The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1929. EXPLORATION AND OWNERSHIP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 288, 4 December 1929, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1929. EXPLORATION AND OWNERSHIP

-pHE AMERICAN Government’s evasive reply to the British Government on the subject of the ownership of Antarctic lands and even the long delay in making that reply can be veil understood by anyone who desires to take a judicial view of the matter. If British ownership is not established, however, by reason of the acts of prior explorers to Commander Byrd, then the claims of Commander Byrd on behalf of America would be even less strong. It would, nevertheless, be acting on an undesirable principle to try to decide ownership on the basis of the least objectionable of contending claims. The better course would be to decide whether acts had been performed which in themselves and in the present circumstances amounted to taking possession of the Antarctic lands in dispute. First discovery in itself is nt sufficient. “Prior discovery,’’ says Sir Henry Maine, “though still held in considerable respect is not universally held to give an exclusive title.’’ “Unless followed up by settlement, discovery,” says Hall, an authority on international law, “is only so far useful that it gives additional value to acts in themselves doubtful or inadequate.” “The underlying principle.” says Lord Birkenhead, “is that occupation, to be valid, must be reasonably effective, having regard to the circumstances of the particular case.” Lord Birkenhead also approves of Mr Hall’s following statement of the position: “It can only be said, in a broad way, that when territory has been duly annexed, and the fact has either been published, or has been recorded by monuments or inscriptions on the spot, a good title has always been held to have been acquired against a state making settlements within such time as, allowing for accidental circumstances, or moderate negligence, might elapse before a force or a colony were sent out to some part of the land intended to be occupied; but that in the course of a few years the presumption of permanent intention afforded by such acts has died away, if they stood alone, and that more continuous acts by actual settlement by another power became a stronger root of title.” In the Santa Lucia negotiation between England and France in 1763 it was agreed that abandonment for ten years put an end to title by declaration. In the Delagoa Bay dispute with Portugal in 1875 the principle was established that, when the power to control is never lost, occasional acts of sovereignty are sufficient to keep alive a title by occupation. Great Britain’s claim cannot rest upon occupancy of the Antarctic in the colonising scuse, and it is arguable that there have been insufficient acts of sovereignty to sustain the British title. That, however, is a question of fact which must be decided on the evidence. Have the occasional visits of Antarctic explorers amounted to occupation sufficient to be, to use Lord-Birkenhead’s words, “reasonably effective, having regard to the circumstances of the particular ease?” If it is held that such visits do not establish the title of Great Britain there is, in consequence, stronger reason for discountenancing the American claims if. and when, they are put forward.