The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1937. "LAST DECISIVE WORD."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 155, 2 July 1937, Page 6

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1937. "LAST DECISIVE WORD."

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the ■wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The policy of "non-intervention" in Spain, never fully effective, has collapsed, and there appears no likelihood of a substitute being devised. No substitute can be successful while

the aims of the five Powers concerned remain divergent. Of the five, only Britain genuinely wishes to "keep out" of Spain. The others, except France, favour non-intervention only in so far as they think it will help, or at least not hinder, the victory of cither the Valencia or the Salamanca Government- France under the Blum Government sympathised -with Valencia, but for the sake of European peace co-operated with Britain in the nonintervention policy. The attitude of the new French Government,has not yet been revealed.

Meanwhile attention is naturally being given to the article in the "Popolo d'ltalia," generally attributed to Signor Mussolini himself, announcing that the Italian "volunteers" in Spain were not dispatched by the Government, and the Government cannot recall them. When did the Government of a totalitarian State become powerless to prevent large bodies of men, many of them reputed to ibe professional soldiers, from leaving; the country? If it wished to do so, the Italian Government could bring about the return of all its "volunteers" within a few weeks. The 'other statement in the article, that Britain and France have done everything they could* have done "to assure the victory of the Valencia Bolsheviks," is easily answered, at least in Britain's case. The British Government has been repeatedly assailed in the House of Commons, and in the Labour and Liberal Press, on the alleged ground that its policy has helped General Franco and that it [has been intended to help him.

"The last decisive word," says the article attributed to Signor Mussolini, "now belongs to the cannon." There is an unpleasant ring in that declaration. Without raising the issue of whether anything—except men's lives —can really be "decided" by cannon, the obvious question is, "Whose cannon?" Nonintervention having failed, will the Italian "volunteers" who are not to be withdrawn be strengthened by munitions, and by more soldiers, dispatched from Italy? The resolution of the foreign affairs committee of the French Chamber of Deputies is an indication of the dangers which lie beyond the abandonment of non-intervention.