While the Spanish insurgents claim to have captured Teruel, the Government admits that the rebels have succeeded in entering the outskirts of the town, and, whichever version is correct, it is apparent that the rebels have again been able to make considerable headway against a town which they once captured and which the Government forces took away from them. If Teruel is captured and can be held it should prove a formidable threat to Madrid itself and would mark a further, if somewhat slow advance, towards the conquest which Gen. Franco is so long in effecting. The severity of the fighting around Teruel during the last two months is indicated by the fact that the total casualties on both sides are estimated to be in the neighbourhood of 80,000 killed and wounded. It is feared that this rebel success will have the effect of again deferring the reaching of a settlement of the question regarding the withdrawal of volunteers from Spain, Gen. Franco will doubtless want to retain all the assistance he at present has for the purpose of enlarging his gains, while the Government will be reluct tant to diminish their strength in view of the increasing desperateness of the situation. In this war between ideologies scant attention is paid to the effects of combatants' policies on the peace of Europe, and it is apparent that so long as this problem of volunteer withdrawal is influenced by the variations of the struggle in Spain, that settlement may Still be deferred for a very long time., The effect of this upon Anglo-Italian agreement must be to delay the latter so long as the volunteer issue is regarded as one of the main points of difference between Britain and Italy, and is probably the real reason why Mr. Chamberlain is so insistent that it shall not be included as one of the essential points to be dealt with in the conversations to which he looks forward.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.