WAR IN SPAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 67, 21 March 1938, Page 9

WAR IN SPAIN.

FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM. N.Z. FIGHTER'S OPINIONS. "What would you v do if a body of the big landowners and industrialists, aided by two foreign Powers opposed armed force to your legally elected Government?" asked Lieutenant T. Spiller, a New Zealand member of the International Brigade who is at present on leave from the Spanish front, at a crowded meeting in the Strand Theatre last night. The Loyalist Government in Spain was by no moans as "left" as its enemies implied. Mr. Spiller continued. The People's Front was not a Government of Communists but was a union of all Hie Liberal and Progressive parties in Spain ajid it represented the feelings of the great majority of the Spanish people. i! now i.. was trv:.ij; t;> bring about ■■•-in* in suite of the state of war. The war now was the fight of the •ji.iiish people iipajiiist forejjrn invaders vlio wished to establish Fascism in Spain "■'l to keep her .completely under their dominance. To this end they had em•iloyod tactics which were outside all • ' ••<-. of dpreuev in warfare. No body was treated with mdre respect in Spain, and for that matter in England and France, that the International Brigade, said Mr. Spiller in describing the welcome given to his division in Spain. Some of the people had thought they were Russians at first and this rumour had been used by the rebels for incitement asrainst "invaders" but although Russians were in the Inter- . national Brigade, they were in no greater proportion than volunteers from other countries. Soviet technicians, however, had given invaluable assistance while other countries had turned their backs on the Government and, but for this assistance, the Loyalists would have had little hope of holding out with their inadequate suppl'oa and antiquatcl amis. The speaker was given enthusiastic applause throughout and a special collection, taken up by the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, was well supported.