YAP

an island of the Caroline group, situated in the Pacific ocean, east of the Philippines and north of New Guinea. Before the World War the Caroline islands belonged to Germany, who purchased them from Spain in 1899 for some $5,000,000. Yap is the administrative center of the western group of the archipelago, and had a wirele station which became a cause of friction between the United States and Japan in 1920. Under the Peace Treaty of Versailles Germany renounced all her former rights in the oversea submarine cables she controlled, which included cables connecting Yap with Manila, Shanghai, Guam and Menado (Celebes). The islands were a igned to Japan by the Allies under a mandatory, and Japan claimed exclusive control of their cable and other communications. The United States objected to Japan’s control of the Yap cables, contending that as the German islands in the Pacific had been ceded to the Allied and A ociated Powers by the Peace Treaty, their property could not be disposed of without the consent of the United States. The American view was that Yap should be internationalized as a cable landing station, and not be solely controlled by any single Power. In 1921 the two countries adjusted their differences on} Yap which was an obscure island till it became known as an important meeting point of oceanic cable lines.