Clipperton

Desolate Island Has Strategic Value

A READER asked recently if anyone knew anything about Clipperton Is land. Mr. P. J. D. Milne, of East Cam berwell, Melbourne, kindly has for warded the following, which is a clipping from the “News Chronicle”, London, of November 7, 1932: “Mexico City, Wednesday.—A deso late coral island in the Pacific, 670 miles from the coast of Mexico, and only two miles in circumference, may raise a fine point regarding the inter pretation of the Monroe Doctrine.

“Clipperton Island was discovered by Spanish sailors, annexed later by France, and seized by a Mexican garri son in 1897. It is destitute of vegeta tion, and its only inhabitants are Mexi

can soldiers. Yet both France and Mexico coveted its possession. Trouble was avoided by arbitration. The ques tion was submitted to King Victor Em manuel of Italy, who in February, 1930, gave his verdict. The island was to be handed over to France.

“Now, nearly two years later, Mexico is about to make preparations for the surrender of her ‘colonial possession’.

Senor Antonio Valadex Ramirez, Presi dent of the Mexican Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, says it will go on record that Mexico is not recognising the Monroe Doctrine, when the Senate discusses the fate of Clipperton Island”.

The Monroe Doctrine, announced by President Monroe in his message to the United States Congress on December 2, 1823, had as its principle to prevent European interference or future colon isation in America.

Clipperton Island received its name from a notorious English pirate, John Clipperton, who often sought refuge there.

John Clipperton, in 1704, was mate to a well-known buccaneer, William Dampier. • The pair quarrelled in the Gulf of Nicoya, and Clipperton, with 21 mutineers, seized a barque and sailed away on new adventures. They roamed the Pacific and were accumstomed to find sanctuary on the little island off the Mexican coast.

The construction of the Panama Canal has given the island some strategic im portance, lying as it does near tfie route from Central America to China and Japan.

Rev. E. R. Fenn, of the London Mis sionary Society, Metoreia, Papua, has been transferred to Aird Hill to take charge of the mission station there in place of Rev. C. Steley, who has re turned to Australia owing to the ill health of his wife.

Miss Peggy Brew, of Vaucluse, sailed from Sydney by the “Macdhui” on June 1 for New Guinea, where she was to be married to Mr. Robert Gillespie, of Ka vieng. Misses Helen Gillespie and Jean ette Menzies accompanied her to act as bridesmaids at the wedding.