QUESTIONS IN COMMONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 202, 27 July 1937, Page 7

QUESTIONS IN COMMONS.

REMOVAL OF REFUGEES. (British Official Wireless.) Received July 27, 11.65 a.m. RUGBY, July 26. Answering a House of Commons question, Mr R. A. Eden said that the attitude of the British Government would naturally he dependent on the nature of the replies to the questions communicated to the other Governments by the Non-Intervention Committee. He hoped that the replies would be available by Thursday night. Mr Edeu, answering another question, said that the degree in which the removal of Spanish refugees from a besieged or blockaded place might or might not affect the military situation must depend upon the circumstances of the particular case. The British Government which, in the evacuation of women and children from Spain had acted throughout from purely humanitarian motives, did not consider the evacuation of civilians which it had effected had assisted in a breach of the non-intervention agreement, or was -inconsistent with the non-intervention policy. Mr Eden tpkl the House that instructions had been sent to the Ambassador at Hendaye to inform General Franco’s Government categorically that no war material had been exported under license from Britain to Spain either directly or indirectly since the civil war began. Mr Eden referred to the belief that guns of recent British manufacture had been captured ffom the Basques at Bilbao. He added that Sir Henry Chilton had informed General Franco’s Government that if it was able to give the markings or dates of any British guns found at Bilbao which appeared to have been manufactured since the civil war began, the British Government would be very willing to endeavour to investigate the circumstances.