THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, September 24, 1940. PRESSURE ON SPAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24411, 24 September 1940, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, September 24, 1940. PRESSURE ON SPAIN

It was confidently stated early in the war that Spain never had the slightest intention of taking sides in the struggle against England. That, it was said, was entirely out of the question. Spain would have to preserve, at all costs, her trade relations with Great Britain; and, apart from that, she had no resources left for active, participation in a major war, be it short or long. For her oil requirements in particular she was wholly dependent on British cooperation, since the naval blockade could be made so effective as to cut her off completely from all channels of supply involving the use of the great Atlantic routes. Nevertheless the attitude of Spain has remained, during a year of war, one of the very real uncertainties of the European situation. The indications have been that General Franco would prefer strict neutrality, for the reason, sufficient in itself, that what Spain requires more than anything else is a period of unbroken peace in which the gigantic tasks of reconstruction and rehabilitation necessitated by the civil war might be undertaken. Assurances were given to France that neutrality represented Spain's fixed policy, despite all efforts of the Axis Powers to drag her in against the democracies. The clamour of certain, groups, notably in the'universities, for the return of Gibraltar, was said to have no official support,, although from time of time the utterances of the controlled press have reflected considerably less than a neutral outlook on that question and on others touching Spain's territorial ambitions. Germans, it was said again, endeared themselves no . more to Spaniards than to anyone, else, and Catholic Spain was believed to be as much revolted as the rest of the world at the pagan barbarities committed, in the name of Nazi-ism. But if this was the reaction of official Spain in the early stages of the war it is not difficult to find reason now for a change or apparent change. General Franco had accepted both German and Italian aid in his own struggle to power, doubtless in the hope that he would not be called upon to pay for it by actual participation in the military adventures of the Axis. But virtually all Western Europe is now under Axis domination. Most significant for Spain of all changes in the Continental scene that the. war has brought, the buffer of a free and powerful France no. longer exists. Pressure. on Spain from Germany can now be directly applied where before it was. withheld by. French arms and influence. Did riot HenHitler, when his armies moved to the occupation of invested France, mass formidable troop concentrations on the French side of the Spanish border? And has it not been declared that it will not.be General Franco who will determine Spain's destiny? According to report the:Fuhrer gave his personal assurance toSignor Mussolini some months ago that when the time was ripe he would himself overthrow General Franco and bring Spain into the war on the side of the Axis. In the light of these considerations it is easy to believe, that part of Herr von Ribbentrop's purpose in the Rome conversations was to emphasise the " reasonableness " of the Axis demand for Spanish co-opera-tion in the Mediterranean campaign.

The strong point of Gibraltar figures largely in Mediterranean strategy, from whatever angle it is looked at. If circumstances compel the abandonment or postponement of the German attempt to invade England, the intensification of the Mediterranean campaign, with German collaboration on' a very much greater scale than, now, would be a not improbable development. Spain will almost certainly have been offered. every inducement to share in the spoils of victory, either in the restoration of Gibraltar—if that mighty fortress could indeed be taken by assault from the Spanish side, which is questionable—or in concessions in North Africa, or both. And if Spain remains unwilling to risk the hazards of open war against Great Britain, there are no grounds for supposing that either Germany or Italy will hesitate to apply pressure to a degree calculated to break down her resistance. General Franco's position is not an enviable one. The pressure, nevertheless, is not all from the one side. The appointment, in May last, of Sir Samuel Hoare as special envoy to Spain was made with full recognition of the importance of his mission \ which was to develop the relations of cordial friendship which had regularly existed between Spain and Great Britain until the revolution caused some interruption of them. Sir Samuel Hoare is said to have had remarkable success so far. There have been what are described as pro-British changes of personnel in the Government and' the army, and Spanish trade is being safeguarded by a process of rationing of raw materials and petrol to an extent which the Spanish Government is finding satisfactory in the meantime. General Franco, however, regardless of what his inclinations are, may find it virtually impossible to resist Axis pressure, since those with whom he has to deal have no scruples at all. But it is a. reasonable assumption that he would prefer strict neutrality to the tremendous risks that must attach to active participation in the Axis plan to secure European hegemony.

THE WAR ON CHILDREN War has been productive of horrors in plenty without the slaughtering of children. Yet in the long, dreadful list of crimes for which history will condemn their regime of murder and persecution, the German Nazis will have this charge also to answer, that they made savage war upon the young together with the old, sparing no human life that could be sacrificed upon the altar of an insensate ambition. In each of the European countries ravaged by Herr Hitler's hordes children have been among the. victims. That was inevitable, when the weapons with which wars are now fought are taken into account. But the world will make a different accounting as to the death of women and children as an accident of war — however inexcusable the act of war itself—and, as to that of civilians deliberately massacred as a calculated method of warfare. In Poland unprotected cities, villages, even farms, were subjected to deliberate assault by air raiders, who bombed and machine-gunned with sadistic fury. In France the pitiful refugee columns were attacked without ceasing by low-flying planes. In London indiscriminate bombing has produced its thrice-tragic toll of young lives taken by the orders of a man who has been represented as a lover of children. But to make it certain that they consider the child legitimate prey in their warfare against democracy, the Nazis have struck again. The sinking by torpedo of a vessel proceeding to Canada with ninety refugee children among its passengers is an act of which it is difficult to speak with restraint. It is a frightful and sorrowful toll which was taken in this outrage. A blow despicable, wanton, beyond the canon of civilised standards has been struck, under which parents, already harassed and distraught, are rendered childless. Without warning and without excuse a U-boat has added to the black Nazi record another chapter in frightfulness, the reading of which will excite both loathing and compassion among the world's free peoples. If any proof had been needed that the war started by the Nazis is a war which spares no one, which must be fought without quarter to the ultimate destruction of a foul regime, this latest act of barbarism provides it. Those who do not love children, said Robert Burton, are "unworthy of the air they breathe, and of the four elements." For those who would wilfully, without pity, strike children down in self-possessed savagery, such calm words supply no adequate description.