"Trusteeship”

Archives-May 1945

Australia gets off on the wrong foot at UNCIO

THERE has been much very confusing talk at UNCIO (United Nations conference on International Organisation) about a “trustee ship” system which may follow the liquidation of the Mandates system (under which certain nations, under League of Nations supervision, administer some ten Territories).

The territories originally were: A Class Mandates - Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria. B Class - Togoland, Cameroons, German East Africa C Class - New Guinea and Bismarck Archipelago (Australia); Western Samoa (New Zealand); Caroline, Marshall and Mariana Islands (Japan); and Nauru (Britain, Australia and NZ). Here in the Pacific, we are interested only in the C Class mandates.

There is little doubt that, in the final wash-

up, those C Class Territories will remain with their present “protectors”, except that the Japanese-held islands will pass into the hands of the United States.

However, Australian delegate Dr Evatt has caused disturbance by demanding a system of trusteeship, not only for territories left unpro tected by the post-war readjustments, but also for all colonies generally, wherein sovereign nations rule over subject peoples. His argu ment is that such colonies and territories are being held in trust for their native peoples; and that the nations which hold them should be obliged to report regularly, to some interna tional authority, concerning the dischaige of their obligations to the natives.

The Australian apparently has been encouraged in this revolutionary plan by Russia; but America is not well disposed towards it and naturally Britain and France, who hold scores of colonies of all kinds, would not agree to any such perfectionist idea.

Dr Evatt says his proposal follows natural ly from the Anzac Agreement, signed by Australia and New Zealand in 1944. But there is little there to support such a claim. The Agreement rightly lays stress upon the need for some authority to co-ordinate machinery and principles of administration, over a num ber of Territories held by a number of nations such as the South Pacific Region or the West Indies Region - but there is nothing to justify Australia (whose record of native administra tion in Papua and New Guinea is not by any means credible) in interfering with Great Britain’s system of ruling her colonies. Such a system, applied to Britain would cause confu sion and administrative inefficiency. ■