About
p. 155 · Read in the full issue
British Want to Know
The Pacific Islands Conservative Party Study Group
[N order that the Conservative I Party—the power behind the f British Governmen t—may etter understand some of the roblems of the overseas countries ver which Britain has control, the arty has set up a Conservative tommonwealth Council. The Coun il plans to make contact with eople with a special knowledge of articular areas and promote in |rmative discussions: and, for this lirpose, Groups are being set up, Ithin the Council, to deal with the ifferent countries. [For example, there is a Pacific lands Group. Its chairman is Mr. [ L. Iremonger, MP for Ilford brth, who was a District official 1- Fiji and in Gilbert and Ellice lands, before the war. The Group icludes members of Parliament, id persons with a special know dge of the Islands, and of Aus alia and New Zealand. It already is produced a memorandum on ie racial and population problem . Fiji—which, incidentally, does )t appear to have yet been read r anyone in this benighted section the world. The Group invites mmunications from persons in the icific area who wish to discuss icific Islands problems. Corre londence should be addressed to jmmonwealth Council, Abbey ouse, 2-8 Victoria St., London,
Some Questions
The PIM is happy to oblige with lestions: Will the Conservative Common jalth Council tell us why the re lest of the Fiji legislative Council, November, 1952, that Britain iould make a formal inquiry into ji’s acute population problem, has sen ignored by the Colonial Office?
Does the Council think that the ilamented departure of Mr. rttelton from the Colonial Office .11 open a new era, in which the ore urgent problems of Britain’s lonies may receive attention?
Will the Council try to explain oat the British Colonial Office is y ing to do in relation to the High jmmission for the Western Pacific, lere a highly qualified Governor, the person of Sir Robert Stanley, is been given the hopeless and iartbreaking task of making a silk irse out of a sow’s ear—the silk irse being the potentially rich chipelagoes of Solomons and New sbrides, and the hungry atolls of e Gilbert and Ellice chain; and e sow’s ear being a fitting name
for the insufficient resources at the Governor’s disposal?
Does the Colonial Office believe that private enterprise should be encouraged to go in and develop those three Territories? If so, why has the Colonial Office carried on
the policy of the Attlee Socialist Government, which forbade the re entry of trading firms to the Solo mons and the G & E Colony when the latter were recovered from the Japs, and created a glorified Social ist economy for the archipelagoes?