ANXIETY FOR PEACE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 5, 21 January 1937, Page 7

ANXIETY FOR PEACE

(Britieb Official Wireloas.)

Chief Factor in British Attitude to S^ain RIVAL IDEOLOGIES

(Received January 21, 8.45 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 20. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Anthony Eden, opening the debate on the international situation in the House of Commons, referred to the larger place taken in recent years by foreign affairs in the interest of the nation, and suggested it was an expression of the ordinary people 's desire for and anxiety about peace. Overshadowing all other events in the international situation, Mr Eden declared, was the present position in Spain. Intervention in the civil war by other nations would . prolong its horrors and increase the sufferings of the unhappy Spani'sh people, and for that reason and for others the British Government had from the first opposed intervention, and still opposed it. If any^ne believed that as an outcome of the civil war any foreign Power or Powers were going to dominate Spain for a generation — to rule its way of life and direct her foreign policy — that man, in Mr Eden's judgment, was wholly mistaken. Great Britain, Mr Eden said, would, of course, be strongly opposed to any such happening, and it would not be alone in its opposition, because 24,000,000 of the Spanish people themselves would be opposed likewise. Britnin had its own interests in Spain, but they were not that Spain should havd a particular form of Government, whother of the Right or the Lei't. For Britain to take up a championship oi that kind would be to enter into a war of rival ideologies which the British had themselves condemned. For that reason they had discouraged and would continue to discourage outside intervention. He then took up the "volunteers" question. Referring to the French Government Bill to prohibit the enlistment in or the departure from French territory of volunteers for service to Spain, he had no hesitation in saying if all the Governments would place themselves equally in that position they would be nearer to agreement than in fact they were to-day. After commenting on the replies of the Portuguese and Russian Governments, which he found generally satisfactory, he said he was led to expect the German and Italian replies wiihin the next few days. The Russians had suggested, and Mr Eden thought other Governments agreed with them, that the scheme of control must he such as could, if necessary, he applied without the consent of the two parties in Spain. Alludrug to the immense amount of technical work done to produce the scheme of control, the Foreign Secretary paid a tribute to the chairman of the Non-intervention Committee, Lord Lytton.