In reviewing events in Spain today, Mr. Eden first referred to the Outbreak of attacks on shipping in the Mediterranean in July which, he said, were in effect acts of piracy.
That was a situation which could not be allowed to continue. Against such acts the only possible safeguard was to use overwhelming strength for the protection of trade routes in the Mediterranean, It was dangerous to prophesy, in the present world conditions, but it was at least true that from the assembling of the Nyon Conference until to-day, acts of piracy against shipping in the Mediterranean had ceased (cheers).
Referring to the final Anglo-French effort to "refloat the non-intervention committee, which had been virtually @waterlogged for two months," Mr. Eden said they had thought it only fair to make plain that if the meeting could not achieve results, they would have to be free to resume liberty of action.
That statement was made not because we had ceased to believe that the policy of non-intervention was still the only safe course for Europe in the Spanish conflict, but because no government could continue to associate itself for an indefinite period with an international agreement that was being constantly violated (cheers).
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.