THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 171 No. 5113

LONDON MAY 7th, 1938

SIXPENCE

IN T in s IS SU E

ON THE ARAGON BATTLEFRONT

By F. Britten Austin

AN IMPRESSION OF AMERICA TODAY

By Robert Speaight

FRENCH OPINION ON THE LONDON VISIT

By Lucien Corpechot

THE GERMAN IN ROME

Editorial

ON BOASTING

By Hilaire Belloc

NEW FICTION

Reviewed by Rupert Croft-Cooke

Full List o f Contents on page 592.

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Commons and the Pact with Italy

The Prime Minister had little difficulty in recommending the Anglo-Italian Pact to the House of Commons on Monday. If it was for the most part a poor debate in a thin house, that was because everyone knew only too well what the Opposition leaders were going to say. Their most substantial point of criticism concerns Palestine. In general the Pact is a very full and careful document, covering all the material points at which the interests of Britain and Italy touch, and might conflict. But Palestine has been regulated by an oral understanding, and Mr. Chamberlain was pressed to say why this exception had been made. He replied that he could not very easily say. The truth about Palestine is that the British Government’s policy may have to be very considerably altered, and it is highly undesirable, when it can be avoided, that we should tie ourselves down in an international document. The oral understanding by which Great Britain will keep the Italians informed of any projected change in the status of Palestine, and the Italians will abstain from propaganda or political activities there, depends, not more and not less than the rest of the Pact, on the spirit animating the two countries in the future.

Much the worst thing in the debate was the outburst of interruption which came as soon as the Prime Minister paid, at the end of his speech, some just tributes to the new Italy. The Opposition keep pointing out that if Mussolini likes he can again build up his Libyan garrisons. They do not allow for the uncertainty any country must feel which negotiates with Britain and takes note of the attitude of the Opposition, who might one day be the Government. The Outlook in Spain

The Prime Minister was also pressed about the world settlement, since the Pact provides that there must be a settlement in Spain before the Pact is operative. Here he said very little, because the Government know very well how near that settlement is. It is true that resistance to the Nationalists is not likely to collapse altogether in the near future. Barcelona is being defended, and it is easy to defend streets and buildings with machine guns. Considerable supplies, in particular of aeroplanes, have been arriving. Their arrival through France is enthusiastically recorded by the newspapers of the French Left, and caustically recorded by those of the Right. Informants who have lately been in Barcelona declare that it is a huge military storehouse, and that the churches in particular are piled high with ammunition. There is a last-minute conscription, which is including boys of fourteen and fifteen. There are an increasing number of arrests and executions, but there is very little fighting spirit, very little desire among the members of the Anarchist associations to leave Barcelona to fight in the field. Everything that has been done continues to be done with an eye on France and England, and Señor Negrin has just issued, mainly for consumption abroad, a programme of the political aims of the Republic. Of this document, which forecasts a democratic constitution rather like that of 1931, it only need be said that it is more reasonable to judge Sr. Negrin and his present colleagues by the programmes