stefansson-wrangel-09-16-016

Wrangel Island

May 27, 1925.

Dear Mr. Young:

I understand that my friend Carl J. Lomen, has has more than one interview with you and has explained to you among other things that my present desire is to do anything I can to induce the American Government to asserts its claims to Wrangel Island, and to help them in case they do so.

I believe you have a copy of my book, "The Adventure of Wrangel Island." In it you will find my view that the British legal claim was strongest, the American second, and the Russian much the weakest.

However, Ponsonby, acting as the official spokesman of the British Foreign Office, assured the Russians during the tenure of the Labor Government that Great Britain would never make a claim to Wrangel Island.

I believe Mr. Lomen has already informed you that the present Colonial Minister of Great Britain, Colonel Amery, and probably others of the present Government, would have pressed British claims to Wrangel Island had there been no action by their predecessors, but they have felt bound by Ponsonby's action.

I am now writing to pass on to you some further information contained in a letter from a friend, Mr. Griffith Brewer, 35 Chancery Lane, London, W.C. 2. What is pertinent follows: "Colonel Amery returned last week, and I saw him at the Colonial Office to-day when I handed him the copy of "The Adventure of Wrangel Island". . . .

"I was rather impressed with the evident genuine interest which Amery had in your enterprise in trying to get Wrangel Island for the British. Also he seemed to have definitely realized that Wrangel Island was not possible for British possession now (because of the action by the Foreign Office under the MacDonald-Ponsonby ministry). He inquired whether the Russians were in possession, but I told him that beyond making some survey last year, they abandoned the island and at present the island is unoccupied."

I want to suggest to you that if the United States had as good a claim to a tropical island as they do have to this arctic

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island, you would be putting a good deal of ingenuity and thought into developing that claim. In my opinion, it will not be many decades until the positional value, if not the intrinsic value, of certain arctic islands will approximate that of certain tropical islands that are highly esteemed.

Mr. Arthur N. Young Economic Advisor, State Department, Washington, D. C.