ing vessel may actually have filled

up and sank without trace.

Proposals on establishing a South Pacific Regional Development Bank and a Pacific Law Centre, both sur vivors of earlier conference deliber ations, a battered survivor in the bank’s case, were again shelved— which as much as anything indicates the difficulty of getting consensus on significant issues at any South Pacific Conference, let alone following them through.

Another agenda item, that of re placement of Fred Betham as SPC secretary-general by Dr E. M. Salato, of Fiji, following Mr Betham’s re tirement in November after four years, was achieved without debate only because Dr Salato’s name was the only one put forward.

Dr Salato’s appointment is for three years, and when in his acceptance speech he referred to his “challeng ing years ahead”, he sounded as if he meant it.

He referred to Ratu Mara’s grass roots call, and said the SPC needed not only money and staff, but full and active support “moulded in the crucible of tolerance and tempered with the spirit of true co-operation and partnership”.

Later in the conference it was sug

gested unkindly that perhaps the SPC needed less money and fewer staff.

The suggestion came from the leader of the Australian delegation, Senator Douglas McClelland, when talking in support of a paper earlier circulated

by Australia suggesting a review of the SPC agreement and of the work ing of the organisation. This paner had been promised at the Rarotonga conference.

Senator McClelland, who intro duced himself happily to everybody simply as “Doug McClelland of Aus tralia”, supported Ratu Mara’s con tention that aid was not always con

centrated on practical projects.

He said there appeared also to be a scattering of resources through many small items of expenditure, and he continued: “Several members of this conference have said that the regular programme items and special projects are not really the answer to the region’s needs. If this is so, clearly there are fundamental fun ctional faults. I pose these questions: “Does the aid respond in a prac tical and modern way to what the people of the Pacific region require?

For instance is it still appropriate to keep a permanent team of experts in Noumea? Should major projects, with long-term financial implications, go into the work programme? Should outside agencies be responsible for

specialised meetings?”

The senator said the Australian paper had suggested an SPC review meeting for 1977, but “in fact we feel the date may almost have been over taken”.

He continued: “It appears to be the mood of this conference that the aid function of the SPC requires exami nation well before 1977. The Prime Minister of Fiji has posed the ques tion whether the commission’s aid programmes respond to grass root needs. This is not a question which

should be left unanswered. When we get the answer, everyone will be in a better position to consider in what other ways the structure of the com mission should be changed.”

Doug McClelland of Australia then built on an earlier proposal by Dr Williams, of the Cooks, that a com mittee of review be established to report back to the 16th conference in Noumea next October. So the pieces now began to come together, until with various helpful, and some times unhelpful, comments from various directions in the next day or two, the conference decided to set up a review committee to meet in Nauru about May next year, “to conduct an exhaustive re-evaluation of the total function and organisation of the South Pacific Commission, with the view towards recommending changes necessary to enable the or ganisation to respond more positively and effectively to the changing times and needs of its members”.

The resolution also said the review committee should consider a change of name for the South Pacific Com mission. This was something which had come out of the 14th conference, where it had been agreed that the name South Pacific Commission didn't adequately describe the geo graphical scope of the Pacific Islands represented by the commission, as some of the islands were north of the Equator.

So at the request of that con ference, the SPC earlier this year con ducted a competition for a new name among residents living within the region, with a $lOO first prize. The SPC received a total of 375 names, got it down to a short list of 22 and submitted this to the 1975 Planning Committee meeting in Noumea, which in turn submitted four of the names for a final decision by the Nauru conference.

In order of preference by the SPC, the recommendations were: Pacific Islands Commission; Pacific Islands Organisation; Pacific Regional Com mission; and Fono Pasifika.

When the matter came up in Nauru, Papua New Guinea’s Sir Maori Kiki was all for getting the decision over with and said the first preference was good enough for him.

But when it appeared there were going to be a few other brave souls ready to nail their colours to the mast the debate was shelved.

Among those who helped push the conference finally towards a full SPC review was 30-year-old Niue Minister for Education, Agriculture and De velopment, Mr Young Vivian. During the deadly course of the conference he had become increasingly annoyed at the lack of action, and, one after noon, he had been particularly in

censed at hearing the big countries repeating one after another that they would give a percentage increase in their grants, “so long as others also did so”.

There were no strings to Niue’s grant, among some others, and Young Vivian said: “It has been very dis appointing, humiliating, disgusting, frustrating, to hear the donor countries say they will give their in crease if Joe down the road does the same. Now I know what a monkey feels like when a banana is held up to him outside the cage! We are small. Do you have to make us feel smaller? We have increased our per centage from last year, just like the little Tokalaus. We are making no problems about it.”

The conference listened in silence as Young Vivian told about the efforts of Niue, population 3,000, to support itself and to survive in a big world.

He said Niue had on its rugged island an area occupied by crabs and birds, which people were absolutely for bidden to enter, because it was set aside by tradition for the hungry times. In hungry times the people would be told they could forage there for food.

“Niue has little faith in the future,” said Young Vivian. “Where would we go if the New Zealand house wives said they didn’t like our passionfruit? Where would we go then and what would we do?”

The man from Niue said a review was certainly needed of what the SPC stood for, and added, “Once as a child I had a little prayer which said, ‘Oh Lord, renew a right spirit within me’. I say now, ‘Oh Lord, renew a right spirit within the con ference’!”

Outside the hall he was warmly congratulated.

To help stage the review con ference the Nauru delegation an nounced that Nauru would make a cash gift to the SPC of $50,000. This moved 32 - year - old Bwebwetake Areieta, Minister for Communica tions, Works and Utilities in the Gilbert Islands, who felt Nauru’s generosity rather showed up the big powers.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that if the commission collapses tomorrow

Faces at the conference, from top, Bwebwetake Areieta, of the Gilberts; Rene Harris and Kinza Clodumar, of Nauru; David Kausimae, of the Solomons; Luciano Perez, leader of the three dele gates from the Tokelau Islands. David Kausemai was elected vice-chairman of the 16th conference, scheduled for Noumea next October.

because it hasn’t got enough funds to continue functioning, our biggest brothers would be hesitant to come to its aid. As far as I’m concerned, very little has been done by the bigger powers to help develop Islands’ terri tories in the South Pacific. Most of their aid has been pouring into the Middle East, South-East Asia or in nuclear weapons or nuclear tests.

“This is my second time at a con ference, the first was in 1971, and during all this time people have always been talking about regional co-operation. 1 think we are not practising the true concept of the term.”

Areieta said that if they talked about a regional bank then it had to be helpful to the Islands and not confined to the already richer countries. If they talked regional trade, then all exports shouldn’t go to Europe.

“In the Gilberts we find it very expensive nowadays to buy a pound of sugar from Australia, and I’m sure it would be cheaper to buy in Fiji”.

Some people thought he was a bit hard on the bigger powers about their contribution’s policy, with New Zea land for instance putting in volun tarily SNZ3OO,OOO in addition to 16 per cent of the budget, and Australia putting in $A250,000, in addition to 30 per cent of the budget. But there was no doubt he was striking the right note on the need for a better distribu tion of resources among the Islands of the South Pacific. There was cer tainly need for a new trade pattern.

But how to do this?

The conference resolved this by making other recommendations, this one a direction to the SPC secretariat “to investigate in consultation and collaboration with the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation and other interested organisations, the possibility of creating a South Pacific Common Market Board and other means of actively promoting regional trade, and to submit its findings to the 16th South Pacific Conference and the 1976 Meeting of the South Pacific Forum”, Thus, again, the South Pacific con ference had not done anything. It had merely talked, and put the thought aside in the hope that some one else might do something.

It's an appropriate note to end with.

But, as a postscript, and as President Deßoburt referred to Women’s Year, it’s worthy of note that there were only nine women members of delega tions out of a total of 87—a secretary with the Australian team, an adviser from the Gilberts, three delegates from Nauru and one each from Niue, Papua New Guinea, the United Kingdom and Western Samoa.