Shifting Sands

Last week stout Ernie Bevin, His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, walked ponderously up to the UNO rostrum and made a limited but specific speech that started a new deal for dependencies.

UNO delegates are not afraid to applaud their favorites, and Bevin is one of them. There were cheers when he said Britain was ready to put her mandates of Tanganyika, Togoland and the Cameroons under UNO trusteeship. There were still longer cheers, led by the sheiks of Saudi Arabia, when he promised early independence to Trans-Jordan, whose Indiana-sized expanse includes mud, lifeless desert and the Dead Sea. The Emir Abdullah was at once invited to London to implement the deal.

Belgium, Australia and New Zealand promptly offered their mandates to UNO. Belgium would give her small, densely-settled, mid-African mandate of Ruanda-Urundi, where police see that every native (except the pygmies) keeps at least 1 1/4 acres under cultivation. Australia would turn over phosphate-rich Nauru, New Guinea and neighboring islands. New Zealand was ready to relinquish mountainous, copra-producing Western Samoa.

Only France and South Africa held back. Foreign Minister Georges Bidault merely said France was "prepared to study" trusteeship terms for her slices of Togoland and the Cameroons (rubber, cocoa, palm oil). With Gallic eloquence, he painted a picture of French colonial idealism and native happiness that was somewhat at variance with the facts. Forced labor and high taxes actually caused natives to flee by tens of thousands.

South African Delegate G. Heaton Nicholls claimed that South-West Africa was too much a part of his country's economy to be put under UNO. Far from being ready to turn over any territory, South Africans want to expand by taking in neighboring British colonies. They are not likely to get their wish; British belief and evidence is that the natives Whitehall rules are immeasurably better off than those under South African control.

From Palestine to Korea, plenty of trusteeship problems still reared their awkward heads. But UNO had at least edged into one of the toughest problems San Francisco had bequeathed it--and the start was hopeful. The British, who have long smarted under catcalls of "Imperialism!" felt less defensive. They had cleared their decks, on mandates at least.

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