TWO SPAINS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4956, 16 February 1937, Page 5

TWO SPAINS

LIFE UNDER BOTH REGIMES. REBELS' ACHIEVEMENTS. “To go from the Spain of the Government to the Spain of the insurgents is to go from dai’kness into light—artificial light though it may be. The insurgents have done a great deal to restore order in the country under their control, though their methods may seem questionable.” , „ . , .. This comment on the Spanish situation appears in an article written from Seville on December 9 by a special correspondent of The Times. Life and Property Safe. “In insurgent Andalusia life and property are safer now than they have been for a long time. The streets are clean and orderly, traffic • is well regulated, and transport services are running as efficiently as is allowed by the needs of the army, which are the first consideration. “Life under insurgent rule is certainly, for such as accept it, a much less hazardous affair than it was in the same territory before. But the most stringent means have been used to enforce it, and by no means are all the people contented. The strictest martial law is in force, and all signs of Communism and trade unionism are being ruthlessly exterminated. Though the insurgents have not shown the same brutality in the elimination of their opponents as the . Government’s supporters, great numbers of Government sympathisers have been shot. “In theory, and pretty often in practice, suspected persons are brought before an avowedly summary form of court-martial, and there are many ugly stories of shootings without even the barest form of trial, and there has been at least one case of a ‘shooting party’ in Seville which members of the public were invited to attend. Franco’s Difficulties. “Not the least of General Franco’s difficulties, should he succeed in conquering the whole country, will be to reconcile his very mixed followers with each other. The Felange (Fascists) , for instance, propose a corporative State, repudiate capitalism, and desire a redistribution of land. They are implacably opposed to a restoration, and propose for the Church toleration but nothing more. The Requetas (Carlists), who are violently Catholic, state that they intend to restore the Church to her former position. . “The landed gentry are convinced that they will have their former privileges restored. For a long time the workers of Andalusia have been thoroughly out of hand, but it is most open to doubt whether General Franco will allow the landed gentry to revert to their old position - ,in the Spanish social order, and the workers to lose the wage concessions which they have won.”