NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE endeavours of the two Oppositions to pick holes in the Government's policy regarding Bilbao are assiduous but not impressive. They failed to prove that the Cabinet had ever wavered from the policy, announced by Mr. Baldwin as long ago as April 13th, that no interference with British shipping on the high seas would be tolerated, but that vessels entering Spanish territorial waters round Bilbao would do so at their own risk. That could not be reasonably interpreted to mean that any ship desiring to enter Bilbao could demand and obtain convoy up to the limit of territorial waters, but that any ship suffering interference outside territorial waters would receive naval support as soon as it could arrive. Precisely this appears to be happening. On the other hand the Government appears throughout to have exaggerated the dangers of the Bilbao" blockade," and to have gone quite unnecessarily far in its almost minatory warnings to British vessels to keep away. Two such vessels have so far entered harbour without incident this week, and their arrival with cargoes of food may well turn the scale in the fight for the city. General Franco, who is risking a serious challenge to his authority by his decree uniting all the factions under his flag into a single party, contradictory though many of their tenets may be, is achieving no military success anywhere, and is suffering reverses at Teruel, near Cordoba, and round Madrid. Meanwhile international control of Spain's frontiers became a reality at midnight on Monday, and reports of the evaporation of German and Italian enthusiasm for the Spanish adventure multiply. * * * *
