BRITAIN PREPARES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 10

BRITAIN PREPARES

SHOW-DOWN ON SPAIN

MR. EDEN'S WARNING

In a statement to his constituents'in Warwickshire, Mr. Eden did his part in sweeping aside the camouflage which has kept in being for seven unhappy months the desperate pretence of the Spanish Non-Intervention Committee, writes Anne O'Hare McCormick in i the "New York Times." Since the fall of Bilbao, the revelations of terror in Russia, the crisis in France, Germany and Italy have ripped away the last layer of cellophane covering their movements and intentions in Spain. Mussolini boasts openly that he will not withdraw a man until Franco wins. Hitler asserts frankly that access to the ore in Spanish mines is of vital interest to the Reich. France threatens to throw her frontiers wide open to aid the Loyalists. Now the spokesman, for his Majesty's Government "issues a warning that, while. Great Britain takes no side in the1 internal struggle, she will never permit a change in the status or territorial integrity of a country whose coasts impinge on the main artery of the Empire. For the first time in such emphatic terms, the Foreign Secretary declares that Britain cannot be indifferent where her national interests are concerned. With other recent developments Uhis declaration serves to recall the real crux of the Spanish situation to the attention of those distracted by the ideological campaign. Whatever the Spaniards are fighting for or against, for the outside Powers the conflict is essentially a struggle over the Mediterranean, of a piece with the Ethiopian affair, the competition for Morocco, the secret bargains of the World War. On!j when viewed from this angle do th, international moves become understandable.

FARCE OH TRAGEDY,

As the pretence of non-intervention breaks down, even its critics begin to see the' advantages of farce compared to the tragedy that may follow. Those who yesterday taunted the British for keeping up the fiction are - today demanding why they seem ready to face facts. They find the sudden shifts in British policy hard to explain except on the theory that the object is to keep the dictators guessing. A few days ago Mr. Eden intimated In the House of Commons that it might be desirable to recognise Franco as a belligerent. Now rather than accept this suggestion 'from Germany and Italy, Britain and France announce flatly that they will scrap the non-intervention policy. A few weeks ago the London stage was all set for rapprochement with Berlin. Now Britain veers sharply away from Germany. After months of keeping non-intervention alive with an oxygen tank, she seems prepared at last to risk 1 We reason for this abrupt stiffening of the British attitude is that the dictators have overplayed their hand. By counting too loudly on Franco s victory and simultaneously withdrawing from the naval patrol, they have. rung the alarm bell in England. So long as the war was a stalemate the English confined their efforts to localising and ameliorating its horrors. The capture combined with the apparent inability of the Loyalists to take the offensive by giving the edge to the msJrgenl hay s changed the balance and cauf ed England to translate intc, teims of Mediterranean power the possibility of a' Spanish-Italian entente.

FOR A DRAWN BATTLE. The British aim from the beginning mMmm plies of Ila^: rt i", and commercial SB £SS .i *P«den, on her £?«« in the Mediterranean. firmness in U«^oice hard . may not be comcn«: Amur ening followed the etre a to e _ encirding KiVC- r; £to be vulnerable at all points - sEf ;r: norroVS.s t.jae is npe ior <* whether any Sw?.",™ come ou, <»m .rnder ,h, r.no.tr"?ni"'S e"!,r- 0o"^ffl is being called.