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BRITISH PLEDGE FOR PEACE Viscount Halifax Denies Military Aid Promise to Poland Is Attempt at German Encirclement. LONDON, England, April 3. Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax today denied in the House of Lords that Great Britain is attempting to encircle Germany. The British pledge of military aid in defense of Polands independence, Halifax declared, vas not undertaken in any spirit of hostility to any country but in the hope and belief that it would strengthen the cause of European peace and stability. The foreign secretarys statement to the peers was a reply to Reichs- fuehrer Adolf Hitlers declaration in his Wilhelmshaven speech Saturday that Germany would resist efforts to intimidate her or to renew the pre-war policy of encirclement. "Our pledge to Poland," Halifax said, "marks a new and momentous departure in British policy." The foreign secretary said he was not in a position to make a full statement on the European situation because consultations with other governments were continuing. Britain, he asserted, was fully aware of the importance of the attitude of Soviet Russia, and was eager to continue close relations with Russia. On the other hand, he revealed, certain "difficulties" with regard to the part Russia might play in- a German "stop Hitler" front of nations had arisen because of the relations of other nations to the Soviets. The remark was interpreted in political circles as a reference to Rumanian and Polish diffidence about close relations with Moscow. The Bucharest government in particular, it was pointed out, remembered that the province of Bessarabia, now part of Rumania, was Russian before the World War.
