Evening Post. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1937. "AGENTS" IN FRANCO SPAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 110, 5 November 1937, Page 8

Evening Post. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1937. "AGENTS" IN FRANCO SPAIN

To the Labour vision of the "Daily Herald," the proposal of the British Government to appoint agents in insurgent Spain indicates the Government's conviction that General Franco will win. The Government, argues the "Herald," is anxious to get on the winner at the eleventh hour, and is taking action equivalent to, or comparable with, recognition of the insurgent (Franco) Administration. In repudiating the last contention the Prime Minister, Mr. Chamberlain, stated in the House of Commons that "the agents will have no diplomatic status; the Government has no intention of varying its attitude towards the contending parties." That is to say, there is no "decision to recognise Franco," but a new machinery is proposed to be created for discussions between the British Government and the insurgent Administration. The trade of insurgent Spain is important. Some Spanish materials are needed for rearmament. Unless non-recognition also means no-trade, the British Government cannot b% expected to abandon to-Germany and Italy the raw materials which Spain exports with the aid of British capital.

Side by side with the British Government's agency negotiations with the Franco Administration, the Nonintervention Committee is moving towards the granting of belligerent rights to both the Spanish parties by the Non-Intervention Powers, but [subject to withdrawal of non-Spanish combatants from Spain. By comparison with slow-footed Non-inter-vention, the direct negotiations between Britain and Franco will probably be rapid, and results cannot be expected from both quarters with equal rapidity! If Non-intervention had proved during the last year to be a constructive factor as well as a preventive one, the withdrawal of nonSpanish combatants would have been accomplished and the Spanish war might have been over. Its continuance means the continuance of mutual suspicion among all the Powers interested in the trade of Spain and in her territorial integrity; and it will be rather surprising if Mr. Chamberlain's minimisation of the agency proposals is not, greeted (with renewed criticism on the Continent, as well as in British Labour circles. The steering of a course that is legalistically as well as morally correct has become difficult because the Spanish war and the non-Spanish interferences create a situation probably.without precedent. There seems to be no cure except to end the war. Russian reservations with regard to Spain, and German-Italian reservations with regard to Russia's reservations, handicap the Non-intervention] proposals from the start. Here are [three Powers that refuse to meet in Geneva; they will meet in London in "an effort (Non-Intervention) to abstain from going to war themselves, yet they can reach in London no agreement about Spain except with reservations. Outside the London meetings/they are actively at work to defeat each other's objectives---Italy and Germany bent on a Franco victory, Russia resisting with desperation. And now the net is spreading wider still. Russia is the backer of China against Japan as well as the backer of republican Spain against insurgent Spain. While Russia pursues these policies at the Brussels Nine-Powers ■ Conference as well as on the Non-intervention Committee, Fascist plans are maturing to bring together East and West, and to link Japan more securely with Germany (and now also with Italy) in a pact variously called "anti-Comintern" and "anti-Communist." Rome messages tend to confirm the probability of a tripartite understanding among the three treaty-breaking militarist Powers.

The Italian hand is made plain when tHe Italian delegate at Brussels tells the Nine-Powers Conference that discussions in the absence of Japan are "useless." Thereupon the Conference decides, in committee, to again invite Japan to attend, and to invite Germany; but meanwhile Germany, Italy, and Japan are drawing closer together—and for what purpose unless it is to defeat the Brussels effort to extricate China from the Japanese claws? It happens, now, as it has happened in the past, that international conferences are attended by persons whose purpose, both inside and outside the conference, is obviously not to end the war under consideration, or to end it only on their own terms. The Far Eastern situation in itself offers no insuperable obstacle to a peace between Japan and China. But the influence of Italy is certainly not helping in that direction, and the interest of Italy also seems, to be opposed to an early cessation of either the Eastern war or the Western w,ar. Italian delegates have contributed nothing to remove that impression, either in London or in Brussels.

The net that is spread from the Mediterranean to the Far East covers middle and eastern Europe, and the region of Herr Hitler's proclaimed ambitions. Lord Strabolgi's statement in the House of Lords that "Italy's power for mischief is greatly exaggerated" does not tend to reduce | anxiety. What the speaker, probably | meant is that Italy's power is exaggerated. This may be so. But her power for mischief is probably underrated rather than overrated. Her

power for mischief includes the possibility of creating a Mediterranean friction that will provide cover for German adventure. The comparative silence about the Little Entente and the Balkan countries: —a silence broken lately by "The Times's" comment on the Bulgarian King's visit to England—must not be construed as meaning that the Mediterranean is the only danger-point in Europe. The possibilities of Nazi-Fascist "selfdefence" developments on the Danube are no less potent than in Spain and China. '