FANNING ISLAND.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 148, 19 December 1907, Page 7

FANNING ISLAND.

♦ MR. BERKLEY INTERVIEWED. AN EXPLANATION. ORDINARY BUSINESS TRANSAC - TION, By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received December 19, 8.53 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Mr. Humphrey Berkley, who recently purchased Fanning Island fop £25,000, is visiting Sydney. Interviewed, he said; ' "The nominal purchaser was Fit Her Roq,^. gier, an intimate friend of mine; in fact, he acted for me. The purchase has no religious -or political significance whatever. I was originally half-owner of the island. Both Washington and Fanning Islands are included in the pur-i chase, and I wanted to determine tha proprietorship either ,ty partition ,pr sale. The court decreed a sale. The, island does not change its flag. lam an Englishman, and the cable station /will' always bo Government property. Tl\a islands never 'had any population for 1500 yeai6. There are evidences of thai The only inhabitants to-day are 137 South Se{i Islanders and between twenty and thirty cable operators. The registrar to tho High Commissioner has given a certificate that the revenue from copra in the islands is £8000 a year, exolueiva of tho proceeds from phosphate of lime."