HELP FOR HUNGARY.

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18393, 29 July 1931, Page 7

HELP FOR HUNGARY.

INTERNATIONAL LOAN. BANKERS TO PROVIDE £7,000,000. CHECKMATE FOR MUSSOLINI. United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright. LONDON, July 27. The Buda Pest correspondent of the Daily Express says the Premier of Hungary, Count Bethlen, has announced that international bankers have granted to Hungary a loan of £7,000,000 for 18 months. France will provide up to 4 0 per cent, and British and other lenders will find the remainder of the loan, which will come in the nick of time to prevent the Government from seizing the deposits in‘the private banks. The correspondent understands that Hungary, as the price of the French loan, has promised to suppress all Nationalist anti-French ,propaganda, and to reduce her own military budget. Political circles interpret this to mean that Hungary will pass within the sphere of French! political influence. This will be a severe blow to the Italian Prime Minister, Signor Mussolini, who has regarded Hungary as the cornerstone of his Central European alliances, which are aimed at checkmating France’s Little Entente.

Count Bethlen visited Signor Mussolini in April last year, and Signor Grandl, the Italian Foreign Minister, visited Buda Pest on June 14, and on June 17 Count' Bethlen had negotiations in London to see if he could raise a loan. The harvest was very poor in Hungary last year, and by the end of the year all hope of an early foreign loan had been given up. France had regarded Count Bethlen’s diplomatic activity as a plan to oppose the Little Entente, under the leadership of Italy, with Austria, Germany, Bulgaria and Turkey, and to revise the terms of the peace treaties, although Count Bethlen denied this.