A. VISIT TO GIBRALTAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23405, 22 July 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

A. VISIT TO GIBRALTAR

FEW marks of Gibraltar's history are readily apparent to a visitor to-day. The hidden defences have become legendary, but, though British subjects are allowed to pass through the galleries with which the Bock is honeycombed, nothing is known of their armament except that it has been continuously modernised since the beginning of the century. The harbour and the dockyard have been enlarged till it is now a naval base of great value; but, though we take no responsibility for the view, it is sometimes asserted that though the Rock may be impregnable, the harbour is not invulnerable to lire from Spain, or from Ceuta across the narrow part of the Straits of Gibraltar. Town of Narrow Streets Gibraltar is to most British people simply the Rock, but about the Hock clings a town of narrow streets, with many houses that would bo better for improvement. It is a place supporting 18,000 inhabitants, many of whom, if they do not take in one another s washing, are there to take in wis tourist. _ The cabmen who offer at bargain prices a drive along the peninsula, where the Rock stands, to Europa Point, are part of the conspiracy. Gibraltar has not been in recent years a place encouraging the traveller to stay in it, though efforts have been made to improve it, but it has many_ things to see. The tiny cemetery, with the names of sailors who fell at Trafalgar on some of the graves*is one; the Alameda Gardens and traces of old forts and old fights are to be found for the seeking. At one end of the Bock is the neutral ground of La Linea separating Gibraltar from Spain, and on the Opposite side of the bay, dividing what is British from Spain, is Algeciras. There Spain begins.. Cape Trafalgar After Algeciras comes Tarifa on the way to Cadiz, and after Tarifa is Cape Trafalgar, off which Nelson fought. To the east of Gibraltar, which separates ocean from inland sea, lies Malaga. Malta is 1200 miles away, Alexandria is another 1000 miles away. In these distances lie one of the problems of the Mediterranean, Gibraltar guarding the western entrance

and Alexandria the eastern exit, and only Malta between them. The Mediterranean's other problems concern France with a base at Bizerta on the African shore, and Italy thrusting out the boot of Sicily toward Tunis, with the fortified inland of Pantellaria in between. Minorca and Majorca are of vital importance to the western

Mediterranean, and France is anxious to seo them back in the hands of Spain, f their natural owner. But Gibraltar is, and will always remain, the kqy of this inland sea, for ] Whoever owns it commands the narrow channel through which the trade of the countries along its shores must pass.