A New Member And A Neu

Direction For The SPC

By Stuart Inder

A big meeting of South Pacific peoples to be held in New Guinea next July could be a vital turning point in the fortunes of the South Pacific Commission.

THE meeting the Sixth South Pacific Conference, to be held at Lae on July 6—will for the first time since the Commission’s incep tion in 1947 be invited to propose a programme of work for the SPC to follow in the next two years.

This will be done by forming a new committee from conference delegates each Territory being en titled to elect one delegate.

The committee’s proposals will go to the full Commission meeting in Noumea next October, and may, as a result, constitute the Commission’s 1966-7 programme.

Influence Begins

If the experiment is successful it means that Islanders themselves will begin to influence the activities of the SPC, which is a regional organisation responsible to the five metropolitan South Seas powers— Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, and US—and the indepen dent State of Western Samoa. The SPC’s jurisdiction covers 20 per cent, of the earth’s surface.

If the Lae experiment is success ful it means the regular three-yearly South Pacific conferences could develop into a kind of regional council and meet more frequently.

One proposal already discussed unofficially is that the works com mittee would meet each two years and that every alternate conference would be a full-scale one attended by a greater cross-section of Islanders and able to discuss a wider agenda, as the present three-yearly con ferences do.

Future action will depend on the success or otherwise of the Lae meeting. The SPC’s Research Council will not meet next year, so as to “clear the decks” for the Lae experiment.

The decision to make the ex periment was taken in Noumea in October at the 26th session of the SPC, probably one of the most significant sessions held.

It was also the session in which Western Samoa was admitted to full membership—the first independent

Pacific State to join the metropolita powers on the Commission. The wa was cleared for her admission by series of amendments to the SP< Agreement, signed in London o October 6, Charter Alterations The new charter alters the SP' financial arrangements and establish a new system of voting, giving An: tralia five votes, France, Ne Zealand, the UK and the US foi each, and Western Samoa one.

A two-thirds majority is require to decide any question, and a ui animous vote is needed to deck financial matters involving coi tributions by the member goven ments.

To solve the problem of futui admissions to the SPC, membi governments are required to transfi one of their votes to the governmen of each Territory it ceases 1 administer and which shall be a< mitted to the SPC.

Any future territory may I admitted on the same basis i Western Samoa—that is, by ii vitation, if it is an independei State and all its territory is, in mediately prior to its independenc within the territorial scope of tl

Spc.

There has been a significa alteration in the territorial scop which now includes Pacific territory “east from and including the Au tralian territory of Papua and tl Trust Territory of New Guinea”.

Indonesian Situation The original agreement includ( Netherlands New Guinea, no Indonesian-controlled, and son governments were concerned th this could allow Indonesia to se< entry to the SPC.

The new agreement now mak this impossible.

Western Samoa, as a memb which is not a metropolitan power, in the position of benefiting fro decisions she herself helps to mak She will still be able to sei

legates to the South Pacific con rences, but in this case the legates will not be allowed a vote.

One of the interesting points about * Lae plan and what may follow is that the changes have been made thin the framework of the agree mt, without having to throw it en for wide revision.

Some governments were frankly tred of a major revision in case left loopholes for an expansion the SPC on political lines. All vernments are agreed that the C must remain a regional body ering technical and social assist ce and not serve as the frame irk for what could develop into political federation of the South as.

Whether they can guarantee to jp it under control and still make it *ful in future years, when the ands people really begin to mipulate strings, is another matter. 1 personally am not one of the lies who say that South Seas litical maturity is a long way off. ere is every sign of it coming at •attling pace.

And there is, as Australia’s Senior mmissioner, Mr. R. S. Swift, nmented at the end of the >umea session, “quite clearly a at quickening of interest through t the South Seas in the role of Commission”.

TRIO OF TRIPLETS: There has been al ost an epidemic of triplets in the South [?]cific in recent weeks. The first—all girls were born to Anitilose Tu'itupou, a 34ar-old Tongan woman, in Nukualofa, on [?]gust 29. The next—two girls and a [?]y —were born to another Tongan [?]man, Vai Mikilolo, at Pea village, on ptember 6. The trio that made it a o —all boys—were born in Port Moresby September 24. Their mother, Eliza [?]e, 26. comes from a village near koda. Our picture shows the first trio, [?]o weighed 6 lb 4 oz, 7 lb, and 8 lb 14 oz, with their mother.

Photo: Tulua Bros.