SALE OF FANNING ISLAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8544, 26 March 1908, Page 7

SALE OF FANNING ISLAND.

A PURELY BUSINESS TRANSACTION. Per Press .Association. AUCKLAND, March 25. Some considerable interest, it will be remembered, p-revailcd in certain circles when it became- known that Fanning Island, a British cable station in the Pacific, had been purchased by a French missionary some two or three months since. The impression then prevailed that the purchaser was simply acting as an intermediary for Germany, and that the transaction was to be regarded as having some national -significance. This report was stated at the time to be without foundation The real facts surrounding the purchase of the island were explained today by Mr G. R. Greig, one of the erstwhile owners, who iy'riow on a visit to New Zealand. Fanning Island is some ten miles square, and was owned by the Greig and Bickncll families. The island is one of the most important cable stations in the Pacific, and apart from ; this is rich in copra ond guano. Tho sale of the island wae negotiated by the High Commissioner in the Pacific, the • purchaser being Father a : French missionary, whose headquarters are at Fiji. The price paid was £25,000. Asked what was tho actual motive . prompting tho purchase, Mr Greig re- < plied j t -hat the transaction had been •: a purely business one. The island wa.s a valuable property, and that, in his opinion, was the sole reason of tho purchase. Fanning Island is not so situated as to make a suitable missionary station, " and there are no natives there, the labour having to be imported. The purchase, he says, has no political or national significance, and, though at pre- 1 sent owned by a Frenchman, the island I is as much a British possession as it ever j was. _ ; Mr Greig leaves on the 31st inst. for j Samoa, but contemplates returning to , New Zealand in the near future. . !