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Fifth Session of the Preparatory Commission, held in London from 5-12 July, the New Zealand Government presented general observations on the necessity of creating centralized information services; the provision of technical advisers, who could be attached for a period tot National Commissions; the building-up of an international library of educational films, film strips, slides, charts, &c., of approved standard, the preparation of catalogues of such material, and the organization of schemes for supply or exchange; the investigation of economic and political obstacles to free trade in educational and cultural materials; the investigation of existing and projected arrangements for the exchange of personnel at all levels with a view to a wide extension of such arrangements; and the organization of circulating exhibitions of art, craft, and science. In addition, New Zealand made more specific recommendations on three matters not already covered by other countries — (1) It suggested that UNESCO should publish a year-book on education to fill the serious gap created when the only existing year-books ceased publication at the beginning of the war. (2) It proposed a fairly detailed scheme for an international review of school text-books in order to discourage the publication of biased text-books in history, geography, and civics, without, however, attempting any form of international censorship. (A scheme closely resembling the New Zealand proposal was finally adopted by the General Conference, and will be mentioned again later in this report.) (3) It; put forward a scheme " for the use of the cinema as an instrument of world understanding, while at the same time protecting and developing the best elements of national culture which are contained in each country's films." The details of this scheme are too lengthy for inclusion here, but the programme finally adopted by the Conference covers much of it. THE NEW ZEALAND UNESCO INTERIM COMMITTEE The Constitution of UNESCO makes provision for the setting-up in each Member State of a National Commission, which is to be broadly representative of the Government and of bodies interested in educational, scientific, and cultural matters. You will recall that, in the opinion of the Government, it would have been unwise to have made binding decisions about the Constitution and functions of a National Commission for New Zealand before the first General Conference of UNESCO had taken place, or, indeed, before the reports of the New Zealand delegates to that Conference had been received and discussed. In September, 1946, however, the

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