Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1938. MEDIATION IN SPAIN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 June 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1938. MEDIATION IN SPAIN.

ALTHOUGH, according to one of yesterday’s cablegrams from London, a number of European Powers are interesting themselves actively in a plan for mediation in Spain for an early cessation of hostilities, prospects of success in an attempt of the kind can hardly be regarded as at all promising. The insurgent forces- are closing in on Valencia- and bombing planes are daily raiding Barcelona and other parts of Catalonia. The Spanish Premier, Senor Negrin, has declared within the last day or two that his Government will carry on the war with confident determination, but since General Franco now holds the greater part of Spain, it may be assumed that he would unhesitatingly reject any mediation proposals which did not initially accord him a measure of recognition as a belligerent he has hitherto been denied. Moreover, it may be taken for granted that in adopting that standpoint, he would be supported by his Italian and German backers.

It does not help to put the reported mediation proposals in a more hopeful or promising’ light that they are declared to be linked up closely with negotiations for the implementation of the Anglo-Italian Agreement. News of the mediation project follows immediately on a report that the British' Cabinet had rejected the Italian request for the implementation of the Anglo-Italian pact without waiting for the withdrawal of volunteers from Spain. Now we are told of a conversation between Lord Perth, the British Ambassador in Rome, and Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, “the outcome of which was a mutual desire for the creation of favourable conditions whereby Britain might implement the Anglo-Italian Agreement. These conflicting stories obviously do not bring 7 any element of relief into an obscure and troubled situation.

The possibilities the situation holds must be measured in light of the fact that Mr Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement in Europe has achieved no apparent success whatever. From the outset, the British Government has declared that a settlement in Spain must precede the implementation of the Anglo-Italian Agreement but no one can pretend that the proceedings of the Non-Intervention Committee have been speeded up since negotiations were opened with Italy.

A speech by Mussolini at Genoa not long ago was interpreted as a declaration on his part that he claims for Italy the right to intervene in Spain and to ensure the victory of Franco, but that he denies to France any right to intervene in the interests of the Spanish Republicans or to prevent Italy from realising her objects in Spain. This interpretation was perhaps not accepted universally, but it appears to coincide precisely with the facts of the situation as it has developed.

There does not seem to be the slightest prospect of Italy even considering a settlement in Spain which does not ensure the victorious predominance of the insurgents, with whom Italy has made common cause, and to whom Germany also has lent powerful aid. The mediation now suggested could hardly amount in these circumstances to anything else than a culminating episode in the tragic farce of so-called non-intervention, which has amounted in fact to one-sided intervention on behalf of the rebels.

There is visible reason to fear that the experience of the Spanish adventure, in which Germany is and has been interested only less keenly than Italy,. has encouraged Hitler and ..his Nazis in their own particular schemes of aggression in Middle Europe, notably in dealing with Czechoslovakia, towards whom their attitude is so menacing. Looking at the established realities of the European situation as it has developed of late -the conquest of a great part of Spain largely by Italian and German forces, the seizure of Austria by Germany and the threat now raised to Czechoslovakia—it puts an impossible strain on credulity to be asked to believe that there is likely to be any good or helpful outcome of the attempt at mediation in Spain now suggested. If the attempt is made, it may be expected rather to demonstrate that no agreement is possible between Britain and Fascist Italy, with the latter country pursuing its present aims, than to open the way to the implementation of the agreement- that was negotiated a month or two ago.