NEW ERA DAWNING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27384, 9 May 1950, Page 8

NEW ERA DAWNING

Co-operation In Sooth Pacific PA WELLINGTON, May 8. There was to be seen at the South Pacific Conferenc - an offer of partnership, a realisation of progress achieved by the Pacific peoples in education and knowledge of the world, a real attempt to grapple with common problems by pooling of information, brains and experience, said Lieutenant-colonel P. W. Voelcker, New Zealand Commissioner and observer to the conference, in a statement received by air mail from Suva today. Colonel Voelcker, the former High Commissioner in Western Samoa, said the whole scope of the conferences work had been enormously widened and assisted by the gathering, of so many different Pacific peoples.” Barriers of prejudice, isolation and language are cracking. We of the South Pacific Commission are willing to help, but the native peoples must also help. There is evidence that the> will do so. In remote villages in the Solomons and the New Hebrides, in the Cook group, in the Samoas and among the teeming thousands of New Guinea and Papua, the word will S° round that a new era is dawning for the Pacific peoples,” he said.