PZ 7715/39 'Middle East Intelligence Centre: Anglo Egyptian Censorship; information summaries' [‎6v] (12/38)

■■■■■■I
are in an uproar and
tha t ou r friends w :i .1 i
‘savoir faire’'
malie money and
on their "backs
into a
n
W'-aX
i f
n
they ao
Tuesday they v<-enf to Koirio
t be foolish and force us
which we do not want-
not let us do that they
. .Let us hope
through lack of
Italy wants to
will have us also
16 .
Oil
The Italian snipping firm ’'Adriatica 1 ' wri ting from their
heo<d office at Trieste, on 17-oh October to their Alexandria agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. ,
complain that their instructions for rescueling the "Murco Polo ,
and others of their ships, are not carried out. They insist
that these ships must be re-fueled with the maximum quantity of
fuel oi 3 . whenever they call c*'t Alexandria. ihis is obviously one
of the many ways by which Italy hopes to maintain her oil stocks in
Italy.
17 .
Tiad i ng with the Lnemy .
Telegraphing from Budapest in November the firm Cable
Works Ltd c inquire whether Worms dc Co- of Port Said can transport
rubber to Bratislava via Yugoslavian or Italian harbours. This
savours very much of trading with the enemy and the ca»~le w^s
accordingly suppressed.
a forwarding agent in Germany writes, on 21st October,
giving details of various consignments lying at Trieste and awaiting
shipment to Egypt, also of other consignments awaiting despatch^
from Germany. All goods mentioned are for the firm of Sadnsoui
in Egypt and are to be forwarded through Paris! of Trieste. The
forwarding agent maintains that he is in complete ignorance us to.
whether German goods may enter Egypt or not. Germany wishes ex
perts to be maintained by every possible means, but only on condi
tions that all goods are paid for in foreign cu rrency.^bef Qre,__sh_ijq-
ment from Tnes_ te .
EVASIONS OF CLE 10KSHIP ,
18. Particular attention is being paid at ports in Egypt to
the evasion of censorship by passengers and crews of ships in port,
also to other channels by which written information may be conveyed
out of the country other than by post. It was found, at the end
of October, that a package sent by Simon Artz in Port Said to a cus
tomer in Aden contained a film testing apparatus in which was a
piece of film as a "sample" to test the machine. This sample
piece of film shows ships either in convoy or at anchor «t what
appears to oe Gibraltar.
HOSTILE ^BaB aGEETS .
P 9 # Writing from an address in Switzerland on 26 October,
19 39, the notorious pro-German Druse agitator, Shekib Arslan sends
a letter to Magdi Bassil, secretary to the Rector of the ^Agypti-n
University in Cairo. In his letter (Appendix n D ) Shekib .nisl^n
j-ffex-e negotiations about armies being withdrawn from frontiers.
These "negotiations" may have had something to do with recent re
ports in the press that Egypt and Italy had cone to c^n agreement to
reduce their respective forces in the vicinity of the Egyptian-
Libyan frontier. Shekib nrslan mentions two other "matters" which
he is’’working on"- as the original letter was released oy the
cen^r it will be interesting to see what Massif, if his reply can
be intercepted, has to say about them. It is obvious from another
passage in ^rslan’s letter that Massif is hoping to be engaged
’’for important work" on the s.me kind of activities as those that
/Shekib