AMERICA'S CASE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 32, 6 August 1930, Page 9

AMERICA'S CASE

MONROE DOCTRINE CITED

BYED'S CAREFUL MOVE

AVlion the motion picture audiences of the nation are presently thrilled by the epoch-making pictures of Admiral Byrd's expedition to the South Pole, they will be eye-witnesses of incidents that contain the seeds of interesting international controversies, writes Frederic William Wylie in the "San Francisco Chronicle." The sailor-explorer declares that his outstanding achievement in Antarctica was the claiming of more than 125,000 miles of new land and mountain ranges for the United States. His pictures show the Stars and Stripes flying proudly over a portion of the territory in question. Adjacent to the areas preempted by Byrd for America are the polar sectors claimed by Great Britain, known as the Boss Dependency. Britain's right to that enormous stretch of land, sea, ice, and mountains has never been recognised by this country, though we have never, formally disputed it. Nor has the United States ever acknowledged British sovereignty over that other South Polar expanse known as the Falkland Islands Dependency, which lies off the tip of South America across from Argentina. WITHIN MONROE DOCTRINE. It happens that both' of these dependencies claimed by the British fall within what is conventionally known as the Western Hemisphere, though they range directly around the South Pole. Therefore the territorial pretentious that Britain makes with respect to them fall within the saopo of the Monroe Doctrine. Technically the British have made no specific effort to colonise the dependencies, because of the practical nselessness except for scientific purposes and the wholing industry. But geologists are persuaded that beneath the frozen surfaces of theso remote and bleak lands may lie priceless treassur.es in coal and oil, and, what would be the most valuable deposits of all, radium. If genuinely substantial radium deposits should be found in Antarctic^ the country that could establish the right to possess them would be rich. ■-■It is for these and other reasons that the United States Government has been careful to do or say nothing that could be construed as acquiescing in British claims to the regions over which Byrd and his men trekked, sledded, and flew. The State Department's Antarctic archives contain interesting evidence on this score. About the time Byrd's expedition was sailing front New Zealand, at the end of 1928, the British Ambassador in Washington, Sir Esrne Howard, handed Secretary Kellogg a Note, setting forth that the British Dominions in question (Australia and New Zealand) were following the Byrd enterprise with special interest. OFFER TO ASSIST. This was due, the Not© represented, to the fact that these Dominions were "concerned" themselves in the areas that, they understood, the American officer intended to explore. The Note recalled that at the. Imperial Conference held in London in 1926 it was agreed that to certain areas in the Antarctic a British title already exists by virtue of discovery. The British communication submitted by Sir Esme Howard closed with a courteous offer to instruct the appropriate British authorities to afford Commander Byrd every assistance, if desired, while his expedition was in the Ross Dependency or the Falkland Islands Dopendoncy. ' The State Department waited a whole year before replying to the British note. Meantime, Under-Secretary J. Eeuben Clark devoted himself, in cooperation with Samuel W. Boggs, geographer of tho Department, to an intensive study of the whole situation in the Antarctic. It was determined to send such a reply to the London Government as would in noway commit the United States to an acquiescence in British territorial claims. Our answer left theissue open for further discussion. In 1924, Charles Evans Hughes, as Secretary of State, writing to an inquiring private American'citizen, said: "It is the opinion of the State Department that the discovery of lands unknown to civilisation, oven when coupled with a formal talcing of possession, does not support a valid claim' of sovereignty' unless the discovery is followed by an actual settlement of the discovered country. In the absence of an Act of Congress assertative iv a domestic sense of dominion over Wilkes Land (discovered by tho United States exploring expedition under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes in 1840), this Department would be reluctant to declare that America possessed a right of sovereignty over that territory." WHY BYRD WENT THERE. The question of United States rights in the Antarctic is now definitely raised by Byrd's Kexpedition and tho Admiral's own declaration, in New York last week, that his principal achievement at the South Polo was to advance the American Flag to • rogions where it had never flown before. The fact that Byrd discovered a stretch of coast just outside the British Eoss Dependency, from which "Mario Byrd Land" can be reached without crossing alleged foreign territory, has strengthened the American claim. Byrd deliberately set foot on areas beyond the Ross Dependency because the validity of an American claim might have been questioned if it were based on accoss from "foreign" territory alone. Joseph F. Cotton, Acting Secretary of State, was called upon last March to indicate the State Department's present attitude toward Antarctic territorial questions. s Mr. Cotton seemed to disclose that the Department's position differs somewhat from tha viewpoint set forth b£ Secretary; Hughes in 1924.

The Acting-Secretary's attention was called to a dispatch from New Zealand stating that Admiral Byrd had said publicly there that all his discoveries were for the benefit of the world, and that he would not claim them for the United States. Mr. Cotton was aaked whether any American citizen could commit the United States Government as to territorial claims or could relinquish them. Tho Acting-Secretary replied that Admiral Byrd'a statement was not one that would in any wise affect the national claims in regard to the Antarctic territory he had discovered.

One country besides the United States and Great Britain would have a linger in tho Antarctic pie, if therel should ever bo an international attempt to carve it up for sovereignty purposes. That is Argentina. Tho Argentinians have never renounced their claims to the Falkland Islands (scene of .the groat Anglo-German eraiger buttl* in. thei World War).