NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE British plan for withdrawing foreign combatants from Spain has been worked out with business-like precision down to the smallest details. Two international commissions will be sent to Spain to count the foreign combatants on each side, and withdrawal i to begin systematically and in proportion to the respective titals according to a very precise time-table. When to,000 combatants have been withdrawn from the side which has the fewer, belligerent rights are to be granted to both sides—an advantage almost entirely in favour of Franco. Non-intervention is re-defined, and there will be at least i,000 observers to watch the frontiers and the ports. No propagandists are to be allowed to leave for Spain. No prohibited goods will be carried in ships of the Non-interven- tionist States. By October loth the first foreigners leave for home. By December loth the last has gone. This, of course, on the assumption that both sides in Spain co-operate, that the Non-interventionist Governments strictly keep to the agreement, and that all, in fact, goes according to plan. The possible loopholes are all too obvious. Already each side in Spain is accusing the other of the intention to conceal the identity of its foreign combatants. A hard task is imposed alike on the enumerators and on the watchers. But it is worth while making a strenuous effort to win assent and make a start in carrying out the plan, and insisting that upon its real, and not its sham success, depends the completion of the Anglo-Italian agreement.
* * * *
