ITALY AND GERM BREAKING PLEDGES?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 54, 5 March 1937, Page 7

ITALY AND GERM BREAKING PLEDGES?

SfArnSH CHAOS.

Creating Difficulties for Non-intervention. TWENTY NAZI TANKS SENT. United I're-ss Association.—Copyright. (Received 1 p.m.) PARIS, March 4. Messages from London state that Italy and Germany are creating numerous difficulties for the Nonintervention Committee. Some quarters suggest that international control in Spain may not be enforced on Saturday as agreed. M. Blum's newspaper, '"Populaire," warns the Fascist Powers that if they persist in obstruction France will be obliged to regain freedom of action in Spain. The "Manchester Guardian*' diplomatic correspondent says that German intervention is continuing. A consignment of 20 tanks was sent to Spain at the end of February. Nevertheless, intervention is causing internal ditticulties in Germany, where the Nazi-Catholic conflict is being intensified daily. Nazi newspapers explain their support of General Franco bv alleging that the Vatican is supporting the < iovernnient.

GRAVE PLIGHT. " Food Position is Tragic" In Madrid. UNCENSORED DISPATCH. LONDON, March 4. The grave of the capital which is indicated l»v tlip rationing is emphasised )>v a correspondent of the "Daily I elegraph" in an uneensored dispatch from Valencia after a visit to Madrid. "The food position is tragic." says the correspondent. "I saw two serious riots, l>oth caused by bread shops being sold out of bread after 2.~>0 people had waited eight hours. Food" is so pitifully scant that Madrid is bound to collapse because of the people's hunger if the insurgents surround it." Ihe Government claims that its forces have crossed the Tagus and entered I oledo. They have seized the district near Alcazar. General Faupel, German Ambassador, presented his credentials to General Franco at Salamanca. He said that Hcrr Hitler was following General Franco's "liberating struggle"' with warm sympathy. MOROCCAN TROUBLE. SERIOUS DISTURBANCES. (Keceived 1 .to p.i 11.) PARIS, March 4. In spite of Germany's reassurances last month, France is not convinced that foreign activity in Morocco is above board. Riots in Algeria, in which the trench Foreign Legion was stoned, are ascribed to foreign propaganda. General Franco's Government has addressed a Note to signatories of the Pact of Algeciras. to which Britain is a party, accusing France of trying to provoke disturbances in Spanish Morocco to obtain a pretext Tor Invading it. The Note asks the Powers to appoint an international commission and requests the Noil-Intervention Committee to act. HOME RULE IN SPAIN. OBSTINATE GENERAL FRANCO. LONDON', February 2S. "The Ca«tilian obstinacy of the rebel commander-in-chief, General Franco, is likely to prove a factor in prolonging the trouble in Spain," states a diplomat who has spent two years in Spain and knows both Barcelona and Madrid well. "The alliance between the strongly Catholic Basque Nationalists and the Valencia (formerly Madrid) Government largely dominated by Anarcho-Svndi-calists, is a most unnatural bond. The Basques would have been strongly on Franco's side if he had guaranteed their historic right, as they see it, to "home rule.' " An obvious way out would be some kind of federation in Spain with a large measure of autonomy for Galicia. Biscay, Catalonia, Valencia, and possiblv Andalusia; but if Franco is ready to grant autonomy anywhere, the wisest thing would be for him to begin with the Biscay Province. If he granted home rule to Galicia, which is alirtost entirely under his control it would be a convincing move. This diplomat predicts that Portugal will co-operate heartily in non-interven-tion provided that her "face" is saved. The Portuguese dictator, Dr. Salazar, could not consistently agree to foreign control of the country's non-intervention methods. He began his rule by stoutly rejecting proposals for an international loan to Portugal with League of Nations supervision. Observers in both Right and Left wings of politics see signs of cracking in the Spanish Government front. The cooler-headed agree that it is going to be a long, hard tight still, however, unless some compromise is reached; and for this, too much bitterness seems to have been engendered.