Second Thoughts on Spain
It seems increasingly probable that the United Nations will in the course of its present General Assembly rescind the resolution it took two years ago on Spain, and increasingly desirable that it should. It was then decided that members of U.N.O. should' be urged to withdraw their Ambassadors from Madrid and refuse Spain entry, not only to the United Nations itself but to any of its tech- nical organisations. It has been generally recognised by this time that to withdraw Ambassadors is in any case a stupid and futile proceeding, which irritates not merely the Government but the people concerned, without doing either of them the smallest harm. As to the exclusion of Spain from the technical organisations—the Economic Council of Europe, the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation—such a gesture is equally futile and singularly ill-advised. In all these spheres the co-operation of a country like Spain is greatly to be desired. To reject it does no injury whatever to General Franco or his regime, but it may do con- siderable injury to the Spanish people—or at any rate deprive them of substantial advantages. The United Nations is concerned with a country's international, relations, not with its internal controversies, and it is a plain fact that since 1945 Spain has shown itself as " peace-loving" as any nation in the world. The Franco regime is repugnant to every lover of freedom, and the sooner it gives place to something different the better, but that is a case for Spaniards ; external intervention in favour of this or that party would differ little from aggression. There is no valid reason for excluding Spain from full membership of U.N.O., but that in the circumstances may have to come gradually. Meanwhile the move now being made at Lake Success should have this country's full support. To deplore one country's tendency to isolationism and ostracise another into isolation is a strange foreign policy.
Previous page
