It seems difficult to believe that the two Dictators will reject the fair and friendly offer extended to them from across the ocean by President Roosevelt. Yet up to the present moment there is no sign that they will accept it in the spirit in which it was made. Should we eventually have to recognise that it has been cast back in the teeth of the United States, it will be clear that the larger hopes of the world have received a very heavy blow. The two Dictators and their associates will have placed themselves and their associates in a class apart. They will have shown that their intentions are dark and malignant; that friendly processes are of no avail; and that civilisation must shortly withstand the onslaught of desperate men. Such rejection will prove even to the most doubting that the Nazi and Fascist Dictatorships have no confidence that their alleged grievances and evident ambitions could stand the test of faithful investigation.
If this should unhappily prove true, we must none the less regard the President's peace message as a weighty contribution to the cause of collective security. All the thirty States to whom he appealed, except those gripped by the Nazi terror, will be inclined to range themselves upon the side of peace and law. The recalcitrants will place themselves, to a large extent, in the dock. The process of building up a grand alliance of peace-seeking States against further aggression must receive a notable stimulus in Europe. The growing convictions of the people of the United States of America will be proportionately fortified. We may be certain that the United States will not intervene in any British or European quarrel. But they seem to be developing a very definite opinion of their own. At the time of writing we can but hope that Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini, supported by their Ribbentrops and Cianos, will not allow this new ray of light to die without realising that it may not shine again.
Meanwhile our minds turn naturally upon the attitude of General Franco. There is no doubt that it is very different from that adopted by him in the September crisis. He then, much to the displeasure of Herr Hitler, declared himself resolved to be neutral. But at that time he had on his hands a life-and-death struggle with Republican Spain, and all his armies were extended on the long fronts of the Civil War. Now that all Republican resistance has been crushed, he may feel himself less held by local necessities, and at the same time more gripped in Nazi and Fascist hands. The British Conservative Right Wing, who have given him such passionate support, must now be the prey to many misgivings. There is no doubt that all kinds of potentially hostile preparations are being made opposite to Gibraltar. Reports which are not confirmed in official circles stream in of concentrations of troops and preparations of aerodromes behind the Pyrenees, and of submarine bases on the north coast of Spain.
We are certainly being fooled about the departure of the Italian troops. They were all to go at the latest when the war was over. Then they were to go by the middle of April; then, instead of going, large additional numbers of Italians were landed. But this, we were assured, was only for the victory parade and the triumphant entry into Madrid. Here, again, there are postponements. So joyous an event cannot apparently be hastened. It was fixed for May 2; it has now been postponed till May 15. Meanwhile the Italian Government are prodigal in their assurances that they will keep the word that they have passed to Mr. Chamberlain and the British Government. These assurances are, of course, not in themselves worth the breath that uttered them.
There is another respect in which our relations with General Franco are worse than in September. At that time Spanish Morocco was virtually undefended, and it would not have been difficult for a French or Anglo-French force to take possession of the heavy batteries erected on the African side. But now a large Spanish army of seasoned troops is available for their defence. We are told the Moorish troops are being repatriated to Morocco. This very natural operation does not touch the question of the part these troops will play when they have reached their homeland. In September last, or indeed as late as February British and French naval, military and air forces could have occupied the island of Minorca at the invitation of a friendly Spanish Republican Government. But now such an act would be justifiable only if some overt aggression had been committed by General Franco's Government; and by that time the operation might have become more difficult.
It is upon this foundation that we must study the proposed movement of a portion of the German fleet for healthful exercises on the coast of Spain. At first sight one would suppose that it was reassuring. If the Nazi Government can afford to send two of their pocket battleships and some cruisers, with flotillas of destroyers and submarines, far away from their home station in the Baltic, and place them in waters from which in certain circumstances return might be difficult-is this not, one asks oneself, a kind of tacit guarantee that there will be a longer breathing-space? On the other hand, the movement is capable of a sinister interpretation. We well remember how at the outset of the Great War the Goeben was risked in order to determine the action of the Turkish Government. The arrival of a German fleet at Cadiz or at Cartagena might well be intended to put the final screw on General Franco and drag the Spanish people into the cauldron of a world struggle. Alternatively, these pocket battleships would be well placed at Cadiz to strike at all the trade reaching the British Isles from the Atlantic. No doubt arrangements could be made by Great Britain to cope with this form of attack, but it is not one which is necessarily inappropriate to the conception by the Nazi and Fascist powers of what they call 'a lightning war.' The utmost vigilance should certainly be exercised by the British Admiralty, the men at the head of which hold our vital safety in their hands.
It would be a pity not to dwell upon the opposite factors which may determine General Franco's choice-if indeed he is allowed to choose. Spain has just emerged from a civil war which has rent the whole nation in twain. One side has triumphed by foreign aid, and the vanquished, at least half the nation, are for the moment crushed and impotent. The only plan for the Spanish people is to unite in rebuilding their shattered cities and devastated social life. This hope can only be realised by neutrality. In the Great War neutrality was very profitable to Spain. She became rich while others bled and were exhausted. A neutral Spain would be courted by all the combatants. The interest of Spain is to lead her own life and cultivate her own garden.
Should Spain be lured into what is for her the wild gamble of a world convulsion, it seems probable that she would be denied just that very period of recuperation of which she stands most in need. Unless immediate overwhelming victory rewarded the Totalitarian States, and Hitler with perhaps Mussolini at his tail became the master of the world, General Franco's Government would never be able to send another ship to sea, nor receive a salt-water cargo. They and their island possessions would be a target for powerful and indignant combatants. They would seem to condemn themselves to making a savage desert of Spain, roamed through by haggard tyrants, instead of enjoying, as they so easily can, a position of marked advantage and bargaining power. It must be hoped that these solid considerations of Spanish interests will prevail. But the possibilities remain either that General Franco is intoxicated by his success or that he is no longer a free agent to act in the true interests of his country. Should either of these results emerge, we must all prepare ourselves for a darker and more hazardous future.
At a moment like this everyone must sympathise with Mr. Chamberlain in his grievous responsibilities. No Prime Minister in modern times has had so much personal power to guide affairs. Everything that he has asked of the nation has been granted; and when he has not asked what many thought necessary, no steps have been taken to compel him. There never has been in England such a one-man Government as that under which we have dwelt for the last year. He has taken the whole burden upon himself, and we can only trust that he will not be found unequal to it.
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