Annexed By U.S.A.

Baker, Howland and Jarvis Is.

IT was announced in Washington on October 14 that the small islands of Jarvis, Baker and Howland have been formally annexed by the United States.

This development was forecast in this journal several months ago. The islands in question are nearly on the direct line

between Honolulu and American Samoa, and they suddenly have assumed value as possible landing grounds for the pro jected American service between Hawaii and New Zealand.

Howland and Baker Islands have al ways hitherto been included as part of the Phoenix Group, which nominally is British. It apparently is a principle of international law that no nation may in definitely claim ownership of a territory of which it makes no use. But in the case of Howland and Baker Islands it is a fact that certain British companies worked both islands for phosphate for several years prior to the discovery in 1900 of the rich deposits on Nauru and Ocean Islands. It has been stated that Captain George Netcher, of New Bedford, U.S.A., first reported these islands in 1842; that Britain annexed them in 1893; and that Britain leased them to Messrs.

Burns, Philp and Co. Ltd. in 1914 for a period of 87 years.

Jarvis is a tiny, bleak, uninhabited atoll, of no apparent commercial value (except for a deposit of guano), and it seems always to have been ownerless.