A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 190, 10 May 1938, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Pacific Islands It is reported from New York tLa’ Britain and the United States are approaching agreement regarding th. status of Canton and Enderbury Islands, with a prospect of an arrange inent for joint jurisdiction. On March 3 last assertion of sovereignty over Canton and Enderbury. tw< islands in the Phoenix Group, widen are ideal for use as commercial aviation bases, wars made through an Ex • cutive Order signed by President Roosevelt. It placed administration of rite island in the Interior Department. The Order reads:

“By virtue of and pursuant to the authority vested in me as President of the United States, it is ordered tiia Canton Island, an atoll of coral forma tion, 50 to 600 yards wide and surrounding a lagoon about nine miles long, which is located in the Pacific Ocean approximately in Lat. 2 degrees 40 minutes S. and Long. 171 degrees 43 minutes W. from Greenwich;

“Also Enderbury Island, 2.5 miles long and one mile wide, located in the Pacific Ocean approximately in Lat. 3 degrees 07 minutes N. and Long. 171 degrees 03 minutes W. from Greenwich ; “Be, and are hereby reserved, set aside and placed under the control and jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior for administration purposes. Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 3, 1938.” Policy At Stake

Canton and Enderbury are among more than 75 islands in the Pacific stretching almost from Lower California to near Japan and Australia which, from records, says an American authority, appear to have been discov ered by American whalers in the first 40 years of the American National Government. The entire Phoenix Group has since been claimed by Great Britain. The British claim has been forti fled by Orders-in-Cbuneil formally asserting sovereignty. The effect of President Roosevelt’s Order, therefore, is to establish American legal parity with the British Government in the premises.

The issue is claimed to be broader, however, than represented in the two small islands, for they have been seized upon for purposes of framing principles tinder which it is> hoped eventually -to determine beyond dispute tlie ownership of the many Pacific islands the status of which is uncertain. Other Governments may later enter the picture, for some of the small islands which dot the great ocean are under the flags of France and Japan. In the meantime, geographic experts of the United States State and Navy Departments are proceeding with investigations to determine who discovered islands in the Pacific in order to support American claims to sovereignty. This implies that the State Department has rejected the thesis informally put forward by Charles Evans Hughes, when Secretary of State, that discovery alone was not sufficient to lay a basis for a claim of sovereignty, but that discovery had to be followed by occupation. Utopias

“Italy and Germany,” says Signor Mussolini, “have abandoned the Utopias to which Europe has blindly entrusted its fortunes. ... ”

Utopias are social romances, or “ideologies” which have appeared at certain epochs of history, especially in the presence of some social crises which turned the eyes of men away from depressing actualities to some imaginary “Nowhere land,” where the social ideal might be realised. Such was the “Republic” of Plato, and the “New Atlantis” of Lord Bacon. Such, too, was the “Utopia” of Sir Thomas More, with its numerous imitations since.

These utopias, however, are often only fancy-woven dreams of poetical and philosophical thinkers, but they are also critical transcripts of the social ideas of the time expressive of views on what is, in comparison of what might be. They are pictures of a perfect society having for their background the dark state of existing society as it appears to the mind of the writer; in short they are suggestions in myth, suggesting by a story social reform —plans which the writers could uot, or dared not, state in open terms. Among modern utopias are E. Bellamy’s “Looking Backward,” and William Morris’s “News From Nowhere.” Rentes France is having a financial crisis, and rentes, in which most holders ot foreign currencies are investing, are rising. In primitive times the word rente applied to the annual fee paid by the vassal to the seigneur, or the tenant farmer to the landlord. It is now almost exclusively applied to the interests on the consolidated debt or rentes sur I’Etat, of France. The consolidated public debt dates from 1793. Down to 1823 the rate of interest had always been 5 per cent. In that year the first 3 per cent, rentes were created for payment of the indemnity to compensate partially the royalists and suspects whose property had been confiscated during the revolution and sold for the benefit of the State. Since then the rates of interests have varied. Rentes enjoy certain privileges over other classes of public securities. They are exempt from all taxes on capital, or interest excepting .those on succession and donations, and in the numerous schemes put forward for a general income tax their authors have invariably proposed to exclude rentes for the reason that, as the Government had promised a certain rate of interest it would be a breach of faith toward the public creditor to levy a, tax on the interest. Governments have also been influenced in exempting rentes by the consideration that future loans would have to be issued under less favourable conditions if the interest was exposed to taxation. ' A claim for the capital of rentes is not barred by lapse of time. Rente? cannot be the object of judicial seizure, and an injunction to suspend payment of Interest is not allowed. The number of holders of rentes amounts to millions. In no country is the public debt so widely disseminated among all classes of the people as in France. No Territorial Ambitions

Japan had absolutely no territorial ambitions in China. That had been clearly stated by her Government, said Mr. Kuchi Gunji, in an interview. On March 22, 1938, the Prime Minister of Japan, Prinee Konoye, said: “I can at least safely say that Japan is determined not to evacuate even an inch of the territory occupied by the Japanese forces in China.” Three days later the Foreign Office spokesman explained that the Prime Minister’s statement of March 22 must not be interpreted to mean either the annexation or the permanent occupation of Chinese territory, but Japan’s intention to remain as a stabilising influence behind a new Chinese Government.