RESTORATION PLAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 119, 16 November 1937, Page 9

RESTORATION PLAN

SPANISH MONARCHY

SUGGESTION OF BRITISH

SUPPORT

DON JUAN AS KING

(United Tress Association— By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.)

LONDON, November 15,

The diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Herald" says that General Franco's agent, the Duke of Alba, will discuss immediately with the Foreign Office the restoration of the Spanish Monarchy with Don Juan, ex-King Alfonso's youngest surviving son, as "peace-making King." The Duke, who has influential friends in London, assured General Franco that if he offered the restoration of tli'Jj Monarchy in addition to the withdrawal of volunteers he would get the strongest diplomatic support from Britain.

The "Daily Telegraph's" Paris correspondent says there is considerable activity arnohg the Spanish Monarchists in France. A plan has been prepared to place Don Juan on the thrOne.

The diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Sketch" says that despite denials it is reliably reported that Senor Negfin, the Republic Prime Minister, is going to London to negotiate terms for a truce. General Franco's Officers met Government representatives at a Wayside restau^ rant at Hehdaye to discuss an armistice.

Don Juan, Prince of the Asturias and heir presumptive to the Spanish throne by virtue of its renunciation by his two elder brothers, was borh in 1913. in 1935 he married at Rome Princess Marie-Mefcedes, and has ohc child, the infanta Maria del Pilaf, born in 1936. Obneral Franco has Made several references to the position of the Monarchy in 'the eveht of a rebel victory. During an interview Which he gave to a representative Of the "New York Times" On June 17, he was asked his opinion of the influence of the Monarchy as a possible' Unifying factor in Spain, ahd replied that he Considered it "as much- ah error to propose c Monarchial restoration as to reject the possibility of it ih the political future of Spain," On July 19, when celebrating "a year of triumph" for the revolt, he told his Royalist followers that the Monarchy might eventually be restored. He showed favour to Prince Juan of Bourbon, but said there was no hope of the return of ex-King Alfonso. "If the moment for a restoration arrives," he said, "the new MOharchy must be very different from the Monarchy which fell in 1931, different in content and even different in the person incarnating it.- If the moment comes it will be a new link between new forms and the vigour of the fighting south and the glorious traditions of Spain." He told a special correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph ' that he could not invite any king to Spain until his* house had been put in order In October last year he told the American Associated Press that the King might return to Spain, after the-new organisation of the State had been completed and "if the people expressed the desire in a plebiscite."