FUTURE OF NAURUANS

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29851, 18 June 1962, Page 17

FUTURE OF NAURUANS

• U.N. Mission

To Report (N Z I’ A.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW YORK. June 17. A United Nations mission which recently visited the Pacific phosphate island of Nauru urges the Australian. British and New Zealand Governments to contribute generously to the cost of resettling the 2400 islanders, it was learned at the United Nations. The tiny coral island's phosphate deposits, on which the economy is entirely dependent, are running out. The U.N. mission said the three governments, which enjoyed the benefits of the lowcost phosphate for many years, should pay the resettlement costs, estimated at several million pounds.

Australia. Britain and New Zealand hold joint responsibility for Nauru under the U.N. trusteeship system, but Australia controls the day-to-day administration The British Phosphate Commissioners—an agency of the Australian, British and New Zealand governments—work the island's rich phosphate resources, which will be exhausted in some 30 years. The report of the four-man visiting mission, led by Sir Hugh Foot, of Britain, will be made public in a few days and will be considered late this month by the U.N. Trusteeship Council, which has been urging an early solution to the problem of finding the Nauruans a new home. Authoritative sources told

Reuter that the report firmly laid the onus for early resettlement on the Australian Government.