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India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Siam—-and, with modified status, Ceylon, Hongkong, Indonesia, the Republic of Indonesia, Malaya, Nepal, Laos, and Cambodia. The third session of the Commission (June, 1948) was held at Ootacamund (India) and the fourth session (November-December, 1948) at Lapstone, Australia. A Committee of the Whole Commission met at Bangkok from 28 March to 5 April, 1949. Reconstruction in the Far East has been hampered by the underdeveloped character of the Asian economies and by political disturbances in almost all countries of the region. These factors have been reflected in the Commission's work: in particular, the absence of basic statistical data has made, it difficult to grapple with economic problems, while the politically disturbed nature of the area has resulted in long and bitter debate in the Commission on questions of membership, chiefly concerning Indonesia. The Commission's terms of reference provide that only countries responsible for their own international relations may submit applications for membership. When, at the second session, the Republic of Indonesia submitted an application for associate membership (associate members have full rights of participation except the right to vote in plenary session, only members of the United Nations being entitled to full membership), the Netherlands, though admittedly not in de facto control of the area administered by tfce Republican Government, maintained that the Netherlands was responsible for the international relations of Indonesia as a whole and submitted an application for. associate membership of the whole area. As no compromise seemed possible, the question was twice postponed after long and acrimonious controversy. At the fourth session the New Zealand delegate suggested that it seemed possible to provide for representation of the area without attempting to judge the political situation in Indonesia; this was desirable in order to facilitate the work of the Commission, which should be devoting its serious attention to urgent economic problems and not be sidetracked to such a disproportionate extent by political issues. A New Zealand resolution to admit both the Republic of Indonesia and the rest of Indonesia as associate members was subsequently adopted. The Commission has approached its substantive worth by setting up fact-finding bodies, notably a Working Party on Industrial Development (consisting of four members, with sixteen expert consultants), a joint ECAFE-FAO Working Party on Agricultural Requisites, and a Study Group on Financial Measures to Facilitate Trade (on which New Zealand was represented by the New Zealand Trade Representative in Tokyo). In addition, expert consultants have