“CONTROL ESSENTIAL.”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 181, 2 July 1937, Page 7

“CONTROL ESSENTIAL.”

BRITAIN’S BELIEF

NON-INTERVENTION PROBLEMS,

(British Official Wireless.) Received July 2, 11.55 a.m. RUGBY, July 1

To-morrow’s meeting of the NonIntervention Committee is awaited with considerable interest. The view is strongly held in London that control is an essential feature of non-inter-vention. The suggestion appears to be canvassed in Rome and Berlin that it might be possible to combine a measure of non-intervention without naval control and the granting of belligerent rights, but there is no likelihood of Britain and France agreeing to such a combination. Such an arrangement would be definitely partial in its working, since the French frontier would continue to be closed while General Franco could be expected to gain some advantage from the use of belligerent rights at sea and there could be no confidence in the proper observation of non-intervention at sea without a naval patrol. It must therefore not be assumed that Britain and France will be willing to continue non-intervention without control, and if their offer to fill the gap is refused they will reserve their attitude towards non-intervention as a whole. Meanwhile the view is expressed in London that the German and Italian Governments would ho well advised to take into account how easily arms could reach the Valencia Government across the French frontier if non-intervention .is abandoned -—a change which might fully offset any advantage which the granting of belligerent rights might have to General Franco at sea.

COASTAL CONTROL. FRENCH DECISION, Received July 2, 12.5 p.m. PARIS, July 1. A meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies unanimously decided that if at the Non-Intervention Committee Italy refuses to admit control ships to the Spanish coast and the withdrawal of foreign volunteers, the entire problem must be reconsidered.