FRANCE AND THE SPANISH FRONTIER
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—One of your readers assumes in a letter published on September i6th that, since I would reopen the Franco-Spanish frontier, it must be that I have no son of mine of age to bear arms. Your reader is wrong. I have a son, who would be called up in the tanks. I have a son-in-law, whose father was killed in the last War, and who would be called up in the infantry. It would be much harder for me to see them go, than it was to go myself, as I went on voluntary service, as a private, in 1914. But I think it too natural of them to prefer fighting to living in shame and servitude.
There are still things which France would go to war for. And besides, I am convinced that if France and Great Britain had stood by Spain yesterday, if they helped Czechoslovakia tomorrow, there would never have been, there still never would be any risk of war. On the contrary, our falling back from one position to another, I fear, will put us in a position when we shall have to fight, and fight a war which will be infinitely more cruel to the mothers of France and Great Britain, as then we shall find ourselves alone, in front of the totalitarian States. There is a form of pacifism which is wrong, and has been proved so, since Ethiopia, China, and Spain bleed for it. May it not tomorrow shed the blood of the children of Great Britain, and of France.—Yours faithfully, A. BAYET. 2 Rue Monsieur le Prince, Paris, Vieme.
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