Letter : Visit to Spain: base hospital for Madrid front

              INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS
9.  AVENUE  D'ORSAY, PARIS-VIIe
TELEGRAMS INTERFED- PARIS TELEPHONE INVALDES 45-88
AFFILIATED COUNTRIES :
ARGENTINE AUSTRIA BELGIUM CANADA CZECHOSLOVAKIA DANTZIG DENMARK DUTCH EAST INDIES ESTONIA FINLAND FRANCE GREAT BRITAIN GREECE HOLLAND HUNGARY INDIA LUXEMBURG MEMEL TERRITORY MEXICO NORWAY PALESTINE POLAND ROUMANIA SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH-WEST AFRICA SPAIN SWEDEN SWITZERLAND YUGOSLAVIA
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE :
President: W. M Citrine. Great Britain
Vice-Presidents:  H. Jacobsen, Denmark ; L. Jouhaux, France ; E. Kupers, Holland : Corn. Mertens, Belgium ; R Tayerle, Czechoslovakia
General Secretary : W Schevenels.
Letter F.I. de Sol.
No. 138
2nd February 1937.
Mr. Walter M. Citrine,
LONDON
Dear Comrade Citrine,
Visit to Spain: Base Hospital for Madrid Front
Last Saturday I returned from my visit to Spain and found your letter of the 29th January regarding the proposed base hospital. I am preparing a full report of my visit and my observations, which will be sent out as soon as possible to the members of the Executive and to the LSI, but, as an urgent decision is required on two points, I have already had a talk  with Comrade Adler, and we have decided to convene an extraordinary combined meeting of the Presidents and Secretaries of the two Internationals with all the members of the International Solidarity Fund Management Committee, in which it will be possible to take decisions regarding both the two Internationals and the relief work as such.
This meeting will be held in Brussels, in the offices of the LSI, at 2.30 p.m. on Monday, 8th February.
I am rather afraid that this may not be very convenient for you and for Comrade Jouhaux, as the Executive meeting is to be held hardly more than a week later, but I feel that it is an urgent necessity to have a first decision by next Monday on the two points referred to, which are as follows:
(1) Base Hospital for the Madrid Front:
The replies I received in Spain to enquiries on this point were somewhat contradictory. Caballero, for instance, said quite definitely that all the efforts of the Internationals, if they want really to help Spain, should be concentrated on buying arms, as hospitals, food supplies, etc., were only of secondary importance. Enrique Santiago and other comrades, however, are of opinion that the purchase of arms is a matter for the Government, that hospital and medical services do of course constitute