POPULACE PACK UP.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 48, 25 January 1939, Page 9

POPULACE PACK UP.

THOUSANDS FLKKING-

REFUGEES FROM DEATH. Received January 2d, 12.20 p.m. BARCELONA, Jan. 24. Amid the crashing of bombs, and the roar of anti-aircraft guns and General Franco’s big guns, the city to-day l>egnn feverishly to pack up. The Government Army is determined to hold on to the last, but tens of thousands are fleeing. Machinery has been stripped from the factories, and the whole apparatus of the Central and Catalan Administrations has l>een carted off.

The road to Gerona is jambed with vehicles of all descriptions. Gerona, which is normallv of 25,000 inhabitants, received 20.000 refugees last week; yet new crowds are pouring in. Officials are vainly searching for quarters in which to instal the Government departments, which are being driven farther north to Figuera.

Some of the departments came originally from Madrid to \ alencia, thence to Barcelona and arc now on the road again alter travelling 600 miles in two years.

The people of Barcelona find it incredible that the battlefront which was 100 miles away last month is now visible from the city.

Madrid could be defended because there is at least one gun to five insurgent guns, but Barcelona has probably not one to 20. It is obvious that the shallow trenches, which were hastily dug, arc of no use against the massed batteries of artillery and fleets of bombers.