS’ DEMANDS. REJECTED

SIDELIGHT ON CAGOULARDS CONSPIRACY

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright)

(Received January 12, 7.40 p.m.) LONDON, January 12.

The Paris correspondent of The Times says that the industrial peace conference which was to have been held today did not eventuate because the Prime Minister (M. Camille Chautemps) refused to accede to the demands of M. Gignoux, president of the Employers’ Federation. M. Gignoux demanded an invitation to the so-called company unions which the employers are attempting to organize to combat the “monopoly” of the federated unions.

Allegations against the Cagoulards by the Minister for the Interior (M. Max Dormoy) made worse the financial atmosphere, resulting in increased pressure on the franc and necessitating the intervention of the Exchange Fund on a large scale. . M. Dormoy has given £7OO as a promised reward for information about the perpetrators of the bomb outrages at the Arc de Triomphe to the Surete Nationale.

The police arrested two engineers, Vogel and Vauclard, employed at the Michelin factory, whom Locuti, the engineer who was arrested yesterday, allegedly inculpated. ■ The Michelin employees staged a “folded arms” strike for 15 minutes as a protest “against the presence of terrorists in our midst.” The Federated trades unionists have issued a manifesto demanding dissolution of the company unions, of which Locuti, Vogel and Vauclard are members.

The investigation into the activities of the Cagoulards, the Rightist conspirators whose plot to restore the French Monarchy was exposed in. November, is entering an entirely new phase, according to the Minister for the Interior (M. Max Dormoy) in an address to journalists on Monday. M. Dormoy alleged that Locuti, an engineer in the Michelin factory, had confessed that he placed a bomb in the Federation of Employers’ building on September 12. and that Macon, who had since joined General Franco’s troops in Spain, took a bomb to the metallurgical offices. Locuti allegedly added that Maintainier, an engineer, and Moreau Delameuse, a wealthy industrialist, assisted in the preparation of plans for the manufacture of the bombs. M. Dormoy added that all three had been arrested. They belonged to a notorious terrorist organization whose aim was to provoke civil war in France in order to lead to a foreign war. A second confession was made by Thomas Bourlier. an officer of the Army reserve. After Bourlier’s confession, which - referred to details of the Cagoulards’ army, the police made a search of 16 houses and seized numerous documents.