The Press SATURDAY. MAY 15, 1943. Franco Wants Peace

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23948, 15 May 1943, Page 4

The Press SATURDAY. MAY 15, 1943. Franco Wants Peace

General Franco, in a speech reported this week, urged that it was " senseless to delay peace.” He was a little bolder than his Minister of War, a month ago. General Jordana expressed his confident hope that the Vatican would be ‘‘able to facilitate “the advent of peace”; General Franco summoned the belligerents to " listen to the voices calling for “ peace—like those of Spain and the " Vatican.” It is impossible to dissociate this Spanish move from Axis influence, or to dismiss it as harmless. Jordana declared that Communism was the world’s greatest menace; a declaration which Berlin's propagandists at once exploited. Franco’s attempt to commit the Vatican is in effect an attempt to use another wedge on the same possible line of cleavage in Allied unity. It is quite true, as the Washington correspondent of the “ New York Times ” says it is suggested in the capital, that Franco has an independent “ interest in “ peace,” because the defeat of the Axis would endanger his regime; but true as it is, it merely emphasises the fact that Franco’s aims must lie nearer to Axis hopes than to the United Nations’ need. True as it is, also, it merely raises the probability that the Axis diplomats in-Madrid, if they wanted to promote peace moves, would have no difficult task. Beyond any doubt, this has been the object of various enemy schemes. At the end of last year, feelers for peace were extended through Sweden and through Switzerland. One took the form of a suggestion that the Nazi chiefs could be overthrown by a militaryJunker combination which, on suitable terms, would be prepared to give up the occupied territories. Count Ciano was made Ambassador to the Holy See at a period which appeared significantly to coincide with Archbishop Spellman’s visit to Rome and Ribbentrop’s presence there. Certainly, Berlin and Rome instantly denied that General Jordana’s peace speech was inspired by the Axis, and even denied.any foreknowledge of it; but the denial was clearly calculated to strengthen its effect. The German Official News Agency, for instance, approved the speech and, without much finesse, exposed the Wilhelmstrasse’s design. Casablanca had produced the demand for unconditional surrender; so long as that demand was maintained, the Axis must fight on till the “ perils menacing Europe “ from the east and west ” were “ removed,” General Jordana’s appeal was answered by Mr Cordell Hull in a brief restatement of the Casablanca resolve. General Franco’s has been answered by Mr Eden: there is nothing to change and nothing to add. This is as plain as it should be. Yet it is not enough. Whatever the form and origin of Axis peace moves, they must be recognised as a part of the Axis propaganda to divide the United Nations. Any line will serve—political, religious, economic. To succeed, such moves do not have to reach their immediate and ostensible object; they succeed if, in the “ Econo- ” mist’s ” striking phrase, “Hitler can “ achieve the polarisation of forces “ which paralysed the Europe of “ Munich and broke the France of “ 1940.” It is, therefore, not enough to say “ No,” not enough to say that the last word was said at Casablanca. It is imperative to guard the United Nations front; not merely to guard it but to confirm it, And there is only one way to do that. Present unity and future security are inseparable. Every step to agreement on the basic conditions of the second consolidates the first. Progress in that direction has befen too slow and uncertain. It will have to be more resolutely pressed.