NEWS OF 111E WEEK N ON-INTERVENTION in Spain carries with it
certain moral obligations, and it may be questioned whether the European States represented on the Non- intervention Committee in London have gone as far as they might have done in endeavours to secure, if not a truce in Spain, at any rate some mitigation of the savagery ;with which the civil war is being conducted. There will be universal support in this country for Mr. Eden's urgent appeal to the two sides in Spain to refrain from using hostages, holding, ill-treating and possibly massacring them—an appeal strengthened by the practical offer of the services of the British Navy to facilitate an exchange of hostages. The fact that women are being detained in this way adds horror to the whole system, and on Thursday the news was pub- lished of an act of foul barbarism committed by the Government forces at Cartagena, where all the hostages held were shot as reprisal for an air raid. In the field General Franco is steadily advancing. The encirclement of Madrid by the insurgent armies continues, and the advantage accruing to the defenders from the command of interior lines is more than outweighed by the superiority of the insurgents both in munitions, particularly aero- planes, and in tactical skill. The important defensive- point of Novalcamero fell on Wednesday.
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