POLICY IN PACIFIC

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1943, Page 4

POLICY IN PACIFIC

AFTER-WAR DEVELOPMENTS

COUNCIL PROPOSED. SAFEGUARDING THE FUTURE. WASHINGTON, April 7. Organisation of a policy-making United Nations Council, with a subsidiary regional council for the Pacific Area, was proposed in a report of the Institute of Pacific Relations, made public today. Reporting on the Institute's conference at Mont Tremblant, Quebec, last December, W. L. Holland, Research Secretary, said “protests were beginning to be heard against an excessive Anglo-American dominance in the con-

duct of the waf.” Entitled "War and Peace in the Pacific,” the report was prepared for distribution at an Institute luncheon at which Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles was to speak. “Coupled often with pleas for increased Chinese participation in the higher war councils, there were suggestions for, the establishment of an effective Executive Council at least of the larger United Nations,” the report said, adding: Tn all these criticisms there was a growing realisation that not only the prosecution of the war. but, even more, the better preparation for peace and post-war reconstruction would be badly handicapped unless the present nominal association of the United Nations is translated into a functioning policymaking organ.” Dr. Sao-ke Alfred Sze, former Chinese Ambassador to Washington, proposed the Executive Council of the United Nations, to include at least the United States, Great Britain, China and Soviet Russia. > I

Lord Hailey, leader of the British group, suggested the Pacific Zone Council, to consist of representatives of the sovereign powers concerned, with headquarters in North America, In round table discussion these were identified as China, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Thialand, France, the Netherlands and Netherlands Indies, United Kingdom. United States and Russia. Its double function would be: —

1. “To take charge of the civil activities, as a local agency, or whatever organisation may be established by the United Nations for safeguarding the peace of Asia in common with other parts of the world. 2. “To secure, by joint consultation and co-operative action, a common policy, so far as may be, in the economic development and in the tariff and customs arrangements within this zone.”

It was “the view of most members,” the report said, that the British, Dutch, French and American dependencies in the Pacific, recaptured from Japan, should be “returned to their sovereign powers” pending steps for their advancement toward self-government.