GERMANS AND ZEEBRUGGE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1481, 4 December 1915, Page 4

GERMANS AND ZEEBRUGGE.

The report that the dredging by the Germans of the Belgian harbour of Zeebrugge has been stopped by the periodic British bombardments, and that the basin is silting up, is not surprising to those acquainted with the characteristics of this portion of Belgium. The whole coast shelves very gradually, and the shoaling process continues persistently. Bruges, in the height of its prosperity, had its own port on the Zwin. The Scheldt, however, poured down its quantities of silt, and rapidly the aspect of the whole coastline changed. The roadstead of Sluis, where Edward 111. fought one of bis two sea fights in 1330, is now a meadow. Bruges, once the rival of Ghent, lost its prosperity when it lost touch with the sea, and it became known as Bruges the Dead. Damme, used as an outport when the Zwin began to silt up, is also now well inland. Where there were perhaps a dozen islands in the nth Century, there is now an unbroken stretch of land. The plan for opening a canal from Bruges to the sea took shape towards the end of last century. The canal itself was opened in 1905, but the main feature of the scheme was not so much the canal of seven or eight miles or the port at Bruges as the new harbour at Zeebrugge. Here a pier and breakwater, 2,700yd5. long, encloses a basin planned to accommodate four or five liners. The quays cover nearly thirty acres. A lock gives access to the inner basin, and then the canal ruus straight to Bruges. Constant dredging was necessary to maintain the channel, and six powerful dredges were kept going at Zeebrugge. Even then the channel could not be kept at the regulation width and depth, and now that the British bombardment has prevented the continuance of the dredging, the utility of Zeebrugge harbour, upon which the Germans have built high hopes, has, no doubt, become a thing of the past.