Whatever the future of Gibraltar in war and peace may
be, one fact is worth remembering about it, particularly in view of the claims of exuberant Spanish Falangists. We hold Gibraltar today not as a mere prize of war, but as part of a bargain in which we gave good value for what we got. It is quite true that Sir George Rooke took the Rock in 1704, in the War of the Spanish Succession, and that Sir George Elliot held it during the famous siege from 1779 to 1783, when the Spaniards attacked it as allies of the Ameri..2n colonists in the War of Independence. But by the Tr: ,•; of Paris, which ended that war—in which Spain was on winning side—Spain agreed to our retention of Gibralta: return for her acquisition of Florida and Minorca. She Florida twenty years later to the United States. If, there: Spain desires to regain Gibraltar the equitable procedure appear to be for her to repurchase Florida from the United States and cede it to us in return for the Rock, together with Minorca. It is a proposal we might well consider.
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