TOPICS OF THE TIMES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4566, 8 November 1937, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

The First Year in Spain

“In the first year of the war there can be little doubt that the whole policy of non-intervention has assisted General Franco,” writes Mr. Wilfrid Roberts, M.P., in the “Contemporary Review.” “The simple reason is that the ‘gaps’ in the system have been easier for him to slip through than for the Government. General Franco’s friends have been able to fly their aeroplanes into Spain, while, the Government’s sources of supply being far distant, South America or Russia, have had to come by boat and elude the control scheme. General Franco’s sources of supplies for munitions and equipment are also nearer and more easily able to elude control. It is also true that Germany and Italy, while frequently protesting their disinterestedness in Spain, stand to gain enormously by victory for the insurgents, and are prepared to run risks of international complications which the democracies dare not take. It is doubtful really whether the inextricable complications of non-intervention diplomacy have not been more likely to involve Europe in war than a simple and more orthodox neutrality.”

The Drift to the Towns. “The trend toward urbanisation and concentration seems likely to be strengthened by the further probable, increase in the productivity of agriculture; for if the amounts of food, and other agricultui*al products, needed can be obtained from smaller areas the tendency to abandon the poorer marginal lands and concentrate cultivation in the more fertile areas will be greatly strengthened. These developments are occurring coincidently with the cessation of that rapid increase in numbers which has been a principal fact of human life for the past two centuries. Hence it seems that apart from catastrophic

disturbances (such as a great war) present trends of population movements point toward (1) the probable reduction in the population of the, at present, thinly populated lands, (2) a further increase in the size and dominance of a few areas of maximum concentration of population, among which the three leaders are those described in Western Europe, in Eastern North America, and in China.”—Professor C. B. Fawcett.