67

Tokelau Islands, believing that there is nothing to be gained by withholding information which is public and which is indicative of the liberal policy of the Government towards island peoples under our jurisdiction. The Special Committee submitted to the Assembly four draft resolutions designed to perfect procedures for transmission and consideration of information. These resolutions reflected a compromise between the views of the administering and non-administering Powers within the Special Committee. The Soviet Union alone, of the sixteen members, dissented. In the Assembly the Soviet representative, with the support of the other Slav States, proposed that the Special Committee's powers should be enlarged to resemble more closely those of the Trusteeship Council, but this proposal was rejected. The Special Committee's resolutions were then adopted as follows : by the terms of these four resolutions the Secretary-General was empowered to compare the economic, social, and educational problems of non-self-governing territories with those of territories (including sovereign States) submitting statistical information; liaison was to be established between the Special Committee on the one hand and the Economic and Social Council and specialized agencies such as ILO and WHO on the other; and the Special Committee was reconstituted for 1949. New Zealand voted against two amendments proposing the permanent establishment of this important Committee, which is, in fact, still in an experimental stage, and the amendments were lost. Nonadministering members elected to the 1949 Special Committee were Brazil, China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, India, Soviet Union, Sweden, and Venezuela. The Assembly also adopted a fifth resolution (proposed by India) requesting the administering Powers which had ceased to send information to the Secretary-General on the grounds that a particular territory had achieved self-government to justify such change in status by reference to relevant constitutional changes. New Zealand abstained from voting on this resolution in committee, believing that the difficult task of defining a non-self-governing territory was not one which the General Assembly should attempt. 6. Administration and Finance (a) Budget The gross total of the 1949 budget adopted by the General Assembly is $43,487,128 ; the net figure on which Governments' contributions are based is $42,659,814, of which New Zealand's share is one half of 1 per cent.