ITALY READY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 209, 4 August 1937, Page 9

ITALY READY

FRIENDSHIP WITH BRITAIN. PLEASURE EXPRESSED. RESULT OF RECENT LETTERS(United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph .—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received 4, 10.15 a.m. RUGBY, Aug. 3. The exchange of letters between Mr Neville Chamberlain and Signor Mussolini is still the subject of much comment in the Press. In British official circles the fact that the Italian Government freely accepts the view of the relations qf the Powers with interests in the Mediterranean, which Mr R. A. Eden expressed in a recent House of Commons speech, and reciprocates the British desire for a friendlier atmosphere is welcomed as encouraging the hope that the AngloItalian declaration of January last will be permitted to have full effect in improving the relations between the two countries.

Inevitably at the holiday season, tin event such as the exchange of personal letters between the heads of the two Governments is required to yield the maximum news value, ayd journalistic ingenuity is severely taxed for the purpose, so that the reports reaching London to-day as well as the comments in the English newspapers themselves show a fine crop of rumours as to the implications of the correspondence and the developments to he expected from it. Inquiries in authoritative quarters indicate that these reports are unprofitably speculative and _in some cases the shots fall very wide of tlie mark.