HELIGOLAND AFTER THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1705, 28 April 1917, Page 4

HELIGOLAND AFTER THE WAR.

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What is to he done with Heligoland after the desperadoes have been finally vanquished! In an early stage of the war, Sir F. C. Gould had a cartoon in the Westminster Gazette, depicting the iL lustrious shades of Mr Gladstone and Lord Salisbury, wearing the garb of humiliation, and engaged in sombre converse, “What are you thinking about?” asked the quondam Lord of Hatfield. “Bulgaria,” replied the G.O.M. “And what are you thinking about?” “Heligoland.” Mr Gladstone’s peculiar tenderness for the Bulgarians can hardly be said to have affected the circumstances of this war; but Lord Salisbury’s light-hearted ees-

sion of Heligoland was perhaps the most signal blunder of a valuable career—though, of course, his colleagues, ’including Mr Balfour, must share the responsibilities. A writer in a London journal put the position clearly and forcibly.

“Had Heligokyid not been ceded, the coast defences of Germany as they exist .to-day would have been impossible. It is sometimes said; ‘But we should never have fortified Heligoland. How could we in any case have held it against Germany V I grant we could not have fortified Heligoland without causing at once a grave situation, and also that unfortified Heligoland on the outbreak of war would have been seized by Germany. But an unfortified Heligoland would have been little use to Germany, and to fortify it satisfactorily in war time would have been impossible —even for Germany, it took .the labour of hundreds of Italian workmen through many years (o make Heligoland the practically impregnable fortress it now is. ... . Any peace terms should certainly include the occupation of Heligoland, either as an outpost of the Allies in perpetuity, or as a, ‘guarantee’ tor the execution of treaty obligations. . . . There is, of course, an alternative to seizure —viz., the destruction of the rock of Heligoland —but there are many sound reasons why this remarkable observation point should be in the Allies’ secure possession for many years to come.” . It has been pointed out that Germany never had possession of Heligoland before 1800. It was taken by Great Britain from Denmark in 1807, and the inhabitants were Fresians, not Germans, either in race or in language.