A grass roots commission

The South Pacific Commission must be helped to survive and prosper There are many things wrong with it, but none so bad that the SPC should be disbanded or absorbed in the South Pacific Forum or the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation That’s the message that emerged from the deliberations of a review committee which met in Nauru in May. Delegates from member countries and the participating metropolitan governments took part in the review under the chairmanship of President Hammer Deßoburt. The Committee was formed under the instructions of the last South Pacific Conference, and its recommendations will go to the Sixteenth Conference to be held in Noumea in October.

Everyone but Tonga was represented, and the French adopted a new open-handed policy under France’s new representative on the SPC, Mr M. Revol, who replaces Com missioner Henri Nettre who has now retired from the post after being the doyen of com missioners, efficiently representing France almost since the inception of the SPC Mr Revol said France would go along with what anybody wanted. What one or two ot the territories in fact wanted was union with SPEC or the Forum, but they didn’t press it when it became obvious that most territories felt that the real value of the SPC was in lending a practical helping hand in every way to the smaller islands; and that it would simply, be directed to concentrate on grass roots matters, using local experts and not highly-paid, imported non-experts parading as experts.

In short, the SPC as an organisation got a resounding vote of confidence by the review committee on condition that it cuts its cloth to suit its customers. And this is what it will now undoubtedly proceed to do.