NO MAN'S LAND.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 227, 17 November 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

NO MAN'S LAND.

The term "no man's land" has sprung into prominence during tne war. it means, of course, the " dead' ground between any two lines of advanced trenches, the enemy's and ours. There is. however, another kind of no man's land, delimited and guaranteed bv treaties. One of these curiofls strips of neutral territory stretches across the isthmus that connects the Hock of Gibraltar with Spain. It is about half a mile wide, and our sentries and the SparifsFi sentries face one another by day and by night, year in and year out. from opposite sides. The territory in between these two chains of sentinels belongs neither to Britain nor to Spain. Another similar strip of no man's liyid exist-, in North America betweeik the I'm ted States and Mexico. Although only 60ft. wide, it is 700 miles in ieugth, extending from El Paso, in* Texas, westward to th? Pacific Ocean" Altogether there are in the world about 50 of these neutral zones, varying in width from a few yards to as many miles, and the sum total of their areas would make ouito a respectable minor Stai ■.

All the re»t of the land surface ot the g!ol;e is. nominally at all events, in the pos»ess:cn of some Power or other.