FRANCE AND GERMANY.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15184, 9 March 1923, Page 5

FRANCE AND GERMANY.

AGREEMENT OR WAR.

ADVANCE ON FRANKFORT.

CRISIS IN SIX WEEKS,,

Australian and N.Z. Gable Assn. LONDON, March 7.

The Cologne correspondent of the Westminster Gazette writes:—“My impression is that-thd cauldrofr of the Ruhr may boil over at any time with fearful results in bloodshed. France, I am told, would not hesitate to declare war and bomb German cities, Berlin included, if her forces were attacked. The German authorities, therefore, are doing their utmost to check the rising passions of their people. The best informed are of opinion that unless an agreement is soon reached it ■will'* be only a matter of tftne before another war breaks out. The French declare that the crisis will come in six weeks, when it is expected that the German resistance will collapse.” The Dusseldorf correspondent of the Daily Chronicle reports that French troops have arrived in the suburbs of and 1 have stopped all traffic to the city.. The Morning Post’s correspondent at Dusseldorf states that 1000 German railway workers are serving under the French control, but they are unskilled and unreliable. Many undoubtedly are spies who have entered the French service in order to betray their fellow-countrymen. Others are daring saboteurs. One was actually caught to-day cutting telephone wires.

Herr Jarres, Chief Burgomaster of Aix la Chapelle, appealed against the French court-martial’s sentence of a month’s imprisonment. The appeal was, dismissed and the sentence doubled.

A message from Brussels states that the French Prime Minister, M. Poincare, is expected there to discuss the Ruhr position with the Belgian Prime Minister, M. Theunis.

Tlie danger in the Ruhr forms the subject of Mr Lloyd George’s twelfth article.

The Gentian Reichstag unanimously passed a vote of confidence in the Government.