stefansson-wrangel-09-37-035

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-54-

protest if such a colony were established within its boundary
as established by the King of Italy, Yet those colonists would
have a good claim by occupation. It seems clear that if the
contesting parties, Brazil and Great Britain, had not occupied
this territory, they could have had no power over it. If they had
not even power over it, how could the award give them unquestion-
able title to it as against a nation actually In possession.
The arbiter himself says, p.931: "The arbitral judgment of the
," 92 British and Foreign State Papers, 1160,
"delivered by the Anglo-American tribunal, which when deciding
the boundary between Great Britain and Venezuela, adjudged to the
former the territory which constitutes the subject of the
present dispute, cannot be cited against Brazil, which was un-
affected by that judgment."

It seems that an analogy might be drawn from the incident
of the Portuguese claims in Africa. There Portugal claimed land;
Great Britain occupied it: Portugal protested, and received
an ultimatum. Suppose, with regard to the territory now under
discussion, that Venezuela refused to recognize Brazil's claims,
and claimed the territory on the basis that It had been abandoned,
or at least unoccupied by Brazil, and that it was now occupied
by Venezuelans. It might be difficult, as well as inexpedient,
to hold that Brazil had a better right to territory which she
had never occupied, simply on the basis of the award of the King
of Italy.

To turn now to a question involving claims to territory
which has been but recently settled -- the question of Spittsbergen,

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