PRESSURE ON SPAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 April 1941, Page 5

PRESSURE ON SPAIN

NAZI DEMAND FOR PASSAGE OF TROOPS REPORTED REFUSAL BY FRANCO. DISCUSSION IN BRITAIN. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, April 23. The Vichy correspondent of the British United Press says it is reported in diplomatic quarters that General Franco, after a meeting' of the Spanish Cabinet, has maintained his refusal to permit the passage of German troops across Spain to attack Gibraltar. General Franco, it is reported, argued that the food crisis in Spain prevented abandonment of the nation’s neutrality. The “Daily Mail” reveals that representatives of the British Navy. Army, and Air Force and also the Ambassador to Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare. are at present conferring in Gibraltar, and it declares that these representatives will be wise to keep the word “Tripoli" steadily before them as what happened there is capable of being reproduced round Gibraltar. The newspaper points out that Hitler’s men are already at Hendaye on the Spanish frontier. In the House of Commons yesterday the Prime Minister, Mr Churchill, answering a question regarding the proposed loan of over £40.000,000 to Spain, said the agreement for the loan would be laid before the House as a White Paper. It would not be a good time to debate the agreement just now; certainly not in public. Many people thought in July last year that Spain would enter the war against us, and it was only due to Sir Samuel Hoare’s brilliant discharge of his duties as our Ambassador, Mr Churchill said, that our relations with that country had continued to improve and not deteriorate. Britain did not wish to do anything which would give any excuse for a deterioration of relations between the British and the Spanish Governments, and they certainly considered that the starving condition of the people in Spain fully justified the assistance being given by Great Britain and the United States, irrespective of whether any expressions of gratitude were forthcoming or not.