Rome, Mar. 13.
A coal agreement has been reached between Italy and Germany, it was announced here today.
The following oficial communique was published later in the day: "Following the conversations which took place between Il Duce and Herr Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, a mixed committee entrusted with the examination of trade exchanges met at an extraordinary session so as to adopt necessary measures in view of transporting completely by land the German coal destined to, Italy. This will cover almost entirely Italy's coal needs, "Senator Giannini, President of the Government Commission, and Dr. Karl Claudius today signed the protocol dealing with these measures.'—Havas.
General Jaunaud, commanding the Senator Key Pittman, Democrat of Nevada and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, Republican of Michigan, declined to comment on peace reports pending study of the provisions.
"The Russo-Finnish peace treaty is their own business..not ours," Senator Bennett Champ Clark, Democrat of Missouri, declared.
Senator George W. Norris, Independent of Nebraska, said, "It's Hitler's victory as well as the Finn's defeat....it marks another victory for tyranny and another defeat for the cause of democracy."
"Every friend of Finland hoped she could maintain her independence, and evidently she has but at a tremendous sacrifice," Senator Guy M. Gillette, Democrat of Iowa, said, Mr, Sol Bloom, Representative of New York and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said, "The world's day of reckoning is yet to come. The terms were harsh. If Finland had received the help from the democracies to which she was entitled there would have been a different story."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.