A LOST MILLION

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3391, 22 December 1931, Page 2

A LOST MILLION

FINANCIER WANTED AN ISLAND. Jan Mayen Island lies north of Iceland, east of Greenland, and south of Nova Zemlia. Its bearings are about 8 degrees west and 71 degrees north. It is a god-forsaken place, visited only by sealers, and owned by Norway. Few people have ever heard of it; fewer would care to own it. Yet it has just transpired that the late Hugo Stinnes offered a million gold marks for it during the World Wax’. During the last few yeai’s the Noi--wegian Government has occupied the island as a State property, and maintains a wii’eless station there. This occupation was recently contested by a private individual who claimed that he had occupied the island before the State intervened, and that he had notified the Government in the regular way. While the case was proceeding in the court at Oslo last April an old sailor declared that neither the Norwegian Government nor its rival could claim Jan Mayen, for his own occupation was made before the war. In 1917, he said, Hugo Stinnes approached him and offered one million gold marks (about £50,000) for the island. The sailor then laid documents before the couid; proving that his tale was true. In the documents Stinnes offers to pay the seaman 333,000 gold marks per year for three years. This offer he had accepted, but the Norwegian Government intervened and forced him to convey his rights of occupation to the Norwegian State for £SOO, a sum which was exactly one hundredth of what Stinnes was willing to pay. Thus the great principle of “ eminent domain ” deprived the mariner of his chance to become virtually a millionaire in his own country. The million gold marks offered to him by Stinnes would have been worth about 900 ,000 Norwegian kronen.