New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-08-14
WHO OWNS THE LOBOs GUANO

lation TO the Free soil movement in that city.
WHO OWNS THE LOBOs GUANOe
While we dissent from some of the
grounds taken by the Secretary of State
TO establish our right to take the Guano
of the Lobos Islands, we nevertheless feel
constrained to adopt the conclusion that
Peru ha, no exclusive rights upon these
islands. The fact that their existence was
known to the Spaniards during the last
century, or that they were enumerated
among! their possessions, affords no valid
reason why they should now be claimed
by Peru. Howsoeycr discovered or by
vhom>opver first seen. il seems clear that
no power can claim them by occupation.
for they have never been occupied, I'M
less, indeed, the United States may claim
them upon thi, ground, by virtue of their
occupation by American citizens engaged
in the seal fisheries of the Pacific Seas.
1t is well established fact that they were
thus occupied by our citizens as early as
1889. If any claim is TO be set up on
this score, ours is doubles, a, good, and
perhaps the best of any.
But our right to use the deposits, of those
islands we place upon the broad ground,
that, they are uninhabi;ed distant, and I'M
appropriated spots of the earth. never re-
ally possessed by anybody, but which have
lain in sterile isolation and uncOyeted des-
olation, since the creation. They lie far
beyond the limit, of jurisdiction recognized
by public law as pertaining to Peru, or to
Spain before her, amid waste of waters
that belong alike to every people on the
globe, and over which the American flag
has hoatcd, perhaps, oftener than any other.
A nearer position merely to the Peruvian
coast, which may occasion these islands to
be set down in the Biographies and ga
zetteers of that country, cannot be consid-
cred as afliording any just claim upon which
to base Peruvian jurisdiction.
There seems to be something prepos-
ferrous in the idea that any country, by
virtue of a glimpse of or sail around a
bird-roost in the ocean, can set up and
maintain a claim to the deposit thereon,
because that nation happens to discover
that it can be made available TO replenish
its treasury. We conceive that there is
something like general and universal
right to appropriate such bounty Of Ma
turc as exists at the Lobos Islands. and
that no nation should submit to an arbi-
trarv exclusion thcrefrOm because another
power may choose to assume jurisdiction
over them. And we rejoice that our Gov
ernment has had the boldness and indie
pendence to do what it has done in behalf
of the only true doctrine on thi, question
The position assumed by our Govern
ment, that our citizens have the right 10
take aud use the Lobos Islands guano
without asking permission of anybody OF
paying toll to anybody. is one which we
believe the American people will support
when the question is understood, with
aacrity. And we should be deeply NOR
tilted at seeing it retrace any steps il has
taken in defense of this position. Such a
course would. as we have before stated, be
doing rank injustice to our enterpri'ing
merchants, and our adventurous nayiga-
tors and ship owners, who have unhesita-
tingly intrustcd vast Interests TO the ten
dered protection of the Government; and
il would at the same time bring deserved
ridicuc upon an administration that coulJ
make haste, under Il single blast ct oppoo-
inc sentiment from the other side of the
Atlantic. to abandon 4 wise position delib-
crately taken by il. II We could really
think there was any danger of such a mel
aucholy spectacle, We should be for inyok-
ing the gho,t of old John Quincy Alan,
to come forth and reGn;er and reclaim that
department. which. under hi, admini~tra'
ton at least never Swayed or Quai.ed be-
fore the expression of foreign opinion. an.