St. Margaret’s Hope.

Manawatu Herald, 10 March 1903, Page 2

St. Margaret’s Hope.

Politics are a game of bluff which is frequently illustrated by our cable messages. Germany appears at present to be calling forth any amount of bluff from other nations. We get the news thatmanydistinguishedGerman experts are expressing opinions hostile to the Monroe Doctrine, one declaring it to be an empty pretension, unsupported by real power. America replies by adding 8000 men to the navy and arranging for a huge naval expenditure. Germany’s large building programme of warships has been met by Britain forming a North Sea fleet, which, as it name suggests, is a fleet to watch any enemy coming through the Kiel canal, or round the north of Denmark from the Baltic. Britain has made another important move in deciding to establish a new naval port at St. Margaret’s Hope. To Us, outside, the name of St. Margaret’s Hope is not easily recognisable, but we find that the place is close to the capital of Scotland. • The Firth of Forth is that large indention of the North Sea on the east coast of Scotland, which runs inland, nearly cutting off the north of Scotland, for over forty miles. Edinburgh is situated within two miles of the Firth and about 20 miles from its mouth. About five miles to the westward of the town is Queensferry, where the great Forth Bridge is built, here the shores of the Forth narrow in, and the length of the bridge is a little over one and a half miles. Above this bridge is the spot called St. Margaret’s Hope, one of the safest roadsteads in the kingdom. Thus the position for a base seems exceptionally strong, as though the waters of the Firth are wide they run over twenty miles from the North Sea to the naval base, through shores which could be so defended aa to pulverise an enemy's fleet, whilst at the entrance stands the Bass Reck, an island one mile in circumference and over 300 feet in height, -and is inaocessib’le on all sides but the south, and further up the Firth there is the fortified island of Inchkeith which rises to the height of 182 feet. The waters of the Firth range from three to thirty-seven fathoms in depth. Germany must play another card.