INTERNATIONAL CONTROL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 45, Issue 13752, 3 February 1919, Page 5

INTERNATIONAL CONTROL.

MANDATORY POWEES

,(Received Monday, at '8 a.m.)

LONDON, Saturday

Official: The disposal of the former German colonies and other enemy territories has not been finally settled.

A provisional agreement only has been reached, and even this is indefinite and liable to vital alteration, but it may be assumed that the InterAllied Conference has practically adopted the principle of international control by mandatories to be appointed by the League of Nations.

The mandatory Powers have not yet been selected, but it is safe to assume that New Zealand will be the man datory State for Samoa, South Africa for South-west and South-east Africa, and Japan for tho Pacific islands north of the Equator. The disposal of other territories is still undecided.

It has been reported that Australia rejected the provisional agreement. Such a report is misleading, for South Africa. Australia and New Zealand agreed to accept the mandatory principle, with certain vital reservations and safeguards, but the Australian delegate must contain the consent of his Government. This was the basis of the misleading report that Australia alone disagreed.

The reservations and safeguards stipulated for by the delegates concerned in the future of the African colonies, New Guinea and Samoa, provide for teh administration of each colony under the laws of the mandatory to which the colony may be attached, also for the prohibition of certain abuses and practices foreign to British policy, such as the slave trade, arms and liquor traffic, and prevention, of nnlitarv training of natives other than for policing the colony. With these safeguards the Pacific Dominions provisionally agree to mandat ory control, but the question is sf; 11 far from its final settlement.