ANTARCTIC PUZZLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 49, 26 August 1939, Page 21

ANTARCTIC PUZZLE

WHO are the owners of Antarctica and by what rights do they establish their claims to possession? asks a writer in the Melbourne "Age." At Bergen, Norway, next year an international conference of explorers will debate these questions, answers to which are being demanded with increasing insistence.

In the meantime, national consciousness of the potential value of the South Polar regions becomes more intense. Mr. Ernest W. Walker, a member of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1937-38. advocated only a few days, ago that another British expedition should set out, not later than September, to consolidate the Empire's interests in Antarctica. He expressed the fear that, if this were not done, a large portion of the Ross Dependency might be lost through the enterprise of Vice-Admiral Byrd; acting on behalf of the United States.

Norway, Germany, the United States and the Argentine have recently made specific claims to part-ownership in the Antarctic Continent, and at least six other interested countries—Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Russia, and Japan—are appraising these claims keenly and surveying their own rights to sovereignty. It is noteworthy that almost threequarters of Antarctica has been claimed in the name oj: the British Empire— between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 square miles, according to the estimate of one authority. Several years ago Mr. Edward Shackleton, son of the famous British , explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton, predicted the controversy that is now aris- ; ing and"examined what today is the 1 most pertinent phase of the problem— what constitutes the rights of political sovereignty. Discovery alone was not ( sufficient to imply the right to sover- ! eignty, he declared. Official recognition ' by other Governments was essential, and political sovereignty was main- < tamed only by the occupation and < effective administration of the terri- i tory concerned. i In the Polar Circles the principle I underlying territorial claims to date

has been the application of the sector method. This asserts that all territory to the south (or to the north in the Arctic Circle) of certain inhabited lands is held to be the natural property of the Governments of those lands. Mr. Shackleton indicated the three main Antarctic sectors—the Falkland Islands Dependency, under the administration of the British Colonial Office, the Ross Sea Dependency, governEd by New Zealand; and the vast new territory claimed by Australia in 1933 when Sir Douglas Mawson' "took possession" of a huge section of the Antarctic Circle. On Februarj*- 7, 1933, an Order in Council laid down that "that part of his Majesty's Dominions in the Antarctic Seas, other than Adelie Land (France's possession), which are situated south of the 60th degree of South Latitude ... is hereby placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia." ' Almost coincident with the claims of Norway, Germany, the United States, and the Argentine, comes the offer of Sir Hubert Wilkins, the Aus-tralian-born explorer, the first man to make a trans-Arctic flight and the first to introduce aviation into Antarctic exploration, privately to equip and maintain a landing party of Australian naval men and scientists in the Australian sector of the Antarctic. This offer was rejected by the Com-

monwealth Government on the grounds of expense. It is inevitable the reports from the various countries concerned should be conflicting and that the claims should overlap Sir Hubert Wilkins's purposes, for example, co-operation with ViceAdmiral R. E. Byrd, who is reported to have announced that he will establish three bases and claim for the United States, about 675,000 square miles of territory, including Marie Byrd Land and James W. Ellsworth Land; portion of the Ross Dependency and, in addition, 75,000 square miles of Princess Elizabeth Land, which is within the Australian Dependency.

to had not been brought under the sovereignty of any nation, was of great importance to the Norwegian whaling industry. Norway in recent years has made other claims. M. Lars Christensen, son of Chr. Christensen, the pioneer of modern whaling in the Antarctic, has combined whaling, exploration, and research with notable success. These claims include Ingrid Christens Land, which has a comparatively short stretch of coastline, and which lies approximately midway between Kemp Land and Kaiser Wilhelm II Land, and well inside the sector claimed by Australia.

At the same time United States Administration official are said to be concerned about the reports that Germany, which recently had an expedition in these regions, will send an aircraft carrier to the Antarctic to map out and claim 250,000 square miles of lex-ritory adjoining and, in parts, overlapping the American sector. As recently at July 25 it was reported that the Argentine would press her claims for one-seventh of the Antarctic region, on the basis that the area claimed is the natural geographic dependency of the South American continent. These claims, it is reported, include more than one-quarter of the sector to which Vice-Admiral Byrd assigned tht Monroe Doctrine on June 7, and also dispute Britain's claims to the South Orkney, South Georgia, and South Shetland Islands, Graham Land, and all other islands in the vicinity of the Weddell Sea. On January 14 of this year it was announced from Oslo that the Norwegian Government had annexed that part of the Antarctic coast stretching from the border of the Falkland Islands Dependency (20deg west longitude) to the border of the Australian Dependency in the east (45deg east longitude), [ogether with the land within this coast and its territorial waters. The report added that this territory, which hither-

-j^e German claims referred to have, of course , no natural geographic dependency' basis and, therefore, must be Dase d on actual discovery and occupaon ti an d administration. Dr. Drygki, s i a in the Gauss in 1902-3, and Dr . Wilhelm Filchner in the Deutschij ( ' ani j n 1911-12, both did notable work f or Germany. But, by the same rule, France, too, can advance claims, and so can, though to a lesser extent, Japan. Japan's chief interest in recent years has been whaling, but one Japanese explorer, Lieutenant Shirase, soon after Japan became nationally conscious, sought fame by planning an attempt to be first to reach the South Pole. In 1910 he set out in command of the K'ainan Maru, but did not even reach the Ross Sea. In 1912, the most remarkable year in Antarctic history in terms of human endeavour, courage, and achievement, Shirase tried again, this time entering the Bay of Whales on January 15—the day before Captain Scott reached the Pole. A shore party did some research work, after which the expedition returned to Japan. Professor Griffith Taylor examines the problem in the light of "first in possession" claims with disturbing resuits. He recalls how in July, 1903, letters patent from the British Crown appointed the Governor of the Falk-

A Problem in Ownership

land Islands to be Governor of South Georgia (first possessed by Captain Cook in 1775!) and those other islands which the Argentine so covets, and how by an amended definition the area of the dependency was extended to th<2 Pole, making the Weddell Sea British. Then he turns to the Ross Sea Dependency of New Zealand, territory which Admiral Sir James Clark Ross first possessed in 1841." He recalls how Sir Edgeworth David raised the flag at the South Magnetic Pole (in 1909), and Shackleton first traversed the Polar Plateau in 1908. though Amundsen, on December 14, 1911, took possession ol

Key to International Claims:-— I.—Australia. lI.—N • w Zealand (Ross Dependency). lII.—G real Britain (Falkland Islands Dependency). IV.—United Slates (and shaded area in sectors I. and II.). • V.—Norway (and Inarid Christens Land Intersecting Australian Dependency). Vl.—France (Adelie Land). VII. —The Argentine (boundaries unspecified). VIL-Germany reports c! actual claims conflicting).

the Polar region itself in the name of the King of Norway. And he asks: "If the hinterlands of the coastal territories shall have the farthest southern limits, what happens if the Pole belongs to Norway "

And the sceptical layman asks, "What's all the fuss about, a dangerous and desolate waste of uninhabitable ice —what is it worth?"

If man's insatiable and often heroic struggle for the conquest of the unknown, symbolised by the gallantry of Captain Scott and his party, does not satisfy this questioner, there are for answer the present wealth of the whaling industry and potential wealth in fisheries, coal and other minerals, evidence of which is now too accurate and insistent to be ignored. And if these things mean nothing to him there is the potential value of Antarctic meteorological station with the prospect of inestimable economic gain in more accurate forecasts of seasonal conditions. And finally—if there is such a thing as finality—there is the predicted use of the South Polar region as one of the great aerial highways of the world, with all that that prediction implies. The Antarctic must be won.