SPANISH RELIEF

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 21

SPANISH RELIEF

TO THE EDITOR Sir, —Your correspondents are trying to obscure the true issue with which patriotic Spaniards are faced. The real issue is a very simple one. Are citizens justified in taking arms against a Government which has shown itself unwilling or unable to safeguard their elementary human rights, on the one hand while on the other it has made itself the tool of the anti-Christian forces which are determined to destroy Spanish Christianity by violence? Granted these facts, I do not believe that any unprejudiced person can deny the right of resistance: and these facts have been abundantly established by neutral witnesses, as, for example by the Madrid correspondent of The Times in recent despatches. It is an axiom that' any Government which surrenders control also surrenders the right to obedience. In this connection I would ask you to consider the last words of Calco Sotelo: "Very well, Scnor Casares Quirvyal, I acknowledge notification of your threat. And I say to you what St. Dominic of Silos said to a King of Castile: ‘ Sir, my life you can take from me, but more you cannot do.’ It is better to die with glory than live in dishonour. For my part. I ask the Prime Minister to consider his great responsibility if not Defoce

God, as he is an Atheist, at least before his own conscience, as he is an honourable man. May he realise that Spain’s destiny is in his hands, and I pray that that destiny may not be too tragic. May he measure his responsibility by recalling the history o- the past 25 years, and he will perceive the lurid and bloody glare which surrounds two figures who played a leading part in the tragedy of two great nations, Russig and Hungary.. They were Kerensky and Karolyi. You know very well what you are doing, what you are concealing, what you are th A few days later the threats of the supporters of “ constitutional methods were fulfilled by the brutal murder of Calco Sotelo, and since then the whole course of events has been a justification of his warning. Nothing remained but for .all. that was sound m the country to rise in a body and show that they were not going to allow their Christian heritage and their age-long civilisation to be taken from them. For war existed already save that it was on one side, a persecution directed against the Church, the family and nroperty, condoned and sometimes directly sanctioned by the Governm The second fact stands out above all others; the “ democratic ” Government of Spain is a tool in the hands ot Russia. Portugal has no illusions on this matfbr. When Russia threatened to leave the Non-intervention League unless it made a scapegoat of Portugal, Litvinoff reckoned without a proper estimate of Dr Salazar. No doubt the British. French, and Belgian delegates were fully aware of the Communist intrigues in Paris and Brussels last June, and that knowledge gave weight to the Portuguese Premier’s Note in reply to Russia. Dr Salazar said that the former Hungarian Communist dictator, Bel Kuhn, and six associ- . ates arrived in Barcelona in March, after which the major portion of the plan was carried out in those parts of Spain which were under the Madrid Government. Large quantities of arms and munitions arrived. Russia, it alleges, tried to provoke a revolution in Portugal in order to attack General Franco from the rear. The Note asserts that the Russian Ambassador (M. Rosenberg) dominates the Spanish Government and takes part in Cabinet meetings; also that Senor Largo Caballero was chosen for the Premiership at a meeting which Rosenberg called. Similarly, the Russian Consul (M. Avseenko) dominates the Barcelona Government. Such is the “ established ” and “ democratic ” Government which your contributors laud as “ the upholders of the rights and liberties of the common people.” I might suggest that the obsession of Fascism which looms so large in the minds of your correspondents is completely irrelevant to the Spanish question. One cannot repeat too often that the Fascist party in Spain was negligible until the events of the last few months drove moderate men to desperation, and even now they are only a small section of the resistance and will certainly not be able to dictate a policy. “Anti-Fascist,” like many others, is a victim of the clever methods of propaganda used by the Communists. The Communists have succeeded in glueing the label “Fascist ” on an important part of the population of every country without exception. They are engaged in arming and exciting the other part of the population against it. One no longer speaks of the “ struggle against the bourgeoisie” as In the time of Marx; not even of the “ struggle against Capitalism ” as in the time of Lenin; one struggles against “Fascism.” Pinning the Fascist label on General Franco does not make him a Fascist. Why not let General Franco speak for himself. He has already announced that the new regime will be a corporative State, based on representation by occupations. The corporative or guild State of Spain will, he declared, be on the Portuguese model. . I think the argument about the Moors —of which we have all heard so much—comes not from the fact that they are fcilack, but that they are fighting on the wrong side. They are not savages, but disciplined troops, part of the regular Spanish Army. The use-of the Moors is now made the subject of furious denunciation in the Radical press of that France which quartered Senegalese on conquered Germany, and of that England which brought Sikhs, Gurkhas and Bengalis to Flanders. I can see no moral repugnance in their use by General Franco in dealing with an enemy that has perpetrated atrocities certainly never surpassed in the history of the Red Indians, Vandals or Huns. The gentle “ Democratic ” is shocked at my choice of language. The language is strong. But is it too strong? How can language be too strong to describe and denounce those who have burned scores of churches and orphanages, murdered hundreds of priests and nuns, and committed sacrileges and other enormities almost incredible and certainly indescribable. Why even the dead were disinterred and exhibited for public mockery! For the benefit of “Another Catholic ” I will quote another Catholic, Pope Pius IX. The quotation is taken from the Pope’s recent discourse to 600 Spanish refugees. “All that is most humanly human, . all that Is most divinely divine, consecrated persons and sacred things and holy institutions, inestimable and irreplaceable treasures of faith and Christian piety as well as of culture and of art, the most precious antiquities, the holiest of relics, dignity, sanctity, the fruitful activity of lives wholly dedicated to religion, to science and to charity, the highest members of the sacred Hierarchy, bishops and priests, consecrated virgins, the laity of every class and condition, venerable grey hairs and the first flower of youth, the very silence so sacred and so solemn of the tomb —all have been assaulted, violated, destroyed and in the most ruthless and barbarous way, in an unbridled and unparalleled confusion of forces so savage and so cruel as to have been thought utterly impossible for human dignity, let alone for human nature, even the most miserable and debased.” To “Wait and See” I hand a bouquet for the best story since Bill Adams won Battle of Waterloo; perhaps the Gougobazz of “ free, mighty Russia” will see that he gets his red flag, hammer and sickle. —I am, etc., Catholic. Dunedin, November 20. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —My letter and that of “ Catholic ” in your issue of Saturday last seem to have provoked a flood of Communistic babbling designed to obscure the real issue, i.e., the very foolish proposal to organise a medical and nursing unit for service in Spain with the Government of that unhappy country. Unfortunately, the virus of religious fanaticism seems to have entered largely into the issue. This is doubly unfortunate at a time like the present, when all churcnes and all those who stand for law and order should be united against the Red foe of civilisation. Communism, now fighting a desperate battle in Spain, aided by Soviet Russia. Fortunately, there are signs that the “ red rabble," as one of your correspondents dubs them, are tottering to a fall. “Anti-Fascist,”, in your issue of the 18th inst.. makes particular mention of my letter on the subject, and incidentally several curious mis-statements. First of all, he assumes that General Franco, if successful, means to establish a dictatorshio. This is pure assumption. Your correspondent then speaks of the rebel officers employing "foreign mercenary troops, financed largely by Mussolini and Hitler.” This, again, is pure assumption. Investigations by the Non-intervention Committee clearly showed that neither Italy nor Germany had lent aid to the rebels, so called, and any aid that did come from those countries was purely private, just as certain British nationals gave their services on the other side. “Anti-Fascist” pursues his curious obsession about foreign troops by asking, “Why was it necessary for them (the rebels) to import thousands of Moors and foreign legionaires to fight against the Spanish workers?” The Moors employed belonged to the army of Spain, and are natives of Morocco. They are of Arab descent, and no more entitled to be called “ black troops" than are the splendid soldiers of our Indian Empire. As for the legionaires, they are Spaniards, trained soldiers animated by patriotism to fight for their country’s welfare and ultimate good. “Anti-Fascist” must have been reading about France’s Foreign Legion in North Africa! With the accession of the* present Government in Spain, the

lid was taken off the press censorship, and the contending parties attacked each other so fiercely in the press that feeling became very embittered, and the Government brought matters to a head by imprisoning, and in some cases shooting as traitors, the leaders of the Opposition, which led to the present trial by arms. The leaders concluded that it were better to die fighting for their country than to bow down before the Red god of Communistic impiety and spoliation. And who shall say they were wrong?—l am, etc., Patriotic New Zealander. Balclutha. November 19. 10 THE EDITOR Sir, —Outside a mental hospital I have never heard of such deliberate misrepresentation of facts as I notice in letters in Wednesday’s Times. One writer signing himself “Wait and Sec ” tells us, "Each one can worship what he likes in Russia.” If the rest of Ins letter depends on corroboration of this statement he is to be sympathised with and nobody need feel hurt. There can be no doubt that the religious influence is a great impediment to the desires of the Reds; its piety, dignity and respectability have been for nearly 2000 years a mark of the Catholic ChUrch, which the Reds seem out to destroy. The French Revolution ran on similar lines; the infidel wrier Jean Rousseau was then a suitable man to follow, to trample the Christian religion under foot and set up a “ goddess of reason! ” to worship. The Reds in Spain would do exactly the same, but fear of ridicule prevents them. We have had similar persecutions in England; the same handle used. Remember Titus Oates! —I am, etc., Comrade No. 1. [Letter adbridged.—Ed. O.D.T.]