SAMOA’S FUTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26473, 29 May 1947, Page 8

SAMOA’S FUTURE

SELF-GOVERNMENT AIM MISSION OF TRUSTEESHIP COUNCIL INVESTIGATION TO BE MADE P.A. WELLINGTON, May 28. Advice has been received from the New Zealand Minister at Washington, Sir Carl Berendson, of the composition of the mission from the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations which is to visit Western Samoa shortly. The members of the mission will be Mr Francis B. Sayre (USA), M. Pierre Ryckmans (Belgium), and Dr Cruz-Coke (Chile). They are expected to arrive in New Zealand about June 23 and to leave for Western Samoa about June 30.

Announcing this, the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, recalled to-night the fact that the purpose of the visit was to investigate, on behalf of the Trusteeship Council, the facts associated with the recent petition from the Samoans for the grant of immediate self-gov-ernment. “The petition,” Mr Fraser said, “was forwarded to the council by the New Zealand Government with the suggestion that the council should not endeavour to discuss its merits without first acquainting itself with the facts of the situation. The Government accordingly asked that, the council should appoint qualified representatives to visit Western Samoa as soon as possible to discuss the position with the Samoan people and administration and report back to the council. Dominion’s Responsibility

‘"lt should be made clear that primary responsibility for assisting the Samoans along the road to self-govern-ment rests, not with the United Nations. but with the New Zealand Government as the administering authority under the trusteeship agreement, and in inviting the Trusteeship Council to send a mission to the territory, the Government is implementing its responsibilites towards the Samoans. The Government is anxious that there should be the fullest possible knowledge of the facts and that any steps which may be contemplated should be taken only after full discussion in cooperation with the Trusteeship Council which, under the United Nations Charter, is charged with the supervision of the administration of trust territories.”

“The Government,” Mr Fraser said, "is grateful to the council for the ready response to its request, and has every confidence that through co-oper-ation between all the interested parties those decisions will be taken which are in the best interests of the Samoans.” Mr F. B. Sayre Mr Sayre, representative of the USA on the trusteeship council, is a former Asssistant Secretary of State, and US High Commissioner to the Philippines. Born in 1885, a graduate of Harvard Law School, he taught at Harvard and the University of Southern California. He was later appointed as adviser on foreign affairs to the Siamese Government, to which he was appointed envoyextraordinary and Minister plenipotentiary in 1925. In 1933 he was named Assistant US Secretary of State in which capacity he served until given the Philippine appointment in 1939. Mr Sayre is the author of a number of books on law economics and international affairs.

M. Pierre Ryckmans M. Pierre Ryckmans, the representative of Belgium, is a former GovernorGeneral of the Belgian Congo. Born at Antwerp in 1890, he is a doctor of laws of Louvain University. In the First World War he took part in the conquest by the Belgian colonial troops of the Cameroons and German East Africa. In 1930 he was sent to the Belgian Congo as a member of a commission to study questions of native labour. After having been president of the National Institute of Agricultural Research in the colony, he was appointed Governor-General of the Congo in 1934. On the capitulation of Belgium in 1940, Governor-General Ryckmans continued to adhere to the Allied cause, and, under his guidance, the Belgian Congo performed a stupendous task in assisting the war effort. Dr E. Cruz-Coke

Dr Eduardo Cruz-Coke (Chile) is a professor of surgery. He was Minister of Health in the Chilean Cabinet from January, 1937, till September, 1938, and was elected Conservative Senator for Santiago in 1941. He was a delegate' to the San Francisco conference in 1945, and is president of the Chilean British Medical Centre. As presidential candidate in September. 1946, he polled the highest number of votes after Senor Gonzalez Videla, who was elected .president. Dr Cruz-Coke is responsible for some of Chile’s social legislation, particularly in the field of preventive medicine.