-3 - 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. |