NEWS OF THE WEEK T HE satisfaction everywhere expressed over the
agreement reached by the Non-Intervention Committee on the British plan for the withdrawal of so-called volunteers from Spain is premature. The plan can be put into operation only if General Franco and the Spanish Government approve it and give actual facilities for its execution. If either Germany or Italy is secretly opposed to the plan nothing is simpler than to accept it in London and see that General Franco torpedoes it elsewhere. Which means that some advance has been achieved but the decisive point has not been reached. Meanwhile the bombing of British ships continues, Mr. Chamberlain's non possumus speech in the House of Commons on Tuesday being followed promptly on Wednesday by an incident in which at Valencia a Franco aeroplane came low enough over a British ship to machine-gun as well as bomb it. In Tuesday's debate the Opposition put forward definite proposals, Mr. Noel Baker suggesting, in a very effective speech, that the Government might end such diplomatic contacts as exist between itself and General Franco ; it might put an embargo on trade with Nationalist Spain ; it might impound Franco funds in this country ; it might remove the prohibition on the supply of anti-circraft guns to the Spanish Government. To some of these proposals there are obvious objections ; to others there are not. What is clear is that the Prime Minister, having tried the way of normal protest can no longer go on proclaiming that whatever happens to British ships the Government will do nothing. It may be more to the point to talk to Signor Mussolini than to General Franco. * * * *
