TERRITORY BY PURCHASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18631, 12 February 1924, Page 6

TERRITORY BY PURCHASE.

A report, full of circumstantial detail, that the United States may acquire French West Indian possessions in payment of the French debt, has been made public. It is suggested also that Britain may be drawn into the negotiations iwifch. Jamaica the property sought. A glance at the map shows that these islands would be of immense strategic value to the United States as owner of the Panama Canal, On the probabilities behind the report, however, it is necessary to suspend judgment. There is interest, none the less, in recalling that territory of great area and immense importance has in the paßt been acquired by the United States in return for financial considerations. The most recent instance was the purchase, in 1916, of the Danish West Indies for 25,000,000 dollars. The greatest was the transaction by whi«h Louisiana was acquired, the then area of the United States being thus doubled. Spain owned Louisiana. The United States was concerned over traffic rights on the Mississippi. Just at a critical period in this delicate business, in 1802, Napoleon easily persuaded a complaisant Spain to cede again to France this territory which had been once part of her colonial possessions. The President, Jefferson, at once increased his efforts to secure navigation rights on the Mississippi. He entrusted to Robert Livingstone, Ambassador in Paris, and James Monroe, a special envoy, the task * of bargaining for the purchase of West Florida and New Orleans for 10,000,000 dollars. Supplementary to this was a threat to throw the United States into the | arms of Britain, 'Napoleon's arch enemy. After a little negotiation, Napoleon, apparently abandoning his previous ideas, offered the whole of ' Louisiana for 15,000,000 dollars. The bargain was clinched and the purchase completed. Subsequently Alaska was obtained from Russia for a much more moderate 'sum. Whatever the force of the West Indian story, therefore, these instances show that the transaction suggested would be nothing new for the United States, now well accustomed to acquiring new territory by purchase.