Another Condominium

Britain and U.S.A. in Phoenix Islands

IT was officially announced, on April 7, in Washington, that the United States and Britain have agreed to jointly occupy and administer the islands of Canton and Enderbury, in the Phoenix Group, which both nations want as stations in pending trans-Pacific airmail services.

The islands will be reserved for use by British and American planes. The Americans will build an airport (pre sumably on Canton Island) but America and Britain will be jointly responsible for its maintenance.

“Paradise of the Pacific”, a journal published in Honolulu, and apparently enjoying semi-official status, has been publishing a good deal of aggressive his torical data, lately, to support a claim by the United States that Hull Island (in the Pheonix Group, just south of Canton) and Christmas Island, really are American territory.

This kind of argument seems point less. No one wanted these equatorial is lands, during long decades; but as British interests used them for trading and planting, they were brought under British law. They have been shown on all maps (American included) for 50 years, as British. Now, when they develop aviation value, another nation claims them because of visits made by its nationals 70 or 100 years ago.

It would be just as logical if Portugal or Holland claimed possession of New Guinea (which now has a valuable gold field) because their navigators discovered New Guinea 350 years ago.