The situation in Spain (memorandum)

              Dec. 36
THE SITUATION IN SPAIN.
(1) In a report headed "Somewhere in Spain", and dated Friday, 20 November, Jack Sandford, Special Correspondent to the Daily Herald, refers to the "forging of new mobile armies" for an offensive against the rebels, and says:
"The problem of arms is approaching solution.
I saw fighting planes capable of a speed of 270 miles per hour and able to fire 2,000 shots a minute from their four machine guns.     I saw modern artillery as yet unused; anti aircraft equipment, including new searchlights, anti-tank guns, light and heavy machine guns and sub-machine guns.
There appears to be ample heavy transport facilities and good supplies and reserves of ammunition. The day is past when the artillery was afraid to waste ammunition in practice.
I heard a battery firing round after round at targets in the vicinity, while rifle and machine-gun ranges were in constant use.
New planes are taking off and landing from an ideal aerodrome."
(2) The press of Monday, 23 November, refers to a manifesto issued by the Spanish Cabinet on the 21 November, which, after denouncing Italy as aiming to include Spain in an "Empire of the Balearics" and Germany as "the worthy collaborator", and calling for a general mobilisation from one end of the country to the other, goes on to say:
"Republican and proletarian Spain after four months of fighting has emerged from the experimental period. She sees her Militia converted into a regular army at the service of the people and her fighting capacity growing.     She possesses tanks and aeroplanes. Thanks to the cohesion of her regional elements - the Central Government, the Catalan Generalitat, and the provisional