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The Labour Party and the Spanish Civil War, Part II - Page 2

© Joseph Sramek

Collective security is now gone. The objective of the armament programme was set out. The first objective of all was to fulfil our obligations under the Covenant of the League of Nations. Those obligations are gone now. The Prime Minister has told us that the small nations cannot look for protection under the Covenant of the League of Nations. If the small ones cannot look, the big ones cannot look either. [6]

By this point, he held nothing but contempt for the Prime Minister whom he compared despairingly with Stanley Baldwin [the previous Prime Minister]:

Lord Baldwin [of Bewdley] [7] was like a king of very fine receiving set--- he felt what was happening in the country. The right hon. Gentleman [Chamberlain] does not seem to get much beyond Midland Regional. [8]

Attlee also held nothing but contempt for the National Government's decision to maintain the non-intervention policy, despite its being a farce. To show his support for the Spanish Government and the Loyalists, he traveled to Spain in December 1937.

Along with three other National Executive Committee [N.E.C.] members, Attlee visited schools, hospitals, and the battle front around Madrid. There, Attlee addressed a British batallion in the International Brigade, and afterwards gave the clenched-fist salute [a leftist/Communist salute] and allowed the group to call itself the "Major Attlee Company." [9] [This last action was the focus of a short-lived Motion of Censure against Attlee.] [10] When he and the three other participants returned to England, they issued a pamplet entitled What We Saw in Spain. In Attlee's contribution, which he entitled "Spain Fights for Democracy," he wrote:

Throughout, the Republic has been greatly hampered by the denial of its right to obtain arms for its defence.... Continued acquiescence in a one-sided non-intervention has made the British Government an accessory to the attempt to murder democracy in Spain. [11]

This last sentence demonstrates the passionate opinions held by Attlee and others within the Labour Party for the Loyalist cause. Three months later, Attlee gave a scathing speech in Parliament, in which he characterized the National Government's policy of non-intervention as a:

....grave menace to British interests.... Let me consider for a moment what these British interests are. The first British interest which is menaced is peace. I mean peace, not the uneasy interval between wars, but a permanent and settled peace... The second is the cause of freedom. These causes stand together, and I for my part would not buy peace at the expense of freedom. [emphasis mine] In this country we stand for the peace of a free people. The third interest--- they are all bound together--- is the safety of this country. I hold that these interests are menaced by the armed intervention in Spain which is being intensified at the present time. The conquest of Spain by the Fascist Powers will endanger the peace, freedom and security of this country. [emphasis mine] [12]

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