MADRID REFUGEES

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 June 1937, Page 13

MADRID REFUGEES

“RIGHT-WING” SURVIVORS. Henry AV. Buckley “Daily Telegraph” Madrid correspondent writes: — One of the most important, and most difficult, problems of the hour in Spain is the care of the 6,000 refugees in the embassies and legations of Madrid. Over 10,000 persons put themselves under diplomatic protection when the military rebellion, broke out. Some 4,000 have been evacuated, but the Government apparently now feels that the process of evacuation must cease unless reciprocal facilities are sanctioned for the release from insurgent territory of persons of Left-wing sympathies.

Not that, the problem of the position of people of the Right in Madrid is limited to the 6,000 who are sheltering in the Embassies. Not all could afford the high sums, in some cases 15,000 or 20,000 pesetas, which unscrupulous intermediaries have charged as the price of introduction to a refuge of a. diplomatic character.

The aristocratic class by its connections has had less difficulty in obtaining protection, and also food, for those who still live in their homes. There are families which obtain food supplies from three different Embassies. The Right wing middle class has been harder hit, having neither money nor influence in many cases. The problem of feeding the refugees under diplomatic protection is no light one. Food is brought in ships to Spain and by motor-lorry to Madrid. One embassy with over 1,000 “guests” is very short of food. In others one can eat better than can the man in the street. It depends to a certain extent on the amount of money available among the refugees and the resourcefulness of the persons in charge of the food supplies. It is a strange life which people of the Right live in Madrid. Some move from house to house, changing their domicile every few days. Others live quietly in their homes. There are titled people who live unmolested. If you know where to go you can hear Mass in Madrid —a priest wearing a white bath robe over an ordinary suit says Mass at a bare kitchen table with crockery for altar vessels. In a second he can whisk off his robe, and the room gives no sign to the suspicious visitor’ of what has been happening. DEATH ROLL GUESSES.

In the case I have in mind the priest and those who go there are Republicans who are still devout Catholics. There is no plotting. In another part of the town Mass can be heard, but there is a very different atmosphere prevails; die-hard Franco supporters gather there who are willing to take any risks to damage the Government cause.

I spoke with a Mother Superior. She lives with her nuns in a flat. The militiamen took them there on July 19. They are supplied -with food from the militia. They are free to come and go, but they never stir outside.

She said that her brother had been shot but that as far as she and her nuns were concerned she had no complaints. She could not give me any details of nuns killed in Barcelona. There were many killed in Barcelona, she said, but she had no direct knowledge of any shot in Madrid although, as the nuns number some thousands in the capital, she could not speak with complete assurance. About 100 priests had been shot in Madrid, she said, and many more in Madrid Provinces. No figures, however, could be given. “How many people have been shot altogether in. Madrid?” I asked a stalwart supporter of Gen. Franco. His answer was: “At least 75,000.”’ I asked the same question of a Government police official. He thought, at the most, 10,000. But, as he pointed out, no one can possibly have accurate figures. . It would take months of investigation to obtain even an approximate figure based on hard facts. Gen. Franco’s supporter thought about 20 people a week were still being shot. He did not think that so far there had been any reprisals on prisoners or Right-wing people in general for the heavy shelling of Madrid’s civilian population by the insurgent artillery. He denied Government statements that in some villages in insurgent territory as many as 25 per cent, of the workers have been shot, but he admitted that probably many tens of thousands of Left-wing people had been executed since July. The Anarchist Press makes strange reading these days. Energetic editorials may be seen protesting against execution without legal trial, and the detention of prisoners without warrant.

Coming from a party which during the first months of the movement took a prominent part in most unpleasant happenings there is a certain grim humour in this change of front. It is due to the fact that new police, more or less under Marxist control, have apparently been taking firm steps to put an end to certain anomalies. Ouwardly that part of Spain which the Government rules is beginning to recover its old appearance. Blue-clad shock police patrol the streets. At the frontier green-clad Carabineros are again on duty. The overall period, which spread so far as to affect even generals, seems to have disappeared. Even subalterns wear smart uniforms.

They have dropped the old high-col-lared tunics of the Spanish Army and adopted the V-neck with collai- and tie. There is much saluting, albeit with clenched fist.

Motoring along the coast a few days ago I gave a lift to a young cadet from an officer’s training camp. He was a very smart young fellow of the mid-dle-class, and had studied in England. This new type of officer, with the tens of thousands of new troops who are being trained industriously on the cast coast, should give the Republic a formidable army in a few months. A RATIONS QUESTION. The Internationals are now all in mixed brigades. The British section on one of Madrid fronts has also had a number of Spaniards drafted in. There was a slight complication. The British give up three pesetas of*their 10 pesetas daily in order to get better food than the ordinary rations. I had lunch on their front the other day. and very excellent it was—chops and roast potatoes, plenty of bread and butter and jam. Their new Spanish comrades also wanted this fare., but still wanted to draw 10 pesetas. Finally they decided it was better to earn seven pesetas and eat as the British do. Despite the bad situation in the north there is an optimistic tendency to be found, even in high circles. The army machine runs better every day. Munition supplies are being manufactured with considerable success and

despatch. The successes in Guadalajara and in Andalusia are believed to argue a military improvement, and even superiority over the insurgents. In the north, it is pointed out, the military forces were never unified. The old militias retained their status. This is said to have been due to fear that the Communists would obtain control under unification, a situation which apparently did not appeal to , the Basque Catholics.

Hope's of victory increase the jockeying for favourable political positions. The Socialists are more than a little disturbed by the jump in Communist party membership from 110,000 before July to 300,000 to-day. They tend to flirst with the Anarcho-Syndi-calists in order to offset Communist strength.

The Republicans on the other hand look suspiciously at the proposals to unite the Socialist and Anarcho-Syndi-calist trade unions, fearing that the trade unions will thus become predominant, so that they will want to squeeze political parties .out of the picture. So fhe Republicans show great friendliness and a spirit of cooperation the Communists, whose stout defence of the necessity for maintaining the Popular Front integrally seems to them a guarantee against beign swamped by trade unionism.

An example of party rivalry has been seen in Valencia. The peasants, about whom Blasco Ibanez wrote so graphically in “La Cabana” and other novels, for the most part rent their small plots of irrigated land which they till with their families. After July, as most of the landowners disappeared, the peasants insisted that each little plot was now’ his own personal property. The Socialists and AnarchoSyndicalist unions wanted to “collectivise,” and the peasants resisted the suggestion fiercely. The Communist Minister of Agriculture, Sr. Uribe, intervened with a decree conceding those peasants who had rented land for a certain number of years possession of the property under certain conditions. The Communists formed a Provincial Federation of Peasants. Sixty thousand smallholders joined, delighted to find a political organisation to fight their battles. The established trade unions now accuse the Communists of “admitting all the reactionaries in Valencia Province into their organisation.” However, there is for the time being no sign of this internal bickering reaching any important proportions. Most groups realise that they all either sink or swim together in the Popular Front Government.

In Catalonia the internal squabbles are more serious than in other parts. The Communists and Socialists have formed a united party. They claim to have in their dependent trade union organisation over 400,000 members, which they claim makes them nearly equal in strength to the AnarchoSyndicalists, who have long been the dominant power in Catalonia. The growth of Marxism in Barcelona is a great help to the Republicans, who stand to benefit by the appearance of a rival to the once all-powerful Anarchists.