Report To Uno

Headaches for Departmental Heads In Papua-New Guinea

From a Special Correspondent

Port Moresby, Aug. 26.

SENIOR officers at Administration head quarters, Moresby, have gone to earth. Reason is the annual report for the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations.

The Trusteeship Council has submitted a draft questionnaire for the compilation of reports, which runs into about 50 pages and covers every possible aspect of colo nial administration. Full answers to every part of the questionnaire would require a large research staff (which Papua-New Guinea has not got), years of effort and would produce something about the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Such a report would be valuable; but it seems likely that the report for the current year, as far as New Guinea is concerned, will have to be a compromise between pre-war sketchiness and post war verbosity.

It will be interesting to see, also, just how much is by-passed by other Trustee governments, under the excuse of lack of time and facilities.

It is understood that some of the questions are very pointed UNO is more concerned in obtaining an accurate Picture of the Territories than was the ermanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. But it is also likely that the individual Territories will be more concerned about their colonial re putations.

The sub-committee which drafted the UNO questionnaire was under the direc tion of Mr. E. W. P. Chinnery, formerly Director of District Services and Native

Affairs and Government Anthropologists in the Territory of New Guinea.

Mr. Chinnery knows all the questions.

It remains for the Trusteeship Territories to provide the right answers.

The Fiji Royal Gazette announces that Mr. A. W. Small has been granted a com mission as a justice of the peace in respect of the Northern District.

HMAS “Australia” calledf at Finsch hafen on August 24, en route for Manus.

Aboard was the Australian Minister for the Navy (Mr. Riordan).