BASQUE COUNTRY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3895, 28 April 1937, Page 8

BASQUE COUNTRY

TRANQUILITY THAT IS A LITTLE ALARMING. Outwardly, the Basque country appears the best-organised loyalist region in Spain. The rationing works well, the militias are well-drilled, well • equipped, and enthusiastic, public order is normal in the streets, and there is none of the revolutionary atmosphere so noticeable only a feu miles away, in Asturias, said a e rrespondent writing in the “Jifanchecter Guardian” recently. Yet just this tranquility is a little alarming. “Solidaridad Vasca,” despite its undoubted .achievements, holds to ideas which have been left far behind in the rest of the country. Senor Aguirre’s dream is to set up a model democracy in his country, something on the linos of Denmark, within the framework of a Spanish Confederation modelled upon the Constitution of Soviet Russia. In the construe ion of this new democracy the Nationalists hope for the benevolent assistance of England. Some prominent Nationalists have even assured me that the Basques would, like to turn their backs on Spain and base their activities upon the closest possible relations with the British Empire, of which they are historically fervent admirers. It is a fact that vast British interests are involved in Basque industry and banking, that relations hav? always been and continue to be cordial and that England is the natural commercial partner of the Basque country since British coal is far more suitable for Basque heavy industry thn the Asturin slag.

SOCIALIST PROBLEM. There is some doub whether the proletarian parties will always acquiesce in this programme. The Anarcho.syndicatists do not represent a really serious force, being chiefly the fishermen Refugees from Renteria and and Pasages, but they tend to be vocal. The Socialists of the older generation adhere to Indalecio Prieto, who is deputy for Bilboa, and high approves of Nationalists’ moderation. The younger Socialists are closely allied, as elsewhere, wdh th? Communists.

The present Provisional Government of Euzkadi, which replaced the original Defence “Junta” on October 7, is composed of four Basque Nationalists, three Socialists and one each Communist, Nationalist Action, Republican Union, and Republican Left, but the Nationalists have the key pqsts of the President and War Ministry, the Home Office, Justice and Education, and Finances. All decisions of the Cabinet, however have been adopted unanimously save fcr certain discussions of commutations of death sentences. The Government is t. us formed by the Basque Nationalist Party and the I anular Front. The Anarchist National Labour Federation is not included, on the pretext that it is not a political party but a labour organisation such as the General Workers’ Union and “Solidaridad Vasca, ’ equally unrepresented. The immediate political situation is not acute, for there is no doubt of .the Government’s desire to prosecute the war with energy. ELEMENTARY SELF-DEFENCE. Since the shooting of the Basque priests and the bombing of Bilbon elementary self-defence, if nothing else, must dictate such a policy. The rebel generals have a particular hatred for the Basques, and, paradoxically, deny their Christianity. A refugee from Vitoria reports that when she signed her 1 name in Basque, “Mirer,' instead of “Maria,” she was" threatened with imprisonment and told to sign “a decent Christian name ” ”he rebel papers from San Sebastian persist in speaking of the “heathen Basque Reds,” when precisely the disadvantages'of the present Basque regime lie in the fact that it is not “Red” and is extremely Christian.