The Franklin Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1938. BRITAIN’S OLDEST ALLY

Franklin Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 140, 30 November 1938, Page 4

The Franklin Times

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1938. BRITAIN’S OLDEST ALLY

PUBLISHED EVERY MONDAY, WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOON. Office and Works: ROULSTON STREET, PUKEKOHE. ’Phone No. 2. P.O. Box 14. “We nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice.”

BRITAIN has proverbially, throughout her history, been almost as anxious as America to avoid anything in the nature of alliances with any foreign Power, except in time of actual war. Yet she has one alliance which dates hack to its origins more than live centuries and was re-affirmed only re-

cently in the House of Commons officially by the Under-Secretary of For- . eign Affairs, Mr R. A. Butler. He was speaking of Portugal in reference to a statement by Dr. Salazar, the Portu- . guese Premier, that Britain was pledged to defend the Portuguese colonies. 1-Ie agreed that the declaration of Oc- : tober, 1899, renewing the treaty of ! alliance with Portugal as a guarantee ( of the Portuguese -colonial possessions against attack was still in force. “It has been frequently stated,” Mr Butler added, “that Britain has always admitted and still admits the validity of the treaties between itself and Portugal.” The first treaty was negotiated, in 1373, for trade rather than military purposes,* hut in 1386, after John of Gaunt had helped, with his English archers and lancers, to defeat the Spaniards and put King John I of Portugal firmly on the throne, it was extended. It was, however, in 1661 that a secret article was embodied in the marriage settlement of Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese Princess, with King Charles 11, of England, binding Britain “to defend and protect ah conquests and colonies belonging to the Grown of Portugal, as well future as present,” against all the King of Portugal’s enemies. This is the article that was reaffirmed in 1899, when certain Anglo-German negotiations raised suspicions, and again the other day, when the talk of giivng Germany colonies led to. the fear in Portugal that hers might figure in the gift.

The relations between Britain and Portugal over several centuries reflect that curious mixture of sentiment and self-interest in policy which other nations fail to understand and dismiss in despair with the .reproach, “Toujours la perfide Albion.” Apart from the fortuitous arrival in 1147 of English crusaders, who helped King Alfonso Henriques to capture Lisbon from the Moors, Britain has rendered military aid to Portugal on seven different occasions. What John of Gaunt did to drive out Spain in 138586 has been mentioned, but in 1580 Queen Elizabeth sent an expedition under the Earl of Essex with the same object. It failed, but in 1662, 3000 British veterans, mainly remnants of Cromwell’s Ironsides, helped materially to oust Spain from Portugal. Ten thousand men under the Earl of Galway cleared Portugal of the Spanish invader in 1704 in the campaign in which Sir George Rooke took Gibraltar. Fifty-eight years later Sir John Burgoyne, of Saratoga fame, again drove out the. Spanish invaders. In 17.96 the Spanish attack was resumed and Portugal again appealed to Britain. A force under Sir Charles Stuart kept the Spaniards away. Then came the epic campaigns of the Duke of Wellington in Portugal and Spain Ireginning in 1807 and leading to the final victory of Waterloo. In this series of armed interventions over centuries, Britain was championing the independence of small nations, but she was also safeguarding her own.

Portugal is, like Holland, a little nation with a comparatively precarious foothold on the Continent of Europe, hut with a rich and wide-flung colonial empire, won in the days when all the world lay before the navigator, the explorer, and the trader. Little Portugal colonised the vast domain ol‘ Brazil, but lost it over a hundred years ago. She retains today the island dominions of the Azores, Madeira, and the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic, the large African colonies of Angela and Mozambique, the settlement of Goa in India, the island of Macao off Canton and near Ilong Kong, and part of Timor in the Malay Archipelago. Every one of these places, as well as the mainland of Portugal herself, is of strategic importance to the Bi itish Empire. Portugal and the Portuguese colonies in the hands or under control of a Power hostile to Britain would threaten almost all the Empire’s sea communications. This Britain has long realised, and it is a cardinal point in British foreign policy that Ihe integrity of Portugal and the Portuguese possessions must he preserved. Similarly, in her own problems of defence, Portugal, with a population of only eight millions, with a potentially hostile Spain as a neighbour, needs the .aid of a Power with naval, military, air. and financial re-

sources to secure her against aggression. The only Power fulfilling these •conditions is Britain. The AngloPorluguese Alliance is. therefore, as Dr. Salazar said, to the mutual benefit of both nations. It is vital to one, advantageous to both, and, in Ihe words of .Major Eric Wakeham, "The Times” correspondent J in Portugal, ‘•without exaggeration, a force for i peace in Europe and beyond.” Under the regime of Dr. Salazar, a mild form of dictatorship. Portugal, after years of internal disorder has shown a remarkable revival. Budgets have been balanced for the lirst time for decades and the country is prospering and paying its way. The fear is Spain. When the civil war broke out in that country, Portugal, fearing the threat of the Spanish Leftwing extremists to bring Ihe country

willy-nilly into a federation of Iberian Socialist States, gave support to General Franco as a foe to so dire a threat to Portuguese independence. Recent developments of Spanish imperialism under Franco have altered the situation and brought Portugal back to a realisation of the value of her old alliance. Hence the presence of a British Services Mission in Portugal and the recent announcements by both sides recorded in the news. Whatever happens in Spain, it may be said definitely that Britain will stand by Portugal.—Evening Post.