BALKAN TENSION

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21202, 27 August 1940, Page 6

BALKAN TENSION

RUMANIA AND HUNGARY NO SURPRISE IN LONDON BEHEST OF NAZIS (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, August 25 The Daily Telegraph Balkans correspondent says that, following the breakdown of negotiations, both countries were almost mobilised. The Hungarian frontier was bristling with troops. The Hungarian Government and press asserts that Hungary will stand firm on her territorial demands. Diplomatic observers in London are not surprised at the setback which the negotiations have encountered, says a British official wireless message. The experience of the League of Nations before an ascendant Hitlerism had struck at the foundations of international confidence and peaceful international order proved the intractability of the conflicting claims of these two States. A just and wise settlement, especially once territorial issues were openly raised, could only be looked for in an atmosphere in which the goodwill of the two parties was combined with the common desire to respect the superior interests of a European community. The present negotiations over Transylvania have a different origin. They have been entered upon at a moment of political upheaval, when the forces of anarchy have temporarily disrupted the European order, and they have been undertaken, it is generally admitted, at the behest of the Nazis. Under such auspices, it is inevitable that each party should seek to exploit the favours it calculated or hoped it might receive from Berlin. It remains to be seen if the Hungarians have not presumed too far in their tactics, which are at any rate a contrast to those of the Bulgarian Government, which is confining itself to legitimate aspirations and has been able to secure a restitution which is warmly welcomed in London.