Italy and Spain Conversations between the Earl of Perth, the
British Ambassador in Rome, and Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, are reported to have progressed so far that a settle- ment of the Spanish question may be expected by the begin- ning of November. No doubt the negotiations have been assisted most of all by the Barcelona Government's unilateral decision to dispense with all foreign volunteers and by General Franco's subsequent consent to the withdrawal of io,000 Italian troops who have been with his forces for i8 months. But the British Government cannot, or should not, be satis- fied by a merely formal fulfilment of the conditions of the Anglo-Italian Agreement. Withdrawal of volunteers was meant to achieve the twofold purpose of ending foreign intervention in Spain and reducing a civil war to a real civil war. Neither of these purposes will be achieved if, while Italian troops are withdrawn, General Franco retains the Italian and German technicians and advisers who are of far greater use to him, and continues to receive munitions of war. If the Anglo-Italian Agreement, involving the grant of belligerent rights to Franco, were to come into force under such conditions, it could only be interpreted as yet another veiled form of international intervention in favour of General Franco. But bitter experience has shown that the Spanish war cannot be terminated but only encouraged and perpetuated by the continuation of such forms of intervention.
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