LADY CHAMBERLAIN IN ROME

Southland Times, Issue 23442, 24 February 1938, Page 5

LADY CHAMBERLAIN IN ROME

SUSPICION AROUSED IN BRITAIN

LONDON, February 22 A message from Rome says that Lady Chamberlain, widow of Sir Austen Chamberlain, denies the suggestion in a section of the British Press that she is a sort of unofficial envoy in Italy. Her visit is private. “Signor Mussolini is an old friend of mine and Sir Austen,” she said. “We knew Count Ciano long before he became Foreign Minister.” There has been a suggestion that her reports influenced her brother-in-law, Mr Neville Chamberlain, she conveying Signor Mussolini’s desire for the restoration of friendship to England. No anti-British matter has been broadcast from Bari radio station for the past two or three days. In the House of Commons Mr Herbert Morrison, winding up the Labour side of the debate on Mr Eden’s resignation, said that if any unofficial third party were intervening between the representatives of Britain and a foreign Power the House of Commons had the right to know whether this was the first occasion on which such a thing had occurred, whether this unofficial person was located in London or Rome and whether it was a man or a woman.