"Personal Friendship"

"Personal Friendship"

It was time for Parliament to go home for the summer holidays last week but His Majesty's Loyal Opposition harbored deep suspicions that His Majesty's Government intend to put one over on them by extending recognition to the Spanish Rightist regime of General Francisco Franco while the Lords and Commons stand adjourned. Laborite Clement Attlee, the tiny, terrier-like Opposition Leader barked demands for a specific promise that Parliament would be reconvened ''before the Government embark on any new policy which would render imminent the granting of belligerent rights to General Franco."

Sidestepping, sleek young Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden yawned that His Majesty's Government "propose to continue the policy of Non-intervention as long as the nations are willing to do so. It would be impossible to say what would be the Government's policy in case of a breakdown. That must depend on the circumstances. ... If they are so serious that Parliament must be summoned, it will be summoned."

So pleased was Premier Benito Mussolini, who has been hotly demanding recognition of Franco and stirring up Italian editors to flay "Tony"' Eden, that last week the Dictator confiscated the entire edition of an Italian humorous weekly which had mildly cartooned "Tony." As the British Parliament adjourned to Oct. 21, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wrote and privately dispatched to II Duce a "personal letter of friendship."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.