Willing Subjects

In its campaign to force the British out of Gibraltar, Spain has waged a war of pinpricks. First, it refused to grant new permits for Spanish laborers to commute to work on the Rock, thus denying the colony necessary manpower. Next it slowed down auto traffic onto the Rock by insisting on interminable inspections at La Linea, the

Spanish checkpoint on the border. Last week Spain dealt the colony the cruelest jab yet. At the border, Spanish police swung two heavy iron gates across the road and turned a key in a rusty padlock, halting all vehicular traffic and overland trade between Gibraltar and the mainland.

The cutoff was aimed at further damaging Gibraltar's already dented commerce. Due to earlier harassments, the colony's tourist-based economy has declined 40% in the past two years. Now anyone who wants to visit Gibraltar will have to either fly in, cross the border on foot, or come by sea. Foodstuffs that previously were trucked in from Spain now will have to come by boat from Morocco. Already there is a shortage of fresh milk. Declared Gibraltar's colonial Governor Sir Gerald Lathbury in a radio broadcast to the colony: "We have reached a milestone. We are faced with measures designed to break the economy of Gibraltar and the resistance of its people."

The Spanish were less concerned about the plight of Gibraltar's 25,000 inhabitants than about the state of their own pride, which is badly stung by Britain's continued hold on the base the British wangled in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Spain's cause won moral support two years ago from the United Nations' committee on colonialism, which bade the British negotiate. Bowing, the British finally agreed to hear out the Spanish, then found a way to further stall the proceedings. The method Britain chose was to propose that the matter be referred to the International Court of Justice at The Hague for settlement.

Spain's only reply has been intensified pressure on the Rock. The British intend to stand fast, feeling that they have by far the stronger case. After all, Gibraltarians, almost to a man, want to remain under British rule. As if to underline this fact, hundreds of the Rock's residents gathered near the border last week to sing God Save the Queen and intone the Beatle ditty called "The Yellow Submarine" as the gate swung closed.

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