Mr. Eden's Plan

A careful examination of iVir. Eden's plan for a new international agreement on Spain makes it evident that it is not really impartial, in the sense of being founded upon an objective recognition of the facts. It is only impartial in the sense that it endeavours to allow for the partiality of the two contending sets of Powers.
Thus there is no real answer to the arguments we have adduced for the recognition of Franco's belligerent rights, and it was plain from a study of the speeches in the House of Commons that the Government at heart believes this to be so. The recognition of those rights is a policy that springs from the objective consideration of the facts of the war and from an understanding of British interests, not from any desire to favour Franco.
But because the Government's purpose was to make it possible for such partial Powers as France and Russia to come to terms with Germany and Italy, it has made the recognition of limited belligerent rights dependent upon the withdrawal of the foreign volunteers.
We have at no time done other than deplore the importation of foreign volunteers, and we have only found it possible to excuse the German and Italian help for Franco in the light of the previously given international aid to Madrid—an aid which, whatever its character and weight, has admittedly saved Madrid and the cause of Red Spain for the time being. We cannot therefore he accused of wishing Franco _to succeed at any cost to the rest of the world, vc t o% en so we think that a strong stand in favour of the need to recognise Franco as a belligerent would in the long run have proved more likely to make for the isolation of the Spanish conflict than the over-cautious attempt to make such recognition dependent upon another and far more complicated question, namely the withdrawal of volunteers. The two questions are perfectly distinct and should have been kept so.
There is in fact no impartiality in regard to the conflict, not even in the British Government, but there are three alternatives: the first, to back Franco and take the attendant risks; the second, to back Valencia and take the attendant risks; and third, to hold that the attendant risks of either course are not worth taking in order to assure the success of the side one favours.
It is possible to be enlightenedly partial as well as blindly partial. And it is possible, while holding that the risks of backing one or other of the contending parties do not warrant the active support of either of those parties, to recognise the nature of the facts as they are.
Our difficulty' with France and the Opposition in this country is not that they want Madrid to win—that is their affair—but that they are blind both to the real nature of Madrid and the real nature of the Nationalists. They fool themselves into believing that Madrid or Valencia stand for democracy or parliamentarianism; they fool themselves into believing that there is one Government in Red Spain, whereas there are three, and until the capture of Bilbao there were four; they demand nonintervention while supporting as much intervention as possible for the side they favour.
We want Franco to win, but this does not prevent us from deploring the foreign aid he receives; we want Franco to win, but we are not therefore Fascist in sympathy. We are, for example, perfectly willing to see the good side of Chautemps' government in France and the bad side of Hitler's regime in Germany. In other words we want Franco to win solely because of certain objective facts arising from the Spanish situation itself. If one could get a like degree of enlightened partiality for Valencia from France and the British Opposition, if one could get them to admit that they are hacking a Communist or Anarchist Government because they feel that Spain needs this, if one could get them to admit (and rejoice in the fact) that Valencia has been helped by volunteers, the importation of foreign war material and food, and by foreign agents and propaganda, fully as much, if not more than, Franco, the way would he paved for the realistic, factual, consideration of the vital central problem, which is, once again, simply: is it worth France's or Germany's • or Italy's or the British Left's while to take the risks attendant upon the active support of the real cause they have at heart, or is it not?
Great Britain has rightly made up her mind about this vital question, and in Mr. Eden's proposals she has gone a long way towards clearing her mind about the real issues, but she has still a good distance to go.
The chances of European peace depend upon whether she can persuade the Powers to face the real and not the imaginary questions.