of Togoland and the Cameroons; by Australia in respect of New Guinea; by the United Kingdom in respect of Tanganyika and those parts of Togoland and the Cameroons formerly under mandate to Great Britain ; and by Belgium in respect of Ruanda-Urundi. After further consultations in New York the draft agreement for Western Samoa was submitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 28 October. In his speech in the opening general debate at the Assembly, Sir Carl Berendsen referred to New Zealand's responsibility for the administration of Western Samoa for the past thirty-two years, which had been marked by considerable political development, and particularly by a very rapid increase in the Samoan population. He pledged New Zealand to co-operate with the Trusteeship Council in such a spirit as to seek wider benefits than could be yielded even from the best written agreement, and he made it plain that, in the view of New Zealand, the trusteeship system was not devised in the interests of the administering authority or of the other members of the United Nations, but that the welfare of the inhabitants should be the principal concern. Meetings of the Fourth (Trusteeship) Committee of the Assembly commenced on 1 November. Its agenda comprised the following items : 1. Trusteeship, and particularly the trusteeship agreements (of which eight had now been submitted for approval). 2. Non-self-governing territories generally (as distinct from trust territories). 3. A submission by South Africa of the result of consultations with the people of the mandated territories of South-west Africa on the question of the future status of that territory. 4. A proposal by the Philippines for convening a conference of non-self-governing peoples. After a general debate these items were allocated between twa sub-committees —the first was responsible for the examination of the draft trusteeship agreements and also for consideration of the interpretation of the phrase " States directly concerned," and the second for consideration of the remaining three items. Sir Carl Berendsen took the opportunity afforded by this debate to supplement his statement to the Assembly concerning the New Zealand attitude to trusteeship. He said that no government of dependent people could be so good that supervision and examination could not improve it, and this the New Zealand Government welcomed and desired. He repeated that the interests of the inhabitants must be the paramount consideration of every administering authority and that the trusteeship agreement should be regarded as, in effect, a Charter of Human Rights for the inhabitants. He explained shortly something Of the Samoan way of life, and the particular problems of the territory,

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