Soviet Delegates

Take A Crock At Nauru

WHEN the Trusteeship agreement for Nauru was being considered by a sub-committee of the UNO General Assembly at the beginning of October, the Russian delegate said that when the Trusteeship agreement for New Guinea was before the sub-committee last year, Australian delegates stated that the natives of that country were still in the Stone Age. Now. however, the people of Nauru were described as being “far ad vanced.” and 100 per cent, literate.

Despite this difference between the native inhabitants of these two countries, said the Russian delegate; there was virtually no difference between the New Guinea and Nauru Agreements.

The Australian delegate. Dr. Evatt, addressing the sub-committee, pointed out that the island of Nauru was making an important contribution to world food, because Nauru phosphates wefe vital to food production in Australia and New Zealand. Australia, said Dr. Evatt, would probably export 120 million bushels of wheat from her 1947-48 crop.

He also drew the sub-committee’s at tention to the fact that the natives of Nauru were assured of an entirely sat isfactory standard of living and adequate social services as a result of these phosphate deposits, and the way in which thev are administered. (Actually, the natives of Nauru and Ocean Islands are the richest Islanders in the Pacific. As communities, they draw royalties on every ton of phosphatic rock that is mined. The Russians, of course, were merely seeking a stick wherewith to beat the hated Anglo-American dog. If

they had pursued the matter, they would have found in Nauru and Ocean Island conditions relating to native welfare which they must have praised.)