Foreign News: Lady C. and Peace

Almost unnoticed, while the world watched Neville Chamberlain come home from having a dish of tea with Adolf Hitler (see p. 15), the Prime Minister’s half sister-in-law Lady Chamberlain came home last week from having dishes and dishes of tea with Señora Carmen Franco and the Rightist Generalissimo. She was instantly denounced by Leftists of all shades.

Famed “Lady C.”, whose husband, Sir Austen Chamberlain, was one of the best friends the League of Nations ever had, visited Rome last winter. There she hobnobbed with League-bolting Il Duce and was credited by diplomats with having done much to smooth the way for the Anglo-Italian Treaty of Friendship which was presently signed, but has never become operative. Reason: By a covering agreement this treaty cannot come into force until substantial numbers of Italian troops have been withdrawn from Spain. Thus last week there was good reason to think Lady C. has just spent a quiet month in Rightist Spain mainly to give Generalissimo Franco some idea of how much it would help her brother-in-law and the cause of Peace if a few thousand Italians could conveniently be sent home.

Lady C. in London last week disclaimed political activity, remarked that, as chairman of the General Relief Fund for Distressed Spanish Women and Children (both Leftists and Rightists), it was natural enough for her to go to Spain. “I was favorably impressed,” said she, “with conditions in the districts I visited.” Retorted the Leftist spokesman of the Spanish Embassy in London: “If she is as interested in Government Spain as in Franco Spain, why didn’t she include Government Spain in her tour?” Admitting that she was receiving hundreds of letters from irate Leftists, the conservative Prime Minister’s sister-in-law explained unperturbed, “In our Barcelona canteen we are feeding 4,000 people every day. Our fund is expending 312 pounds ($1,500) per month on each side in Spain.”