The mirror., 1919-01-16
A GENUINE mo MANS LAND"
Up in That Arctic Wilderness Spitzbergen You May Trans
gress Without Fear of Punishment
By J. w. Morrison

Morrison
countries hastened to follow suit.
Then the curious fact presented it.
self that Spitzbergen, belonging to
no nation and being without gov
ernment of any kind. there was no
such thing as private right of
property there. Conditions as to
ownership on property in Spitz-
bergen were just the same as they
we're in Europe in the stone age,
when every man took what he
could from his weaker neighbor.
Why, it probably will be asked,
did not some nation raise it's flag
there and proclaim it's sovereignty
as is done when an uncharted island
is discovered, or as Columbus
claimed America in the name of
Spain? Because, again quoting
Secretary Lansing, the nations had
so long acquiesced in the assump-
ton that Spitzbergen was terra
nullius that none of>them had the
hardihood to make claim of indi-
vidual ownership. 1t was after
Secretary Lansing made that state
ment that Germany had an excess
of hardihood and drew up the
Brest-Litovsk Treaty. After Ger
many's action became known Eng
land hurried ship to Spitzbergen
and raised the English flag there.
England announces, however, that
she took this action merely to off
set the claim of Germany and that
the disposition of Spitzbergen will
have to be made at the peace con-
ference.
But, reverting to pre- war condi-
tions, if capital were to be invested
in Spitzbergen, capitalists must
have some assurance of protection.
As matters stood, any man who
was strong enough physically
could take anything of value he
found in Spitzbergen, and there
was no law in the world except the
law of greater might that could
punish him or say him nay. Some
thing had to be done to remedy
this impossible condition before
Spitzbergen could be developed,
so conference was called to meet
in Christiana in 1914. Delegates
from the United States and the
northern states of Europe attended.
The outbreak of the war brought
the conference to an abrupt end.
The conference had proceeded
only far enough in its deliberations
to develop the difficulties of the
situation, difficulties so extraordi-
nary that Secretary Lansing dis
cussed them in an article written
for the American journal of Inter-
national Law. Speaking of the
problem of the conference, Secre-
tary Lansing said:
The situation is one that is en-
tirely novel. The records of his
tory will be searched in vain for
precedents. Since a simi-
lar state of affairs has never be-
fore arisen to perplex the statesmen
of the world, there is no use seek
ing a solution in past examples.
Indeed, so unusual is the situation
that comparisons drawn from his
tOrical experience are entirely
wanting and the problem must be
solved by a consideration of the
fundamental principles underlying
governmental institutions, 1t must
be determined whether the nature
of sovereignty admits the possibili-
ty of the existence of sovereign
power on land without the exis-
tence of territorial sovereignty, in
to an analysis of the abstract idea
of sovereignty and into consider
alton of its origin, extent and
exercise"
1t seems simple enough to ap-
point a joint commission of the in
terested nations to control Spitz-
bergen. But, as Mr.. Lansing
points out, the actions of such a
commission would have no legal