COCOS GROUP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 233, 3 October 1933, Page 8

COCOS GROUP.

LONELY CABLE STATION. SCOT'S EOYAL POSSESSION. Soihe little-known facts about the lonely islands in the Indian Ocean through which half the cable systems of. the world pass, came to light in the course of a talk with Mr. J. M. Gamble, cable engineer of Imperial and International Communications, who arrived by the Marama this morning. The Cocos Islands Group was granted to the Clunies-Eoss family by Queen Victoria by Eoyal Letters Patent, and were annexed to the Straits Settlements. Certain conditions governed this Eoyal charter. The Eoss family could not sell the islands nor could they raise money on them. At the present time they are worth a great amount on paper, but are bringing in only a very small revenue. The governors of the group follow in hereditary succession for their lifetimes. The present governor, Mr. J. S. Clunies-Eoss, employs about 1000 natives in copra plantations and has leased Direction Island, a small island of the Cocos Group, to Imperial and International Communications for an indefinite period. It is believed that this is the only instance in the British Empire of a family being granted the ownership and governorship of a terri-' tory in perpetuity.

The group is perhaps most famed for the war epic—the destruction of the German raiding cruiser Emden by the Australian cruiser Sydney. Some idea of the loneliness of the life on Direction Island was given by Mr. Gamble, who said that before the introduction of new mechanism the cable staff on Direction Island numbered 30. There were now only nine engineers, who got through more work than the former larger staff, bo great had been the improvements to the machinery. There were no facilities for white women on the island, and wives of the engineers had to be left In Singapore, which was the mainland base of the station.

Mr. Gamble is naturally pleased to be settling in his home town, especially as Lis children are just reaching school age.