THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 172 No. 5129

LONDON AUGUST 27th, 1938

SIXPENCE

IN THIS ISSUE

THE HOLY OFFICE AND “VOLTAIRE”

An Editorial

THE NAZI PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

By E. I. Watkin

POPULATION PROBLEMS IN EUROPE TODAY

By E. R. Roper Power

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING

Full List o f Contents on page 260.

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Reply from Burgos

When the answer of the Nationalist Government to the British plan was made public on Monday last, it was found to contain an important reservation. It begins with a succession o f offers. Where the British Plan suggests preliminary withdrawals of three thousand volunteers a side, the Nationalists propose ten thousand. They renew their offer to respect a port in each part o f the territory still in hostile hands. They are ready to assist in drawing up a definition o f military objectives for aerial attack. But a t the same time they claim that belligerent rights should be granted, as a matter of right, without more delay. Their note recapitulates the position. The Nationalists rule the greater part of Spain, and rule it in a legal and regular manner. They have proper armed forces and are, in short, quite plainly belligerents. Yet the British Plan proposes to follow the withdrawal of volunteers not by full belligerent rights but by limited rights : there will, for example, be no right to stop and search ships flying the Non-Intervention Committee’s flag, and the decisions as to contraband will be made by the Committee. When the Nationalists demand full rights they do so not only as a matter of honour. I t is their contention th a t only the belligerents will really tackle questions of contraband with thoroughness. What they dislike is a system which ties their hands in favour o f neutral observers who are circumventable, they say, without great difficulty, so th a t ships may and do carry a t the same time Non-Intervention officers on their decks and contraband in their holds. Italians, Germans and the International Brigade

The essential difference between the foreign volunteers on each side is that, with trifling exceptions, all those with the Nationalists come from Italy and, in smaller proportion, from Germany. They are in Spain with the authorization o f their governments, and those governments are both members o f the Non-Intervention Committee. Now the British Plan is concerned with withdrawing volunteers from countries which belong to that Committee. But many of the recruits for the International Brigade do not come from those countries, and the Nationalists accordingly ask for the withdrawal, in equal numbers, of volunteers from whatever country they come, not only o f volunteers from countries belonging to the Committee and adhering to the Plan. The position is th a t it is a much simpler, but a much more irrevocable matter, for the Italians and Germans to leave. I f their governments are asked to recall them, they can hardly be asked to send them back to Spain should there be a sudden added vigour in the recruitment o f individual foreigners by the other side. Spanish Nationalists and the French

The Nationalists do not a t all trust the present French Government, and they have to recognize that before long M. Daladier may fall and that his successor may be, once more, their arch-enemy Léon Blum, who writes almost every day in the Populaire, confiding to his Socialist followers his plans and hopes for the downfall o f Nationalist Spain. The French Popular Front, like their friends in Britain, have talked so much about Germans and Italians in the service o f Franco and have so exaggerated their rôle, th a t they have deceived themselves into thinking that the Nationalist Army is a small and reluctant force. There is consequently a danger th a t as soon as they are assured that the Italians and Germans have left, they will say to themselves, “ Now, a t long last, the moment has come to send every kind of support to Barcelona.” The Italians and Germans are not very important today—they were