MOVE IN ROME.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 936, 5 December 1933, Page 1

MOVE IN ROME.

UTVINOFF HAS PARLEY WITH MUSSOLINI. Audience With the King. WORLD CONDITIONS REVIEWED IN CONVERSATIONS. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received December 5, 11.30 a.m.) ROME, December 4. Signor Mussolini, the Italian Prime Minister, and M. Litvinoff, the Russian Comm is s ary of F oreign Affairs, had conversations to-day. They cordial 1 y discussed Italo-Russian relations and agreed to ratify the friendship pact. Disarmament was reviewed, but apparently Russia is not prepared to stampede into the Italian told. It is understood that the conversations cleared the way for the inclusion of Russia in a general disarmament pact supplementing the present FourPower Pact. The King of Italy gave M. Litvinoff a fifteen minutes’ audience, indicating the importance which Italy attaches to the conversations. It is expected that as a result of the conversations the strained RussoGerman relations will improve, as Signor Mussolini has agreed to act as mediator with Herr Hitler. Russian and Japanese relations were also discussed, but a decision was not reached. A communique states that all questions likely to disturb world peace were considered, and there was a complete identity of views between Russia and Italy.

BRITAIN AND RUSSIA.

Canadian Bully Blamed for Trade Pact Delay. LONDON, November 24. How much longer is Mr R. B. Bennett, Canadian Prime Minister, going to reduce the British Government to the same frozen passivity as Larwood re-

duced the Australian batsmen ? asks the “ NewsChronicle ” in drawing attention to the protracted Anglo-Soviet trade negotiations. The paper says that Mr Bennett, with his dictatorial demand that Canada shall be first, is dominating British policy in an important economic foreign field. He bullied and bamboozled the British delegates at the Ottawa Conference into placing an embargo against goods cheapened by State action. Now, while Britain is dallying. President Roosevelt has done in spectacular fashion in November what Britain might have achieved without fuss in July, enabling the strengthening of Russo-American political and cultural relations and belittling British influence in Russia and the Far East, besides preventing British trade everywhere. Cynical competitors are profiting by Britain’s hypocritical pretence that Russia is still a moral leper, too loathsome to sell herrings to.