To the forthcoming meeting of an important committee of the
Economic Council for Europe, I read, "all the Governments of Europe (except Spain) have been invited." How irritating that per- sistent " exception " becomes. The political ostracism of Spain has patently failed to do General Franco a peseta-worth of harm or the Republicans a peseta-worth of good. But if our own and other Foreign Ministers persist in their obduracy about it, persist they must. But when it comes to European trade, which is what the Geneva Committee is to discuss, the boycott of a country which has plenty of exports and needs plenty of imports is gratuitously damaging to all concerned. Mr. Harold Wilson has just been emphasising his refusal to allow political considerations to interfere with the develop- ment of trade with Russia and other eastern European countries. Are they so conspicuously more virtuous than Spain ?
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