SPANISH UNREST

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 200, 14 July 1936, Page 7

SPANISH UNREST

CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE. UNDER PRESENT CONDITIONS. PRESENT ORDER THREATENED. (United Press Association—By ElectricTelegraph—Copyright.) v Received July 14, 9.50 a.m. LONDON, July 13. The Sun-Herald Service savs the gravest views must bo taken of the Spanish situation. .There is at present such an unheaval politically and industrially that the Morning Post's Madrid correspondent says a revolution and a. civil war are inevitable unless a strong hand is soon taken to check the Socialist and Syndicalist movement which is seeking to destroy the material and moral foundations of the present order. The wholesale destruction of churches has been accompanied by the seizure of private estates and bloodshed. Spain’s credit is falling alarmingly.

FOUND MURDERED

SPANISH MONARCHIST,

Received Julv 14, 9.50 a.m. MADRID, July 13. Senor Calve. Sotelo, the Spanish Monarchist leader, was kidnapped, supposedly by . Storm Guards, , a .special branch of the police who were incensed at the murder by Fascists of a comrade. Sotelo was later found murdered in the municipal cemetery. The blood feud of Socialists and Fascists which has resulted in the death of a score qf persons in the past week culminated in the brutal murder of the former Minister of Finance, Senor Sotelo. Members, of his family state that a group of uniformed men,- led by a lieutenant of the Storm Guards, drove up in a motor bus and said that they were authorised to arrest Sotelo, who vainly protested Parliamentary immunity, but he was bundled into the bus.

The family telephoned police headquarters asking the reason for the arrest and received a reply that no arrest had been authorised. Consequently they formed the opinion that Sotelo had been kidnapped, but the body eventually was found in the cemetery. It appears that Sotelo was murdered in the bus, which was then driven to the cemetery. Officials at the cemetery say that armed and uniformed men said they wanted to deposit the body of a dead watchman. Sotelo had been knifed and shot in the face, making identification difficult. Tlio bus was found parked before the Polico Barracks and the driver and five Stonn Guards, were arrested, also the staff of the cemetery for receiving the body without the usual documents. ■ • Sotelo served under Senor De Rivera's dictatorship and was exiled after the fall of the monarchy, but was granted an amnesty, lie opposed the Leftists and had been regarded as a possible leader if the Rightists -regained power. It is believed that the murder was a reprisal for the murder the previous night of Lieut-ena.nt Jose De Castillo, a Storm Guard and ardent Socialist, who was shot dead by four Fascists as he was leaving his homo'. Castillo, in turn, had been accused of the murder of Senor Heredia during tlio funeral of a murdered Civil Guard. It is widely reported that the Stonn Guards who'killed Sotelo also visited the homos of Senor Gilrobles and another Monarchist, hut both were fortunately out of town. INQUIRY ORDERED.

Cabinet sat all day to consider the unsettled situation and ordered a judicial inquiry into the murder oi Sotelo. The police were busy during the week-end rounding up Fascists and seizing arms.. One hundred thousand strikers in the building trades refuse to return to work on tnc terms approved by the Government.