RAIDS ON SHIPS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19666, 25 June 1938, Page 9

RAIDS ON SHIPS

SPANISH WATERS

QUERY FROM WHITEHALL

DEBATE IN COMMONS

OBJECTIVE OF CABINET

CONFINING WAR AREA (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 2 p.m. ‘ RUGBY, June 28. A debate on the adjournment of the House of Commons on the subject oi further attacks on British ships in Spanish waters resulted from an answer by the Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, to notice of a private question from Mr. D. Sandys (Con., Norwood).

Mr. Chamberlain, after outlining the attacks on the steamers Tliorpeness and Sunion, said that the Government was asking Burgos for an early explanation of these attacks.

Mr. Sandys then asked: “Does the Prime Minister realise that the failure of Britain to offer any resistance to these unlawful acts of violence is an encouragement to law, breakers, not only in Spain, but all over the world?” Mr. Chamberlain replied: “The policy and position of Britain has been fully explained.” The Leader of the Opposition. Major C. R. Attlee, and Mr. D. Lloyd George (Ind. Liberal, Carnarvon) joined in supplementary questions and finally Major Attlee announced that lie would move the adjournment. Legitimate Traders Major Attlee said he wished to move the adjournment to call attention to the attacks yesterday on two British snips off Valencia. He said that there was no doubt at all that these ships were engaged in perfectly legitimate trade. They had non-intervention observers on board—in one case French and in the other German. The attacks were delivered at a low altitude and must have been deliberate. This followed a long series of other attacks on British ships and the latest British protest at Burgos. A British ship was as much a part of British territory as Gibraltar and a British sailor just as much a British subject as any other person. Major Attlee urged that the Prime Minister must be more specific if he wanted the House to believe that iie could not defend them. Mr. Chamberlain, in reply, announced that the British Government had instructed the British agent at Burgos to ask that an explanation of these latest attacks be given without delay and had directed him to return to London as soon as he received the reply in' order that the Government might consider, in consultation with him, the situation which would result from the term of the answer received. Insistence on Policy The Government, however, was not going to change its policy, already proclaimed, regarding the Spanish situation. The motive of that policy was not a preconceived idea in favour of one side or the other in the Spanish civil war, but the will to preserve the greatest of British interests peace. All through the object of the nonintervention policy had been to avoid what they conceived to be the inevitable result of intervention, namelya spread of the conflict beyond tnc borders of Spain until it became a European conflagration. Once warlike action were started, whether against General Franco or against some objective, who could ten tha 1 the operation would end there? He asked whether it was claimed that the country should go to war, or taKC action which might conceivably involve it in war in order to give protection to people who had gone, for the purposes of making profits, into tm.-> risky trade, despite warnings given by the Government. . The motion for the adjournment 01. the House was defeated by 275 votes to 141.

Captains Interviewed

Two sea captains whose ships were among those which had been attacked by aeroplanes operating in favour or the insurgents in Spain, were received by Mr. Chamberlain in his room at the House of Commons immediately alter the end ol' the questions. ' The British destroyer, Isis, conveys the crews of the Thorpencss and the Sunion to Marseilles. Confirmation has been received m London of the African Trader incident. The vessel was reported to have been threatened by an aeroplane when off the coast of Spain. The destroyer Imogen escorted the African Trader towards Gibraltar.

In reply to a question in the House of Commons regarding a visit of the Italian first squadron to Malta, the Foreign Under-Secretary, Mr. R. A. Butler, said that in April of 1937, the Commander-in-Chiof in the Mediterranean paid an official visit to Spezia. This visit was now being returned by the Commander-in-Chiof of the Italian first squadron.