Great Britain’s Oldest Ally

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23087, 1 August 1940, Page 6

Great Britain’s Oldest Ally

Portugal, a country Which has been allied to ■ Great Britain since 1388, is engaged In the diffl- • cult task of adjusting her policy to the new situation in Europe. • When, the war began, - V Portugal’s sympathies and 'lnterests; in spite of intensive German propaganda and commercial penetration, dictated /the maintenance of her friendship with Great* Britain. tfhe defence of her widely-scattered colonial empire . is beyond her 'slender resources and its exifet- • ence Is therefore/bound up with the existence of the British Empire, with which it is at many points contiguous. But the collapse of . France and the entry ,of Italy into the war made Portugal’s position more difficult, since she is bound to Italy by a long record of amicable relations 'and' by a. common Latin civilisation. Moreover, with Italy at war, the, role ’■ ■ of Spain, Portugal’s only land neighbour; has changed from neutrality to non-belligerency; ■v Portugal’s first reaction to this.changed situation has been to enlarge her existing treaty of non-aggression with Spain to provide for joint action by the two countries “ if develop- • “ments occur threatening the inviolability of “their territories or imperilling their inde- ( pendence.”. There, is nothing in -this, inconsistent with the existing treaty relationship between (Great Britain and Portugal; nor, per,'hapfi, is the new formula of any-great import- ; except as an indication that Portugal is ' seekiHg, by Way of Spain, a more friendly rela- ■ itionship with the axis Powers. That' the future /development of Portuguese policy must be a source of. some anxiety in. London Is fairly ob- : .vidua, The threat to Gibraltar has made the (Portuguese islands of Azores, Madeira, and Cape /[Verde of great strategic importance both as pnav'ol and as air based, since they command the jAtlgntic approaches to the Mediterranean and talsQ/iie across the route of-shipping approach- - . Sing /-the British Isles from Central and South " Kmerica and the Cape of Good Hope. A British loir service to the Azore'S now connects with she United States trans-Atlantic service, while •Italy' has been granted landing fights in the ; ;]Cape Verde islands in connexion with the Ital- . ian air service between Rome and Buenos Aires. : jjPhere is, moreover, Some reason to suppose that pthe British Government had hoped to be able ;: pto TiSe Lisbon as a naval base ,in the event of , ;lhe ‘position at Gibraltar becoming untenable. 3t would, however, be a mistake to suppose that pportjjgal's policy has yet undergone any funda|\atnehtal change. In spite of all that has hapIppened in Europe in the last few months, it is the, balance to her advantage to maintain .alliance with Great Britain. For one thing, relations with Nationalist Spain are beneath uneasy. She does not easily for-E?.=i:■■■-:■the, civil war. In Spain, Falange programme the “ uiiiftIberian peninsula. Again, .ever beconieinvolved in war -i , she would suffer an Immeblockade of her foreign # : bf .which would reduce her to straits in a ffigttgr of a few j^bnths^y^^ ——