LE RQY DE CELEBES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 96, 25 April 1907, Page 6

LE RQY DE CELEBES.

A dream of Empire has been shattered. It was the Capetown police that did it, and one of the chief dreamers was a member of the force. Some imaginative person in America, whose identity is a mystery, conceived the interesting project of making himself King of the Dutch East Indian island of Celebes. It is notorious that any kind of an idea can find a following in America, but this one became the basis of a more or less secret society, which, un er the name of the League of Oceania, is said to have had ramifications in all parts of the world. Capetown was selected as the port of departure for the expedition, as it was anticipated that a large number of " adventurous volunteers and ex-war-riors" might there be ready to join it. A Scandinavian, named Defriedland, belonging to the local police force, was appointed South African commander of the League, but all the members were reouired to swear fealty to • the mysterious leader, who remained in America. The police obtained information of this filibustering plot, and raided a house in King Street, Capetown. There they seized a large number of documents, arid so the story came out. The public were inclined to regard the thing as a huge joke, but Defriedland was rather annoyed by this attitude. " I object," he told an interviewer, " to the ridicule which has been heaped upon onr scheme by the public. We were perfectly serious in our aims." The position taken up by the Cape Government, which announced that the matter was tio be investigated, in view of any possible annoyance to a friendly European Power, did not please him any better. He denied that the League was animated by any sinister intentions, and claimed that there was nothing in international law to prevent the League from seizing and occupying Celebes, for the simple reason that the suzerain Power had! made no attempt to promote civilisa-j tion in the island. "He ueclared that it was the intention of the League to develop the resources pf Celebes, and to pay out of profits a fair sum each .year, to,the suzerain Power. ' ,The League^ however, would acknowledge' in no* other way the sovereignty of -ike Dutch. It would insist upon its members recognising only the lordship of the commander-in-cnief of the expedition, who would rule a's 'Le Roy de Selebes.' " Doubtless this Gilbertian scheme would never have obtained such a footing as it seems to have had at the Cape, but for the fact that there has been such a lack of employment that men were prepared to try anything.