Geographical Mistake
p. 27 · Read in the full issue
The New Administration In
Micronesia
Official America Makes a Silly Geographical Mistake
FROM a pamphlet recently received from Professor John Wesley Coulter, of the University of Cincinnati, we learn that the official name of the Trustee Territories of Caroline, Marshall and Mariana Islands, taken over by the United States in World' War II from the defeated Japanese, is “the United States Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands”.
This is an unfortunate and confusing choice of a name.. Within the 'Trust Territory there are only about 100 large atolls and main islands (many more, of course, if every little atoll islet is counted); whereas in the North and South Pacific there are literally thousands of Pacific Islands which are not under American care.
In the first year or two after the war, the region usually was referred to as “the United States Trust Territory of Micronesia”; and, as the three groups concerned (Marshalls, Carolines and Marianas) comprised most of Micronesia —the remaining group being the Gilberts, which is part of the British Colony of Gilbert and Ellice Islands—this seemed a suitable title. The switch over to “Trust Territory of Pacific Islands” is simply silly. It is hoped that general usage will retain the title of “Trust Territory of Micronesia”.
Professor Coulter’s pamphlet—a reprint of his article in the Journal of Geog raphy of October, 1948—gives a useful and reliable summary of conditions in Micronesia.
Captain James Duncan, who retired recently from the post of harbour-master in Rabaul, spent January and February in Sydney, and then went home to his family’s plantation at Rapopo, near Kokopo, New Britain.
Fiji s new Puisne Judge, Mr. W.
Desmond Carew, has arrived in Fiji. Mr.
Justice Carew is the son of a former Medical Officer in the Colony. He served in Fiji from 1921 to 1935 as an administrative officer and magistrate,
and was then seconded to the New Hebrides as British Judge. He was transferred to Malaya in 1940 and, during the war, was a prisoner of the Japanese for 3Vz years. In 1947 he was transferred to Nigeria.