Ex-Dean Inge on Platform
By a Staff Reporter Lord Phillimore, Sir Henry Page Croft, M.P., General Groves, Dr. Inge (late Dean of St. Paul's), Captain Cazalet, M.P., and Sir Henry Lunn were among those on the platform at a crowded and enthusiastic meeting of the Friends of Nationalist Spain, at Caxton Hall on Tuesday afternoon.
Lord Lloyd sent a message to the meeting regretting his unavoidable absence, but assuring Lord Phillimore that : " I am heart and soul with you."
After a short introduction by Lord Phillimore in which Mr. Attlee, the latest Red supporter to visit Spain, was scathingly denounced as offending against those principles of non-intervention which he had formerly so often and so piously upheld, Sir Henry Page Croft began a vigorous speech in support of Nationalist Spain, which was "fighting the forces of antiGod."
Contrasting Villages General Groves, who has made extensive tours of both Nationalist and Red Spain, contrasted the villages of Navarre, "Clean houses, clean people, happy people, order and tranquillity, the church bells ringing, for it was on a Sunday," with villages in Government hands, "disordered and dirty. slatternly people."
Did not the contrast betray a deeper contrast of ideas, a contrast of culture and barbarism?
" General Franco," he went on, " is succeeding, not because of Fascist intervention, but because he has the majority of the Spanish people on his side. Would he have dared to strike were he not certain that the people would rise spontaneously with him?"
Out of 23,000,000 Spaniards there were 16,000,000 solidly behind Franco. Twothirdsof the country was under his rule.
General Groves said the reason why the whole weight of propaganda in England was against General Franco was that the Reds had early in the struggle seized Spain's gold reserves and, as a result, had enormous sums of money to finance propaganda. General Franco had no money at all to spend in this way.
Not Germany or Italy
Captain Cazalet, who has visited Nationalist Spain, briefly and pungently gave some facts of the Spanish war.
" The great majority of the people on
General Franco's side are prepared to die, and die fighting for, Spain,' he said.
He emphasised that neither Germany nor Italy will dominate Spain when Franco wins.
" One would grievously misunderstand the Spaniard's character if one thought that General Franco is willing to sacrifice Spain's sovereignty to Italy or Germany in order to win the war."
Captain Cazalet had spoken to enthusiastic officers of Franco, who said that if they thought Franco had come to any arrangement with another country as to rewards for aid in winning the war, they would shoot him.
But most important was General Franco's emphasis on the necessity for religious toleration. The General has said : " The great days of Spain were when Moor, Jew and Christian worshipped side by side. That is the era I intend to bring back to Spain."
Captain Cazalet finished with these words : " General Franco is a gentleman and a humanitarian. He has no more use for a decadent aristocracy or absentee land lords than have any of us here. I am convinced that his regime will not be modelled on that of Italy or Germany."
Ct. . . Then I am Political "
The last speaker, Sir Henry Lunn, said he was shocked at the attitude of some of the high clergy of the English Church. They not only seemed to condone the antireligious action of the Government side in Spain, but they had recently protested against the United Christian Front Committee—which had been formed by men of all Protestant denominations to protest against the onslaught on God that was being waged from Madrid and Barcelona— on the grounds that its aims were political. Sir Henry could not understand the attitude of those who, with him, had protested so vehemently against the Bulgarian and Armenian massacres sixty and forty years ago, should now be silent or openly supporting the far worse massacres of priests and nuns in Spain.
Sir Henry Lunn finished on a powerful note : "If it is political to protest against those who ` repent not of their murders nor of their fornications,' against ' the rape of countless nuns,' I am political. If it is political to ' cry with a loud voice saying How long, 0 Lord, faithful and true, wilt Thou not judge and avenge their blood,' may God multiply the number of such politicians until those who have sought to destroy the Christian faith are overthrown."