Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 1939. AFTER “NON-INTERVENTION.”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 1939. AFTER “NON-INTERVENTION.”

]£VEN the very brief report cabled yesterday suggests that in replying-, in the House of Commons, to a barrage of questions regarding the withdrawal of foreign troops and war materials from Spain, the British Under-Secretary for hoieign Affairs (Mr R. A. Butler) found himself in the unhappy position of having to attempt to .justify a policy that manifestly has fallen to pieces. Mr Butler said that some war material had been returned to Italy and Germany, but that a considerable quantity had been handed over to the Spanish Government. On being pressed, he admitted that the Anglo-Italian Agreement provided that all war material would be withdrawn, but contended that “we can’t stop the Italians selling or giving it to the Spanish Government.”

What perhaps might be done in these painful circumstances is to stop pretending that the Anglo-Italian Agreement is worth the paper it is written on. The retention of Italian and German rvar materia] in Spain is a somewhat sinister development in a troubled world situation. It is a development which may mean that Spain is held hard and, fast by the totalitarian dictatorships as a military ally, and would of necessity do the bidding of the dictatorships in the event of Avar.

From a military standpoint and in other respects the policy of so-called non-intervention —a policy which actually left an ultimate monopoly of intervention to Italy and Germany—has worked out disastrously for the European democracies. It is true that at the time of the September crisis, General Franco proclaimed a policy of neutrality, but since then circumstances in some respects ’ have changed greatly. As Mr Winston Churchill pointed out recently, Spanish Morocco in September last Avas virtually undefended, whereas now a large Spanish army of seasoned troops is available for its defence. Tn September, too, Minorca might have been occupied by British and French forces “at the invitation of a friendly Spanish Republican Government.”

The whole position has now been altered in a measure calculated seriously to intensify the problem of making head in the Western Mediterranean and elsewhere against any aggression that may be attempted by the totalitarian States. Details have been reported from time to time of potentially hostile preparations in the vicinity of Gibraltar, of the development of aerodromes at strategic points in Spain and of the establishment of submarine bases on the north coast of that country. We now have the additional detail of large quantities of foreign Avar material left in Spain.

The immediate saving grace df the situation, if it has one, is in the doubts that are expressed freely as to the practicability of organising and regimenting Spain under Fascist domination. However willing General Franco may be to do the bidding of the allies who enabled him to overthrow his Republican opponents, it does not necessarily follow that the mass of his countrymen would be willing to support, or to tolerate that policy. At best, however, the outlook is troubled and uncertain. The actual importance of developments in Spain, which evidently in themselves cannot be regarded as of good promise, no doubt will be determined largely by the genera] course of events in Europe—notably the outcome of tlie current negotiations between Britain and Russia, which are now stated to be likely to extend over at least another three weeks.