POLITICAL RIGHTS 247 



proximately 169°) which passes midway between certain named 

 islands "and proceeds north without limitation, into the same Frozen 

 Ocean." (The treaty French of this phrase is also worth quoting — 

 "et remonte en ligne directe, sans limitation, vers le Nord, jusqu'a 

 ce qu'elle se perde dans la Mer Glaciale.") These words "without 

 limitation" are pretty strong words. They come very near to fixing 

 the territorial rights of Russia and the United States, so far as those 

 two countries could then fix them, up to the pole. 



So I think we may say that the Canadian theory is, in part at least, 

 based on the history of these treaties. It comes to this: the areas 

 round the north pole, whatever they may be, form three or four great 

 sectors — the Canadian sector from 60° W. to 141° W.; the United 

 States sector from 141° W. to 169° W.; and the great Russian sector 

 running from 169° W. to some undefined line in the neighborhood of 

 30° or 40° east longitude. The remainder of the circle, from say 40° E. 

 to 60° W., would, so far as this theory goes, be unassigned, but, very 

 fittingly, that remainder seems to contain no land at all north of 

 Spitsbergen and Greenland. Possibly a few islands close to the north 

 Greenland coast are exceptions to this statement. 



Whatever may be said by way of argument against this Canadian 

 theory, it is certainly a highly convenient one. All unknown territory 

 in the Arctic is appropriated by three Great Powers and divided among 

 them on the basis of the more southerly status quo. Certainly if these 

 three Powers are satisfied with such a partition, the rest of the world 

 will have to be. 



Looking at the matter from another point of view, the Canadian 

 theory would give the United States (if we wanted it) a very large 

 portion of the present unknown area. What this would mean in terms 

 of territory we cannot now say; perhaps nothing; perhaps a frozen 

 empire. We shall know more about it very soon. 



The Antarctic 

 British Claims 



The recent Imperial Conference which met in London in October 

 and November, 1926, gave some consideration — at the instance pri- 

 marily of Australia — to the question of British policy in the Antarctic. 

 Political rights in the Antarctic (see Fig. 2) are much less complicated 

 and much less important than those in the Arctic, which were dealt 

 with in the preceding section. At London vast areas were mentioned 

 "to which a British title already exists by virtue of discovery," 

 namely: the outlying part of Coats Land (viz., the portion not com- 

 prised within the Falkland Islands Dependencies), Enderby Land, 

 Kemp Land, Queen Mary Land, Wilkes Land, King George V Land, 

 and Oates Land. These are in addition to earlier British claims to 



