June 29, Fortunately the withdrawal of Germany and Italy from the patrol of the Spanish coast does not involve the severance of their relations with the Non-Intervention Committee which has so painfully laboured to bring its machinery into operation for the limitation of the Spanish conflict. So it is hoped that the meeting arranged for to-day will] enable the Committee to recover] equilibrium and address itself to the} task of eliminating foreign participation in the civil war. The tension of last week should have thacked even the most flippant partisan into discretion. Mr. Neville Chamberlain's appeal for restraint in language and action eminently fitted the crisis in which tempers were rising high and, once again, practical issues of fact were being obscured by appeals to national sentiment. It would be well if th nations in Europe would consider whether they are prepared to allow themselves to be the sport of some perverse whim on the part of one or other of the two contending Spanish parties by submitting to} the dictation of some casual episode on the supreme issue of peace or war. Is General Franco or the Valencia Government to be told that either the one or the other is possessed of such power that an ill-considered or even a deliberate act of warfare against any given nation will automatically extend tne, civil war to portentous dimensions outside Spain? Is Europe to be put at the mercy of any irresponsible mercenary who may be moved either by the desperation of his cause or by the morbid vanity of his temperament to give the signal for a general conflagration? Statesmanship is surely not so] lacking in resource as to be unable to prevent so untoward a catastrophe. The calamity which has overtaken unhappy Spain is bad enough. It would only be made worse if it were permitted 10 become merged in a universal holocoust. These considerations should be well in mind when the powere meet to-day with the declared tention of restoring the equilibrium of the policy of Non-Intervention, The. schemes for supervising the Spanish land and sea frontiers came into force just over two months ago. The British observers 1 Portugal began their duties on the Spanish-Portuguese frontier April 19. The labours of the Committee which brought this contro! into effect were considerable, Many divergences of opinion and serious dissensions had to be overcome. The International Board to which
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.