—2—

It is a typical Madrid family. 

There are 50,000 babies still here. All food is scarce, and dairy products 
are almost memories, but the Government has stations where a mother may get milk 
and eggs and cereals for her baby. If she has money she may buy them.at cost. If 
she hasn’t money she is given them. 

Doctors say the little children of Madrid are better nourished than they 
were in the old days. 

During the siege and under shell fire education in Republican Spain goes on. 
I do not know where you can see a finer thing. Six years ago almost half the 
population of this country was illiterate. The first thing the Republican Government 
did was to recognize this hunger, the starvation of the people for education. Now 
there are schools even in the tiniest poorest villages; more schools in a year than 
ever were in all the years of the reigning kings and still more are being established 
every day. 

The Government takes care of all the unfortunates of war. There are a 
million refugee children in Spain. A million is an easy number to say, but how 
can you grasp what it means. 300,000 of them are in homes of families and 700,000 
in Children’s Colonies. The Government wants to have all in colonies. I hope that 
will happen. I have seen some of those Colonies. I never saw finer children. 

I have no funny stories. The man who fights for Republican Spain are no 
gangling lambs bewildered as to what is which front and who is on whose side. They 
are thinking men knowing what they do and what they must go on doing. They are 
fighting for more than their lives. They are fighting for a chance to live them, a chance for their children and for the decency and peace of the future. Their fight 
is the biggest thing certainly that we shall see in our time. 

But in the meantime it makes you sick to think of it. That these people 
who pulled themselves up from centuries of oppression and exploitation cannot go on 
to a decent living, to peace and progress and civilization, without the murder of 
their children and the blocking of their way because two men want more power. It 
is incredible, it is absolutely beyond belief, except that it is true. 

WILLIAM DOBIE, BRITISH LABOUR M.P., FORMER RAILWAY WORKER
SPEAKS OVER MADRID RADIO 

I am speaking from Madrid after an experience in Spain which I shall never 
forget. 

I attended the opening or the Cortes in Valencia last Friday. Dr. Negrin, 
the Prime Minister, welcomed us. We extended our greetings to him and delivered 
our message. 

The speech of the Prime Minister emphasized that the Government wanted peace 
and order to develop the country in the interests of the people; according to the democratic decision of the nation, while on the other hand they would resist fascist aggression to the last man. A vote of confidence in the Government was moved in 
which conservatives, anarchists, socialists, liberals, communists, in fact all 
sections of the House, expressed their agreement and was carried unanimously. 

It is very true to say that in the minds of the ordinary man and woman in 
Spain there is a great wondering as to why the democratic countries of the world, 
who are members of the League of Nations deny to the Spanish Government, which is 
also a member of the League, the right of application of International Law to buy 
things that are needed to defend the democratically elected Government of the 
country, but stand idly by and watch the violation of all International principles 
by the Fascist states who are assisting the Rebels. 

The Government are confident they will win and they only want to win because 
they represent the will of the people. 

On Sunday, October 3, the early morning was bright, but later became cloudy 
and about l0.30 A.M. there was a terrific bombardment from the air at Valencia. 
The joy of the people was suddenly turned to grief and mourning and as I stood in 
that scene of death and desolation and later on watched the clearing of the debris 
and the taking away of dead and dying population I wondered if there was no force 
in our world civilization that can put an end to acts of barbarism like this. 

I have seen on the way from Valencia to Madrid a change in the personnel and 
morale of the soldiery. I now see well trained young men well equipped with arms 
and full of enthusiasm for their country and their cause ready to defend to the last.