The decision to enforce the volunteering ban and the non-intervention control, with regard to the Spanish civil war as from February 20 and March 6 respectively isa very welcome one. if it can do anything to bring about a speedy termination of that tin fortunate struggle one way or the other it. will have ren humanity "an inestimable "service. Nothing could be more distressing than to read the terrible sufferings of the 100,000 refugees from Malaga. recently captured. If true, and it has always to be remembered thal pro-agenda used by both sides in Spain not without very considerable exaggeration, if nothing worse, then the manner in which these unfortunate refugees were shot down in their Aight resembles more a brutal masssaere than anything for which there. could be the slightest possible military excuse. There is a natural desire to believe that so horrible 0 story cannot be true, but the stories fof the atrocities committed by both sides, and testified to by independent witnesses, justifies the fear that this latest story may also to some extent! bbe correct. If that is the ease, if indeed the Fefugces, non-combattanis it must remembered, were shelled by war vessels, bombed by aeroplanes, attacked by' machine guns and fired fon from tanks, then they have been the vielims of a most outrageous murder. It is to be hoped that the Minister of Justice's statement is grievously distorted, for it is diMeult fo believe that people could be cruel to their own nationals.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.