"Acts of War"

European statesmen have long feared that one of Spain's warring governments, finding itself in a desperate situation, would try to avert defeat by starting a general European war. Last week the harried Spanish Leftist Government, cut off from munitions supplies through France, its ports partly blockaded by ships and air bombers, delivered to the British and French Governments a threat which, if carried out, might easily produce another European Sarajevo.

In Barcelona, Foreign Minister Julio Alvarez del Vayo called in French Ambassador Eirik Labonne, warned him that if the French and British continued to do nothing to stop Rightist bombing of Leftist cities Leftist Spain would start a system of reprisals. Employing the usual vague diplomatic language, canny Foreign Minister Alvarez dropped a hint that Leftist warplanes would bomb "places from which the raiders come," might concentrate on "distant objectives."

A beauty of diplomatic language is that it can be taken several ways. Particular beauty of Minister Alvarez's wording was that "places from which the raiders come" can mean a number of places. Well known is the fact that many Rightist bombers have come from Italy, that a large proportion of Rightist aviators are Italians. Also well known is the fact that the principal Italian air base in Spain is on the island of Majorca. Big question of last weekend's war scare was whether Leftist Spain was threatening to bomb Italian cities like Genoa (400 miles from Barcelona) and Rome (550 miles) or simply Italian-controlled cities like Palma, Majorca.

French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet urged Leftist Spain to think twice before sending bombers over Italy, warned Premier Dr. Juan Negrin's Government that it could expect little sympathy or aid from France in that event. In Italy, the controlled press fumed at "Red Spain." Benito Mussolini's journalistic spokesman, Virginio Gayda, writing in Giornale d'Italia, said Italy's answer to Leftist bombs "will be immediate and implacable, not with diplomatic notes of protest, but with cannon." Italian Charge d'Affaires Renato Prunas warned M. Bonnet in Paris: "We shall reply to acts of war with acts of war." Leftist Spain's Paris Ambassador Dr. Marcelino Pascuo, hurriedly corrected any impression that "places from which the raiders come" meant Italy.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's mouthpiece, the Earl of Plymouth, chairman of the Sub-Committee of the International Committee on Nonintervention, early last week succeeded in pushing through that body Britain's long-discussed plan for quarantining the Spanish War in Spain. Soviet Russia finally acquiesced. Main features of the plan were closing of land frontiers, greater vigilance of ships going to Spain, stationing of neutral observers in big Spanish ports, counting of foreigners fighting on either side, eventual withdrawal. There was a chance that this agreement actually was an agreement--for three days. Then, as has often happened in both factions, the Soviet Union soon found "practical" obstacles to put in the way of the plan's execution. She would not implement it with an appropriation.

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