The anniversary of the freeing of Bilbao was chosen for the opening of the new Victoria Bridge in the city, which replaces the one in the centre of the city destroyed by the Reds. The occasion was marked by a fine speech by the Minister of the Interior, Saler Serrano Suner. Sr. Suner, parenthetically but in no uncertain manner, referred to the charges of the bombing of ships and open towns. which have lately gone the round, concluding his remarks by the following appeal :— " 1 yet believe there is a residue of pity among the people who live in those lands. 1 feel there must exist in their hearts some spark of humanity, and as an exprisoner myself, I most earnestly entreat them, the people of those great nations— and especially do 1 address myself to the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain—to close their ears to the well known, worn-out fables of Spain's enemies, and think instead a moment of the situation, now more awful than in the early days of the rising, of our brothers murdered and martyred every day with such brutality in the Red zone.
" And, standing here, I appeal to the feelings of their hearts as human beings, begging them, humbly, though it be but in imagination, and from afar, to think of those deep and terrible caverns of the Checa prisons, and to interpose the power of their influence—which is great—that these crimes be not repeated upon captives who have endured so much pain and suffering for two years."