This book examines the relationship between the policies of the British
state and its financial interests on the one hand, and on the other, the
emerging economic policies and politics of Spain during the interwar
years. Its aim is to highlight the effect on relations between the two
countries of the two largest British investments in Spain of the period,
Rio Tinto and the Consolidated Mining and Investment Corporation. The
main proposition is that the interplay of these relationships had a
significant impact on attitudes that shaped Anglo-Spanish relations
throughout the 1920s and 30s. These attitudes in turn were an important
factor in the failure of the trade agreement talks in 1935, which
crystallised many of the changes in the relationship during the interwar
years. More devastatingly, these same attitudes were to contribute, in
the following year, to one of the most important political decisions of
the period, the British Government's abandonment of Spain with its
immediate and whole-hearted embrace of a policy of non-intervention
following the military uprising of July 1936.