U.S. MERCHANT FLEET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 150, 26 June 1943, Page 6

U.S. MERCHANT FLEET

Soon Bigger than Britain's Rec. 1 p.m. NEW YORK, June 25 . Speed in construction will raise the American merchant fleet to 20,000,000 tons, by December— larger than Britain's, said RearAdmiral Vickery, vice-chairman of - the Maritime Commission. .The new Victory ship has a speed of from 15 to 18 knots, compared with the 12 knots of the older model. The Victory ships do not require an escort and can make a round trip in the North Atlantic in 21 days instead of 60. Queen Victoria through her Principal Secretary >pf State for the Colonies to declare that .Her. Majesty has this day assumed a protectorate over the group of islands known as the Stewart Islands and named separately Sikaiana,- Faore, Manduilbto, Barena, and Matuavi with the surrounding reefs situate within the following limits; latitude Bdeg 21 mm S.'and Bdeg 24mm S and longitude 162deg 55min and I63deg lmin east from Greenwich. Now, therefore, *.I, George Northmore Arthur Pollard, Captain of Her , Majesty's ship 'Wallaroo,' do hei'eby proclaim arid declare to all smen that from and after the dates of these presents the abovementioned islands of the Stewart group have been ■ placed under the British Solomon Island Protectorate, under the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. Given under my'hand at Sikaiana Island this twenty-first day of June, 1897. G. N. A. Pollard, Captain. Witness, C. G. Chamberlain, Clerk, -H.M.S. 'Wallaroo,'" ■ The Minister of Internal-Affairs (Mr. Parry), to whom the document. was given by Mr. J. L. Harris, .Otahiihu, Auckland —a friend of the American serviceman who recovered it—has dispatched it to the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. Sir Philip Mitchell, Fiji,, as the Stewart Islands form One of a.group of islands und,er his jurisdiction. > ' . j