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Australian claim to Antarctic lands – extract of letter from Douglas Mawson to Prime Minister Billy Hughes
In a letter to Sir Ronald Munro Fergusson, penned en route to London, I advocated that when correcting the maps of the world at the final settlement of this war, all unclaimed territories of the world should be allocated, for better or for worse, to specific nations. The only land of this kind remaining is that of the Antarctic Regions – that great Antarctic Continent half as large again as Europe.
Great Britain in the governorship of the Falkland Islands include also South Georgia, the South Shetlands, and South Orkneys, and Graham’s Land; a section of Antarctic Land is therefore claimed. The mass of the continent of Antarctic belongs to nobody however, though various flags have from time to time been unfurled there. British exploration has done most in those regions. The boundaries of that continent are known only at intervals. It would therefore be most wise to divide up the South Polar Regions into sectors, allocating them severally amongst the nations that have done most in unravelling the problem.
Besides that portion already referred to and claimed, the British Empire should get the Australian Quadrant; that is, the region between 90 [degrees] E. longt. [east longitude] and 180 [degrees] E. longt. [east longitude.] That lies all south of Australia and New Zealand and has been almost all mapped in by British expeditions. No expedition other than British expeditions have landed in that area. Therefore we have every claim to it.
(a) To its advantage is the fact that it is, par excellence the land quadrant of the Antarctic.
(b) It is known to have useful anchorage and harbours.
(c) It is likely to have some economic future.
(d) It is conceivable that sometime in the future it may be of strategic value to Australia.
[Line drawn to indicate new paragraph.] As it is convenient to
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Australia it should be under the Australian Commonwealth. This should be so, also, for the fact that Australians have played a leading part in the delineation of its coast line and scientific investigations.
I believe firmly in allocating sections of the Antarctic Region to definite nations, for some day an economic future will spring up (for instance, there is always the possibility of another Klondike, or the utilisation of the coal that is known to be there, or of the fisheries), and if it is no-man’s land international trouble may arise, If laid claim to now there would be no jealousies,
The Canadian Parliament in the year 1888 passed an Act to the effect that all known land and new land that might in the future be discovered to the North of Canada as far as the North Pole and between certain longitudes (the limits of Canada itself) was to be considered as part of the Dominion of Canada.
Australia has now under her control part at least of New Guinea – it should also have under its jurisdiction the Australian quadrant of the Antarctic Continent: a land mass (though largely buried in ice) of about 1,500,000 square miles. The Commonwealth would then stretch from Pole to Equator, and supply every possible climate for the production of every possible material in the fullest sense, whether they be cotton, wool or furs. We want to be self-contained, and we can be to this extent.
