NORTH SEA MINES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3419, 25 February 1920, Page 5

NORTH SEA MINES.

(I'l¢3R.\l}‘\NS BACKVVARD IN THEIR REMOVAL. . v The Ll‘-erman naval authorities have been ‘bac'\kwal'd in I'enl.o-ving unimes from G-ci'm.un waters, according to :1 Hamburg dispatch to the Berlin Vossiche Zeitung. At a. meeting of the Nautical Association in that city, the dispatch says, maps were shown indicating that 8700 square miles of the Nmth Sea are as yet not cleared, \".'ll-li‘3 America and England have almost finished clearing the fields laid by their navies during the war. It is claimed in Berlin that the delay has been due to lack of coal. The question of responsibility for what shipping circles consider to be laxity in sweeping the mine fields in the North Sea has been agitating Dutch marine interests, and has been the subject of questions in the ',!)ut;cll Parliaxnent. Hardly a day passed‘in several weeks without some casnalites along the Dutch or Danish coasts.

Men from the crew of the Liberty who were missing after that .si,camel' was damaged by a mine have not been found, and H 79 captain told the Associated I—‘ros.~: he was investigat-

ing a report that. they had been landed at a German port by fishermen, A Copenhagen dispatch to the Telegraaf says a Dutch sailing vessel which was beached -on the Danish coast during a storm was afterwards destroyed by a floating mine. The crew, however, ‘had been landed before the mine exploded.

Reports from Fl~ushin;g state that. six men from the crew of ‘the German trawler»-landed there, reporting that their ship had been mined, and that six others of the crew had been drowned. A ship captain said thajt. while the English Channef is apparently well swept, the German trade route is still full -of’ mines, many apparently being of enemy construction. The Dutch Parliamenjt was told by the Minister of Marine that extensive sections of the German Gulf are dangerous owing to the presence of anchored mines, although» there are four trade routes through it which have been swept.

Germany was assigned to the duty of clearing these ‘waters, and German sweepers are Working, but owing to the unfavourable season, progress has been slow. Hollana has placed lightships and «beacons at dangerous points hzzit does not have the perscael or material to equip an efficient service.