18 Territories To Confer In Noumea

Special Plane to Gather 60 Native Delegates

OVER 60 delegates, representing 18 Pacific Islands Territories, will assemble at Noumea on &pril 16, for the Second South Pacific Conference, at the head luarters of the South Pacific Com nission. The Conference is a direct ink between the Commission and he Islands peoples it seeks to serve.

The Conference will last about ;en days and will be under the hairmanship of M. Lassalle-Sere Senior Commissioner for France on he SPC).

SPC Commissioners from the six nember Governments (Australia, ''ranee, the Netherlands, New Zea and, Britain and USA) will attend is observers until April 25, when he Commission’s Eleventh Session fill open.

Conference delegates, mostly lative Islanders, will discuss pro lems common to all Pacific Tern aries, such as the conservation and nprovement of land and sea re aurces, the relation of population a resources, marketing problems, be role of women and women’s rganisations in the community.

and the health education of Islanders.

Transport to Commission head quarters of delegates—who in many cases will travel over thousands of miles of ocean—and provision of accommodation have involved months of planning by the Secre tariat.

Two main assembly points for transport have been established — at Sydney and a Nadi (Fiji). On April 14, a DC6 air-liner will leave Mascot airport, Sydney, for Noumea, carrying delegations from Papua and New Guinea, Solomons, Nauru, and possibly Guam and the Ter ritory of Micronesia, as well as Mr.

H. E. Maude (the Commission’s executive officer for Social Develop ment, who is stationed in Sydney) and some of his staff.

The aircraft will fly on from Noumea to Fiji the same day, and return the following morning with the delegates from French Oceania, Cook Islands, American and Western Samoa, Niue, Tonga, Fiji and Gil bert and Ellice Islands.