Call For International Control Of Antarctic

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28888, 7 May 1959, Page 9

Call For International Control Of Antarctic

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, May 5

Lord Shackleton (Labour), son of the Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton, and a recently appointed life peer, speaking in the House of Lords during the debate on the international situation, urged the British Prime Minister (Mr Macmillan) to follow the initiative of the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mr Nash) in proposing some form of international agreement in the Antarctic.

The Antarctic appeared to be one area where there was no cold war. said Lord Shackleton, and during the recent International Geophysical Year there had been a measure of international agreement and co-operation in the Antarctic. a clear demonstration that the ridiculous national claims which Britain and other counrties had attempted to make there could have no validity at all. He believed the only reason why the British Government was not moving in this matter was that certain Commonwealth countries —Australia and New Zealand, rather less so—were reluctant to give up their little bit of empire in the Antarctic.

“There is no means of establishing effective claims in a territory where nobody lives. All sorts of attempts have been made,” he said. “The British go in for building post offices, the Chileans build churches and the Canadians in the Arctic put up police stations. I can remember exploring an island where the only inhabitants were policemen.

“All this is never to make the Antarctic British or Chilean. Argentinian. Norwegian or French or the territory of any other of the countries which have claimed it. “Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States has yet at-

tempted to make claims there. They are reserving their attitude. The United States occasionally flies round dropping flags of the United Nations and on the whole that is where I think the Antarctic should go.

“It would be an excellent thing to get a solution of the Antarctic problem. It would be good practice for the moon when that problem comes up. There are no national interests in the Antarctic that we cannot reasonably dispose of at the moment. “There are no minerals there of particular value. Admittedly there is a lot of coal, but that is something we don’t lack.

“Claims that we have attempted to enforce at the International Court at The Hague will never be adjudicated on, since those who have overlapping claims with us are not going to submit themselves to the judgment of the Court because, at the moment, their claims are precarious and as every year goes by will grow weaker.

“In this small matter I should like Britain, which has claimed three-quarters of the Antarctic, to give a lead and at least to establish that modern war, which has never come to the Antarctic, remains away from it.” The joint Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord Lansdowne) said a 12-Power working group had been meeting in Washington since June of last year to prepare the way for a conference. Members represented countries, invited by President Eisenhower in May, 1958. No date had yet been fixed for the conference. Members, including those of the United Kingdom. had agreed not to give any public information because this might prejudice chances of agreement