Far East Bases San Francisco, Aug. 17.
revealed here tonight that prepara-United States Navy." authorities ons are already under way' for the development of strong-naval bases In the Pacife west of Hawaii.
The Navy officers indicated that present plans calt for harbour developments at Midway and Wake: Islands, strategic links in present. trans-Paeifle aviation routes: which some observers believe will form }key-points in a new American defence line linking Haweli with the Philippines.
'The Transport Meigs already is en roule to Midway Island with ten Jcooks and, waiters to assist 25 workers who have' established a camp on the Island.
The Navy's harbour development project on Midway Island will be started within a month, Navy officers stevealed. They said work on the Wake island Barbour would begin. Inext year unless international develop-"ments indicated that a naval base might be required on the island before that time. wrehase of Islands Meanwhile Navy officials were pro-Jceeding with plans for the purchase of the tiny. Palmyra Islands, 1,000 miles south of Honolulu, which was Jauthorized in an obscure $25,000 item In a bill passed by Congress during the last session. The islands, it was understood, will serve as the beginning a ring of islands to be purchased for occupied by the United States as observation posts to assist in the Gefence of the Hawaiian base, The Palmyra group of thirty or fourty Islets enclosing a U-shaped Jingoon and aggregating less than a square mile of land surface. They jate privately owned by American Interests.
The development of harbour facilities at Wake and Midway islands attracted additional attention today because of the proposed appropriation of $720,000 for the construction of an "advanced seaplane operating base" on Midway island.
The Navy already controls a string lof Islets extending beyond Midway, Javailable as emergency shelters for Tong range patrol planes. Two hundred miles beyond Midway is Kure, which President Roosevelt transferred to the Navy in 1996.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.