Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 183, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1916 — TO COAL WORLD’S NAVIES [ARTICLE]

TO COAL WORLD’S NAVIES

Good Reasons Why Every Power Keeps Jealous Eyes on All Strategic Ports.

Every world power casts covetous eyes on available sites for coaling ports for its naval and mercantile fleets. On the confined shores of the Yellow sea three great powers established coaling bases —at Port Arthur, at Wei-ifai-Wei and at Kiao-chau. Our own government, with an ear open to faint sounds, keeps an eye peeled on St. Thomas and the coast of Mexico, ever watching for mysterious doings, or slightest suspicion of transfer of domain to another power, George Harding writes in Harper’s. To guard the frade routes and approaches to the Gulf of Mexico the navy department at Washington has established a most important coaling base at Guantanamo, Cuba. Thus all three routes to the Gulf —through the Florida straits between Key West and Cuba, through the Windward passage between Guantanamo and Haiti, and the passages either side of Porto Rico —are now controlled by American bases. In the Pacific the coaling station of Honolulu, with a storage capacity of 165,000 tons, provides ample supplies for the needs of warships guarding the approaches across the Pacific. In contrast to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific routes, the trade routes of the world are practically dominated in time of war by English coaling ports—an essential ownership to England, for of the 47 important steamship companies of the world today, 32 of them are British.