Report on the Non-Intervention Committee and Spain: Appendix

              SPAIN: APPENDIX.(Part II). 
(Continuation of report dated 16.10.36).
On October 20 the Chairman of the Committee wrote to the representatives of the German, Italian and Portuguese Governments, urging them to send their Governments' observations on the charges made against them by the Spanish Government in time for a meeting of the Committee before the 25th October.
On October 21, the Committee received a Note from the German Chargé d'Affaires, refuting the charges made by Spain and Russia as baseless, and submitting "a long list of cases in which the arms embargo had been infringed in the most flagrant manner from the Russian side."
At the meeting on October 23, the Chairman gave it as his view that the German explanations were satisfactory except in respect of two complaints, on which the German delegate was asked to obtain further information. At this meeting the British information was circulated to the Committee, containing references to three cases of Russian "intervention" by the shipment of arms, etc., to Cartagena and Alicante, including aeroplanes, tanks and the personnel to man them; and of one case of Italian intervention by the landing of 12 aeroplanes at Palma (Balearics). A Note from the Italian Ambassador was circulated, reported to contain 16 specific charges against the Soviet Government. The Chairman read a letter from the Russian delegate, who, after making allegations against Portugal and Italy, described the agreement as an "empty, torn scrap of paper". The Soviet Government only saw one way out and that was to return to the Spanish Government the facilities to purchase arms from abroad and "in any case the Soviet Government is compelled to declare that it cannot consider itself bound by the Agreement for Non-Intervention