FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20625, 28 May 1935, Page 9

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

Sir John Simon Answers Questions. W MITIGATING TENSION'. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received May 28, 1.15 p.m.) RUGBY, May 27. In response to a Parliamentary question as to whether it was intended immediately to convene a conference to negotiate on the passages in Herr Hitler’s recent speech referring to the limitation of air armaments and alternatively whether any, and if so what steps w r ere being taken by the British Government to mitigate the tension that prevails internationally, Sir John Simon said that as regards the first part of the question the British Government, which had throughout urged the importance of promoting an agreement on this subject, had for some time past been in communication with the other Governments concerned respecting the possibility of negotiations between the five Powers mentioned in the London communique on the Air Pact and Air Limitation Agreement. As regards the second part of the question, the Government was devoting its most earnest endeavours to the promotion of a general settlement which would be acceptable to all the parties concerned, of the various questions now outstanding in the international sphere. Tangier. Replying to a question regarding Tangier, Sir John Simon took the opportunity to emphasise that the British Government’s policy was in no wavdirected against the Moorish religion and institutions, nor had any proposal been made that could imply any such intention. So far from seeking to change the existing international regime in Tangier, the policy of the British Government was to strengthen that regime by seeking an improvement in the administration of the zone, and more particularly in financial and judicial spheres. Charges Denied. Sir John Simon gave an emphatic denial to a series of mis-statements recently published in Rome alleging that the British Gov-ernment had concentrated troops on both the White and Blue Niles and Sobat and near Lake Rudolph, had enrolled African natives, had built strategic railways towards the Abyssinian frontier, had constructed camouflaged landing grounds under the guise of playing fields, and had concentrated aeroplanes at various frontier centres. These statements, declared Sir John Simon, were destitute of any foundation whatever.