GERMAN COLONIES

Taranaki Daily News, 6 February 1919, Page 5

GERMAN COLONIES

A SATISFACTORY COMPROMISE THE POSITION REVIEWED. Received Feb. S, 5.5 p.m. London, Feb. 4. The official provisional agreement in respect to the disposal of enemy territory in the Pacific and Middle East is generally regarded as a satisfactory compromise in the circumstances. The British overseas delegates were not hostile to the principle of trustee control under the league of nations, but were opposed to a blind committal of vital interests to unknown machinery, also to the principle of the open door to all nations, possibly including ultimately their present enemies. This view was widely endorsed by prominent British and French authorities and press opinion intimate with the real facts of the proposals and discussions. It can be fairly claimed that the Dominions delegates secured prudent safeguards and concessions compared with the original proposals. The position now is that the Allied and associated Powers are absolutely opposed to the restoration of the Germany colonies to Germany, in order to remove the menace to the freedom and security of all nations. Further, regarding Turkish territory, owing to the historic misgovernment of the smbject peoples and the terrible massacres in recent years, the Allies have agreed that Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Arabia shall be completely severed from the Turkish Empire and that the tutelage of such peoples shall bo entrusted to advanced nations, who, because of their resources, experience, and position, are best able to undertake the responsibility of trust on behalf of the league of nations until the subject peoples are capable of standing alone under the stress of modern conditions. Then as regards Central Africa, conditions will be provided guaranteeing the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, arms and liquor traffic, and militarising the natives, except for the police and defence. A special arrangement was made in respect of South-West Africa, New Guinea and Samoa, which will be administered in trust. There is one common principle of mandatory control, but these colonies will be under the laws of their mandatory state or trustees, who will be respectively South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand; but as regards the other German colonies, France will probably accept a mandate for Togoland and the Cameroons, and Britain or India for East Africa. No mandatories have yet been selected for Turkish territories, but it is likely Britain will exercise trust in the territories their forces now occupy with France in northern Syria and Africa and in Armenia, but the whole question of mandatories is yet to be decided. —Aus. N.Z. Cable Assoc.