International Plan For

Colonies

A PLAN for the administration of Col onies under international supervis ion was suggested at the Liberal Summer School at Cambridge, England, recently, by Mr. Ramsay Muir, when he spoke on the Colonial question.

Mr. Muir urged that the possessors of Colonies should resign their absolute sov ereignty over those Colonies to some in ternational authority, and he suggested conditions on which they should do so.

One condition should be an absolute open trade access for the traders of all nations to all Colonies under such ad ministration. The second condition would be that there must be full and adequate safeguards for the rights of the native population, with definite obligation to train them gradually to take a larger and larger share in the management of their own affairs and train them for ultimate self-government.

Mr. Muir put the question as to which authority should have the control of the Colonies under his plan. He preferred the League of Nations system of control because it enabled every people in the world to feel they had a chance of mak ing their voices heard. The scheme was a far bigger scheme than one to placate Germany.

Mrs, R. Moffatt, well-known resident of Eastern Papua, returned to the Territory by the last “Macdljui” after three months’ holiday in Australia. Her husband owns the ketch “Gitana II”.