THE ABOLITION OF SUBMARINES
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIRS Will you allow me to repeat a suggestion which I ventured to make in your columns in July, 1930? It was a deadlock between France and Italy which spoilt the London Agreement two years ago. But there is now an increasing desire for the total abolition of the submarine—furpissineu pisth, as the Westminster Play described it during the War. My suggestion is that our Government might pave the way for French acceptance of the proposal by offering to give up Gibraltar to Spain, on condition that it was dismantled and held under a mandate from the League of Nations. If such a step were taken, France might be more easily persuaded to recognize that, since the gateway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean had been neutralized, her coast-line had become really comparable to that of Italy. And is there any overwhelming necessity for us to retain Gibraltar ? Its surrender might be an object-lesson to the world as a whole, as well as a friendly gesture to France and Spain and Italy. Once France can be brought into line, the abolition of the submarine might now be readily achieved.—I am, Sir, &e.,
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