THE ANTARCTIC

Hokitika Guardian, 11 April 1929, Page 2

THE ANTARCTIC

(Otago Daily Times). A cable message from Washington conveys the impression that the Government of the United States contemplates for some reason or another putting forward a claim to there is no telling how much territory in Antarctica. Whence this sudden impulse towards the disco very or assertion—if assertion there is to be—of American territorial rights in the frozen South there is little information. We are left to assume that the presence of Commander Byrd and his expedition in the South Polar regions has something to do with the claim. Commander Byrd has flying machines at his disposal, and apparently the State Department at Washington has visions of his spying out from aloft new territories which would be desirable acquisitions fretn the point of view of American Imperialism. The South Pole itself has not so far (been actually mentioned as the subject of an American claim, and the assertion of territorial possession there by the "United States by right of pre-occupation might certainly appear a rather difficult matter. But unless the terms of the Note which is said to have been prepared for 'presentment to the British Government have been very much garbled there would appear to be a wonderfully comprehensive sweep about these pretensions of the United 'State to priority of territorial rights in the vast spares of Antarctica. Probably it had never before entered the minds of the nations that this perilous benighted region could ever become the subject of covetous competition.

Truth to tell, the average person, moderately versed in latter day exploration, at all events, in the Antarctic, mny be a trifle astonished to learn that American pioneers ever paid much attention to this part of the unexplored w'orld. For it is nearly ninety years since Captain Wilkes led a United States expedition to the far South, and struck a coast line concerning which it seems now to be ingenuously suggested that “as the extent of this territory has never been determined the United States ' feels that it could claim an indefinite part of Antarctica.” But the fact that Cook and others were long before Wilkes makes the position a little complicated, since the countries they respectively represented might also, on the same reasoning, make claims to indefinite portions of the Antarctic regions. In fact, on the present face of the American argument, the whole situation seems to border on absurdity. A state of affairs that might well drive the League of Nations to distraction would surely he precipitated if every Government that had ever been represented by an expedition in the Antarctic were now to begin to file its claims to an indefinite amount of territory in that region. Tbe dragging in of the Falkland Island dependencies and the Ross Sea into the American Note, as reported, is also somewhat peculiar. In 1908 the Dependencies of tbe Falkland Islands were set up, and in 1917 their boundaries were defined. They include, apparently to the newly discovered American chagrin, Grahamland, which is a sector of the Antarctic continent. The Ross Sea Dependency, which is under the jurisdiction of our own Dominion, was proclaimed a British settlement by Imperial Order-in-Couneil six years ago.

It would seem that the Note which has been prepared by the United States Government will raise an objection to certain declarations or assumptions on the part of the last Imperial Conference in relation to the discussion of British policy in the Antarctic. Tn the records of the Conference occurs the. following statement: —“There are certain areas in these regions to which a British title

already exists by virtue of discovery. These areas include the outlying part of Coats Land—viz., tin; portion not wruprised within the Falkland Island Dependencies; Enderby Land; Kemp Land; Queen Mary Land; the area which lies to the west of Adelie Land and which on its discovery by the Australian Antarctic expedition in 1912 was denominated Wilkes Land; King George V Land; and Oates Land.

The representatives of the Governments concerned studied the information available concerning these areas with special reference to their possible utilisation for further developing exploration and scientific research in the Antarctic regions.” The reference to what is known as Wilkes Land is of special interest in view of what is said to he claimed in that connection in the American Note. But the Note has yet to he received at Downing Street, and in the meantime there' is a touch of the fantastic about this awakening on the part of the United States to so keen a territorial’interest in the Antarctic. Fortunately there is only a remote possibility of the development of heat over a subject that; is so frigid.