A.—s

Protection of Children. In March, 1924, the Council decided that, subject to ratification by the Assembly, the work of the International Association for the Protection of Children and Child Welfare should, in future, be carried out by the Secretariat of the League. The association is the creation of two conferences on child Welfare held in 1913 and 1921. Much information regarding its objects and activities will be found in Document A. 107, the report which the Fifth Committee made to the Assembly. The Fifth Committee had proposed a credit of 50,000 francs to cover the cost of the work to be taken over by the Secretariat, but the Fourth Committee, following the advice of the Supervisory Committee, rejected the proposal. On the 26th September the Assembly ratified the decision of the Council and recommended that the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children should be reconstituted in such a manner as to provide for the proper consideration of questions arising out of the new obligations. COMMITTEE No. 6. Mandates. There are several documents bearing on this subject (Documents Nos. 13 (1 and 2), 15, 28, and 50), and they were considered by a sub-committee of Committee No. 6, which drew up the following resolutions (Document A. 75) passed by the Assembly at its meeting on the 22nd September: — " The Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations, having taken cognizance of the report of the Permanent Mandates Commission relating to its Fourth Session, of the observations made by the accredited representatives of Belgium, France, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa, and of the resolution of the Council dated 29th August, 1924— " (a.) Desires again to convey to the Permanent Mandates Commission its profound and sincere thanks for the zeal, the great competence, and the perfect impartiality with which it has invariably discharged, its important and difficult duties : " (b.) Earnestly recommends that a solution should be found as soon as possible for the question of loans, advances, and investment of capital in the mandated territories, the present position of which is likely to prove a very serious hindrance to the development of these territories ; and " (e.) Recalls the fact that the inhabitants of mandated territories have the right to address petitions to the Council, in accordance with the procedure already established : " (d.) Hopes that the Mandatory Powers will, with as little delay as possible, take such action as may be required to give effect to the resolution adopted by the Council at the request of the Permanent Mandates Commission concerning the definition of the technical terms employed in the Conventions relating to the liquor traffic : " (e.) Requests that the reports of the Mandatory Powers should be circulated to the States members of the League of Nations, and placed at the disposal of the public who may desire to purchase them : " (/.) Recommends that analytical tables should be drawn up as an annex to the reports of the Permanent Mandates Commission : " (g.) Expresses the desire that it will be possible for the Mandatory Powers in the future to entrust to officials personally responsible for the administration of the mandated territories, as often as circumstances will permit, the duty of representing them before the Permanent Mandates Commission." I have already written you on the points raised by the Permanent Mandates Commission at its last meeting, but I think it advisable to amplify my letter. It is unfortunate that in the report of the work of the Fourth Session of the Permanent Mandates Commission reference has been made to penal measures which can no longer be taken against Chinese labourers for breach of contract. In my reply to this comment I made it clear that no agreement made by the Samoan Administration regarding Chinese labourers has contained a provision for criminal punishment for breach of contract. From inquiries I made in Geneva it seems that this reference was based on a misunderstanding. The Commission was unable to form a clear conception of what constituted, on the one hand, Crown Estates, and, on the other, the property formerly belonging to German companies, which, under the Treaty of Versailles, was acquired by the New Zealand Government, which credited the Reparation Account with the value thereof. You may be interested to learn that during one of the discussions in the sub-committee, and again in the fidl committee, I referred to the question of liquor control in Western Samoa, and stated that no differentiation of treatment existed between the Native and the European settler. With regard to Resolution (e), it is based on a motion submitted by me for securing wide publicity for the reports of the Mandatory Powers relating to the administration of mandated territories. The reports are to be reprinted by the League, and a vote of 25,000 francs for this purpose was approved by the Assembly. > Slavery. This question was raised during the Third Assembly. As the result of action taken by that Assembly and the Council, a good deal of information on the situation of slavery was received from various Governments in time to communicate to the Assembly of 1923, which passed a resolution

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