GERMANY AND BRITAIN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 120, 19 May 1909, Page 4

GERMANY AND BRITAIN.

A 'NORTH SEA INCIDENT.

[press association;] May 18. Mr T. Mackinnon Wood, Undersecretary for the Foreign Office, in; replying to Mr Doughty, stated that the German Government was of opinion that the recent seizure of the trawler General in the North Sea was justified, although the captam wasacquitted of the charge of illegal fishing. Germany also claimed that there was no ground for compensa- ■ tion. Mr Wood added that nothing further was possible to be done in the circumstances, and there was no ground for arbitration, as Germany had ~paid for the damage to tlm trawler.. . ■ . ,

[A cable memo, refers us to the news of August 27th last year for particulars of the above incident. The . item then 'wired concerned the trawler Taurus, not General, which. was probably an error duo to misapprehension at the moment of cabling. The particulars as ~ then given are as follows: -^-The Grimsby trawler Taurus was fined £15 at. Flensburg and had her trawl catch confiscated for alleged fishing within the German three-miles limit. The Taurus's skipper was so positive that he was outside the limit that he went to the expensb of briefing a leading; German advocate. The commander of the gunboat had declined to listen' to his remonstrances or examine the proof that' the skipper was right/ by - his. bearing and chart. Mr Dough- ~ ty, Member for the district, intends to raise the whole question in Parliament. It is alleged at Grimsby thai? when the arrest was made the vessel ~ was stripped of everything movable connected with fishing operations;—an unparalleled procedure, involving the owners in a loss of £200; Other trawlers have been molested nine miles from the coast. There is^ a feeling at. Grimsby that a. British, cruiser ought to be' sent to protect the trawlers.]