Reports received from Mrs. Leah Manning and circulated to the Committee in accordance with resolution 10th August 1938

              REPORTS RECEIVED FROM MRS. LEAH MANNING AND CIRCULATED TO THE COMMITTEE IN ACCORDANCE  WITH RESOLUTION 10th AUGUST 1938.
Dear Comrades,
Report No 1.     26th July, 1938.
You will already have received my cablegram which answered the immediate questions re the sending out of nurses, the disposition of new trucks, etc.
(1) Re Nurses.  As I presume you will have heard, Dr. Somerskill was unable to get through to Alicante - The Government are so extremely busy just now - that it is impossible for them to make arrangements for visitors unless they have plenty of time at their disposal. Therefore I have sent a letter to the Director at Ucles asking him for information on all those points about which the Committee needs assurance.    I have asked him to cable me a reply here.
(2) Rosita has put in hand the matter of the drain pipes, etc., for Ucles.     As this is a question of export by shipping it has had to wait its turn for a boat.   She has been trying for some weeks and has at last been successful. I have informed the office of the C.S.I.  in Valencia the name of the ship on which they will arrive and have also informed the Director.
(3) Re the Truck.     The Sanidad were extremely helpful on this matter. The truck has already been handed over and is being used.     I am enclosing the letter which I received from them on the matter. "Evacuation" of course means the carriage of anything other than wounded men which go in an ambulance.     All other trucks sent in the same way will be most gratefully received - please call Isobel's special attention to this fact.
(4) So far as the contents of the truck were concerned my instructions were to divide them between Assistencia Social and the Sanidad.   Please note that I have followed these instructions carefully and that four cases of milk which were taken off the truck without my knowledge and consent and even before the contents of the truck had been checked over and given to a person said to be working with Peter Kerrigan I ordered to be returned.     It is always possible and indeed has always been the rule that people who are short of milk, or cigarettes or tea, come to Rosita for it, and indeed that night we gave a thousand cigarettes to the English Batallion, which were then going into action. Today we have sent them up tea.
(5) Re Passports.     We spent six hours at the frontier because our papers were not in order, but nobody was to blame for this - it is simply that due to a change in policy, of which I have now got the complete hang, no one knew exactly the right method of securing a visa from the Spanish Consul in London, now absolutely necessary for persons entering Spain.     It would have been possible, since this order was new, for Mavis, Jim and myself to have got through, for we were all carrying Salvoconductos.     Elizabeth and Nat, however, had no papers whatever to show why they were going to Spain, and so it was all extremely difficult for us.   I made immediate enquiries as to the procedure and this raised several other questions.  In order to make it plain, perhaps I had better take the matter step by step.
(a) No person can, in future, be admitted to Spain unless they have a definite job of work to do, that is to say, people may not come out in future like Peggy came out, or like Elizabeth has come out.
(b) That naturally raised the question of what is considered a job of work.     Is driving out a lorry or ambulance a job of work?    Yes, but lorries must not be driven out by odd people, not generally in the employment of the Committee and not known and approved by the Jefatura.  They would prefer very strongly that we stick to one driver and have specially asked for Roy Poole, who is trusted and liked and who is known at the frontier.     This matter should be taken up with Roy immediately, but if he cannot undertake this work, the Committee is not in a position to choose some other person themselves - names must be submitted to the Jefatura here, who will make the selection and place the name upon the