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Third: The maintenance and consolidation of the Republic in
Spain will assure the normal functioning of a democratic and
parliamentary regime, clearly and profoundly Spanish, free from
all foreign interference and faithful to the traditional Spanish
policy of friendship and collaboration with England and with
France, and cannot constitute any sort of threat or risk for
legitimate Italian interests in the Western Mediterranean. Less
than ever, if a policy of rapprochement and friendship between
the three great Mediterranean Powers has managed to create between
them a cordial and trusting collaboration. The Spanish Republic
would not only be without opposition to such a policy, but would
even be disposed to join in it, putting whatever Spain is worth
by her geographical position, by the properties of her soil and
the qualities of her people, into the service of the conciliatory
mission which will doubtless, in the practice of such a policy,
be incumbent on the British Empire.
Deep as is the resentment caused by the help which the Italian
Government has given to the rebels, and profound as is the indignation
caused by its methods of warfare, the men who are responsible
for the destinies of the Republic have too much sense of political
realism not to understand that Spain cannot, without the risk
of returning to her fatal isolation, remain outside an Anglo-French-Italian
agreement in the Western Mediterranean. The first step, therefore,
in this policy will have to consist in persuading Italy that
the triumph of the Republic in Spain will not exclude the setting
up between the two countries of political and economic relations
inspired in their reciprocal interests, based on the most scrupulous
respect of each country' s internal life, and within the framework
of a confident collaboration between the four Powers with admitted
interests in the Western Mediterranean.