TOO LITTLE CARE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1934, Page 7

TOO LITTLE CARE

PROTECTION OF KING MINISTER’S RESIGNATION MURDER AT MARSEILLES SEVERE CRITICISM MADE DIFFICULTIES IN FRANCE By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 11 p.m. London, Sept. 12. Following severe criticism of his administration in connection with the ineffectual precautions before the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia, M. Albert Sarraut, French Minister of the Interior, has resigned. The reconstruction of the French Government necessitated by M. Barthou’s death and M. Sarraut’s resignation will be even more difficult than when the National Ministry was formed, says the News-Chronicle’s Paris correspondent. It is announced in the lobbies that M. Gaston Doumergue, the Prime Minister, will resign immediately after M. Barthou’s funeral in order to form a new Cabinet, excluding M. Sarraut and M. Henri Cheron, Minister of Justice. M. Berthoin, Director of the Surete National, and M. Jouhannaux, prefect of the department of Bouches du Rhone, whose wife closed the dying King’s eyes, have been suspended. The French censor has deleted from film records the lynching of the assassin and close-ups of the dying King as too gruesome for public exhibition. Despite the vigilance of the authorities, who instructed Imperial Airways pilots to see that no films of the assassination were flown to England, one film corporation succeeded in smuggling news reels of the shooting to London, where they were widely screened. TERRIFYING REALISM. Grim and terrifying in its realism, the film shows a close-up of King Alexander dying on the floor of a motorcar, obtained by a cameraman who thrust a lens through the car window. Some of the films runs for four minutes. As a whole they show that little protection was afforded the King. The police were unable to control the crowd and obviously lost their heads after the tragedy. Thus they helped to provoke the riot which followed the shooting. One cinema at Paris evaded the ban and showed the entire film. Dr. Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, has banned the films in Germany for reasons of humanity and international tact. Scotland Yard saw uncut films of the assassination with the object of spotting international criminals. • The French police are making strenuous efforts to trace the movements of Kalemen, the assassin. Two men, believed to have been his accomplices, have been arrested at Annemasse. One revealed that if the attack at Marseilles had failed the assassination would have been attempted again at Paris. The passports of the men, who had tickets to Evian and admitted they spoke only Croatian, were isstled at Trieste. They bore the names Ladislas Benes and Jaroslav Novak, and indicated that they left Como on September 26 and entered Switzerland at Chiasso. TERRORIST ORGANISATION. The pair are believed to be members of a vast terrorist organisation. Both possessed money and wore new suits, from which the identification marks had been removed. Benes bought a purse at the shop where Kalemen bought a suit. They admit their passports are false and that they came into contact with Kalemen at Paris. Both have been taken to Paris in custody. x The assassin’s weapon, z though technically an automatic pistol, was really a machine-gun, capable of '2BO shots a minute. Kalemen used a belt of ten , cartridges, firing one by one in order to take aim. A similar weapon was found at his feet. M. Louis Barthou lies in state at the Quai d’Orsay, from which he has for so long' directed France’s foreign policy. The coffin, draped with the Tricolour, lies on the catafalque in crepe-shrouded looms with gilded decorations x and baroque furniture. Wreaths lie at his feet from the widowed Queen Marie, President Lebrun, M. Yfivtitch, Yugoslav Foreign Minister, and the French Foreign Office, while an enormous circle of crepe-wreathed laurel hangs on the wall. ENDLESS PROCESSION OF PUBLIC. The official mourners included his brother, M. Leon Barthou, who, after spending a few moments in meditation, withdrew to permit the admission of an endless procession of the public, all classes being represented, from bemedalled officers and black-robed priests to sobbing women. A dreary drizzle falls without and black-coated officials watch in pairs within. Sir John Simon, Foreign Secretary, will represent Britain at the funeral of M. Barthou on Saturday. M. Saint-Paul, the investigating magistrate at Marseilles, reports that King Alexander lived for 45 minutes after he was shot. Major Houvaix, a colonial army doctor, responding to a call from the prefecture, was the first to attend him. He found that one bullet had entered his right side and ploughed upwards to the chest. The other had perforated the liver. The heart’s action was imperceptible and an adrenaline injection was futile. M. Barthou opened the door of the motor-car after the shots and stepped out, showing to a business man the blood pouring from his wrist. M. Barthou was led to the pavement, where a policeman helped him into a taxicab. A doctor discovered the bullet had shattered his wrist and pierced the humeral artery. His death occurred in hospital. Madame Yolande Farris, the fifth victim of the assassination, died in hospital after embracing her nine-months-old baby.