OFFER BY FRANCO

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 151, 29 June 1938, Page 13

OFFER BY FRANCO

A FREE PORT

FAR FROM SEAT OF WAR NEUTRAL CONTROL United Tress Association—By Elcclric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, June 28. In an interview with the Saragossa correspondent of "The Times," General Franco declares that there is only one solution to the problems created by the bombing of republican ports by nationalist aircraft—namely, the selling apart of a single harbour far from the seat of war and devoted solely to commercial traffic of a nonmilitary nature. Such a port would be stripped of military objectives and would naturally have to be controlled by neutral countries. General Franco described the offer thus made as being an important sacrifice by the Burgos Government of its legitimate rights, and as being unprecedented in history.

General, Franco has denied that his airmen are deliberately seeking out British vessels for attack.

The height from which bombing is usually .effected, said General Franco, varied from 9000 feet, and it was therefor impossible to distinguish between ships in the danger zone. Many British ships recently sunk were not really British, he said, but were the property of companies registered in Britain since the war began with the sole object of benefiting from the protection of the British flag. These facts were well known to the British Government. | I ! i