A U T O B IO G R A P H Y of G . K . CHESTERTON-™«™«/.

THE TABLET A W E E K L Y N E W S P A P E R A N D R E V IE W

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 168 No. 5039

LONDON OCTOBER 3rd, 1936

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK . . .437

BILBAO, TOLEDO, MADRID ; ATROCITIES ; MOORISH

TROOPS ; LITVINOFF AT GENEVA ; THE FRANC : THE DOLLAR AND THE POUND LEADING ARTICLES................................ 440

JOURNALISM AND THE CHURCH ; LETTERS ABOUT SPAIN ; THE DOG WHO FOUGHT A DUEL MADRID DURING THE CIVIL WAR .. 441 SPANISH RELIEF FUND ............................. 443 THE SPAIN I S A W ................................ 444

By RAYMOND LACOSTE CASTE PROBLEMS IN CATHOLIC INDIA 446

By K. E. JOB ROME LETTER ........................................ 448

CONTENTS

DUBLIN LETTER ........................................ 449 THE CHURCH ABROAD ............................. 451

FRANCE ; POLAND ; GENEVA ; MANILA AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, V ............................. 453

By G. K. CHESTERTON BOOKS OF THE WEEK ............................. 458

PORTUGAL (Professor Preslage) ; FORGOTTEN SHRINES : JOHN LAW ; VAGABOND MINSTREL ; FICTION CHRONICLE (Graham Greene) ; THE HEDGE AND THE HORSE OBITUARY ................................................... 465 CHESS AND CROSSWORD............................. 466 THE CALENDAR ........................................ 468 APOSTOLATE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE .. 468

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK Bilbao, Toledo, Madrid

Three cities of Spain hold the centre of interest today, Bilbao, Toledo, and Madrid. Bilbao, now being invested and bombarded by General Mola, is a place of immense natural strength. It lies in a valley beset with hills, and is the industrial capital of the whole of the Basque countryside. It played a critical part in both the first and second Carlist wars, and in each of those struggles, the one a hundred, and the other sixty years ago, the Carlist armies besieged the place in vain. In the second Carlist war it withstood a siege of a hundred and twenty-five days. There is little comparison between the efficiency of the Carlists then, and of so able a general, with such equipment as is at his command, as Mola today. The capture will be one of the major turning points in the war, for Bilbao is a great centre for the manufacture of munitions and armaments. Regionalism and the fear of a strong centralised Government in Madrid has kept the Basques from showing that wholehearted devotion to one side, which made them the natural basis for military operations of both Don Carlos and his grandson. The Carlist cause has never died, and Carlists form a high proportion of General Mola’s .forces. Their leader in the field, Prince Xavier de Bourbon, became last week, on the death following a street accident at the age of eighty-seven of Don Jaime, the heir to the claims o f Don Carlos. If the monarchy should be restored, the Carlist candidate would be Prince Xavier de Bourbon. The Carlist claim is now a hundred years old. It rests on the contention that the House of Bourbon, when it ascended the Spanish throne in 1700, brought with it from France the salic law excluding women from the succession. By this law, the successor to Ferdinand VII on his death in 1834, was not his daughter, Isabella, who could not succeed, but his brother, Carlos. Isabella did in fact succeed, and reigned till she was driven out in 1868, when there followed the confusions of the republic, of an imported Savoy prince as king, and a second Carlist attempt. Those troubles ended six years later with the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Isabella’s son, who was Alphonso XII, the father of the present ex-King. It is in the full tradition of Spanish history that the Carlist claim should come forward again. The ex-King is an isolated figure in Spanish politics, a man of great intelligence and character, but now dogged by the same sort of reputation for independability, which in English politics has kept Mr. Lloyd George in isolated opposition for the last fourteen years. Many Spanish monarchists who hold that only a monarchy will give stability to Spanish political life, hope to bring the ex-King’s third son to the throne. These speculations are premature, but it is important to recognise that the rising today is on so large a scale that it represents a coalition of groups with widely different ideals for the future government of the country. Some of the leaders, like Mola himself, are Republicans who have held important offices under the Republic; Cabanellas, the first president of the provisional junta, and Queipo de Llano, are freemasons ; Franco, now Generalissimo, is a Catholic and a friend of Gil Robles, whom he learnt to value at the Ministry of War, and an advocate of far-reaching social reforms. Toledo

The second city is Toledo, now Franco’s headquarters. It is the most historic city in Spain, and its unique geographical situation on a granite hill, in a horseshoe bend of the Tagus in rough and hilly country, made it a natural capital and strategic centre through Spanish history. Like Bilbao, it has been famous in history for its swords, and it was one of the great centres from which the Government obtained cartridges until its fall last week. It is a place steeped in the Catholic tradition of Spain, the seat of the Primates, and there is a fittingness in its being the place from which has come the story,which best brings home to world opinion, the spirit and character of the present rising.

No one can attribute to personal ambitions or Moorish mercenaries the resistance of the cadets in the Alcazar. The small casualties, about one-tenth killed, which the garrison suffered, and the fact that the Cathedral is