PEACE OVER SPAIN

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 129, 3 June 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

PEACE OVER SPAIN

A War-torn Nation Turns Her Energies To Reconstruction

On May 19 General Franco held his Victory Parade in Madrid. For hours, column after column of troops passed the saluting base where Franco and his Ministers and foreign representatives were assembled. The Italians, shouting the praises of II Duce, monopolised the first hour of the inarch past. An outburst of cheering greeted the first Spanish detachment. Later on German legionaries passed the saluting base. Now almost all these foreign troops have returned to their own country.

And when the shouting and the tumult dies, and the captains and their troops depart, the Spanish people turn their thoughts to reconstruction. The trenches at La Linia have been filled in. It will be months, years perhaps, before all the scars of war. are obliterated. Millions must be spent in repairing buildings, factories, streets, roads and shelltorn countryside. Money is scarce, food is scarce, the people of Madrid are recovering from the privations of a long siege. A decree has been passed establishing food rationing over the whole country.

For many months now Spain has been a focus upon which men's thoughts have been fixed almost continuously. All Europe has anxiouslv watched the Civil War there because the results of the struggle will affect for better or for worse the relations of all countries with each other. It is too early yet to conjecture what those results will definitely be.

It is not that Spain to-day is one of the great countries. Her days of Empire lie in the past. But it has come about that the first important dash between the modern ideas of Fascism and Communism have occurred there.

All who believe in the freedom of the individual cannot but feel that their cause has received a certain injury by the victory of General Franco's party over those loyal to the Republican Government.

Only for a very short period can the banner of Freedom be said to have waved over Spain. Her history is one long record of oppression, whether of the peoples she conquered in i»er imperial days or of her own people at home. When Philip the

Second ascended her throne in the middle of the 16th century, Spain owned nearly all the American continent—all Central America and South America, the southern part of North America and many islands. Cold and silver from their mines filled the vaults of her untaxed grandees. Hut no profitable colonies were established, and the common people in Spain Mere so ground down by the taxes on tlieir food and industry that the population actually dwindled.

It was always to the benefit of the mother country when her overseas possessions revolted or were taken away from her. With the loss of the last remnant, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, at the end of last century, she grew stronger, though this was due to economic rather than political developments.

Spain, indeed is a land of considerable natural wealth, much of it undeveloped. She could support a much bigger population than the 28,000,000 in her 190,000 square miles—an area twice as big as Britain. Nearly half the country consists of pasture and mountains; agriculture and gardens accounts for one-third, while olives, vines and fruit are cultivated on over 10,000,000 acres, irrigation and modern methods now taking the place of the primitive husbandry which survived so long.

Spain's mineral wealth has been much talked of since the Civil War began, for her exports are required

for the munitions of her neighbours. In 1934 some three and a half million tons of iron were obtained from her mines in the northern provinces and Seville, Britain buying over £1,000,000 worth. The copper mines of Seville, Cordova and Huelva, producing over 6,000,000 tons, are imporr tant, while zinc, mercury and lead exceed the value of copper. Some 7,000,000 tone of coal are mined a year.

Water has not yet been developed to any great extent in this land of many mountains. The existing capacity i« under 100,000 h.p., but conservative estimates state there is available for production 2,000,000 h.p. The cultivation of cotton has been encouraged by the . Government, and over 00,000 looms, mostly in Catalonia, produce cotton goods- for the home market. Wool, paper and glass are growing industries.

Most of Spain's wealth is within easy reach of her long coastline, round which are over a hundred seaports, Barcelona, Cadiz and Bilboa having the biggest trade. Barcelona, with a population of well over a million, is the great modern rival of Madrid, which normally has about a million people. Both these towns had magnificent streets and buildings, but, whereas- Madrid ha 6 the prestige and culture of a glorious past, Barcelona, as the capital of the Catalonians, is the centre of a. rac<? which has more vigour and enterprise than any other race in Spain.

Speaking a dialect akiji to the Pi ovencal of their French neighbours across the Pyrenees, the Catalonians de6pise the Caetilians, as they call the Spaniards, and have long aimed at complete independence, making a special request for it at the Peace Conference at Versailles. When Spain became a republic eight years ago self-government was at last granted to Catalonia, only to be taken away after two years, but. when General Franco started the civil war, Cata-

lonia declared itself autonomous, although continuing to support the Madrid Government with soldiers.

Two other regions asked for the self-government provided for in the new Constitution, the country of the Basques, and Galicia in the extreme north-west, whose people (the Gallegos) are a vigorous and industrious race, cultivating some of the richest soil in Europe and working in lead, copper and iron mines.

It is the Atlantic rains which have brought fertility to these northern provinces, but as we go south into Old and New Castile we come to regions which are arid and unproductive, the home of the typical Spaniard, proud, austere, reserved. To the south, in sunniest Spain, live the Andalusiane, less hardy and pleasure-loving, retaining still much of the culture of the Moors. George Borrow long ago wrote of the natural dignity of the Spaniards, and this lias revealed itself again and again in the Civil War.

It is in the interests of the future peace of the world that Spain should remain as free and independent as she has been for over a century, a kind of Switzerland flanked by the seas. It seems evident that General Franco will side with the two great dictator Powers, Germany and Italy, in European affairs. In a public speech he uttered a warning to "certain nations" and professed his intentions to collaborate in the pacification of Europe. Herr Hitler's message to Franco at his Victory Parade was, "The thoughts of myself and the German people are with you. May the Spanish troops enjoy a long period of peaceful reconstruction under your powerful leadership."

Will Spain come entirely under German or Italian domination? She more than ever holds a strategic position on the world map, and it k essential that she remain independent and free.