AMERICAN CLAIMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26471, 27 May 1947, Page 5

AMERICAN CLAIMS

_ SMALL PACIFIC ISLANDS REBUKE FOR NEW ZEALAND NEW YORK. May 25. Commenting editorially on the reported dispute between New Zealand, Britain, and the United States over the possession of at least 23 Pacific islands, the Chicago Tribune says: “ Most, if not all, of these islands were originally discovered, charted, and claimed by American whalers, but were subsequently brought under British or New Zealand token occupation by commercial agents or natives from other islands of the Empire. The atolls are small, but many were important as staging points in American war-time operations. ,or as rescue stations for downed airmen. “Britain and New Zealand left America to fight Japan with only a minimum exertion on their part, thus it is crazy for them to try now to assert territorial claims which have no justification in war-time accomplishments. Britain and New Zealand could not hold their Pacific possessions during the war. and cannot hold them now. or in the future. Only the United States can save both claimant nations and the islands they claim.

“We would be lacking in good sense to leave disputed islands in ownership so weak as to invite some other nation to seize them as effortlessly as Japan did in its rout of European Imperialists.” The New York Daily News Washington correspondent. reported on May 10 that the United States. Britain, and New Zealand were secretly negotiating over the possession of islands which are mostly in the Ellice. Phoenix, and Union groups. They are not former Japanese mandates, and are not covered by trusteeship granted to the United States over other islands in this area.