STAFF TALKS IN MOSCOW

Southland Times, Issue 23888, 5 August 1939, Page 7

STAFF TALKS IN MOSCOW

Importance Attached

By Soviet

PRACTICAL DETAILS TO BE DISCUSSED

(United Press Assn— Telegraph Copyright) MOSCOW, August 3. Marshal Element Voroshilov, Soviet Commissar of War, will conduct the staff talks with the Soviet,, assisted by the Navy Commissar, Admiral Kuznetsov, the Air Force Chief, General Loktionov, and the Army Chief of Staff, General Shaposhnikov, and his adjutant, Colonel Morovinov. The Soviet regards the talks as most important and the delegation is responsible only to the dictator (M. Joseph Stalin). The Soviet Press, however, publishes an article by Mr David Lloyd George attacking the British Prime Minister (Mr Chamberlain) for not securing an agreement with Russia before guaranteeing Poland, Rumania and Greece. Mr Lloyd George’s sentiments are similar to those voiced by the Soviet commentators. The special correspondent of The Times in Moscow, recording the impression made by Mr Chamberlain s speech on July 31, adds that matters have now got far enough to en^| e practical details to be discussed. We now have M. Molotov’s word that the coming military mission will enable the remaining divergencies of view to be eliminated,” he says. “It looks as if the Soviet is at last ready to be convinced.”

The City of Exeter has been specially chartered to take the British and French military missions to Leningrad. The party will number at least 30. The talks are expected to last a number of weeks.

The Moscow correspondent of The Times says that Russia wants to know what England and France will do in the event of war against Germany, as M. Stalin made it abundantly clear that she will guard against being manoeuvred into fighting the battles of the Western Powers.

A Press telegram states that today’s Anglo-French-Russian negotiations lasted an hour and a-quarter and that the atmosphere at the end was described as optimistic, says a British Official Wireless message from Rugby. It is generally believed' in well-inform-ed circles in Moscow that the conversations covered the formulation of the agenda for the forthcoming staff talks and a further attempt to establish a mutually agreeable definition of indirect aggression. “COMPLICATED TASK” IN MOSCOW LORD HALIFAX SPEAKS OF DIFFICULTIES (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, August 3. The Foreign Secretary (Lord Halifax), replying in the House of Lords in the foreign affairs debate, said that the effort to negotiate an agreement with Russia was a continuation of the endeavour to organize a ' combination in resistance to aggression. The Government was blamed for delay but he suggested that not sufficient allowance was made for the difficulties of preparing an instrument that would cover every possible contingency. That task was very complicated. In any case it was further complicated by the necessity of meeting the new- technique of aggression—or providing, that was to say, for what was called “indirect aggression.”

Lord Halifax made it clear that the chief cause of the delay in finally reaching an agreement—of the necessity of which both sides were convinced—was the question of the precise form to be given to the definition of indirect aggression—"this elusive shadow.” as he called it.

The object was to find a formula to cover indirect aggression without encroaching on the independence and neutrality of other States. It was no secret that the proposals Britain and France had made appeared to the Soviet to be insufficiently comprehensive while the formula favoured by Russia appeared to Britain and France 'to go too far in the other direction.

It had been assumed in some quarters that, if Britain had been represented by a Cabinet Minister instead of her Ambassador, quick agreement would have been secured. He did not think that experience supported that view. The fact that Britain and France had decided to dispatch military missions to Moscow was evidence of their determination to bring these negotiations to an early and successful conclusion.