CAB9-1_PT1 — Page 174

CONFIDENTIAL.

69-R

GIBRALTAR.

Defence Scheme (Civil).

Page 174

20

GIBRALTAR.

Secret. 353.

I

Remarks by Colonial Defence Committee.

THE Colonial Defence Committee have carefully considered the Report of the Local Commission on the action to be taken with regard to the civil population in time of war, and offer the following remarks:-

1. The proposals of the Commission are based on the assumption that the civil population will have been reduced, partly by voluntary exodus and mainly by deportation from its normal number of 19,859 to the 3,850 able-bodied males required in connection with the defence or with coaling and shipping. According to the Table at page 10, the number of persons for whom transport would have to be provided would be 11,509, with the possibility that even that estimate may be exceeded.

Such wholesale deportation would be highly desirable, if only it were possible; but, in the opinion of the Committee, such a measure is absolutely impracticable, and it would not be safe to count on its accomplishment.

No reliance can be placed on the hope of sending this surplus population to Morocco by short sea transit, or to Spain by land or sea, with the consent of the Government of either of these two countries. To expel it from the fortress to take its chance of existing on the Neutral Ground, or of filtering into Spanish territory as best it might, would be an inhumane measure, and can hardly be regarded as a practical solution of the difficulty. Thus, the only alternative open would be to send it to England by a sea transit of six or seven days.

So strong a measure could not be taken until the outbreak of war was certain, and would even then be justified only if our naval command of the Mediterranean were lost or gravely endangered, for it is only on that hypothesis that a siege or blockade of Gibraltar would be possible. But under such conditions, viz., our having lost the supremacy at sea, it is clear that deportation to England would be impossible.

The Committee, therefore, are of opinion that the proposal for deporting the surplus civil population must be abandoned, but that an effort should be made without delay to introduce some remedial legislation which will take effect at once, irrespective of a threatened state of war, and operate permanently in reducing the civil population to manageable numbers.

2. As the main assumption on which the Commission have based their proposals cannot be admitted, the Colonial Defence Committee consider it useless to examine at any length the detail of those proposals. Many of them, however, contain principles which cannot be accepted, even were it possible to reduce the population as contemplated in the Scheme, and the Colonial Defence Committee think it well to make the following remarks for future guidance in the consideration of this question.

[727]

Page 174

Page 174

L