BONIN ISLANDS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 6, 5 December 1932, Page 2

BONIN ISLANDS

CENTURY OF SETTLEMENT. NAVAL IMPORTANCE IN PACIFIC. One century ago this year (says a correspondent of a Honolulu paper) five white adventurers and n small party of Polynesians embarked from the Hawaiian Islands to seek a haven where, in their own picturesque phrase, they “could love as they loved in the golden time,” —evidently referring to good old days in ancient Greece. These sailor “worthies,” on tho advice of British Consul Charlton, intended to found a colony on Peel Island of tho Bonin group in the westtern Pacific, now owned by Japan; and their adventure inaugurated a century of history which had a distinct hearing on international naval developments in tho Pacific ocean. CARRIED BRITISH FLAG.

Matthew Mazarra, a Genoese; A. B. Chapman and Nathaniel Savory of Massachusetts, Richard Millecliamp of England, and Charles Johnson of Denmark, were in the party which went to Port Lloyd in Peel Island, with stock, garden seeds, and a British flag. The golden dream was not exactly realised, but the settlers managed to eke out an existence by farming, and by trading with the whaling ships which occasionally arrived. Their port was, in fact, fairly well-known to skippers, and had been visited by tire American whaler Coffin in 1823, and by the English vessel Blossom in 1826. The Japanese had paid the island little attention since its discovery by Ogasawara in 1593. The settlers in 1836 agreed on a code of “laws for the Bonin Islands,” and in 1842 Mazarra, who had succeeded the departed Millecliamp ns governor, went to the Hawaiian (then called Sandwich) islands to obtain recognition of his authority by the British Consul, according to an account by Dr. J. M. Callahan, formerly lecturer at John Hopkins university. VISITED BY PERRY. The Bonin Islands next came to world attention in 1853 when they were visited by Commodore Perry’s expedition, en route to Japan on the famous mission that was to bring that empire into closer relations with the western world. Perry’s log reported a population of 31, inclusive of eight whites, described as “happy and contented.”

Perrv purchased the title to a piece of land with a view to the possible future construction of a coaling station and naval depot, furnished the settlers with seeds and stock, and counselled the formation of a local municipal government, which later was accomplished. These steps aroused uneasiness in Great Britain and led to inquiries regarding the attentions of the United States. Perry replied that he acted on his own initiative and not on instructions from AVashington and left the question of sovereignty to future discussion. Meanwhile the American flag long flew over one of the huts. The United States Government took no steps to establish a possible claim to the Bonin Islands, probably because the conclusion of a general treaty with Japan made such a course inexpedient; and in 1861 Japan sent colonists from Yokohama who were unsuccessful and departed within two years. Japan established formal possession of the islands after 1875, and her title apparently was never seriously challenged either by Britain or the United States. COME TO FORE AGAIN. At the AA’ashington naval armament conference in 1922, when the question of Pacific fortifications was of comparable importance- to the cuts in tonnage, the Bonin Islands contributed another chapter to the history of the Great Ocean.

Shortly before the conference Japan, according to reports, had completed fortifications in tho Bonin Islands at a cost of three quarter million dollars. Japan, therefore, according to the contemporary opinion of naval experts, was in a position to use the islands as a “pawn” in exchange for concessions elsewhere by the United States.

When definitions of the Pacific areas not to be further fortified were sought at the conference, the Japanese delegation held that the islands of “Japan proper” included the Bonin Islands, since they were only 500 miles from Tokio and that they therefore should bo excluded from the status quo agreement. SEEN AS MENACE. The United States delegation held, however, that fortifications at the Bonin Islands would dominate Guam, and menace United States communications with the Philippines and Transpacific countries generally. Japan in the final draft of the naval treaty —article XIX —yielded to tho United States desire from its “status quo” at the Bonin. Islands, but not until the American delegation had made substantial concessions, particularly an agreement to maintain the “status quo” in the Aleutian Islands. The latter run along the coast of Alaska and further westward, and many American experts had favoured their fortification, particularly at Dutch Harbour, Unalaska. With naval policy harmony between the United States and Japan in the last decade, the Bonin Islands have drifted again into tho oblivion of isolation. The population of tho 29 islands and islets has now grown to moro than 3000 persons of all nationalities, chiefly agriculturalists. Tho islands, called by the Japanese “Ogsawarajima,” are rarely thought of here, except perhaps among naval students, but any future reopening of tho question of western Pacific fortifications—as for example m the event of Philippine independence—would again attract to them much attention.