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favouring partition into an Arab State and a Jewish State with economic union, and the minority favouring a single federal State. Both reports provided for an international regime for the holy places in Palestine. When the General Assembly met in its regular session in September, 1947, the United Kingdom Government made it clear that they intended to relinquish the mandate and withdraw from Palestine. This announcement of an early withdrawal made it more than ever necessary that a solution should be found to the Palestine question. A special A.d Hoc Committee on Palestine was set up which, after hearing representatives of the Jewish Agency and the Arab Higher Committee and formulating detailed plans in sub-committee, rejected the plan for a unitary State and adopted the plan for partition with economic union. The New Zealand delegate, Sir Carl Berendsen, had consistently urged that the Assembly should be aware of the inevitable consequences of its adoption of a plan and should make provision in advance for dealing with the trouble which would follow hard upon the Assembly decision. As the proposals on which the A.d Hoc Committee voted did not contain adequate provision for enforcement, he accordingly abstained from voting. The partition plan, having been adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee, came back to the General Assembly, where it was approved by 33 votes to 13, with 10 abstentions, on 29 November. It was clear by this stage that there would be no response to the appeal for enforcement measures which the New Zealand delegate had made in Committee, and, since the alternative seemed to be no decision and chaos, in the full Assembly he recorded New Zealand's vote for the plan, making it clear, however, that it fell far short of what New Zealand considered necessary as far as provisions for enforcement were concerned. The representative of the United Kingdom announced that his Government would not obstruct the activities of the United Nations Commission which was to carry out the plan. The partition plan, which envisaged the division of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State with economic union between them, provided for a United Nations Commission which under the guidance of the Security Council would go to Palestine, establish the frontiers of Jewish and Arab States, establish in each State a Provisional Council of Government, take over powers of administration from the Mandatory, and transfer them to the Provisional Councils, who, after the Mandatory's withdrawal from Palestine, would hold elections for Constituent Assemblies in the respective States. The City of Jerusalem was to be established as a separate entity under a special international regime administered by the United Nations through its Trusteeship Council. i