BRITAIN’S COLONIES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 75, Issue 6441, 3 November 1947, Page 6

BRITAIN’S COLONIES

DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL CO-OPERATION FOSTERING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS The development of regional cooperation is one of the features of the British Post-war Colonial Policy. The West African Council unites in consultation with the four dependencies, Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and Gambia. The Central African Council, consisting of Southern and Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, has established standing committees on tsetse and trypanosamiasis, civil aviation, the conservation of natural resources, the distribution of goods, industrial problems and the publication of statistics. African housing, public relations and medical research. Committees are formed in addition to study specific subjects such as migrant labour. A Central African Air Transport Authority and a Central African Airways Corporation has also been set up under the aegis of the Council. Similarly East Africa is developing a regional .organisation which will include a Representative Assembly with a majority of non-offi-cials.

Common Will to Co-operate These bodies are consultative and advisory. Their task is to integrate the resources and efforts between the neighbouring territories, simply by means of a common will among those territories to co-operate. The test of such a rational attitude comes when the international frontier cuts across the natural region. And ttii-s is where regional co-operation among the colonial territories is proving itself. The Caribbean Commission represents the American territories of Puerto Rico* and the Virgin Islands, the French Martinique, Gaudeloupe and Guiana, Dutch Curacao and Surinam and the duplicity of territories that form the British West Indies. The commission has its “parliament” in the form of the West Indian Conference, the last meeting of which consisted of two members from each of the 15 territories, whose discussions ranged from the establishment of a tourist Development Association to the marketing of staple crops. In the South Pacific At the other side of the globe the South Seas Territories, inspired by the West Indian examples, have established their South Pacific Regional Confmission whose member states are Australia, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. They have, like the Caribbean Commission, their permanent Secretariat, their South Pacific Conference, and their Research Council. The inference at Canberra which formed wie Commission listed 31 projects for research. In South-East Asia the British Special Commissioner, Lord Killearn, fulfils the liaison functions for all the South-East Asian territories not only in the procurement of rice but also in such matters as the rehabilitation of transport, agricultural recovery and health. The latest conference held on his initiative, was on social welfare, which took place in August and was attended by delegates and observers from 20 nations. The work of the Special Commissioner is shortly to be taken over by the Governor-General of Malaya, Mr Malcolm Macdonald.

In Wiest Africa there is a council consisting only of British territories; but their four governments maintain the closest consultation with France, whose colonies are interspersed with the British dependencies. In November, 1945, discussions were held with France. Collaboration and exchange of information on colonial problems has also been made with Belgium. And in June, 1946, the Belgian Minister for the Colonies was invited for discussions in London. A conference of British and French economic experts was held in London last February to discuss marketing, production and trade problems. A conference on veterinary matters took place in Dakar last year; and one on health matters at Accra on the Gold Coast last November was attended by medical experts from French West Africa, Equatorial Africa, the Cameroons and Togoland, British West African territories, the Belgian Congo, Portuguese Guiana and the independent state of Liberia. A further programme of international co-operation in Africa has been planned, in the carrying out of which Africans will play their part. Participation in World Affairs The colonial empire participates too in the work of the specialised agencies of the United Nations, such as the International Labour Organisation, Unesco, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and the International Telecommunications Union, and in preliminary discussions for the International TraHe Organisation and the World Health Organisation. The 1.L.0. has four international conventions, dating from before the war, referring to colonial employment, all ratified by the British Government. They deal with forced labour, the recruiting of workers, contracts of employment and penal sanctions for breaches of contract. Five more conventions are under preparation. The newly formed committee of experts on social policy in non-metropolitan territories includes British representatives.

Finally the United Nations Trusteeship Council has been formed. Of territories mandated to Britain after the First World War, Iraq and Trans-Jor-dan have attained independence, and Tanganyika, Togoland and the Cameroons have been placed by Britain under trusteeship. Drafts of trusteeship fo*r the three territories have been approved by the General Assembly and Britain continues to administer them under the supervision of the Trusteeship Council. In addition Britain provides the United Nations with certain technical information relating to economic, social and educational matters in her non-self-governing territories. Britain, thus, in colonial affairs encourages and participates in all forms of international co-operation at regional, commonwealth and world level, so that co-operation in the commonwealth need never necessarily be exclusive.