The True (And Wondrous) Story Of

HOW BRITAIN GOT OUT OF OCEAN ISLAND

Here, for the first time, is the fascinating story of how Ocean Island, the phosphate-producing island 160 miles east )f Nauru, became a British possession. Its presentation here by PlM’s Assistant Editor follows several provocative statements made in May by Mr E. H. G. Blacklock, a missionary, at a meeting of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony’s Advisory Council. Mr Blacklock said the world would judge Britain hardly if she held the Gilbert and Ellice Islands only >0 long as the Ocean Island phosphates were of value to her. He added: ‘One may be forgiven for thinking that British detection was being extended to the phosphates rather than the inhabitants when Britain, at the turn of the century, leclared Ocean Island to form part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate.’

n the House of Commons beween the years 1909 and 1914, he Secretary of State for the Colonies was occasionally asked rritating and awkward questions >n the subject of Ocean Island, he immensely valuable phos-

phate-proglucing island, 250 kilometres east of Nauru, One question that came up once or twice was: Were the Ocean Islanders being flogged and otherwise maltreated by employees of the Pacific Phos

phate Company, which ex ploited the phosphate?

Another question was; In what circumstances had the company made an agreement with the Ocean Islanders to exploit the phosphate, and was it true that

they had been forced to part with their phosphate-producing land for a ‘totally inadequate con sideration’?

On the first question, the Secretary of State could reply with truth" that the Ocean

Islanders had never been flogged or otherwise physically ill-treated by the company’s employees.

But on the second, he could only give evasive answers, for if he had told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he would have had to reveal the embar rassing facts that: • The phosphate company (originally, the Pacific Islands Company) had negotiated an agreement with certain unlet tered Ocean Islanders, which allegedly gave it the sole right to exploit the island’s phosphate for 999 (not 99) years, for an annual payment of only 50 pounds.

This was equal to about two shillings a year for each man, woman and child on the island. • The British Government had issued a licence to the phospate company giving it ‘the exclusive right to occupy’ Ocean Island when Ocean Island did not form part of Britain’s domi nions. • The British Government bad later sought to correct this anomaly by declaring Ocean Island to be part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate established in 1893). But in pre paring a proclamation to this ef ect, the word ‘annexation’ was ased, and this completely con used the island’s status. • The Colonial Secretary of :he time, Mr Joseph Chamber ain, had found the confusion so embarrassing and difficult to lear up that he decided the best ling to do was to forget it and ne Foreign Office agreed with lim.

The astonishing story of Dcean Island which in this eport is based mainly on Col )nial Office documents now available to the public began n the Sydney office of the British-owned Pacific Islands Company towards the end of .899.

This company, which had [rown out of one formed by John f. Arundel, was interested in >oth copra and phosphates, par icularly on isolated, uninhabited stands in the Central Pacific uch as Baker, Howland and larvis in the Phoenix Group, and : lint, Caroline and Vostock in he eastern Pacific.

To dig phosphate (then us lally called guano) or grow copra m these and other unpeopled stands, the Pacific Islands Com •any paid an annual fee to the

British Government of from five pounds to 50 pounds for each island.

In return, the government gave the company its blessing and a guano licence if not exactly a promise to protect the company in the event of trouble with interlopers.

In 1899, the PIC was paying something like 350 pounds in licence fees for islands in the Central Pacific, and it had a steamship called Archer which called at these islands and col lected their produce.

But business was so bad that on more than one occasion the company’s London chairman, Lord Stanmore, asked the Col onial Office to remit various licence fees it had contracted to pay.

Then came an event that was to put the company on easy street for the rest of its days.

Albert F. Ellis, an employee in the company’s Sydney office and laboratory, was prompted to analyse part of a strange rock that the Archer had brought from Nauru about three years earlier, and which had long been used as a door-stop.

Geologists had classified the rock as fossilised wood, but Ellis thought it looked like some of the hard phosphatic rock that he had helped to mine on Baker Island.

A rich find

Analysis of the rock showed that it was, in fact, phosphate rock of the highest quality, and Ellis could tell from its structure

that it was from an old and prob ably extensive deposit.

But that was not all. As Nauru was known to be of the same for mation as Ocean Island, Ellis thought it almost certain that ex tensive phosphate deposits would be found on Ocean Island also.

To make sure, the company asked the supercargo of the Archer to call at Ocean Island on her next visit to the Islands and collect specimens of the sur face rock.

The supercargo was back with the desired specimens before the end of the year, and these, when analysed, proved equally as valuable as the Nauru specimen.

The company then had reason to believe that it had discovered two of the richest mining sites in history. It wasted no time in mov ing to get control of them. In Lon don, Lord Stanmore began negotiating with the Colonial Of fice to get a licence to exploit the deposits on Ocean Island, which, at that time, was not under the control of any Euro pean power. He also began negotiations with a German company which held mineral and other rights in German administered Nauru.

The company could scarcely have had a more useful chairman than Lord Stanmore to do its negotiating, for he knew every one who mattered in the Colonial Office and most of the things that mattered about the Pacific.

As Sir Arthur Gordon, Lord Stanmore had spent more than

20 years in the colonial service, and from 1875 to 1880 he was Fiji’s first governor. In 1877, he also became Britain’s first high commissioner for the Western Pacific.

In the Colonial service, Lord Stanmore had always opposed a commonly-held doctrine of that time that a superior race had a right to exploit an inferior one; and in Fiji, in particular, he always tried to put his views into practice.

Rights forgotten

But in applying to the Colonial Office for a licence to exploit Ocean Island’s phosphate, Lord Stanmore seems either to have put aside his old views or to have been unaware that Ocean Island was inhabited. At any rate, his application gave no hint that native rights might be involved.

As for the Colonial Office, its of ficers seem to have thought that whatever they did was OK, for although they knew that Ocean Island was inhabited, they saw nothing irregular about issuing Lord Stanmore’s company with a guano licence a type of licence specifically reserved for uninhabited and unclaimed islands.

Within days of receiving Lord Stanmore’s application early in January, 1900, Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, wired and wrote to Sir George O’Brien, the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific in Suva, that he proposed to issue the guano

This 1907 photograph shows the steamship Archer standing off Ocean Island

licence unless he (O’Brien) saw any objection.

Problems, problems

Chamberlain’s letter went on: ‘Ocean Island does not, so far as I am aware, at present form part of the Gilbert and Ellice Protec torate, though it is within the British sphere as defined by the Anglo-German Agreement of 1886, and it seems desirable that it should be brought formally into Her Majesty’s protection. If you concur in this view and see no objection to the issue of the pro posed licence, you should take the necessary steps for its formal inclusion in the protectorate.’

Sir George O’Brien, however, did not agree with the Colonial Secretary, and wrote back in clear terms to say so.

He said that as Ocean Island was difficult of access owing to the prevalence of strong cur rents, there appeared to be no reason why it should be included in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate to prevent its falling into the hands of another power.

Futhermore, if it were included, this would only add to expen diture ‘without bringing in any adequate revenue’. Therefore, the only reason why Britain should take it over was to facilitate the acquisition of guano rights by the Pacific Islands Company.

However, Sir George failed to see why the company should not be left to make ‘such ar rangements, in that respect, as

ma y be satisfactory to both parties'. ‘Under the circumstances’, Sir George went on, ‘I defer taking any action until I receive your fur- , , ' , * more especial ly that, as far as I can ascertain, no application has ever been made by the inhabitants of the island for British protection . . .’

Sir George added;‘l am unable to understand the application by the company for a guano licence, as such licences are issued only in the case of uninhabited and unclaimed islands, or reefs.

Possibly the company was under the impression that Ocean Island is uninhabited, but I am informed that it is rather thickly inhabited.’

Advice needed

The Colonial Office was so taken aback by this unco operative attitude that it referred the whole matter, High Commis sioner’s letter and all, to Lord Stanmore.

Lord Stanmore soon told the Colonial Office what it should do it should make Ocean Island a British possession forthwith by any means in its power the means being no concern of his.

Unless Ocean Island was declared a British possession, he said in a letter, it would almost certainly be impossible for his company to obtain an exclusive right from the natives to work the phosphate deposits and unless the company did have such a right, it would not pay the com pany to work them at all. ‘The commencement of opera tions,’ Lord Stanmore went on, ‘would be the signal to adven turers of various nationalities to try their luck in the same field. . . and disputes and probably colli sions would arise which might cause infinite trouble to the High Commissioner, and possibly even to Her Majesty’s Govern ment.’

The Colonial Office accepted the logic of this and decided at

once to give Lord Stanmore’s company the exclusive right to work the Ocean Island deposits regardless of the fact that neither the island nor the deposits were Britain’s to give away. But the Colonial Office still had qualms about Sir George O’Brien’s objections.

This is borne out by a minute dated April 9, 1900, which reads; ‘As Sir G. O’Brien is slight ly obstructive in this affair, we had better give the ordinary Im perial licence.’

Another minute, written two days later, says: ‘Yes, the licence having directed that the island belongs to Her Majesty, foreigners . . . will be sufficiently kept off, and the question of in cluding it in any protectorate can be considered later.’

Meanwhile, Lord Stanmore’s company had already decided to go ahead and occupy Ocean Island.

Island occupied

Two men were appointed for this task Albert Ellis, the young employee whose Sydney laboratory tests had led to the discovery of the Ocean Island deposits, and L.G. Naylor, a young New Zealander. Leaving Sydney in the Archer, Ellis and Naylor reached Ocean Island on May 3,1900, via Suva, the Ellice and Gilbert Groups, and Nauru.

Thirty-five years later, Ellis

Captain Tupper raises the flag on Ocean Island, 1899

The British flag flies over the 1899 prospecting camp on Ocean Island

wrote that this visit was officially authorised and that if phosphate was found on the island, he had authority to ‘treat with the natives’ and ‘display the British flag’. But this statement, like a number of others in Ellis’ three books, is not substantiated by the evidence now available.

Ellis and Naylor went ashore with a portable laboratory, sank several holes at various parts of the island, and analysed the specimens brought up. In every case, these proved to be nothing but high-quality phosphate, and the two men soon decided that the island ‘contained extensive deposits of outstanding impor tance’.

The next thing was to make a deal with the natives to work the deposits. This, Ellis wrote later, presented no difficulties as the natives were ‘eager to come into closer touch with civilisation’.

But none of Ellis’ books men tions the fact that these uncivi lised natives were persuaded to put their marks on a piece of paper which stated that the Pacific Islands Company had been given the sole right to work the rich deposits for 999 years, for only 50 pounds a year.

Having obtained this docu ment, Ellis and Naylor unloaded camping gear, provisions, trade goods and tools from the Ar cher and settled down to organise the exploitation of their great find while the Archer con tinued on a trading voyage to the

Gilberts. Within a day or so, the two men had erected a flagstaff, and from then until the Archer returned at the end of May, to take them back to Sydney, the British flag was hoisted daily ‘with its never-failing message of cheer’. Ellis and Naylor calcu lated that there were at least 10 million tons of phosphate on the island, and probably three times that much.

Back in Sydney in mid year, Ellis and other members of the Pacific Islands Company made detailed plans for the large-scale exploitation of Ocean Island.

And by the end of August, 1900, Ellis had returned to the island with all the plant and labour needed to do this. Meanwhile, Lord Stanmore in London had been having a long argument with the Colonial Office over the exact wording of the licence that the Colonial Office proposed to issue to his company, and it was not until October 2, 1900, that the licence was signed. It stated among other things that: • Ocean Island belonged to Her Majesty (Queen Victoria) and was not within the jurisdic tion of any colonial government,

• The licensees had ‘acquired from the native inhabitants all rights and interests possessed by them’ in the phosphate deposits, and • The licensees had the ‘ex clusive right to occupy the said island’ for 21 years from January 1, 1901, and could ‘display the British flag as occasion may re quire in token of occupation’.

On October 16, 1900, copies of the licence were sent off to Sir George O’Brien in Suva with in structions that he was to issue a proclamation to make Ocean Island part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate.

Sir George duly did this, but in making out his proclamation, he spoke of the ‘annexation’ of Ocean Island by Great Britain, rather than ‘protection’.

This, in the opinion of the Col onial Secretary and the Foreign Office was a faux pas of the first water, for, at one stroke, it had turned Ocean Island not into a protectorate but into an out right British colony. Snorting with indignation, the Colonial Office shot off an order to Sir George O’Brien to amend his of fending proclamation, and to please explain why he had muffed his lines in the first place.

As usual, the ‘obstructive’ Sir George was equal to the occa sion.

Nasty word

‘I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your despatch,’ he wrote back blandly, ‘and in reply state that the word “annexation” was used . . . intentionally and for the following reasons: (1) That a licence was issued to the Pacific Islands Company in respect of this island, (2) that in the first clause of the said licence . . .

Ocean Island is described as “a certain island belonging to Her Majesty”, and (3) that in Mr Cox’s letter (on behalf of the Colonial Office) to the Admiralty of August 30, 1900 ... it is stated that “the issue of a licence is equivalent to annexation”.’

Sir George O’Brien added, cut tingly, ‘ln view of these con siderations, I have deferred amending the proclamation pending receipt of further in structions.’

Back at the Colonial Office, Sir George’s letter caused much soul-searching and buck

The newcomers - afternoon tea on Nauru in 1907

SS Quiraing off Ocean Island as phosphate exports begin

passing, for the question of whether Ocean Island was a fully-fledged colony or merely a protectorate was one that transcended the confines of Bri tain’s internal politics and entered the international sphere.

An official finally came to the conclusion in an inter office minute that ‘the distinction be tween annexation and the pro clamation of a protectorate does not seem to be of any real impor tance in this particular case’. But he immediately contradicted himself by presuming that unless the island really had been an nexed ‘we could not grant an ex clusive right to occupy it’.

A real mess The minute added that a copy was to be sent to the Foreign Of fice with the observation that the Colonial Secretary ‘did not think it necessary to take any further action in this matter’.

At the Foreign Office, however, they took the view that what had now become the Ocean Island mess could not simply be swept under the carpet. In fact, his lordship the Marquess of Landsdowne, who occupied the post of Foreign Secretary, insisted that the word ‘annexation’ should be amended in Sir George O’Brien’s pro clamation.

His lordship’s Undersecre tary said in a letter that unless this were done, the word ‘annex ation’ seemed calculated to give rise to the supposition that the proclamation had to do with an nexation, whereas this was not the case, as the annexation of Ocean Island ‘had taken place years before’.

This extraordinary statement that Ocean Island had actually been annexed ‘years before’ threw the Colonial Office into the utmost consternation.

One Colonial Office man, C.Y. Dole used up four pages of foolscap paper in an effort to convince himself and others that the Foreign Office was talking out of its hat. He wound up by suggesting to his superior, Mr Cox, that the Foreign Office should be asked to name its authority for its strange state ment. ‘But as the matter is ridiculously trivial,’ Mr Dole added, ‘I would suggest that the paper should be put by.’

However, Mr Cox did not

think the Foreign Office could be ignored, so he suggested, craf tily, that Mr Dole should write to the Pacific Islands Company to find out when it had occupied Ocean Island and had hoisted the flag.

This inquiry revealed the highly irregular information that the company’s representatives had hoisted the flag on May 5, 1900, although the company’s secretary was doubtful if this could be called ‘occupation under licence’. ‘ln point of fact,’ he added somewhat guiltily, ‘the company occupied the island under lease from the natives some months before the licence from the Crown was obtained.’

This was good enough for Mr Cox, who saw here enough am munition to shoot the Foreign Office down in flames. A letter to the Foreign Office was there upon composed, and at the end of all the argumentation and bafflegab, it was again stated that the Colonial Secretary thought the best way of solving the Ocean Island problem was to forget it. ‘ln the circumstances,’ the Foreign Office agreed that this would be the best scheme; but it insisted most strongly that Sir George O’Brien should be told not to use the word ‘annexation’ in any future proclamations about protectorates.

Thus, in the end, no one really knew whether Ocean Island had been declared a colony or a pro tectorate. But whatever it was, a British warship, HMS Pylades, took it a step further by calling at

the island on September 28, 1901, and hoisting the flag to the salute of 21 guns.

New proclamation

The commander of the war ship. Captain Reginald Godfrey Otway Tupper, RN, also read out a new proclamation, which he admitted later he had con cocted himself, as no one had given him instructions on what he should do.

In view of the mess that every one else had got into, Captain Tupper’s decision to open his mouth at all was daring in the ex treme. But fortunately he said lit tle apart from the fact that Ocean Island had been placed under the jurisdiction of the Resident Com missioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate, and no one was upset by the wording of Captain Tupper’s proclama tion.

Mr Cox at the Colonial Office did feel the hoisting of the flag to be both ‘unnecessary’ and ‘calculated to cause doubts to the date of annexation’.

Meanwhile, Lord Stanmore had succeeded in getting the Col onial Office to cancel its licence to exploit Ocean Island’s phosphate for a term of 21 years, in favour of one for 99 years. His company then went ahead to form a subsidiary company, Pacific Phosphate Company, to deal exclusively with phosphate.

From then until 1909, when members began asking ques tions in the House of Commons, the Pacific Phosphate Company had virtually a free hand at Ocean Island.

During this period, something like two million tons of phosphate were exported. The only financial benefit that ac crued to the Ocean Islanders was their annual fee of 50 pounds, plus about 20 pounds an acre for mining land bought from them and compensation for fruit producing trees destroyed.

These ungenerous terms even tually made the Ocean Islanders so bitter that they refused to let the phosphate company have any more land. It was this im passe that inspired some of the questions in the House of Com mons.

The Government resolved the impasse by appointing a Resi dent Commissioner with authority to negotiate a con siderably better deal for the Ocean Islanders. But it ensured that a similar situation could not occur again by quietly taking the necessary steps in 1915 to con vert the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Protectorate into the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.

This meant that if, at any time, the Ocean Islanders refused to allow their land to be used for phosphate-mining, the Govern ment could compulsorily acquire it. This is precisely what hap pened in 1927 and again in 1931, although the islanders were paid for the land at a price the Government considered reasonable.

Thus it does seem true to say as alleged by at least one critic that when Britain took Ocean Island under her protection at the turn of the century, she was pro tecting the phosphate rather than the inhabitants.

From primitive beginnings the phosphate is now loaded and exported in bulk