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New Zealand was represented by Miss McPhee. The Committee set out to review the rules of procedure adopted at the Paris Conference. Its report will be referred to member States for consideration before the next General Conference. General Committee. —This was the steering Committee of the Conference, and was composed of the President, Vice-Presidents, and the Chairmen of Commissions and Committees. Dr Beeby was a member. The main discussions of the Conference were planned to take place in the two Commissions— A. The Programme and Budget Commission. (Chairman : Dr C. E. Beeby (New Zealand) ). Since the leader of the New Zealand delegation was elected Chairman of this Commission, it was necessary for one of the other delegates always to be present as a voting member. A Budget Sub-Commission was set up under the chairmanship of Dr J. C. Kielstra (Netherlands). B. The Administrative and 'External delations Commission. (Chairman : Dr Han Lih-Wu (China)) Miss McPhee represented New Zealand. This organization of Commissions caused some serious initial complications for the Conference. The Administrative and External Relations Commission had a lengthy but limited task, and its worst delays resulted from the difficulty of securing a quorum due to the number of meetings running concurrently. The Programme and Budget Commission for the first few days threatened to break down entirely under the complexity of the work assigned to it. A brief statement of its procedural problems may serve as a guide to future delegations and will also illustrate some of the fundamental difficulties of the whole Organization. At the First General Conference in Paris, programme and budget were dealt with by two different Commissions, with the result that the correspondence between programme projects and budget items was largely illusory. To make matters worse, the real work of the Programme Commission was done in six sub-commissions, each dealing with a separate field of activity. Groups of specialists tended to get together in a sub-commission, without the restraining influence of less enthusiastic outsiders, and to present to the Commission a fully developed plan, which might have no relation to the plans of other sub-commissions, but which no layman had the temerity at that stage to challenge seriously.
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