PALMYRA ISLAND CLAIM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14929, 29 February 1912, Page 7

PALMYRA ISLAND CLAIM.

STARS AND STRIPES HOISTED

By Telegraph.— Association— CopyilfhK

(Received February 28," 11 p.m.) New York, February 28. The cruiser West Virginia, acting under the orders of the; Navy Department, has hoisted the Stars and Stripes on Palmyra Island, which Britain claims.

Pallium Island, one 'and a-half square miles in aiea, is about 1000 miles south-south-west of Hawaii. It is also 200 miles from Washington and Fanning Islands, Which (it has just been announced) may bo fortified, in view of the opening of the Panama Canal, and Washington may be made a naval base. All these three islands are mapped as British, and are so regarded bv the reference books. "In January, however, as the result of an earlier statement that Britain was to make Palmyra a naval base, the State Department* at Washington raised a question as? t> whether the British annexation of Palmyra in 1889 cancelled the prior Hawaiian title; if not, Palmyra Island, it was argued, ought to belong to the United States, as an American captain in 1862 caused its annexation to the then Kingdom of Hawaii.

It was later cabled from London that the question would be referred to arbitration.