NEWS OF THE WEEK
OUT of the conflict of reports from the Government and the rebels in Spain little reliable information about the state of the fighting emerges. The fall of San Sebastian has, as was inevitable, followed the fall of Irun, and the rebels are threatening Santander and Bilbao. The whole of the north Atlantic seaboard may soon be in their hands. At the same time Oviedo and the Alcazar at Toledo, whose fall the Government announced as imminent three weeks ago, are still in rebel hands. The tide, as a whole, is clearly flowing against the Govern- ment, and the crisis of the whole campaign will come when General Franco decides to launch a concerted attack on Madrid. If the capital falls it will be hard for Senor Caballero's administration to make good its claim to be still the accepted Government of Spain. How far the rebels are still receiving external help is uncertain. The committee on non-intervention is sitting in London, and the- information required from Berlin and Rome has now been laid before it. But Portugal, under its Dictator, Dr. Salazar, declines to sit on the committee, and its other members have not yet shown signs of taking what is the obviously proper course, and declaring Portugal a prohibited area for the export of arms as well as Spain. It is conceivable, though hardly likely, that the committee, if it found its work going smoothly, might be used to discuss the possibility of united mediation in Spain. But that task could more fittingly be discharged by the League of Nations.
