Two new experiments in international cooperation, seldom publicized and very little known even to the specialist in international affairs, have been taking place in recent years in the Caribbean area and in the South Pacific. In each instance, colonial nations have established international organizations, advisory in character, to foster economic and social advance. Without political functions, these two organizations — the Caribbean Commission and the South Pacific Commission — have embarked on the task of raising standards of living and advancing the general welfare of the non-self-governing peoples of the area. The first of these, the Caribbean Commission, was the progenitor of the regional system and has served in large measure as a model for the later South Pacific Commission; the story of its development, with the participation first of two and later of four colonial governments, is therefore particularly interesting to follow.
1 Appendix I of the Report of the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission for the Years 1942–1943.
2 Report of the West Indian Conference in Barbados, 1944; see also United Kingdom Colonial Office Publication 187.
3 In 1948, preliminary to the third West Indian Conference, the Secretary of State for the Colonies issued a despatch which authorized the election of the non-official representative by the elected members of each territorial legislature. This change from an appointive to an elective procedure, although limited to one of the two delegates from the British territories, was hailed as a progressive and democratic step.
4 Appendix II of Memorandum on Significant Development in the Area in Relation to the First Session of the West Indian Conference, Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, 01 1946Google Scholar.
5 Report of the British Guiana and British Honduras Settlement Commission, Cmd. 7533.
6 Caribbean Commission, West Indian Conference, Third Session.
7 Appendix A of the Report of the Caribbean Commission for the Year 1946. See also International Organization, I, p. 251.
8 For a complete list see Appendix IV of the Report of the Caribbean Commission for the Year 1947.
9 See International Action and the Colonies, Fabian Publications, Ltd.