BRITISH POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 248, 19 October 1937, Page 7

BRITISH POLICY.

RECENT CHANGES.

Franco Seen as Pawn in

Dictators' Game.

" ENCIRCLEMENT " THEORY. (By SIR ARTHUR WILLERT.) LONDON', September 30. The prospect of Britain at last making an effective stand against the illegalities of dictatorships is better than it has boon at any time. The situation has changed rapidly in the last weeks. As late as July, sympathy hero was pretty equally divided between General Franco and the Valencia Government. There was a strong feeling both inside and outside the Cabinet that Franco was saving Spain from the Reds and Spanish civilisation from destruction. It was also hoped that the Anglo-Italian reconciliation would make for better relations with Germany. Since then opinion has hardened against Franco and the dictatorships. Mussolini's interchange of congratulatory telegrams with General Franco, in which the part played by Italians in the capture of Santa nder was officially recognised and applauded, was resented as an impossible piece of effrontery to indulge in on the very day that the Italian representative was solemnly sitting at a meeting of the Non-inter-vention Committee in London. So was his publication of the names of the Italian generals fighting in Spain.

The planting of guns on Franco-ist territory within range of Gibraltar had an even greater effect. Like the Mediterranean submarines, it seemed to threaten what Mr. Eden not long ago called a vital line of British Imperial communications. It was as if the American public suddenly found that Japan was able to threaten the Panama Canal. Though the Government tried to damp clown anxiety in the House of Commons, there is reason to believe that it also was worried. Change of Public Mind. All this has caused a change of mind about General Franco. There is far less talk about his being the champion of law and order in Spain, and a great deal more about his being the pawn of the dictatorships in the great game which they are playing under the leadership of Germany for the domination of the Old World. London is beginning to realise that the fighting around Shanghai and the fighting in Spain are both part of that game. It is beginning to see what Paris saw long ago, namely, that Germany, feeling that she is encircled nnd cramped by the Franco-Russian alliance, is trying in turn to encircle the encirclere. Hence her encouragement of Japanese ambitions in the Far East, so as to make the Russians uncomfortable, and, in Europe, first her alliance with Italy, the other discontented nation, and then her support of General Franco in conjunction with Italy. She and Italy are trying to put General Franco in control of Spain, not. as London is now realising, to combat Bolshevism, but in order to embarrass France and Great Britain. With Spain in their grip they would make Britain's communication with the Far East much more difficult in the event of war. It would also endanger the supplies of men and material upon which the French rely from their African Empire and by controlling submarine bases and airports on the west coast of Spain. Germany could menace British commerce in the Atlantic. The British National Government has, of course, on several previous occasions announced that it was about to make a firm stand or inaugurate a strong policy, and has then done nothing. The same thing may happen again. It is also possible that the farce may continue and that the dictators may find ways of flouting the Franco-British efforts to enforce non-intervention on shore. Firmer Foreign Policy Demanded. On the other hand, considerations like the above have definitely strengthened the hands of those who have been demanding a firmer foreign policy, especially in regard to Spain. So has the scarcely disguised impatience of the French, with the persistence with which Mr. Eden has been trying to pretend that the Non-Intervention Committee had not become a farce. So. too, has the progress of British rearmament. The position of the British Navy in the Mediterranean is very different to-day from what it was when Signor Mussolini called the bluff of the League of Nations over oil sanctions, largely because tha British ships had not then enough ammunition for their guns. That defect has now been fully repaired. The inability of France and Britain to prevent the dictators intervening in Spain is yet another argument being used in London for strong action against the under-water pirates. France and Britain have failed in their Spanish round with the dictators for exactly the same reason that they failed with Italy over Ethiopia. In Spain, as in Ethiopia, they tried to arrest militarism on the march by argument unbacked by adequate force, and on both occasions their impotence increased the European tension. Why then should ttiey not. for a change, try firmness and a readiness to use their immense preponderance at eea to protect the rights of humanity by force if necessary? To do so migit, well help the cause of peace by making the dictators more cautious. — (Copyright, XJLN.A.)