BRITISH POLICY DEFENDED

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22073, 22 April 1937, Page 9

BRITISH POLICY DEFENDED

Protection Of Shipping On High Seas NO OTHER COURSE SAID TO BE POSSIBLE (BBITISH OF7ICIAL WIEELESB.) (Received April 21, 7.30 p.m.) RUGBY, April 21. Speaking in a debate on the Bilbao situation, raised on a motion for an adjournment moved in the House of Commons by the Opposition, Sir Samuel Hoare, First Lord of the Admiralty, said that he wanted to make it clear that the Navy was able and ready to carry out any policy adopted by the Government. Information from various sources went to show that for the first time in the Spanish civil war one side had succeeded in isolating and- investing by land and sea a particular part of the Spanish territory. That created a new situation in the policy of nonintervention. Advice received from the Basque ports indicated that, though the conditions varied from time to time, an effective blockade had been established by the insurgent fleet, which had a concentration of one battleship, one cruiser, one destroyer, and several armed merchantmen, against which the Government forces consisted only of one destroyer, one submarine, and one armed trawler, and that the insurgent vessels were able to' operate freely inside the territorial waters. Danger of Mines Information about mines was necessarily less precise, but the British merchant ship Olavus, which left Bilbao only a few days ago, had reported just missing a mine and believed the position dangerous for merchant shipping. "What other action," Sir Samuel Hoare asked, "could the Government have taken than to warn British merchant ships of the dangers and | advise them against taking serious risks, at the same time assuring them of naval protection on the high seas and also . informing General Franco that that protection would be given? To fail to advise shipping of the dangers would not have been honourable; to have used force to secure a passage of the blockade would have endangered the nonintervention agreement." There was no issue, the Minister insisted, between the Government and the Opposition about the protection of British ships on the high seas. That protection would. be given in the form considered most advisable. A convoy to the limits of the territorial waters was neither consistent with the Governments attitude in giving the advice it had, nor incidentally was it necessarily the best form of protection for a ship seeking to N run the blockade. "Foreigii to Tradition" Opening the debate, Mr A. V. Alexander (Labour), a former First Lord of the Admiralty, said the body of opinion in the country concerned with the defence of liberty and justice regarded the attitude of the Government as foreign to the best British tradition. He questioned the existence of an effective blockade at Bilbao and cited in support statements in a telegram received from a passenger on the British merchant ship Seven Seas Spray, which made an uneventful passage, into Bilbao. Mr Lloyd George complained that the Government's action had given the impression that they had taken sides in the Spanish waj. The Foreign Secretary (Mr R. A. Eden), who wound up the debate, said that the crucial question was whether the Government was justified in the warning it gave to British ships, and he claimed that on the information received the Government could have taken no other course. The Opposition motion was defeated. RESTORATION OF MONARCHY FIRST HINT OF PLANS BY . GENERAL FRANCO (Received April 21, 9.50 p.m.) SALAMANCA, April .20. ~ ! In his decree, issued yesterday, for the merger of Fascists and Carlists into one. organisation, the rebel leader, General Franco, also makes his first reference to the restoration of the monarchy. "When we complete our spiritual and material advance," he states, "we shall not close the door to the possibility of reinstating the regime which forged our national unity and history." DESTROYER FLOTILLA REPLACED (Received April 22, 1'2.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 21. The destroyer flotilla consisting of the Firedrake, Fortune, Fury, and Forester has relieved the Brazen, Brilliant, and Beagle in duty off the north coast of Spain.