THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, September 30, 1940. SPAIN ON THE VERGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24416, 30 September 1940, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, September 30, 1940. SPAIN ON THE VERGE

There are increasing signs that the entry of Spain into the war on the side of the Axis Powers may not be long deferred. A prediction in this morning's news, from an Italian source, is that Germany and Italy will shortly sign an agreement with Spain „ more militant in character than the Axis pact with Japan, the effect of which will virtually be to bring Spain into the war. After the recent conversations in Rome, in which Senor Serrano Suner, Whose Ministry of the Interior has .control of both Spanish press arid propaganda, participated with Count Ciano and Herr von Ribbentrop, the Italian newspapers announced that Spain was about to declare herself against Great Britain and her allies. Senor Suner's visit to Rome was followed by one to Berlin, whither the Italian Foreign Minister himself proceeded for the continuance of the Rome conversations. Another report, from neutral observers on the Spanish frontier, is that 500 German armoured cars have arrived in Bilbao. In Berlin, it is added, Senor Suner received " instructions " as to the role planned for Spain in the ambitious Axis programme of conquest in Africa and throughout the Mediterranean area. These circumstances all point in one direction, to the early consummation of Axis plans for the involvement of Spain as an instrument of Axis policy. According to the Yorkshire Post, Spain has already been promised territory in French Morocco as a reward for assisting in an assault on Gibraltar. The revival of Spanish imperialism among the Falangist elements in the new republic does in fact lend colour to the view that the Franco Government is permitting itself to be led into another exhausting military struggle. General Franco's first policy of refusal to enter into any new European commitments has undergone certain subtle and significant changes. • He has since spoken of Spain's obligation to take her "proper place" in the Europe of the future, and he has actually enlarged the theme to include references to Spain's "future empire," to the accompaniment of Falangist clamour-for the recognition of Spain's "right" to Tangier, Gibraltar, Casablanca, Algiers, Fez and Oran. The volatile Senor Suner, who is generally regarded as the driving force in the imperialist movement, recently declaimed to a crowd demonstrating outside the Falangist headquarters that for 200 years Spain had been meek and abject, but that now the cry must be, "Up, Spain! " It was not to be supposed that such fruitful ground for • the nurturing of their own schemes would be neglected by Herr Hitler and his sycophantic ally, Signor Mussolini. Nevertheless, Spain, .still in the first stage of .recovery from the shattering effects of civil war, might be expected to consider seriously the consequences of participation in another and vaster struggle for which there can be no real enthusiasm among Spaniards, and for which, also, the country's resources in men and materials must be hopelessly inadequate. If the Axis "leaders have their way Spain will require to endure, as has been said, a new war superimposed upon the ravages' wrought by- the ; old. What is more, she will have to. exchange her present useful trade agreements with. Great Britain for the rigours of immediate blockade, plus whatever demands may be made upon her existing resources by grasping and unscrupulous allies. It will be strange indeed, in the light of knowledge of the methods practised by the German Fuhrer. if there would be any territorial rewards for Spain in the unthinkable event of. a totalitarian victory. As Professor Allison Peers, I writing in the Manchester Guardian, has said, she would then be what she was told to be, and yield what I she was told to yield, without ask-

ing questions.