MOVING DEVIL’S ISLAND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 230, 29 September 1931, Page 3

MOVING DEVIL’S ISLAND

PROPOSAL IN FRANCE. CRUEL COLD AFTER HEAT. Complaints received from foreign Powers who have possessions in the neighbourhood of French Guiana, concerning the number of escaped convicts who are seeking refuge in their lands, have caused a new proposal to be mooted in France. The proposal is that the French penal settlement at St. Laurent du Maroiii, which is one of a group of three Islands, in which the notorious Devil’s Island is included, be moved to Kerguelen Island in the extreme south of the Indian Ocean. If the plan is carried out, the convicts will change from almost dying of the gruelling heat and malaria of French Guiana to the most extreme cold, for Kerguelen Island is the last shred of land before the Antarctic ice pack is reached, says the Daily Express. It is one of the most dismal and lonely spots in the world. No vege- / tation can be grown there except a special kind of cabbage; no cattle could be raised there, and only a few sheep. Even fish, for some reason which has not yet been discovered, avoid its small coast line. The o!i occasional inhabitants of the island are the members of whalers’ crews and shipwrecked mariners. Even these usually die of scurvy. The scandal of the present Devil’s Island would not be lessened. Another suggestion is that the penal settlement should be moved to the island of New Amsterdam, another French possession further north in the Indian Ocean. The climate there is more equable, and the buildings re quired could be constructed from local stone, thus avoiding the necessity of transporting it many hundreds of miles from the mainland. In addition to this the land could easily be cultivated, so that fresh food could be obtainable.