The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-04-07
Trusteeship
RY ARTHUR KROCK

WASHINGTON, - II there were no otner
reason. an existing sharp division of opinion
within the United States Government over the
.Trusteeship'' formula would justify the forth
coming conferences in Washington (prior to
San Francisco among the Big Three and GER
tain other nations that held colonies and man.
dates before the war; Numerous discussions
between representatives of the State, War and
Navy Departments have failed to produce
united American acceptance of the formula
drafted by the first-named, and also it is
highly improbably any agreed American plan.
if achieved before San Francisco, would be
wholly satisfactory to the other Allied nations
chiefly interested.
Yet tr,1steeship plan for captured enemy
territory, for former mandates and for GER
tain colonial areas of the victorious peoples IN
on the agenda for the San Francisco Con-
ference and must somehow be dealt with.
To drop it from the docket, either before or
after the conference assemblies, as some high
American officials have proposed, would, in the
opinion of others, be a calamitous action It
would seem to rob the future of a hope sup
ported in the Atlantic Charter and other state
documents. 1t would further reduce the already
limited area of the conference. And it would
breed suspicion among small nations that the
great ones intend to expand the status quo
ante 1889 for their special benefit
Also, in this opinion, cancellation OF the
fluential groups in the United States and Great
Britain and cast another shadow over the con-
ference. This official group is as much opposed
to dropping consideration of the trusteeship
plan from the agenda of San Francisco as to
postponing the date of the conference itself
because of divisions of opinion among the
large powers on other issues and internal diff
ferences on those issues within the Govern
ments of these powers.
xI,
posed for adoption by the United States dele
cation and the San Francisco Conference, is
credited to Leo T. Pasvolsky, special assistant
to the Secretary-an official whose range of
power and influence is far greater than their
modest title suggests. Under its terms spe-
cial committee of the Assembly would provide
international administrative machinery for con-
quered enemy territory that will not be, or
has not been given to members of the United
Nations, for areas that were inundated to
enemy and other nations and for colonial pos
sessions which may be ceded to the interna-
tonal trusteeship by victorious powers. The
Atlantic Charter contains a pledge that its
signatories will "aggrandize" no territory as
result of the war, and will aid peoples 'for-
chilly deprived" of self-government to re-attain
it. The State Department plan is an attempt
to carry out this promise.
International trusteeship would, for example,
be assigned to the United States for some
Pacific islands on which Japan misused its
mandate and turned into military bases from
which to wage war against this country. The
United States would have full rights to estab-
lish bases and administer the civil affairs of
the population But it would be responsible to
the Assembly committee, and be required to
give full access to members of the new securi-
ty league and to assist the inhabitants to
independence.
Cinco these wi
be taken from japan by the American armed
forces, are of vast strategic Importance to
the future defense of the nation and have. in
sum, a small population largely incapable of
self-government, the War and Navy Depart
ments do not like the plan at all. They would
have such areas exempted from the trusteeship
as ''strategic.'' But this in the opinion of adj
vocates of the Pasvolsky plan would lead to
reservations Of other territory by other ma
tons until the non-aggrandizement plan of the
Atlantic Charter would become a mockery
and small nations would accuse the large Of
dividing the spoils of war as usual.
Several of the pre-war mandates have been
supplanted by independence in the Near East
of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, for instance,
where Great Britain and France were formerly
the Leagues governing agents Iran, of vital
interest and concern to Soviet Russia, is also
member of the United Nations, so that, I'M
less international trusteeships a more
agreeable name for mandates-are elsewhere
provided, these members of the victorious
Allies fear to find themselves poorer after
victory than before If the United States should
also stimulate the native peoples of Hong
Kong, Indo-China, India and Africa to apply
to the Assembly machinery for immediate
transfer from their colonial status, this fear
would begin to grow into a certainty.
For all these reasons the Pasvolsky formula
is having hard shedding both at home and
abroad. And as of today no Government, IN
cludinl that of the United States, is ready to
accept it as the Assembly blueprint for an
international trusteeship plan. Nevertheless,
the prevailing feeling here is that the subject
should remain on the San Francisco agenda,
even though the most that is done with 1t
there is to appoint "study'' committee with
out implied acceptance of any of its details
or principles this committee to report later y
But, for the same reasons, it is evident
that meeting in Washington prior to San
Francisco, by representatives of the nations
chiefly concerned, has become both the course
of wisdom and a necessity.-New York Times.
so THEY SAY