GERMANY'S GIBRALTAR

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 41, 28 May 1910, Page 9

GERMANY'S GIBRALTAR

HELIGOLAND: THE GREAT NAVAL BASE.

Heligoland, the Kaiser's special pride and joy, lias recently been honored by a visit from his Imperial Majesty, accompanied, as usual, by a splendid'suite. It is solely due to the Emperor's far-sight-edness as a naval strategist, sav "the Germans, that they, instead of "Great Britain, own Heligoland. They are so proud of the island that every poet and patriot and common person has showered pet names on it. The island is about a mile long and is in two distinct .parts, the Unterland and the Obeiiand, and opposite the Unterland and separated from it by a strip of sea is the Dune, a sandy island used as a bathing station by summer visitors. The visitor to Heligoland disembarks on the Unterland, which is little more than a sea beach, stuck on to the; end of the island. ' nere are principal buildings, the Ivurliaus, the museum, ana me hotels.

A long flight of steps goes up to that part of the little town that has had to be built on the Oberland, the high plateau that forms the main bodv oAhe island. This Oberland is planted chieflv with potatoes and cabbages, and along it runs a footpath somewhat splendidly 'known officially as the High Road, oJi once often referred to as the potato 'walk. If there are any Heligolanders older than a 'hundred years they will have lived to change their nationality twnce. They were Danes until 1807, Britons until 1890, and Germans since then. They may also remember the heyday of Heligoland's prosperity. This glorious time was inaugurated by the arrival on September sth. 1807, of H.M.S. Majestic, with Admiral Russell in command, when a party of marines were landed to hoist the Union Jack as an outward and visible sign that Danish rule was at an end.

The 'great Napoleon was then bullying Europe and trying to keep out EnglisJ? goods, and somebody had .suddenly discovered that Heligoland made an admirable "jumping 'board" for smuggling goods into the great trading city of Hamburg. A miscellaneous crowd of merchants and smugglers poured into the island until, as somebody said, "what with kegs, eases and human beings, there was hardly room to .stand, and all the building room in the lower town was exhausted."

After this excitement died down, Heligoland returned to its old dead-and-aliveness, and the inhalntants to their primitive respectability. Claming tables were established in 1830, however, but they were suppressed some years later.

The next great excitement was the arrival of a. horse, and one old woman fainted from emotion. With the exception of a wheelbarrow and an occasional perambulator there were no wheeled vehicles on the island. There were a goodly number of sheep and goats, out no cows in permanent residence. Every summer a couple of cows were brought over from Cuxhaven. and their mnk was retailed at the apothecary's shop to invalid visitors. At tlie <>lose of the seabathing season this highly-favored pair returned to the mainland. Then came, in 1800. the famous bargain between ourselves and the Germans, by which we took over Zanzibar and Pemba, and gave them Heligoland in return. As was to be expected, there were people in both countries who thought the bargain unfair. There was a good deal of grumbling in Britain, and on the other hand the German colonial party complained that no territory had been acquired in which any large number of emigrants could live. Since then, however, the Germans seem to have come to the conclusion tnat from their point of view the bargain was a very good one. and' they have, more or less cheerfully, spent millions of pounds in turning it into an advanced torpedo hasp.

In the last twenty years they have had to spend £0,000.000 on coast protectior work alone. The sea had made ,•[.'• v .prions inroads, and to prevent the i'-v. 1 melting away altogether it flas had to be heavily armored, chiefly with cement, to keep the place together. Inside the harbor (built at a cost of a million and a-thalf), torpedo craft can now ride safely at anchor and take in coal and other supplies. A similar sum has -been spent on fortifications. In the old garden of Government House a grea,t powder magazine has been built, and under the garden earthworks have "been dug to form a refuge for the inhabitants in case the island shelled by an .enemy's, flout''*' .teas-'' ■-^fe&^»««wfeta»tia