THE SITUATION IN SPAIN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19125, 21 September 1936, Page 13

THE SITUATION IN SPAIN

(To the Editor of the Herald.} Sir, —The letter written by “Justice in your issue of September 14 was a masterpiece. ..General Franco is not without mends r abroad. My maximum concession to your correspondent is an assumption that a religious bias lias unconsciously blinded him to the realities of flio Spanish situation. He has unkind words to say abpnt the Gisborne branch of the Labour Party because of its desire that a message of encouragement should be sent by the Prime Minister to the people’s Government of Spain. I must remind him that the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain has already committed itself in that direction. On September 8 the Poverty Bay Herald reported that the T.U.C. had telegraphed “fraternal greetings to the new Prime Minister of Spain, Senor Caballero, and pledged the utmost support for the Spanish people as embodying the nation’s unconquerable will to defeat the ‘forces of fascism and tyranny.’ ” I read what the Zealandia, the Catholic fortnightly, had to say about the conflict. “Soviet Terror in Spain,’" “Sinister Hand of Moscow” and “Russia Strikes Through Spain” aro outstanding and familiar headlines in the paper, the forces behind which were noticeably silent when Italian fascism struct: through Abyssinia. Rather than see “Justice” misled I will draw his attention to what Father Morales has to say about affairs in Spain (Poverty Buy Herald, August 24). “Father Garcia Morales, a Catholic priest, known throughout Spain, in a broadcast speech, praised the Basque Catholics for supporting the Government, adding: ‘The people do not hate God or the Catholic Church, but resent those priests supporting" the forces of reaction. I hate the hierarchy supporting those who brought back the Moors, who were expelled from Spain only after eight centuries of warfare.’ ”1 have no evidence on hand that. Moscow snared the Moors to shoot down Spaniards. The responsibility lies elsewhere. A London report published on September 4 stated that “half-naked Moors ranged the streets, slashing and shooting, not leaving a jiving being as they advanced behind a barrage of hand grenades. The wounded were ruthlessly knifed or shot.”

A distorted sense of justice enables your correspondent to overlook this great crime committed against Spain by professed patriots. On the other hand Jte mourns tho loss of Calvo Sotelo, who, lie says, “was brutally murdered by uniformed police, officials of 1 lie Government.” Well, sir, it is customary for people to condemn one who would sell his coiintry to a foreign Power. Sot do and General Sanjnvjo spent, a considerable time, at the Kaiserbof in Berlin as the guests of Ilcrr Hitler. They presented their plans for a rising designed to overthrow the elected representatives of the people of Spain. An agreement for the delivery of aeroplanes was concluded. At tlie beginning of .Tune six heavy bombers and 12 light planes were loaded on a transport for the insurgent leaders. The two gentlemen then departed for Portugal, no doubt with the blessing of the swastika. Sanjurjo, who was the chosen Fascist dictator, was killed in an aeroplane crash. His co-hyena, passed away also. Franco, who had been entrusted with the position of Governor of the Canary Islands, assumed command. Tho Government mistakenly treated the Fascist leaders as human beings, the very condition necessary to the organisation of their conspiracy, backed by the Brown Hand of Berlin and the Black Hand of Home. The murder of tho Communist leader, Andres Rodriguez, who was a member of the town council of Malaga and who had organised 12,000 men into a fishermen’s union, practically started the conflict, Basher gangs of Fascist “pistoleros,” supported by the Civil Guard, terrorised the working population of the country as did the Cossacks of the Cz'tr in days gone by. Churches and monasteries were, of course, involved in the, conflict. The Poverty Bay Herald of August 10 re-

ported Moors sacking churches and monasteries at Medellin, yielding £25,000 in* cash and jewellery and £420,000 worth of bonds. The baggage of three priests contained £7OOO. Property-owning corporations always suffer in a civil war, especially if their premises, whether houses of worship or not, are turned into arsenals. The Zrnlandia of September 10 states that “if .ainmunitidtiTuis been found in the cburclies it. was not put there by the clergy.” That may he. so, |,ut history teaches us that store houses of ill-gotten wealth usually require a. supply of ammunition easily accessible. No doubt supporters of the .Spanish Government, particularly the anarchists, ventilated their wrath upon houses of worship to some extent. Ihe lesson to ho learned is that if a religion desires to survive it must get on side with the people and not become an instrument of oppression at home and imperialist expansion abroad. I must ask “Justice” what purpose be serves bv accusing the innocent and exonerating the guilty. The brutality of communism is a myth. 1 offer him the other side of the story from an Englishwoman describing the flight from Barcelona (Herald, July 51). “A young Communist official was escorting me and another girl to a destroyer through roads strewn with dead. Fascists tired on the Communist, who jumped in front, to protect, me. He was killed by a. bullet and died in rnv arms.” It may be, good strategy to blame Sovietism lor various evils. I remember how the Nazis tired the Reichstag as an excuse for a campaign of fury against, those who wanted to see a Soviet Germany, fn conclusion, 1 consider “Justice’s” accusations to he entirely without foundation. The history of violence has proven the working class to he particularly long suffering. io interpret affairs in Spain with any degree of accuracy, your correspondent must first of all know something about the economic and social conditions under which the masses in Spain This letter, of course, is quite unofficial.— Yours, etc., PERCY G. HANSEN.