GUARANTEES BY BRITAIN

Southland Times, Issue 23840, 10 June 1939, Page 7

GUARANTEES BY BRITAIN

MEASURE TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE TURKISH CO-OPERATION GIVES SATISFACTION (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, June 8. The Foreign Secretary (Lord Halifax), speaking in the House of Lords debate on foreign affairs, described the guarantees given in Eastern Europe by Britain as a measure to restore confidence by providing for effective resistance to aggression, the use of force, or the threat of force. Referring first to Poland, Lord Halifax said that reciprocal declarations had been made pending the conclusion of a permanent agreement which would soon be concluded.

The assurances to Rumania and Greece were unilateral in form and did not require any further definition. The first stage of the negotiations with Turkey had been brought to a successful issue just a month ago. The later consultations for which that declaration provided were being actively pursued and he hoped before long to be able to announce that they had been successfully completed. The attitude of friendly co-operation which Turkey had adopted during these discussions had been a source of the greatest satisfaction to Britain and gave a good augury for the consolidation of peace in the Mediterranean and in SouthEastern Europe. DISCUSSIONS WITH RUSSIA “As to our association with the Soviet,” said Lord Halifax. “I have had the advantage of a personal discussion with the French Ministers in Paris and Geneva and the continuance of my conversations with the Russian Ambassador in London. As a result of those discussions the Anglo-French were made to the Soviet, proposals which, in our view, met all the essential points on which there might have been difficulty. But there remained one or two difficulties to be solved. x “We have never attempted and we would not think it right to thrust assurances upon countries which do not want them or to take any steps which might compromise in other quarters the relations of those countries,” said Lord Halifax when speaking of the Baltic States. “Our only desire is to maintain their neutrality. .At the same time, it is to be recognized that, from the point of view of her own security, the Soviet cannot be disinterested in the independence of her neighbours. I hope that we may be able to find a means bv which that difficulty and any others which may arise will be solved.” The Australian Press Association says that Mr William Strang, head of the Central European Department at the Foreign Office, is going to Moscow with a new formula to overcome the difficulties over the Baltic States.