GIBRALTAR.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 28 September 1915, Page 7

GIBRALTAR.

GERMAN AGITATION IN SPAIN-

. The embassies m Madrid are becoming rather more communicative than ttas been their custom hitherto German misstatements are not so confwnwy challenged as they have been lhe Italian embassy ha* now come into tne arena land has issued a statement m winch it corrects some German observations on what took place in the last days of July of last year between the Italian, Austrian land German Governments with reference to Italian territorial compensations. The Italian statement is very precise. The Britisn embassy has also issued a statement pointing out that, notw lthstandmg Germany's submarine campaign, British trade of late has been- greater than ever before, and giving facts iand figures in support of Una assertion. Further public speaking and' Anting on the Gibraltar question, as it may be called, the idea that in certain circumstances Britain might be induced to give up Gibraltar to Spam, has been sternly discouraged by the authorities. One important newspaper that had printed «a man of Gibraltar and the zone round it in which the British will not permit any Spanish fortifications to be made, has had to make something very much like an apology, now stating that it had no hostile feeling against Britain for whose civilisation, culture, and real greatness in every way it had the utmost respect, and only desired to show how necessary Gibraltar was to England and how the latter recognised the fact.

It is realised bj the Governmentand leaders of parties that the discussion of the Gibraltar question could do no possible good at the present time, and would only needlessly irritate public opinion. Germany, however, has already noted what has been said and done, and there are German newspapers in the country'already in which sympathy is expressed with Spanish aspirations in the direction of Gibraltar. In one of these it is said that so long as Spain is deprived of the possession of Gibraltar she can never aspire to the rank of being a great Power, but if Gibraltar were an integral part of her dominons her position among the great Powers would be assured. Gibraltar is here described as the Golgotha of Spain, and the writer of the article is very angry when he thinks of the British ramparts. He begs of Spain to wake up. He exclaims, "Is Spain asleep, is she dreaming? If not, she has a magnificent opportunity now of regaining her lost territory, an opportunity which may never return if allowed to slip." it is concluded by this writer that the possession of Gibraltar by Spain would mean the foundation of a new and larger empire, a Greater Spain. Such klea.s 5 however, have not now much influence.