Evening star., 1938-12-06
Pact
Continued From First Page.)

these questions should risk leading
to international difficulties.
The two governments have signed
the present declaration, which be-
comes Immediately effective. made
in two copies, in the French and
German languages
Immediately after the ceremony
the French and German diplomats
moved to an adjoining conference
room to begin diplomatic conversa-
tions.
Frontiers Recognized.
The pact itself, three paragraphs
long, put in black and white Chan
cellor Hitler's often-repeated oral
remuneration of claim upon
Alsace-Lorraine. This was achieved
by a phrase recognizing existing
frontiers.
On Frances side, informed sources
said, the pact constituted formal
recognition that Austria had van
ished and that Czecho-Slovakia
Sudetenland was German.
Furthermore, the declaration con-
tanned an agreement to submit any
disputes to consultation.
Won Ribbentrop, accompanied by
his wife and his staff, arrived at
Invalides Station at 11:10 am.
(6:10 am. E. S. TD. He was greet
ed personally by Bonnet.
He then went Immediately to
the Hotel Crillon. where he con-
feered with advisers before Premier
Daladier's luncheon in his honor.
Parliament Is Convoked.
During cabinet meeting just
prior to start of his talks with
Won Ribbentrop, Daladier submitted
and President Albert Lebrun signed
decree convoking Parliament for
December 8.
Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet
gave the ministers a general out
line of the plans for todays and
tomorroW's conversations with the
German foreign minister.
The signatures of Won Ribbentrop
and Bonnet. to be affixed in the
famous foreign Office clock room
were the formalities for effecting the
agreement.
What the pact left unsaid was
the subject for further negotiation
between Won Ribbentrop and his
staff. Premier Daladier, Bonnet and
their veteran advisers on foreign
affairs.
France wanted to know whether
Germany backed the Italian agita-
ton for Tunisia and Corsica. France
wanted to know also how determined
was Germany on her own colonial
demands.
Won Ribbentrop, as Frenchmen
and German sources in Paris saw
it, wanted to know that France had
to say about the Nazi drive, economi-
cally and politically, toward the
east, and whether France still con-
Sidered the French Soviet Russian
mutual defensive alliance was valid.
The Rightist French press. strong
advocate of dropping the Russian
ties, expressed almost universal ap-
proval of the French German pact
and the conversations.
The Left did not.
The former premier and Socialist
leader, Leon Blum, declared in LIE
Populaire that the agreement "fol-
lowing Munich and the anti-Jewish
atrocities" would be difficult for
American public opinion to accept.
The Communist newspaper, L. HUI
mantle, said ASK Benes (resigned
Czecho- -Slovak president) and Schu-
schnigg (ex-Austrian chancellor
held by Nazi authorities in Vienna)
what Hitlers promise is worth"
Paris buzzed with rumors on the
eve of the signing ceremony.
One published report said that the
wife of one cabinet minister de-
clined an invitation to the ofiicial
reception for Won Ribbentrop and
wrote she and her husband "are
dining at the Czecho-Slovak Lega-
ton"
Meanwhile France earmarked ap-
proximately \'86, 100000 for her
army and navy in 1899, thus increas-
ing such expenditures $3.50 ,oo0, 900.