SMUGGLED ARMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 29, 4 February 1939, Page 9

SMUGGLED ARMS

BOUGHT BY LOYALISTS GERMAN AND ITALIAN SUPPLIES PEACE CONDITIONS IBy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright] PERPIGNAN, Feb. 2. Addressing the Cortes at Figueras, the Prime Minister, Senor Negrin, revealed that the Government had bought contraband arms, including arms from Germany and Italy. He reiterated the statement that the war will continue in central Spain even if all Catalonia is lost. Senor Negrin added that peace is only acceptable on conditions which will guarantee Spanish independence, the people’s rights to choose their own regime and destiny, and that there will be no reprisals after the war. CONFIDENCE VOTE NEGRIN AND ARMY MEETING IN WINE CELLAR LONDON, Feb. 2. A correspondent of the British United Press at Figueras says that Senor Negrin’s speech was delivered to members of the Cortes gathered in a former wine cellar at Figueras. Sixty-two members were present. They passed a vote of confidence in the Negrin Government and the republican forces, who Senor Negrin declared had re-established their line.

ITALIAN RETORT PROVOCATION OF WAR EXTENSION OF FRONTIERS TO PANAMA CANAL LONDON, Feb. 2. The Rome correspondent of the Br.tish United Press states that the publicist Signor Virginio Gayda, retorting to President Roosevelt's declaration, describes it -os apparently a premeditated act leading to the provocation of war and discouraging Mr. Chamberlain’s policy, while offering a hand to Bolshevism. He says that the defensive frontiers of Germany and Italy must be extended to the Panama Canal. A DEMOCRATIC FRONT AMERICAN OPINION CHANGES There have been many indications in the last three months that under the pressures generated by the September crisis, American ojinion was moving rapidly away from an isolationist base, said the Christian Science Monitor editorially last month. Careful observers have reported that by radio the Middle West got far closer to Prague in 1938 than the eastern seaboard did to Brussels in 1914. The general approval of President Roosevelt’s intervention before Munich; the new awareness that ideals of freedom and tolerance cannot be defended by Britain and France alone; the warm response to the Eden visit; popular support for diplomatic ana arms measures to resist totalitarian expension—ail these are further signs. But none has been so definite as the survey ot opinion just made by Fortune Magazine. This poll, whicn has had a very high record of accuracy with election returns and other tests, causes Fortune to say there has been "a revolutionary swing of popular sentiment towards a policy of mili- | tant collective security.” It adds; 1 ”A good majority ot the entire nubile (nearly two-thirds of those with opinions? seems to be willing to join in a democratic front forcibly to restrain the dictator nations from further conquest.” More than 56 per cent, of those voting said that the democratic Powers, including the United State;, should now stand firmly together at any • cost.” Response to World Events It would be unwise to make L oo much of this sampling of opinion. There are very deep desires for keeping out of war which will be more in evidence when efforts arc made to alter the Neutrality Act in the coming Congress. And America is wonderfully like Britain in not being able to say beforehand just where she will abandon aloofness. Certainly we cannot conclude that a majority of Americans would join the League of Nations to-morrow. But added to other indices of opinion this survey does disclose now quickly America responds to world tensions. Even more, it shows how far Americans have shifted from a belief that the United States could keep out of war. "Eighteen months ago,” says Fortune, "only about 22 per cent, of the population thought that we would be drawn into a foreign war in the next two or three years. Now more than three times that many believe that we actually would have been embroiled in the war that was so narrowly averted in 19.38.” Popular sentiment is not always Icjcal, as some features of this very poA illustrate, yet, if the American people are convinced that they cannot live unto itself, what will its citizens do to keep peace, freedom, and justice in the world? If America will have to join up to carry on a war aren't there more measures of cooperation in which she could join to prevent a war? GERMAN INVECTIVE PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT (Independent Cable Service.) BERLIN, Feb. 2. The newspapers, apparently reflecting instructions from higher up, are hurling a new wave of accusations at President Roosevelt, calling him a disturber of the peace, a sat re-rattler, a war-monger, and a trail-blazer for Jewish Bolshevism.