MOROCCAN COASTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1937, Page 9

MOROCCAN COASTS.

France Assembling Big Naval

Strength.

INTENSE GERMAN ACTIVITY,

(Received 0.30 a.m.)

LOXDOX, January 8.

In addition to four French torpedo boats and three battleships already at Casablanca, there will, by January 19, be a cruiser, 27 destroyers and an un < revealed number of submarines, says the Paris correspondent of the "News Chronicle," who adds that this information reached him from an unimpeachable source.

French naval circles maintain that these ships are merely to be engaged in the usual spring manoeuvres whfeh, last year, were held off Dakar. Nevertheless, they admit that a French fleet would be available off the Spanish Moroccan coasts if a crisis arose.

German marines already are reported to have landed at Ceuta, where powerful fortifications have been under construction in the past six weeks under the supervision of German engineers. German warships recently have been increasingly active in visiting all the Spanish Moroccan ports.

A subsequent message from Paris states that the French Mediterranean Fleet has been ordered shortly to carrv out a cruise on the north coast of Africa. This is regarded as significant in view of the reported German penetration of Morocco.