NO PRESENT MENACE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 197, 21 July 1937, Page 9

NO PRESENT MENACE

GUNS NEAR GIBRALTAR. “CAN BE DEALT WITH.” INFERIOR TO BRITAIN’S/ (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.— Copyright.) LONDON, July 20. In a debate in the House of Commons, both Mr Winston Churchill and Mr Lloyd George spoke strongly about the guns which ring the Rock of Gibraltar.

Mr Churchill said it was absurd to suppose General Franco could have provided them from i his meagre resources. Were they the price, he had to pay for help from this or that Power? Mr Lloyd George described the batteries opposite Gibraltar as a most startling and most sensational revelation of what was in the minds of Signor Mussolini and Herr Hitler. With a hostile, well-armed Spain, the Mediterranean would be closed.

•The Foreign Under-Secretarv (Lord Cranborne), in reply, expressed the hope that the House would riot see in every precaution taken by General Franco a menace to Britain. It appeared probable that, as Algeciras was bombarded early in the war by Spanish Government ships, these guns were mounted as a defence against future bombardments. As for the suggestion that the guns dominated Gibraltar, whatever their purpose, the Government naturally had taken notice of all weapons installed in the neighbourhood and, though it was not in the public interest to give details, he could say the guns commanding the fortress were inferior to the British guns that could he trained on them. Therefore they constituted no present menace. Mr Lloyd George and the leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party (Mr C. R. Attlee) pressed for details of the guns, asking if they dominatsd the passage of ships. Lord Cranborne: Yes. Certainly these guns do fire across the straits, but in the view of experts they do not constitute a military or naval menace with which we cannot deal.

“NO- TRUTH IN STORY.” (British Official Wireless.) Received July 21, 11.55 a.m. RUGBY, July 20. At the' end of the debate on foreign affairs in the House of Commons the Labour motion to reduce the foreign affairs vote was defeated by 265 votes to 123. Lord Cranborne said that there was no truth in the story of any 12-inch howitzers dominating either the fort or the harbour of Gibraltar. The British Government was prepared to take the matter up at any time it considered such a step necessary.