stefansson-wrangel-09-27-057

94A

Some Certain editors and membres of the Canadian parliament had been arguing ever since my compaign for further artic exploration had become knewer argued that Canada's
chief claim to the ownership of the islands north of Canada was their
contiguity either to the Canadian mainland or to islands that were
indisputably Canadian through occupation. Some of these islands
north of Canada had been discovered or explored by Norwegians or Amer-
icans, who might claim them as against Canada if Canada or Britain
were to claim on grounds of discovery, exploration or occupation an
island (Wrangell) which was nearer to Russian than to British lands.
These arguments, especially when made as speeches in Parliament,
were widely circulated. I did not try to meet them in the press, but
contented myself with emphasizing to the Government their double
fallacy.

The first answer to the contiguity argument was that in
most of the territorial disputes between nations that have been
arbitrated in modern times, contiguity has been urged as an argument
by one of the contending parties but has never been given weight by the
arbitrators. It was, therefore, no more than a pious hope on the part
of Canadians that their surrender of discovery and occupation rights
in Wrangell Island to Russia would induce other nations to surrender
their discovery or exploration rights in certain other islands to
Canada, thus establishing a wholly new principle in in ternational
law - the revolutionary doctrine that contiguity should rank above
discovery, exploration and occupation.

The second answer to the contiguity fallacy is, to a
Canadian, more striking than the first. One of the islands Canadians
want to hold is Ellesmere. Like Wrangell, it was discovered by
British naval officers; like Wrangell it was explored by Americans