FREE TO GO

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 255, 28 October 1939, Page 7

FREE TO GO

CITY OF FLINT RUSSIAN DECISION BLOW TO GERMAN EXPECTATIONS [By Telegraph—-Press Association—Copyright | Received Oct. 27, 7.20 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 26. A radio announcement states that the Murmansk authorities, after a scrutiny cf the cargo, ordered the City of Flint to depart as soon as possible. Official quarters in Berlin expected that the Russians would hand over the vessel to Germany as soon as she was seaworthy. The United States Secretary ol State, Mr. Cordell Hull, announced that the United States had demanded that the Soviet return the City ol Flint. He said that the Government was determined to follow the case tc its logical conclusion. The New York Times, commenting before the release of the vessel, said. “The reason why the City of Flint is at Murmansk instead of at the bottom of the sea is that she flew the flag not of a small neutral whose protest could easily have been ignored, but of a great Western Power which Germany is less willing to afront.” The fact that it has taken Russia two days to supply information as tc the whereabouts of the City of Flint is taken as a sign of the Soviet’s embarrassment at the German capture of the vessel and in taking it to a Russian port.