TITLE TO ISLANDS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19374, 12 July 1937, Page 5

TITLE TO ISLANDS

HOWLAND AND BAKER

AUSTRALIAN OPINIONS

SYDNEY, July 11

With reference to the reports of New Zealand representations to Britain in regard to the title to Canton Island, the Sydney Morning Herald says: “At least two men here know the island well. They describe it as small and featureless except for a harbour about eight miles in length. Captain A. Robinson, formerly with the Burns Philp Company, visited the Phoenix Group in 1882 in the Auckland barquentine Ysabel. He feels that the Americans have some right to Howland and Baker Islands, as even in those days big square notice boards proclaimed them to be the property of somebody called William of Connecticut. The boards were erected there in 1840.

Captain C. Menmuir, who visited the group 30 years ago, said: “I would have thought they were the last places In the world anybody would have wanted.”