EVENTS IN SPAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22986, 15 September 1936, Page 4

EVENTS IN SPAIN

POLITICS AND CIVIL WAR RIGHT , AND LEFT PARTIES ELECTION AND ITS SEQUEL By the Right Rev. Bishop Liston It is only now possible after several weeks of uncertain and conflicting stories to come close to the facts of the civil war in Spain. At its beginnings, toward the end of July, all telephonic communication with,.the outside world was cut off; Government censorship made published news, especially by cable, unreliable; and the radio broadcasts, whether by the Government station in Madrid, or by the rebels, or by Germany, Italy and France, have been equally tendentious. Our cable news has come for the most part from the Spanish Government, or is dominated by the London Times correspondent in Spain, who has been since 1931 a critic of the Right and a sympathiser with the Left. Now other sources of information are to hand and it is possible to know much of what is behind the revolution and to see the issue clear. It is important to understand the meaning and the magnitude of what is happening, for the interests of Europe as well as the future of Spain are now in the balance. POLITICAL LIFE IN SPAIN At the elections in February last, out Of 9,402,513 votes cast, 4,570,741 went to the Right Centre Front (the rebels of to-day) and 4,356,559 to the Left or Popular Front (the Socialist - Syndicalist - Communist bloc, the party of the revolution, the Government of to-day). Fifty per cent, of the Spanish people repudiated the Leftists and slightly more than 46 per cent, approved of them. By better grouping and strategical trading the Leftists won a majority of seats in the new Cortes, and formed the Government, their leader, Azana, soon becoming President. Liberalism, always anticlerical in Spain, fell out of the national life, eaten up by the strong, determined Left. Its failure is illustrated in the career of Alcala Zamora, Catholic in belief in practice, Liberal in politics. In 1931 he personally dictates terms .to King Alfonso, becomes President, leaning with one bright exception to the Left, and in 1936 is cast out with contempt by his masters. This is the, point in the strategy of the Third International,, in France and Spain—to make use of the Socialist and Liberal, giving, them the key positions in the public services and the army, in the hope that when the day of revolution comes' they will have no stomach to fight arid .must-give place to the protagohists of violence.; SPANISH MONARCHISTS ' The parties of tbe. Right in Spain are:—(l) The Carlists or Jarmists, who are 'hot numerous, are all in favour of the Monarchy, but support the house of Don Garlos: instead of that of Alfonso. They are as a rule fervent Catholics, their ideal being-a Catholic King and a Catholic people. Their very fine paper, El Sigls Future, published in Madrid, has been confiscated and turned into a Government organ. 2. Monarchists in favour of the Alfonso regime were formerly to be found among aristocrats, wealthy land-owners (often absentees), captains of industry and business, and in the army. Some, Conservatives, were friendly to the Church, while others, Liberals, were its enemies. It is difficult to estimate their number or strength to-day. The two Monarchical parties—Carlists and Alfonsists —formed some time ago a National Bloc,-,, with Calvo Sotelo, elected to-Parliament last February, as leader. Tt was his kidnap murder on July 16 that gave the immediate occasion to the present revolt. THE CATHOLIC PARTIES 3. The Integrists, Catholics of a most, enlightened • and ardent 'type, take no interest in the matter of the monarchy, but. go to the heart of things in our present-day world. Seeing and deploring the evils of modern industrialism, they propose, on the strict lines of the radical and comprehensive social teaching of Popes Leo XIII (1878-1903) and Pius XI, a reconstruction of society, a Christian Corporative State. They, like the supporters of the monarchy, are taking part in the present struggle for “ fatherland, religion, family, and property.” 4. Accion Popular (or C.E.D.A., Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights), the Catholic party, with Jose Maria Gil Robles as leader, is> the largest single party out of the elections of February. Gil Robles, 43 years of age, 100 per cent. Spaniard, born in Salamanca, his father, being a distinguished professor at the university, a lawyer by profession, has taken front rank in the national life of his country. His party places Catholic teaching on social -and economic questions in the forefront Of its programme, and makes its appeal to vigorous, allround Catholics among the workers —a numerous and greatly oppressed class in Spain—and the bourgeois. Alas, that there is no large and strong middle. class, such as we know in New Zealand! The C.A. party favours the republic, though, according-to a recent statement by Gil Robles, most of its younger adherents . ■ have turned away in t mingled.despair, and fear from the Bolshevism of the present Republican Government. The party is out of sympathy with those Catholics who are non-sociaily minded,' aristocratic, and who were, and may be still are, in favour, of the monarchy. The chief obstacle that C.A. has had to overcome is the calumny, sedulously repeated by tbe Left propaganda, that the Catholic Church and capitalism are Sworn eternal friends. It has suffered much, too, from the patronage, though not the membership, of Senor Juan March, Conservative, millionaire industrialist, tobacco smuggler and political boss. But that is past. Gil Robles has hitherto stood for non-violence. The party’s paper, El Debate, the equal in quality and format of the London Times, has been suppressed and turned into an official organ of the Socialist Party. ATTITUDE OF THE ARMY 5. The army, always a great political power under the monarchy, and threatened with loss of influence under the republic since 1931, and more especially since February of 1936, is leading th_ present revolt. Its officers found themselves vigorously and harshly treated unless they were openly in favour of the Government, and, seeing that the rank and file were going over to Communism, determined on this desperate recourse to arms. They reasoned that the army was being converted into an instrument for the fiercely anti-religious Communistic State, as it is for Bolshevism in

Russia, Nazi-ism in Germany, Fascism in Italy. The real leader is' General Franco, a native of Salicia, of middle class origin. Commander of the Foreign Legion in Morocco at 30, the youngest general in the Spanish Army at 32, he is now 45 years of age. His record in Morocco shows him to be both an intrepid leader in the field and an able organiser. He was a loyal servant of the republic in its first years, but found no favour with the present Government because he had led the campaign against the miners in the Asturias in 1934, and was sent to a | minor post in the Canary Islands. 1