The Week in Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : On
Monday Mr. Chamberlain, while not denying that there might have been some reinforcements " to both sides," informed the House of Commons that he had no reason to think that the position in Spain had been materially altered by recent Italian reinforcements to General Franco. The Opposition received this announcement with frank incredulity, and the same evening Mr. Arthur Henderson raised the matter on the Adjournment. The evidence which he had collected to rebut the Prime Minister's view was certainly impressive. He quoted from a reference in The Times of March 26th to " the terrible punishment meted out by the newly-arrived German and Italian troops " and produced a photostat copy of a statement made a fortnight ago by a captured Italian officer. This was to the effect that " recent acceleration of shipments of war material is due to the fact that Signor Musso- lini wishes to finish the war in Spain quickly." Mr. Butler laid much emphasis upon the difficulty of obtaining exact information. He repeated that the Government was satisfied as to the fulfilment by the Italian Government of the condi- tions indicated to them before the commencement of the conversations, but was extremely guarded in his references to German intervention. With such a wide discrepancy between the information reaching the Government and the reports of many newspaper correspondents, one or the other must be rather badly mistaken. * * * *
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