Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1938. NON-INTERVENTION DANGERS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 September 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1938. NON-INTERVENTION DANGERS.

as attention centres at present on Czechoslovakia. as the storm-centre of European and world affairs, there are some well-informed observers who regard the position in Spain as even more dangerous. In spite of the long-continued operation of one-sided non-intervention, with the Fascist Powers freely assisting the insurgents, the “settlement in Spain” which more than one government expected to have been reached many months ago is still in uncertain prospect. It is now several weeks since General Franco was reported to be on the point of using all his forces, native and foreign, in an attempt to crush the loyalists and avert a winter campaign, but though there has been a great deal of heavy fighting there is no clear evidence that the end of- the so-called civil war is near. The principal success of the rebels appears to have been in their . ultimate defeat of a bold attack launched by the Government forces from the River Ebro. It seems very possible that this attack -was launched in the first instance only in .the hope of delaying the rebels and deranging their offensive plans. The incredible vitality of the Spanish Government armies, an American, commentator wrote recently—their current demonstration of ability to sustain shattering defeat, reform their lines and turn against their attackers with some success —has upset every calculation and expectation both in Europe and here in Washington. It now looks as though an end of the war were an idle hope in Rome. Either the war goes on indefinitely to an uncertain conclusion or Franco must be given In ore aid. To send that aid presumably wrecks the Anglo-Italian accord. What then? A few days ago it was reported that Britain was inviting information from Italy on the subject of reports that additional Italian reinforcements had been sent to Spain. In light of past experience, the fact that nothing has since been heard of the outcome of these inquiries cannot be called reassuring. The absence of specific information suggests rather that Italy is still pursuing the policy proclaimed in boastful terms by Signor Mussolini, in June last year, when he said of the war in Spain:— In the great fight which has brought face to face two types of civilisation and two conceptions of the world, Fascist Italy has not been neutral, but has fought and victory will be hers. France, under successive Governments, has thus far been induced to co-operate with Britain in her policy of nonintervention. Since that policy, however, plainly is working out to the advantage of the insurgents, and with little hope of any effective decision being reached in regard to the withdrawal of foreign combantants from Spain, there is a rising demand in France, approved and supported by the former Premier, M. Leon Blum, for a “relaxed” policy of non-intervention—in other words the opening of the Pyrenees frontier. With that gateway opened, it is anticipated, arms from Russia and Czechoslovakia would pour into loyalist Spain through France. The complications that would then ensue may be envisaged only too easily. This situation, as well as the crisis which has arisen over the Sudeten demands in Czechoslovakia, has to be taken into account in estimating the dangers by which Europe and the world are at present faced —dangers sufficiently emphasised by the German mobilisation and the manning in strength of the French frontier defences.