Icebergs & Atolls

The Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to Australia, presents a tantalizing picture. All over it, like the nutmeg on an eggnog, are sprinkled little islands that appear to be ideal refuges from the turmoils of civilization. Worthlessness of the islands hitherto turned out to be an additional nuisance: since no one has claimed them, no one knows whom they belonged to.

Last week, the U. S. took two steps to correct this lamentable situation. First it was announced that the State and Navy Departments were investigating claims to the titles of some 50 islands presumably discovered by U. S. whaling captains from 1791 to 1828. Two days later, Franklin Roosevelt issued a Presidential proclamation that the U. S. was assuming possession of Canton and Enderbury Islands in the Phoenix group that is 1,850 miles south of Hawaii. At the same time, it was announced that the U. S. would claim nearly 300,000 square miles of ice encrusted land discovered by Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd on his second visit to Antarctica in 1933-34.

U. S. claims to Antarctica, most of which England claims also, will be presumably threshed out some day before an international commission. Claim to Canton and Enderbury may be settled directly between the two nations. Canton Island is an atoll reef 29 miles in circumference completely surrounding a lagoon that has been called the best seaplane base in the Pacific. Enderbury, 30 miles east, is a flat coral reef that should be as valuable for land planes. There six months ago, two New Zealand and U. S. astronomical expeditions came to blows as to which had the best right there. Last week the Department of Interior landed four U. S. citizens on Enderbury, five on Canton for colonization. Best guess as to the outcome of the case last week was that negotiations with England, which claims the whole Phoenix group, were already quietly under way; and that with England eager for U. S. co-operation in the Far East, they would be speedily and satisfactorily concluded.

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