GERMANY WANTS A GIBRALTAR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10957, 27 April 1907, Page 7 (Supplement)

GERMANY WANTS A GIBRALTAR.

HELIGOLAND , TO BE MADE A ' POWERFUL : BASE. 1 ' BERLIN, March 13. The Rheinisch, Westfaelische Zeitung — published at Essen— gives prominence to a telegram, from Berlin announcing on information derived • from the best soui-ce that the haval administration intends to purchase the whole of the "Oberland T '--pf rHeligdlarid with the object of fortifying the, entire island. Several tracts have-already beea bought, and the garrison is. now being reinforced by 420 riien. It is piopos-jd to turn the North Harbor into a tor6edo harbor for the active fleet, and the arbor will developed on a correspondingly large scale. . The telegram continues : .'"The preseut fortifications are a half -measure, for they are unable to offer auy effective resistance to the heavy: turret guns of hostile warships, . whose range, too, would outdistance the batteries of the island. "The German people will understand why the plan has now assumed definite shape and development. Heliogo|an'd would be a plain hint to the 'Western Powers and an unmistakable repW to the recent machinations. "Great Britain has ostentatiously increased her Home Fleet; and the new war harbor at Devonport is a fresh link m the chain of measures" - which stand m direct antithesis to the disarmament proposals which Great Britain is with suspicions zeal espousing. "Let us make Heligoland, a German Cronstadt which, covering the mouths of the Weser and Elbe and the Kiel Canal, together .with the coastal defences on the mainland, will form a base within whose sphere an enemy will not lightly dare to intrude." The Berliner Neueste Nachrichten states that it is. only contemplated to improve the fortifications at a cost of £60,000. ■'"-.'