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handicapped, and co-ordination of the activities of voluntary organizations, all of which are undertaken only on request) should be taken over. A vote taken on the general principle was carried unanimously. The sub-committee then discussed various amendments, and some criticism of the budget was voiced. However, it was agreed that decisions on finance were not within the competency of the sub-committee and that the Rapporteur's report should state that, in recommending that the Secretary-General be authorized to include in the estimates for 1947 the necessary funds for the performance of the programme, the sub-committee did not feel competent to vote on the estimates, believing that the Assembly could only act on financial matters on the advice of the Fifth Committee. The Secretary-General assured the sub-committee that he intended to present and justify his estimates before the Fifth Committee. Among the other amendments made to the original recommendation, it is worth noting that one provides that special emphasis shall be given to the needs of children. The report 1 as amended was adopted by the full Committee. There was an awareness that more than ever before the future of the world depends on how the children of to-day grow up with so many of the adults to-day broken and hardened and unfitted to rebuild it; and this was demonstrated when the sub-committee, and later the full Committee, approved with some amendment a draft resolution prepared by the Secretary-General at the instigation of the Economic and Social Council and the Director-General of UNRRA on the establishment of a Children's Fund. The sub-committee heard from the Rapporteur, Dr Rajchman, of Poland, a very complete and moving account of the needs of the children in devastated countries and of the work so envisaged. As the fund is to be a voluntary one, the New Zealand delegate, Mrs Mcintosh, asked for Dr Rajchman's speech to be printed and circulated. This fund, she said, could only succeed through the informed and practical sympathy of Governments, voluntary agencies, and the men and women of the world, and this brief but pithy account of things as they are could be used by those interested in evoking and keeping public sympathy in their various countries. This request was acceded to. In the course of the general debate which followed it became apparent that striking work along the lines contemplated has been, and is being, done by the Governments of the liberated countries for their own children and for the children of other countries. All delegates from such countries gave particulars of the conditions they are facing and spoke feelingly of the assistance given by neighbours, by New Zealand and other countries, by their own organizations and Governments, and by UNRRA. The New Zealand delegate put on formal record that " the Economic and Social Council might well keep the UNRRA situation as a whole under review, and recommend measures for assistance wherever possible, might indeed inherit and apply something
1 Document A/255.
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