APPROVAL GIVEN BY PRESS

Southland Times, Issue 23793, 15 April 1939, Page 7

APPROVAL GIVEN BY PRESS

HALTING “MARCH OF POWER POLITICS”

(Received April 14, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, April 13.

The newspapers unanimously approve of the Greek and Rumanian guarantees. The Daily Telegraph says that the debate revealed an impressive unanimity on the rightness of the need for measures to halt the march of power politics and the threat to world peace. The Daily Mail believes that the new British policy of selected security should be reciprocal. It approves of not denouncing the Anglo-Italian Pact.

The News Chronicle welcomes the statement as stronger and more precise than was expected. It believes that the tendency to wobble towards appeasement has been arrested by the all-round pressure of public opinion. It regards the paucity of signs of collaboration with Russia as the chief weakness and congratulates the Government on taking the first step towards what can be made a real system of collective resistance to aggression. The Daily Herald, supporting the arguments of the Leader of the Opposition (Major C. R. Attlee), declares that British, French and Russian cooperation is the only basis on which European collective security can be built. It urges a seven-Power conference among Britain, France, Poland, Russia, Greece, Rumania and Turkey to create a real defensive front.

The Times says that British policy has taken another momentous step forward. The engagements were not lightly undertaken, but they represent a considered national decision exacted by a course of events to which no other answer was possible. It urges that it is possible for the Balkan countries, with

western support, to form a bloc, the strength of which would be a deterrent to predatory onslaughts. Referring to the German charges of encirclement, The Times declares that it could not pay a greater tribute to the patience and resolution with which Britain refused, even to the point of peril, to join any attempt circumscribing German activities until they outran even a show of legality.

The general reactions to Mr Chamberlain’s speech in London are that it is an “olive branch” to Italy. Italian circles in London are relieved that he did not denounce the Anglo-Italian Agreement. The statement had practically no effect on the Stock Exchange. The markets closed quietly. Gilt-edgeds are easier, but the German Da,wes and Young loans are better. Industrials are neglected but steady

SALE OF MATERIALS BY U.S.A.

WASHINGTON, April 13.

The Under-Secretary of State, Mr Sumner Welles, speaking at the University of Virginia, declared: “A handful of men are threatening the peace of the world. It is urgent for the United States to sell the materials needed to prevent the conquest of the peace-loving nations.” Mr Welles used words of unusual bluntness for an American diplomat.

Without naming any nation or leader, he vigorously criticized the “doctrines of persecution and tyranny” practised by the totalitarian States and uttered a caution that they are spreading rapidly “by conquest and by violence.”