The proposal periodically revived to exchange Gibraltar for the Spanish fortress of Ceuta on the opposite coast of Africa may be dismissed as outside the limits of practical politics. English rights of conquest cannot be sacrificed to Spanish susceptibilities. Magnanimity in such a case would be weakness. Any tactical superiority which Ceuta may be supposed to have over Gibraltar as the key to the Mediterranean Sea is outweighed by the prestige attaching to military possession of the great Rock fortress. After 200 years of British occupation the Spaniards are now showing a friendly disposition to accept the inevitable. If better local frontier relations could be established between the two countries, much might be done to improve the existing primitive conditions of life on the Rock. As matters now stand, both the military garrison and civil inhabitants are condemned to live in a state of semi-siege existence. An urgent need is the supply of fresh water,

strategically, administratively, technically-in every possible aspect. It was not only considered by the Admiralty, but the highest authorities at the War Office were once more consulted. The Defence Committee had several meetings with regard to it, and the ranges of the land batteries were carefully calculated and put before us-the land batteries which would command the docks, and on the other hand the range of the guns on the Rock which might reply to these batteries. Every point was considered; therefore, if we made a mistake, we did so with our eyes open with reference to the exposure to fire of the docks under certain circumstances.'-Debate in the House of Lords, June 27, 1901.

which, if brought from the mainland, would remove the present necessity of collecting the rain-water in reservoirs for the daily consumption of the inhabitants. Hitherto the Spanish Government have refused to consider any proposal either for this purpose or for making a branch line from San Roque to Gibraltar to connect the fortress with the Algeciras-Bobadilla Railway.

The town of Gibraltar, with its civil population of 20,000 and military garrison of 6,5001 men, has a dirty, slatternly, uncared-for appearance, out of keeping with the grandeur of its natural surroundings. There is abundant proof of naval and military activity, but not of civil administrative effort. There is no apparent deficiency of executive staff, for half the revenues of Gibraltar (£64,890) are paid out in personal emoluments (£32,536) to members of the civil administration. What seems to be wanted is the creation of a nominated Executive Council, after the pattern of the Council of Government at Malta, to assist the local Colonial Secretary in the duties of civil administration. It might be possible for this purpose to strengthen the powers of the existing Sanitary Board, which is the only public administrative body at present constituted in Gibraltar. Squalor, which we expect to find in a Levantine seaport of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean,

1 It has recently been decided by the Army Council to withdraw one battalion from the garrison of Gibraltar.

is inexcusable within the precincts of a great historic fortress which has become a big port of call for merchant shipping of all nations, and which is one of the main portals on the highway round the British Empire.

CHAPTER IV

THE BACK-DOOR OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

"To destroy England we must take possession of Egypt.'Extract from a letter of Napoleon to the French Directory, September, 1797.

THE local geographical-strategical characteristics at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea wholly differ from those at its western entrance. There is no great maritime fortress in British possession serving the double purpose of watch-tower and naval base, but in its place an open port accessible by international agreement, both during peace and war, to the ships of all nations going in and out of the artificial waterway which connects the West with the East. In spite of this dissimilarity of conditions, as long as Great Britain maintains her naval supremacy the door out of the Mediterranean is as closely locked as is the entrance-gate. Gibraltar is the key to the inland sea, not through its own local strength, but in virtue of the fleet for which it provides a secure base for offensive action. When Lord St. Vincent was ordered out of the Mediterranean in 1797, the use of Gibraltar was gone, and although an English garrison remained in occupa

tion of the fortress, the mastery of the sea temporarily passed into the hands of the French and Spanish Admirals.

The strategical value of Malta is quite as great as that of Gibraltar. Art could not have improved the choice which Nature made for its geographical site. Placed midway on the direct route, 2,000 miles long, between the Suez Canal and the Straits of Gibraltar, some sixty miles south of

Sicily, nearly equidistant from Messina (180 miles) and Cape Bon (220 miles), Malta divides the Mediterranean Sea into two halves, and commands the approaches into the eastern half either through the narrow straits of Messina or through the eightymile channel between Cape Bon and the coast of Sicily. Based on Malta, the Mediterranean Fleet can refuse a passage to ships coming through these channels from the West except after a trial of strength. There can be no slipping through unobserved, as was so often the case during the war of