In the issue of "The Times" of October 23. there appears the Ast list of donations to the Lord Mayor of London's Air Raid Distress Fund, in which two items refer to donations from Shanghai, one of £2,500 and the other of £1.565 both "from the Central British War Fund. Another donation from China is £52 from the Shameen British. But what is so interesting the list is the number of different places throughout the world from which money has been "pouring in to aid those distressed in Lontlon asa result of enemy bombing and the various nationalities which the names. of the donors reveal. Yet most singular of all fare the gifts which have come from the services. Thus from the Sith Heavy Training Regt. RAC. went £72 old, the Royal Air Force Station. Old Sarum, put up over £54, the Chief Petty Oflicers' Mess, H.MS. Peregrine subscribed £60, HAMS. Emerald £45 and the Ist Battalion, Coldstream Guardy £30 amongst 2 number of others. It is a splendid thought that from the men who ure now risking their lives in the defence of the Empire. and those others "who may eventually be called upon to do so, practical sympathy with Londoners in their distress ix forther Envoy-at-Large Herr Otto Abetz, who is described as the German Ambassador-at-Large in. France and who has been prominent in the conversations between the Nazis and the Petain Government following the removal of Mf. Laval, is one of the men who played a leading role in the corrupt tion of the country before the war—a_corrup= tion which bore fruit when Hitler launched his tremendous drive against the Low Countries and the Meuse. It is ironical that the man who had so much to do with the undermining of the old order in France, should now be the cading negotiator for Hitler's so-called "new order." Otto <Abetz obtained considerable perience with the Nazi "fifth column" in Belgium. where he is alleged to have subsidized the Rexist Party or Fascists with some success to the Nazi cause. After this he was ordered by Ribbentrop to go to France, where he took charge of the already active Nazi agents who were spreading distrust and discontent throughout important branches of the government and the press, He assumed control of an organiza tion which had been active ever since Hitler came into power in Germany, and had done its utmost to sap the strength of the country from its headquarters at the Union Allemand, 3 Rue Roquepine, Paris. Criticism of the more or less open activities of the Nazis developed in the French press as It became obvious towards 1939 that a major European crisis was deve loping. and owing to revelations made by BIN. Henri de Kerillis, the publisher of "L'Epoque." 'Abetz was finally' expelled by M, Daladier, then Prime Minister, and the Deuxiéme Bureau oF Secret Service. after having been in France for just over a year. Abetz brought an action for bet against de Kerillis after this, tut. the action was never pressed, and as a result a hot jporcets the. means or the power 10. carry Gut those threats. If it $s Amotica's wish that Britain "should get. the: ships. that the Axo Powers do not want hor to-get, she will receive them whether Signor Gayda Tiker it or not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.