Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1938. THE NON-INTERVENTION FARCE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 April 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1938. THE NON-INTERVENTION FARCE.

Of all the tragi-eomedies that have ever been staged, in the name of world diplomacy, few surely have surpassed the proceedings, as for want of a better name they must be called, of the Non-Intervention Committee. Talk about non-intervention in Spain has been going on during the greater part of the period of twenty months or so during which that unhappy country has been the theatre of a so-called civil war. Time and again proposals for the withdrawal of foreign “volunteers” have been advanced and as often they have faded away. Now. that .General Franco’s forces, consisting largely of Italian divisions, are-smashing through what appear to be -almost the last of the Republican defences, it is once more intimated that the Non-Intervention Committee is still at work. Undeterred by the disastrous fate of so many proposals which have been ignored or contemptuously kicked aside, the committee is again submitting ideas to the various governments concerned. It is also constrained to point out, however, that it is in financial difficulties on account of the failure of many of these governments to pay their dues. Unless the Powers pay a substantial part of their arrears, we are told, it will be necessary to close down the whole observation scheme as from the beginning of May. As to withdrawal schemes, the cost of these would be about £2,000,000, “but no government has shown any willingness to make a proportionate . contribution to the necessary fund.” This, at an immediate view,, is not a promising outlook. Since, however, the Spanish Republicans have lately been driven in short order from supposedly strong defensive lines which they had selected and fortified months ago, it seems possible that the war in Spain may be terminated in time to save the Non-Intervention Committee from final and crushing financial disaster. Meantime it may be permitted, to wonder why any government, and particularly the British Government, should think it worth while to. persevere with the extraordinary farce of the non-intervention deliberations. It is another ground for wonder that, in spite of the evidence of deliberate deception and bad faith on Italy’s part to which the- course of events in Spam bears witness, the Anglo-Italian negotiations “are progressing faster than was anticipated.”