DEMAND FOR GIBRALTAR

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21216, 12 September 1940, Page 12

DEMAND FOR GIBRALTAR

SPAIN CLAIMS FORTRESS The newspaper Arriba, organ of the dominant Falangist Party, declared recently “the keys of Gibraltar are in our hands,” states the Christian Science Monitor. Breaking the recent press silence on “Spain’s No. 1 territorial claim,” the newspaper charged that British “piracy” conquered Gibraltar and added “two centuries of British intrusion have failed to enervate Spain's recuperative ardor.” Arriba’s assertions were based on an article in the French newspaper Gringoire which said: “Sir Samuel Hoare, new British Ambassador to Spain, should have brought Spaniards the keys to Gibraltar on his arrival in Madrid as a token of friendship and justice.” The Gringoire article was displayed prominently in Spanish newspapers today. “If George the Sixth’s Nation returns Gibraltar of its own accord, it is because the hour for its rescue is ripe,” Arriba said. The newspaper ABC. meanwhile, offered the first comment on the extension of the British naval blockade asserting that “England’s decision seems too ambitious.’ “Behold England against the world,” said ABC, which declared the British had been unable to lift Germany’s counter blockade. “Even the United States, which shows such sympathy for England, reveals uneasiness before the attempt that may and does affect her commerce. “The extension of the blockade outside the orbit of the belligerents is of grave importance, much more if it affects not this and that country, but the entire continent. It is unbelievable that Britain sufficiently meditated this step.”