Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1936. WAR "NOT INEVITABLE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 134, 3 December 1936, Page 8

Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1936. WAR "NOT INEVITABLE"

"I do not think," says M. Blum, "that war is inevitable." He is hot certain, and the fact that a Premier of France can express his optimism in such qualified terms speaks volumes concerning the war menace. On the side of optimism (no war) he sees the slowly-firming solidity of an Anglo-French-American /bloc, a democratic bloc, working through currency co-operation. But on the opposite side is the gathering in Spain of European adventurers, and the increasing fear that these include military contingents from Germany and Russia,' going as military units, possibly- with Government connivance. ■* The co-operation of.the three' great democracies—Britain, France, and the United States—is relied ,on by the French Premier to prevent "a general war in Europe. . . . We need America's help to stabilise peace." And President Roosevelt and Mr. Cordell Hull seem to be going as far as they possibly can, in public, to make reciprocal gestures. The President's speeches in South America are world speeches as well as South American speeches, but the legislation of the. last Congress remains, and, so far as can be seen, th.c aloof spirit^ remains. So the co-operation of "llic three great democracies" moves wilh democratic slowness. But crucial events can happen in a very short space of time in a Dictatorship State. And in a Dictatorship State can be initiated actions which, working through another country; may set in a blaze all Europe. ■The Bill prohibiting British ships from' carrying arms to Spain from any other country is an attempt at speed 'by a democracy. Immediately the Labour Opposition moves its rejection; obviously such a thing could not have happened in Germany, since Herr Hitler brooks no opposition. If 'the. German Government wishes to do a thing, it is done. The Labour spokesman, Mr. Noel Baker, prescribes not speed but delay—the Bill "should have been postponed until there had been consultations with the other Governments : represented on the Non-intervention Committee." And yet delay and tardiness of action have been reproaches constantly hurled at that same Committee and at matters. connected with it. .While arms and munitions and' men can leave a dictatorship country at a moment's notice —either by the activity or ..by the inactivity, of its Government—the Bill of a democratic country to counter such moves by ordering .British ships out of the traffic, is opposed and may be delayed or evens destroyed. Thus news of the arrival in Spain of a big contingent of men from Germany or Italy or.Russia can worsen the situation over-night, while the Bill to hinder the traffic fights its way through the House of Commons with difficulty amid Opposition counsels of delay. It is in'these losses of time, and uncertainties of action, that democratic co-operation (of Government and Parliamentary ' Opposition,'.' or of Government and Government) loses ground to1 Dictatorship. The Bill imposing the shipping ban may have to wait. Meanwhile decisive steps may be taken in where there "is ho waiting. , Any argument that the removal of British ships from the war traffic will hurt the Spanish Government more than it will hurt the Spanish rebels, seems to be as applicable to the Non-Intervention Committee and to the non-intervention principle as it is to the Bill. Mr. Eden makes this point when he compares the Labour Opposition's opposition to the Bill with its-support of the nonintervention principle. It is true that the Bill may be raising accidentally a sleeping lion, \n that it might in certain, circumstances,., separate the British Navy from Dominion shipping not bound by the Bill (if it passes);and not observing its prohibition.The fact that the Dominions are not. bound.by. the Locarno Agreement (or what remains of it, as lately interpreted by,-Mr. Eden), and the fact that the Dominions will not be bound by the Bill before Hie House of Commons could lead to various complications if certain hypothetical situations were to arise. But such hypothetical situations —though well worth constitutional study, and well worth keeping in political view— did not prevent Locarno and need not deter the House of Commons from

passing this Bill to deal with a special emergency. In practice, it is pointed out, on behalf of the Government, that. Dominion ships are very unlikely lo engage in war traffic to Spain. If the arguments for; delay raised in the House of Commons are good, speed of action by a Government of a democratic country seems to be hopeless. The way things are clone under a/ Dictatorship enables a situation to be created that can defeat such a Bill even before it reaches the Statute Book, i So far, the history of the attempt to localise the Spanish war shows how easily action outpaces authority. Slowly, and reluctantly .in some cases, the Governments formed the Non-intervention Committee; it met amid mutual accusations, and it has failed to stop (though' it may have reduced) the traffic to Spain. To fill a hole in the net, the British Government, without waiting for other Governments, and perhaps as an example to them, introduced the Bill now in dispute; and while its progress is still uncertain, the discovery seems to have been made that the non-intervention net must be further patched by general agreement of Governments to prohibit the departure of volunteer fighters, or so-called volunteer fighters, to the scene of civil war. This also may involve new experiments in international law, and legal complications may arise; but unless something is done to prevent it, the Spanish civil war may develop into a Avar in Spain by other countries who are determined to fight out their quarrels indirectly if not directly, and at the. expense of the Spaniards. Besides trying, -in ways mentioned above, to prevent war being carried to Spain from outside, the British Government is willing to offer mediation in Spain itself, so that the war may be stopped in its place of origin. Regard for the. well-being of Spaniards, and fear that localisation of the war may fail, can both be harnessed in a movement to stop the conflict before it ends in something worse than even the destruction of ancient and beautiful Madrid.