Abstract
MB. BALDWIN'S statement on the future of the mandated territories under Great Britain in the House of Commons on April 27 no doubt went as far as it is possible to go in the conditions which, as he explained, govern the allocation of these areas and their peoples. Ultimately, consent to any proposed transfer rests with the Council of the League of Nations. While Mr. Baldwin's assurance not only that the question of a transfer of mandated territory to another Power had not been under consideration by the British Government, but also that no decision or proposal would be made without full discussion by Parliament, may in some measure allay the growing feeling of anxiety, his statement was not such as to give absolute confidence to those who fear that the wishes of the inhabitants of the mandated territories, and more especially the indigenous inhabitants, will not be consulted. The case for Tanganyika and that for South-West Africa are being argued with no little point, because of the weighty European and South African interests involved; but for those who appreciate the efforts which are being made in such territories as Togoland and the Cameroons, for example, or in New Guinea, to advance the interests and status of the native in the light, more or less as the case may be, of a scientific approach to the problems of administration, too little is heard of their even stronger claims to consideration. Any change in such territories would be little short of disastrous. The same applies in almost an equal degree to the mandated territories in Africa under France and Belgium, where, whatever may be our opinion of the suitability of the measures adopted, they have at least been framed with the advantage of the native as their primary objective.
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Mandates. Nature 137, 732 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137732a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137732a0