GERMAN STAND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 267, 9 October 1933, Page 8

GERMAN STAND

3.15 P.M. EDITION

FOREIGN OFFICE STATEMENT. STRESS ON EQUALITY. CUnited Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received October 9, 1.30 p.m. BERLIN, Oct. 8. The German Foreign Office has issued a statement that Germany does not intend to increase her armaments. She merely asks the other Powers to declare unequivocally what categories they are ready to abandon and what they are determined to keep. “We can only say what we are ready to do until tliese questions are clear. “Germany will never sign a convention not based on the fundamental principle of equality. Germany does not desire to increase armaments, but wants to reorganise the Reichswehr,” the statement adds. “She does not demand equality with France after five years, but wants the further disarmament of other nations at the expiration of five years. Discrimination, however, must cease immediately in regard to certain weapons for training purposes. Germany does not demand the same quantity in weapons as other countries.” FRENCH INTEREST. PREAIIER’S PERTINENT QUERY. COAIFORT FROAI BRITAIN. Received October 9, 1.30 p.m. PARIS, Oct. 8. “Wliat does Germany want?” the Premier, AI. Daladier, asked the Radical Congress. “Nobody contests her right to exist as a great nation. The Nazi Government protests that it has peaceful aims. Why then mobilise her fighting youth and demand the right to build costly war material, which must immediately be destroyed once the disarmament convention is signed? France voluntarily made unprecedented reductions in armaments and cannot go further without an international agreement organising progressive disarmament by permanent automatic control. “It is comforting that Air Baldwin has publicly recalled Britain’s solidarity in sharing European responsibility,” the Premier added.