"THE OLD LIFE MUST GO"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23067, 18 June 1938, Page 11 (Supplement)

"THE OLD LIFE MUST GO"

have not minced matters in saying that the bombings were not accidental but premeditated. France and Germany At the same time France is becoming openly perturbed, both by the bombing of towns on tho French side of tho frontier and because of the construction of permanent fortified airports whoso only significance would be in a war with France. The French are thus considering the advisability of a change in the frontier position, and it would need very little to make their aid to tho Barcelona Government more open. French difficulties in this zone perhaps explain why Germany has felt free to adopt a much moro aggressive attitude toward Czechoslovakia in the past few weeks. Within Spain, on the other hand, the position has been clarified in recent months. Franco's forces have conquered the key-post of Lerida and have advanced to a belt of territory around Yinaroz on the Mediterranean. The 20 miles of coast in Nationalist hands are all-important, because they form a wedge between the defenders of Madrid and the besieged Catalonians round Barcelona. Nevertheless, from the military point of view, Franco is confronted by two grave' weaknesses. Though he is much stronger than his opponents in mechanised equipment and aeroplanes (his air forces are five times as great), he still lacks men. He has not a sufficient force to attack Valencia and Barcelona at the same time. He must choose between them. After capturing Lerida, for instance, he had to divert part of his forces for the thrust to the coast; having attained that end, he is turning back to the more northerly advance, but he cannot prosecute both at once. His second weakness is that the nature of his mechanisation helps him only in the open country. When it comes to a siege of great towns, he is hindered by the one-sided development of his armies. Madrid is still holding out, and military experts forecast a still stronger resistance when Franco approaches the outskirts of Barcelona. Even his superior equipment is vanishing, owing to the enormous rate of wastage in modern war. Tons of Bombs It has been pointed out that his aeroplanes used 750 tons of bombs last month, and he is finding it increasingly difficult to secure supplies, in spite of the goodwill of his German and Italian allies. His boast that the break-through to the coast would mean the end of the war has already been disproved, and so far the end of hostilities is not in sight. Politically Franco has made great ■ strides since the New Year.-He has revealed himself—quite unexpectedly, even to his closest friends—to be a politician of no mean order. He is everything in Nationalist Spain —head of the State, head of the Government, head of the only political

party, and supreme commander-in-chief —in short, president, prime minister, party-leader, general, admiral, and aircommander. The sole surviving political party is the F.E.T., the Falange Eapanola Tradicionalista, which bears the same relationship to the State as the Nazi Party does in Germany. Formed a little over 12 months ago,' in April, 1937, this combined the earlier bodies, the Fascist Falange and the traditionalist Requetes; and we may learn moro of the give-and-take that are necessary in Spain from a survey of these two parties than from any other source. Former Dictator's Son The Falangists, or Fascists, attract most attention. This is a comparatively new body, formed by the Bon of the former dictator Primo de Rivera. Taking its model from other European Fascist bodies, it attracted the vigorous young men. The Requetes were an older, more conservative organisation, and were more concerned with culture and religion, while the Falange was primarily fighting for economic reform. The Falange is the only body in Nationalist Spain to have a distinct economic programme. Indeed, its Twenty-seven Points were drawn up long before the present war. They demand a curious form of collective State, in which great syndicates are to push on the work of nationalisation. All the banks, all the essential public services, many basic industries are to be nationalised. The Falangists are particularly concerned with land reforms, a vital matter in an agricultural country like Spain. Since they want increased State control of agriculture, the first national combine to be formed was the National Wheat Corporation, set up last year. Every farmer is the servant of the local branch of tho Corporation. He is told how much lie is to sow, and what seeds he is to put in; and ho must deliver his crops to tho local office at a "socially just" price fixed by it. In return, every fanner receives State credits, largo estates are broken up, and Government bodies reclaim waste or forest lands. Revolutionary Programme It is still too soon to judge the results of this experiment, although it is clear that the farming life of Spain has been little aifected by the war, and Franco's armies have never lacked food. The Spanish peasant-farmer is still sceptical about the whole programme, as he automatically mistrusts Government enterprise. He is also not too certain about the provision that every man has the duty, as well as the right, to work, for Spain is a nonchalant sunny land whero to-morrow exists to do what is put olf from to-day. The Falangists, however, are confident that they can gradually change the outlook of the people and create a newly vigorous peasantry. But the Falangists are not having it all their own way. Their revolutionary programmo would harm tho big land-

THE steady degeneration of the European situation continues/ Nothing has been done to cut out the cancerous growth in Czechoslovakia, and the Spanish situation has become much -worse. When the Anglo-Italian Agreement -was signed, it was contingent upon a clearing-up of the Spanish problem. The Agreement does not come into operation until the Italians have evacuated Spain, but so far there are no signs of this. A recent issue of the Popolo d'ltalia said that "in the van of Franco's troops, the Italian legionaries inarch once more in their irresistible advance toward the Mediterranean. Wherever they are they represent a decisive factor, a guarantee of vic- . tory." Mussolini has also granted State pensions to the dependents of Italians fallen in Spain. Thus, although Mussolini's recent 'speeches have shown a studied moderation, events in Spain have made, .the Anglo-Italian Agreement more remote than ever. Meanwhile, it would almost appear, from the recent bombing of British merchantmen, that the Spanish Nationalists wero deliberately seeking to ; provoke Great Britain. Official spokesmen in- the House of Commons

In Spite of Military Franco Fac

SPAIN'S FUTURE RESTS WITH PEASANT POPULATION By Professor' S. H. ROBERTS, CKallis v Professor of Modern History, Sydney University—(Copyright).

owners and the industrialists, and tlieir plans for Socialistic redistribution have made their leaders fall foul of the more conservative Franco. He imprisoned many hundreds of their more extreme leaders in Salamanca gaol in April, 1937; it will bo remembered that they escaped and started a rebellion inside the Nationalist lines a few weeks ago. They correspond almost exactly with the Left Wing of the Nazis whom Hitler had to eradicate in the Night of the Long Knives, and one of, Franco's greatest problems is to curb their reforming zeal and their impatient idealism. Deeply Religious The Requetes are a very different party. They are'extremely conservative clericalists, much more interested in religion than in economics, and always looking back to the halcyon days of monarchist Spain. They are very concerned with the morals of the people. Even while the war is /raging, they impose sartorial restrictions on the civil population; they make women cover their bare arms; they forbid any but neck-to-knee bathing costumes; in short, they fight everywhere for oldfashioned decorum. Franco, while not as monarchical as most of the Requetes, favours their programme rather than that of the Falange, bocause he is so deeply religious himself. Personally interested in moral reforms, he shows little disposition to part from the reactionary ideals of the Requetes. In his last formal pronunciation of policy, in a speech at Saragossa on the nineteenth of last month, he refused to follow the reforming extremists. He would not endorse their programme, beyond vaguely promising land-reform and help for the middle and working classes. His main plea was for moral reform. Old Habits Condemned "The old life must go," ho said, "frivolous, comfortable, empty as it was. The Tertulia, the coffee-house table round which Spaniards have gossiped about their problems eternally instead of grappling with them, must go, too. Such habits have been the cause of Spanish decadence, but the nation must be taught by the last century of impotence that the time has come for a Spanish National Revolution." This speech is most important, because Franco has at last come out into the open on one major matter. He has staked his whole future on his gamble to unite the moderate Falangists with the moderate Requetes; if he fails in this, he cannot survive even if his armies are successful, but he is convinced that a stress on a common Catholicism will enable him to close the gap into which so many conservative reformers before his time have fallen. Meanwhile, on the sorely pressed Government side, unity has grown as the Nationalist mechanised forces have closed in. On the night of April 18 of this year the vast majority of workers came together at Barcelona in one organisation. The C.N.T. and the TJ.G.T. —the Anarcho-Syndicalists and the Socialist trades-nnions —forgot their differences of aims and methods and resolved to form a single battle-front, postponing their rivalry till the war was over and pledging themselves to fight Fascism to the death. Fine Fighting Spirit There is no sign of any collapse of Republican morale so far, and one has only to look at the breath-taking pictures of militiamen crossing the snowy passes of the Pyrenees to get to France and- entrain for another front to realise the magnificent fighting spirit of Catalonia. "Where it will all end nobody can say, although General Franco seems firmly entrenched, from a military standpoint. That is what makes his social reforms so significant, because they show that, in Nationalist as in Republican Spain, the emphasis is coming back to the peasant—the very type of Spaniard, unalterable, stubborn, exaggeratedly individualist, and with an ever-present sense of humour. Whatever happens the peasant will not change, as Franco has found »when some of his more pedantic reforms have been simply laughed out of existence (the neck-to-knee bathing costumes, for instance). The peasant is the real Spain, and no regime can permanently survive without his approval. —By arrangement with The Sydney Mail.