SPITSBERGEN

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLV, Issue 13452, 14 May 1918, Page 5

SPITSBERGEN

-A I'XlnlJE IXTEKXATInXAL CASK. ASPIRATIONS OF AX AIIL'TIL' CO.MMIJNII'Y. Jn nil the statements ul' pia.e in m.thns far propounded (say.- the Now Yolk "Eveiling' rust") no mention has hem made, no solution offered, oi a unique international problem, very piopuly remarks Secretary. ol' State Lansing in ihe last issue of the "Americmi .loiirnai of Intel national Taw." Kvery loiner. ol the ulohe is to-dav bfinii settled, onee and ior all. I.y leading statesmen of the belligerent Powers. " There is im fragment of luiniaiiity or territory so .-in.ill that it has not reeeived attention from the world's Colonel Houses, lri.-;i lr.sh. Hste.r-Irish. Irish-TTstei'-Irish, Slovenes. Slovak.-. Kutherians. Little Prussians. Umo-Turanians, Letts, l-'inns. Georgians. Ta'rtavs," Keuaalese. Senegambiau.-. t.'gandese, Congolese. Astrakhans, A rah*. Armenians, "Persians. Poles, all these and a thousand more are receiving the. digniiied attention of elder statesmen cverywl., le. The congeries of races now .-altering- under an inability to learn the spurned .Magyar tongue is being assigned its right to selfdetermination by the Russian Hol-hoviki. People in remote TransyKanian villages, living on the same street together, who now won't speak to each other for exi client inherited race reasons of their own. are to be reconciled by a just division of urban thoroughfares. Vet there is a tem'tory some lifty thousand square miles in area, favourably situated, for at least two months of the summer, on open water, rich in, <-<--il and other undiscovered natuiai n.-ources. thinly populated, though wiili .. population remarkably shrewd ami v. .o-y. a territory which is yearning io •«■ uimed by somebody, but, which, owing to the utter selfishness of the colonising nations, has not yet enjoyed the advantages of European' protection. That territory consists of the islands of Spit/bcrgen. which now raise their voices through the medium of lite Ameiiean Seerefary of State, and demand to be considered at the impending Peace Conference.

Spitsbergen is a loundliiig asking 1 asylum. Discovered several hundred years ago by some Swede or other, it lias been leading :i reckless, vagrant existence ever since. ' More than ;i decade ago inipoitant cual deposits were discovered in the islands and an American concern began mining operations. Immediately diplomacy woke up, rubbed its eyes; far-sighted nations, which were informed by their patriotiV .scientists that their own coal deposits would inevitably be exhausted in a given number of centuiies if the current rate of consumption were kept up and neither feasible sun nor tide motors invented, commenced to question the American company's titlo. A very nice point then arose. " Here was a vast terrain which had never been claimed by anybody, tloating around loose, as it were. The usual course of events when a submarine action throws up out of the sea a little fool's-cap of a Pacific island is fur half a dozen cruisers and battleships ol half a dozen different countries to make a race of it to the newly-emerged shores, for the purpose of first running l up their respective Hags'. The Pacific, before the war, used to be dotted with warships that had no other occupation than this. Spitzbergen. therefore, presented a unique, problem on its economic emergence. Spitsbergen was correspondingly proud. It had high hopes of figuring in a famous international incident.

And then what happened? The European waV burst and ended all this Arctic Eldorado's hopes. Had the bottom dropped out of the polar seas these hopes could not have been more effectually frostnipped. Secretary Lansing, therefore, does no more than what is just when he lifts these territories again into the highlights of the aurora borealis. The proposal is to pool (during . the thawing season) insular Spitsbergen, to make it the ward of all the Powers. Gradually, no doubt, as in Africa, the inhabitants will be called uopn to express their preferences, whether they wish to become French. English. Germans, or Russians. Most of the Spitzbergen people are still in the nomad state. They live in a primitive way, eating lichens that grow on the southern exposure of the rocky eoastland. and upon fish which they dip up out of the sea. It is doubtful whether they have the requisite plebiscite intelligence or desire. For a. long time they will show practically no interest in European civilisation. So that, first and foremost, will come the matter of settling the question of the ownership of the coal deposits. Naturally, such a material consideration as this has not usually been the motive which has actuated the colonising efforts of Europe: there has always been the higher motive of doing something for the backwarcUraces. But, as already stated, the Spitzbergets will probably for a long time to come evade all cultural advances. The CQal must be mined internationally. The small surplus that is not used to keep tho miners warm will be exported, in the two open mouths, to Europe, Asia. Africa, and the Americas by ships carrying the Spitzbergen Hag. a polar bear rampant upon an ice-Hoe errant.