THE BERMUDAS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 242, 10 September 1940, Page 8

THE BERMUDAS

A STRATEGIC POINT. AIR BASE~FOR U.S.A. The news that Great Sound, in the Bermudas, is to bo made available to the United States as ail air base draws attention to the • important strategic position of these islands. It is lor that reason that the British Government has always maintained a strong garrison there. The Bermudas have an interesting history. The discovery of the islands resulted from the shipwreck of Juan Bermudez, a Spaniard, on a voyage from Spain to Cuba with a cargo qf hogs, early in the. Sixteenth CenturyHenry, May, an Englishman, was wrecked there in 1593, and Sir George Somers in 1609. Sir George, from whom the islands took the alternative name of Somers Islands, was the first to establish a settlement. In 1612 the Bermudas were granted to an offshoot of the A’irginia Company of 120 persons, 60 of whom, under Henry More, proceeded to the islands. . The first staple export was tobacco, but the industry declined in the Eighteenth Century. In 1726 Bishop George Berkeley chose the Bermudas as the seat of his projected missionary establishment. St. George, on St. George Island, was the original capital of the islands, hut later the centre of government was removed to Hamilton, which' is on the inner part of Great Sound and is centrally situated. ADMIRALTY DOCKYARD.

The British Admiralty dockyard and naval establishment is situated on Ireland Island. The harbour of -St. George can accommodate a vast fleet, but, till deepened by blasting, the entrance was inadequate, 'the Bermudas became an important naval and coaling station m 1869, when a large iron dry dock was towed across the Atlantic and placed in a secure position in St. George. The Bermudas are a Crown Colony. The Governor is assisted by an executive council of six Crown nominees, a Legislative Council of nine similarly appointed, and a Representative Assembly of 36 members, of whom four are returned by each of tlie nine parishes.

The largest island in the group is Great Bermuda, or Main Island, fourteen miles long and about a mile in average width, .enclosing oil the east Harrington or Little Sound, and on the west the Great Sound, which is thickly studded with islets, and is protected on the north by the islands of AVatford, Boaz, Ireland, and Somerset. The rest qf the group, St. George, Paget, Smith, St. David, Cooper, Nonsuch Islands, and others, lie north-east oi Main Island, and form a semi-circle round Castle Harbour.