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It is to report to the Secretary-General with recommendations by 15June, 1950, in order that the Interim Committee may consider itsreport and the Assembly may give final consideration to the Eritrean question at its fifth regular session. This complex of decisions was generally regarded by delegates as one of the greatest accomplishments of the United Nations since its estab-' lishment, a successful exercise of the Assembly's function of conciliating widely differing viewpoints through a procedure and upon a basis of principle laid down by the Charter. Certainly it was an achievement for the Assembly to have reached any decision at all; but whether the decision was good is the essential question and one which can only be answered by the events of the next year or „everal years. For its part the New Zealand delegation was among the few who were not convinced that the decision Was good. The Italian Peace Treaty laid down three criteria for the settlement : the wishes and welfare of the inhabitants,, the interests of peace and security, and the views of interested Governments. Those criteria were often invoked, but it is by no means certain to the New Zealand delegation that they weie conscientiously applied. In the first place, the Assembly's decision in respect of Libya and of Somaliland runs counter to certain very definitely expressed wishes of the inhabitants. In the second place, to the extent that the inhabitants oppose the decisions, peace and security are endangered : and, moreover, Ethiopia is convinced that the settlement for Somaliland, involving the return of Italy to an area without defined boundaries, constitutes a grave threat to Ethiopian national security. In the third place, no special attention was paid to the views of the countries which fought to liberate North and East Africa — 'interested Governments" surely—or which, like the United Kingdom, had also been responsible for administering the colonies since their liberation. The decisive voice in the settlement was, in fact, that of a coalition of the Latin American, Arab, and Asiatic States, whose voting strength is preponderant. Outline of Procedure The general procedure was as follows : Between 20 September and 10 October, delegations representatives of political parties and organizations in the territories and Italy expressed their views in the First Committee. Italy was given the ight to sit in the Committee without vote during the consideration of the question. The requests for a hearing made by local representatives were Greened by a sub-committee of eleven (including New Zealand), which recommended the grant of a hearing to all representatives who seemed to enjoy some fair measure of local support: it was obvious that several of the representatives claimed much more support than in fact they had, and in any case the sub-committee had no way of checking claims ; but it seemed better