A.—sa

Number of Question on the Agenda. 16 The establishment of a permanent organization to deal with communications and transit questions falling within the sphere of the League under the Treaty of Versailles. 17 Tribunal for the settlement of differences referred to in Articles 336, 337, 376, and 386 of the Treaty of Versailles, and in corresponding articles of other treaties. 18 Passports for members of the Secretariat. 19 Economic and financial organization. 20 Claim of India to be. represented on the governing body of the International Labour Office. Committee No. 3. —Permanent Court of International Justice. 21 Plans for the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice. Committee No. 4. — Administrative and Financial Questions. 22 Report by the Secretary-General on the organization of the Secretariat. 23 The first and second Budgets of the League, covering the period to 31st December, 1920. 24 Provisional estimates for the 1921 Budget. 25 The future method of apportionment of the expenses of the League. Committee No. 5. —Admission of States. 26 Admission of States not named in the annex to the Covenant. Committee No. 6.—Armaments, Economic Weapon of the League, and Mandates. 27 Reduction of armaments. 28 Preparations required to enable the economic weapon of the League to be used in case of necessity. 29 Mandates ; responsibilities of the League arising from Article XXII of the Covenant. The applications for admission to the League received from Albania, Bulgaria, Austria, and Azerbaidjan after the provisional agenda had been printed wore referred to Committee No. 5, and three further subjects brought under the notice of the Assembly—i.e., the use of Spanish as an official language in the Assembly, the need of an international language, and the organization of intellectual labour—were referred to appropriate committees. On Tuesday, 16th November, the Assembly proceeded to discuss the organization of the committees. The proposal was made, and adopted after discussion, that each delegation should be represented on each committee by one of its delegates, and that each committee should elect its chairman, who would be one of the Vice-Presidents of the Assembly. In addition to these six VicePresidents it was resolved that there should be a further six elected by the Assembly itself. A matter which occupied the Assembly for some considerable time was the question to what extent the deliberations of the committees should be made public. Eventually a compromise was reached and the following resolution passed : " The committees shall keep a register of their deliberations, the minutes of which shall be published as soon as possible, and any member of the Assembly will be at liberty to consult such documents should he wish to do so." On the morning of Wednesday, 17th November, the Assembly proceeded to discuss the report submitted by the Secretary-General upon the work of the Council (Assembly Document No. 37), and this occupied part of its time at several subsequent meetings. Ido not propose to comment on the discussion, which will be found fully reported in the provisional verbatim records. On the afternoon of the 17th November the committees met in order to select their chairmen, and the result of the balloting showed the election of— The Right Hon. A. J. Balfour (Great Britain), Chairman of Committee No. 1. Monsieur T. Tittoni (Italy), Chairman of Committee No. 2. Monsieur L. Bourgeois (France), Chairman of Committee No. 3. Monsieur Quinones de Leon (Spain), Chairman of Committee No. 4. Monsieur Don Antonio Huneeus (Chile), Chairman of Committee No. 5. Monsieur Branting (Sweden), Chairman of Committee No. 6. On the following morning the Assembly proceeded to elect the six Vice-Presidents, who, with the Chairman of the committees, were to form the officers of the Assembly, aud the result of the voting was as follows Viscount Ishii (Japan). Monsieur Van Karnebeek (Holland). Monsieur Pueyrredon (Argentine Republic). Dr. Benes (Czecho-Slovakia). Sir George Foster (Canada). Monsieur Ottavio (Brazil). I being the sole delegate for New Zealand, there was naturally some difficulty in arranging for the Dominion being adequately represented on all the committees. I therefore endeavoured to meet the case by sitting myself on those committees appointed to deal with items which I thought would be of the greatest interest to New Zealand, and I therefore became a member of the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Committees, and subsequently of Committee No. 2. It was, of course, impossible for me to attend the meetings of all committees, for the reason that each committee met three times a week —the First, Second, and Third on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I, however, attended all the meetings of Committee No. 4, and nearly all those of Committee No. 2, and I arranged to be represented, when necessary, on the other committees for which I had submitted by name,

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