"Feeble Palliative"

Ultimate aim of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's "realistic" foreign policy is a revival of the 1933 four-power agreement, cosily bedding together Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany, leaving Soviet Russia to sleep on the pool table. But nobody is ready to turn in with anyone else until the problems of the Spanish war are settled. So last week Prime Minister Chamberlain called the battered and bruised nine-nation subcommittee of the Committee on Non-intervention to consider the realities of a new British plan. Its provisions:

1) Two three-man committees would be appointed to count foreign fighters on both sides of the Spanish front. During this period France and Portugal would close their borders to both sides.

2) After the counting, calculated to take 30 days, a ''good faith" withdrawal of 10,000 men would be made from the side found weaker in volunteers and a proportionate number would be withdrawn from the opposing side. (Estimated number of foreign fighters in Spain: with Franco, 40,000 Italians, 10,000 Germans; with the Leftists, 7,000.)

3) Simultaneous with the first withdrawals, both factions would be accorded "belligerent rights." This would give the Rightists the legal right to halt and search Spanish-bound ships inside the territorial waters.

As the subcommittee last week nipped over sheet after sheet of the 66-page British plan, delegates from eight of the nations chimed "agreed, agreed" on virtually every point. Sole "No" thundered from Soviet Representative S. B. Kagan. "These new proposals," he scorned, "are only a feeble palliative. Counting of volunteers is no guarantee that they will be withdrawn."

Afraid to forge ahead without Russia and thus leave her legally free to continue Soviet aid to the Leftists, Chamberlain's mouthpiece, the Earl of Plymouth, subcommittee chairman, dumped the plan back in the Prime Minister's lap and postponed the session until this week. Meanwhile, Mr. Chamberlain will try not very hopefully to win Moscow's acceptance.

Coincident with the British plan for withdrawing foreign fighters came a report from a veteran correspondent with the Leftists, New York Timesman Herbert L. Matthews, that the Barcelona Government has dismissed its two remaining international divisional commanders, has given orders that all international brigade commanders are also to be relieved of command. The divisional commanders to be dismissed: 1) a German Communist who fought as Lieut.-Colonel "Hans." first commander of the German-Slav Thaelmann Battalion, later promoted to command the 45th Division; 2) a Polish Communist, General Walter, who commanded the 35th Division, which includes Americans.

"All the great international commanders, such as General Emil Kleber, Lieut.-Colonel Randolfo Pacciardi and General Lukacs have either been killed or left Spain long ago," reported Correspondent Matthews. "The key to the Leftists' bold decision undoubtedly is determination to clear the decks once and for all of those few foreigners whose presence added reason for the accusation of Moscow's interference in the Spanish war. Their presence was always understood as temporary --until good enough Spanish leaders could be developed to take their places. There are now some truly remarkable Spanish commanders, such as Modesto, Duran, Lister and Campesine, with whom it is considered possible to carry on."

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