GREAT BRITAIN AND THE FRANCO-ITALIAN DEADLOCK
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
have just read your article on " Great Britain and the Franco-Italian Deadlock," and I venture to quote a suggestion which I put into my Parish Magazine for May, as follows :- " The dispute between France and Italy was the rock on which the possible agreement to disarm was wrecked. Could not our Government have tried to end it by offering to give up Gibraltar to Spain, on condition that it was dismantled and held under a mandate from the League of Nations ? Such a gesture might have had great results. France might have been persuaded to see that, since the gateway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean had been neutralized, her coast-line was really comparable to that of Italy." Is it possible that some such step might yet be taken. After all, we must remember that at the Naval Conference Signor Grandi asked for the abolition of battleships. And Great Britain might have induced America and Japan to agree to abolish submarines. France alone stood in the way. Could the deadlock be ended by dismantling Gibraltar ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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