82 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
not even the most sanguine company-promoter could say that the land, 
as such, has a value. ‘The wealth of the Antarctic to man lies in the seas 
around it, which are free to all, and such claims as there have been for 
land sectors have been based variously on the protection of whales, the 
pursuit of whaling, the juxtaposition of civilised land and possibly, but 
not certainly, the assertion of land claims merely as a gesture. Naturally 
these claims are apt to be inconsistent. 
It is difficult, if not dangerous, for the layman to step in where only the 
diplomat is accustomed to tread, but one is forced to wonder whether the 
various Foreign Offices concerned in claims to territory in the Antarctic 
have been fully and wisely informed as to what is the real value of some 
of the zones or sectors which have been the subject of negotiation in recent 
years. A claim to land which is almost entirely covered by ice, which 
has no harbours and can rarely even be approached by a ship is surely 
a shadowy if not a useless one, and invites the suspicion that an aggressive 
and capricious spirit lies behind the claim. 
None of the nations concerned is quite free from blame in this respect, 
and no special nation is referred to in particular. 
It is probably too late for any alternative arrangement to be adopted, 
but had there been a League of Nations in existence at the beginning of 
this century, before any claims had been laid in the Antarctic, the pro- 
tection and administration of this last and least useful continent would 
have been a most appropriate subject for League administration as an 
‘international park’ of vast proportions which should be open to all 
nations who would respect its amenities. 
Political might-have-beens, however, are no more useful than social 
ones, and claims to territory, which can do little beyond giving a large 
splash of colour on the map, are bound to continue. 
One point, however, must be made clear as a matter of common justice 
to possible claimants, and that is that territory claimed should at least be 
investigated, and we can well imagine that it is for the purpose of carrying 
out this obvious duty that the British Government has felt kindly towards 
recent Antarctic exploration by its nationals. 
Summing up this economic aspect of the polar regions, the warning 
may be given that even now, as in the past, there is a tendency to ascribe 
potential wealth merely on account of the existence of land masses. In- 
deed, even explorers, who should have known better, have been heard 
to speak glibly of the untapped mineral resources of the polar lands, 
neglecting to tell their public that though these resources undoubtedly 
exist, they are for the most part covered by thick ice sheets or rendered 
inaccessible by topography, or climate, or both. Quite a brief calculation, 
for instance, would show that the proportion of the Antarctic continent 
available to the prospector and miner is to the total land mass in somewhat 
the same proportion as the area of the city of Norwich is to the whole of 
England. 
Although the land can have little value in the Antarctic there is, strangely 
enough, a natural resource in the air which, however fantastic it may appear 
to us, may yet have a substantial interest for our descendants. It is a 
truism of science that we draw practically all our sources of power from the 
