RUHR SITUATION SERIOUS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17178, 23 October 1923, Page 7

RUHR SITUATION SERIOUS.

WHAT WILL HAFPEN NEXT? BLOODSHED THREATENED. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright “ Times ” Service. (Received October 25, 9.J0 a.m.) LONDON, October 22. The Paris correspondent of “ The Times” says Apparently the idea of France to keep a ring round the Rhineland. Should the Separatist movement develop where the French flag flies no brutalities will be allowed. That is how *Le Temps’ summarises the prospects. “ The French newspapers deny that the Separatist proclamation was due to French machinations, the eGrmans allege that the local population was tired of. being used as an instrument of revenge against France. “ The French Government was not> aware what was about to happen. Nevertheless, anxious voices are raised as to what will happen next. Some newspapers now seem strangely to be appealing to the Ruhr industrialists to rescue, not onlv Germany, but France in the Ruhr,“where a catastrophe will happen if the labouring masses are thrown upon French hands. Everything indicates that France will be unable to rope with the perils which are developing and uneasiness increases. ’* The Cologne correspondent writes:— if the French had intended to support. the ex-pugilist Matthos, the Rhineland Separatist. leader. they could not have selected a better moment. The Rhinelanders are like sheep without a. shepherd. After the imprisonment or expulsion of the true leaders, unemployment. hunger and anxiety have reduced them to a frame of mind in. which they will not resist whatever action the French, with the support- of French troops, are disposed to approve. Yet to-day’s events are almost certain to result in bloodshed. “ Tlie situation is most serious. Many iron and steel works have dismissed their employees. The French have seized more mines and a number of railway workshops ‘ The local German authorities attach no great importance to Matthes’s leadership, as they do not believe that this ex-pugilist has been, selected as the future ruler of the Rhineland. It. is more probable that- Matthos, with the co-operation of French hotheads, is trying to steal a march on his rivals, like Dr Dor ten, and thus force the