RING OF STEEL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 3 October 1936, Page 7

RING OF STEEL

CLOSING ON MADRID DEFIANCE HURLED AT REBELS FROM WITHIN CAPITAL (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) MADRID, Ist October. The Spanish Parliament met in the capital with the rebels’ ring of steel only twenty miles away. The speakers hurled defiance at the rebels, expressing optimism regarding the future. Senor Barrao, President, said: ‘ Spain prefers to die on her feet rather than to live on her knees.” The Premier, Senor Caballero, said: “We declare before Parliament and the world our profound conviction that victory will lie with Spain as represented by this House. We will fight to the last moment while, there is a square yard of soil to defend.” NEW ZEALAND AIRMAN RECOVERING MADRID, Ist October. The New Zealand airman .Mr Eric Griffiths, who was wounded in fighting against rebel planes, is recovering from his wound in Madrid hospital.

ATROCITIES ATTRIBUTED

CHARGE AND COUNTER-CHARGE TWO DOCUMENTS

LONDON, 2nd October.

Charge and counter-charge of atrocities in Spain appear almost daily, but are generally given with some reserve. Two documents with an official flavour were issued to-day. College lawyers in Madrid are circulating a world-wide document declaring that the rebels massacred 9000 at Seville, 2000 at Sargossa and 1500 at Badajos, where they were herded into a bullring and mown down with machine guns. The wounded were left lingering among the dead. Geneva delegates have received from the rebel headquarters at Burgos a list of horrors attributed to Government troops in every city captured in southern Spain, including 91 slain with axes at Buena, 23 burned alive at Araha prison, and the shooting of Colonel Luiz Pinzon, a descendant of Columbus’s associate, in the presence of his two sisters, who went mad.

FOUGHT IN SPAIN

EX-MAYOR OF YORK IN MACHINE-GUN CREW LONDON, 2nd October. Alderman Dobbie, ex-Mayor of York and ex-President of the Rail’way men’s Union, in a speech at London, revealed that while on a visit to Spain, he joined a Government machine-gun crew at Toledo and took a share in their work. Had the Government heavy artillery and high explosives, the alcazar could not have lasted two hours.

THE NEW REGIME

WILL FAVOUR WORKERS AND MIDDLE CLASS “ALL MUST HAVE BREAD” (Received 3rd October, 10.0 a.m.) LISBON, 2nd October. General Franco, interviewed, said: “We aim to establish a regime favouring the workers and the middleclass. Every home must have bread. Those in possession of too much must share it.”