greatness has

Matthew and Hunter: Their greatness has been thrust upon them ...

A proclamation of sovereignty over two uninhabited islands was made in March by a Vanuatu expedition which visited the islands by sea. The Vanuatu flag was raised on Hunter Island, and the expedition circled Matthew Island. France disputes the Vanuatu claim, saying that the two islands are part of New Caledonia.

It is said that some men are born great, others have greatness thrust upon them.

The same could be said of islands.

Lying at the extreme southern end of the Vanuatu chain, the, islands of Matthew and Hunter, for example, certainly lack any semblance of inherited greatness.

PIM in April 1963 described Matthew Island as ‘‘one of the most useless parcels of land in

the South Pacific,” adding: “It is miles from anywhere. There is no water on it. It has no vegeta tion except grass, and no animal life apart from crabs and seabirds.”

But with the advent of the United Nations’ Law of Sea, these two tiny remote volcanic Matthew tripled in size in the

1950 s after an eruption and

uninhabited islands suddenly as sumed the greatness of their sur

rounding 200 miles of ocean as an exclusive economic zone.

The fact was not lost on French Government officials in Noumea, hundreds of miles to the west. In December 1975, they sent out the French warship La Bayonnaise to officially take possession of the islands in the name of France. A plaque was affixed to each island to com memorate the grand occasion.

The following December, the

French Government passed a law stipulating, for the first time, that the two islands were part of the territory of New Caledonia and

its dependencies.

The only problem was that the French with the assent of the British had already declared the islands to be part of the New Hebrides. Their maps were the official maps of the Con dominium. (The French had been responsible for the country’s en-