Sir Robert Hodgson had also been instructed to tell Salamanca that the British Government, in the past, had treated these unjustifiable attacks on British shipping with the utmost patience, but that its patience was now exhausted.
The British Government had come o the conclusion, Mr. Eden declared, that the time had come that it should be known once for all that it could not continue to deal with these attacks solely by protests and claims for compensation (cheers).
The British Government had, therefore, let it be known to Gen. Franco that it would reserve to itself the right henceforth, without any further notice, to take such retaliatory action, in any further attack, as may be required or appropriate.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.