H.g. Wells, at World Meeting of Authors, Riles German Group

The controversy over Hitlerism exploded again today at the International P.E.N. Club annual meeting here following a compromise reached earlier on the Jewish question.

H. G. Wells, British author who is presiding at the session, gave the floor to an independent German delegate and permitted him to address the session. The official German delegation objected vociferously and left the conference in a body after informing Mr. Wells that its members would not attend the banquet tonight in honor of the delegates.

This action was preceded by a heated debate in which the question of Jewish persecutions in Germany was discussed, Mr. Wells ruling that the conference was entitled to discuss political questions as part of the “spiritual strivings of man.” The delegates of sixteen countries, including France, Belgium and Poland, supported the anti-Hitler motion, but the American and Swiss delegates, and, surprisingly, the Austrian Jewish novelist, Felix Salten, demanded no intervention in the internal policies of Germany.

The conference finally adopted the compromise proposed by the Italia delegate, Signor Marinetti, by which the Jewish question was tabled until the next meeting of the International P.E.N. Club. Signor Marinetti expressed regret at the anti-Semitism in Germany and pointed to Italian tolerance and the fact that a Jew, Guido Jung, is Minister of Finance in the Italian Government.