852.00/4506: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Atherton) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 27—4:15 p.m.]
31. In discussing this afternoon the present status of the Spanish situation the Foreign Office stressed where the British policy from the beginning had been based on avoiding a general European conflagration. The only hope for the introduction of effective control, in the Foreign Office opinion, lay in the actual measures the Governments concerned were willing to impose within their own territories and ports of embarkation. If in tomorrow’s meeting of the Non-intervention Committee it is obvious the Governments concerned are not animated by a genuine desire to further effective control, the British Government have no idea of accepting the principle of blockade in an attempt to enforce effective cooperation among reluctant Governments. The dangers inherent in a policy of blockade might bring about the very conflagration the British are anxious to avoid.
The Foreign Office pointed out the French Government has agreed to the establishment of a control on the Franco-Spanish frontier but that Portugal has not as yet. Copy to Paris and Rome.