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135. In other ways the Committee recommended considerable improve- ments in UNESCO's publishing and public relations work; by widening the range of languages in which its publications are issued; by issuing a Monthly Bulletin which should serve as an official gazette or journal officiel; by pro- ducing a Handbook of National Commissions; by introducing new features of popular interest in the Courier and by intensifying efforts to promote its circulation and sale; by summoning a small conference of newspaper editors and proprietors in the hope of increasing their interest and enlisting their advice in the public relations work of UNESCO and finally by the develop. ment of a panel of qualified lecturers. Reference should also be made to the Conference resolution on the translation, distribution and sale of UNESCO documents and publications in languages other than the work- ing languages which authorised the use of an appropriation of $20,000 to facilitate the printing of translations of certain UNESCO publications in Arabic in 1949. .

136. Although in its four meetings the Committee of Fifteen performed certain very necessary tasks, the United Kingdom Delegation consider that they might equally well have been remitted to the Official and External Relations Commission and the Administrative Commission. It doubts there- fore whether it will be found necessary or desirable to repeat the experiment of such a tripartite Committee in future conferences.

7. OTHER RESOLUTIONS OF THE GENERAL

CONFERENCE

137. Introduction. Apart from the resolutions which the Conference adopted on the reports of its various Commissions, Sub-Commissions and Committees, a number of other decisions were taken, many of them impor- tant, by the Conference sitting in plenary session. These are recorded fully in the official proceedings of the Conference. We wish now to draw attention only to the few which appear to us to require additional comment.

138. Admission of New Members to UNESCO.-At the opening of the Conference there were forty-four Member States in UNESCO. During the Conference, Switzerland announced that its Government, already a member of the United Nations Organisation, had agreed to ratify the Constitution of UNESCO, thus bringing the membership to forty-five. Since the end of the Conference, Siam formally joined the Organisation on 1st January, 1949. A list of the Member States of UNESCO is given in Appendix III.

139. As already reported in paragraphs 110-112, the Conference, judging that Monaco, however small, was a sovereign state in its own right and that it had a national contribution to make towards education, science and culture, voted unanimously to admit Monaco as a full member of the Organisation.

140. Election of New Members of the Executive Board.-Six members of the Board retired during the Conference in accordance with the principles of the Constitution. They were all re-elected with the exception of Dr. Jan Opocensky (Czechoslovakia) who declined re-election. In his place, the General Conference, on the recommendation of the Nominations Committee, elected Count Stefano Jacini (Italy).

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141. Two other members were elected to fill vacancies, M. Roger Seydoux (France) in plaegg of Profess88Auger (France), resigned for the one year's unexpired term of Professor Auger's period of office, and Dr. Guillemo Nanetti (Colombia) for the two years' unexpired term of office of Dr. Benjamin Carrion (Ecuador) who had resigned owing to pressure of other duties. A complete list of members of the Executive Board is given in Appendix IV.

142. The Conference was presented with an unusual candidature of a member of an absent Delegation. Shortly before the elections to the vacant places on the Board, a telegram was received from Prague stating that the Czechoslovak Government had constituted a Delegation which, however, would be unable to attend the Conference and asking that its leader, Dr. Hofmeister, should be accepted as the Czechoslovak candidate for election. The matter was referred to the Credentials Committee who agreed that the credentials could be accepted from which it followed that Dr. Hofmeister qualified as a candidate under Article V of the Constitution.

He was accordingly proposed for election but was unsuccessful.

143. Fourth and Fifth Sessions of the General Conference.—The United Kingdom Delegation to the Extraordinary Session of the General Conference on 15th September, 1948, announced that H.M. Government would urge that annual conferences, beginning with the Fourth Session, should be reduced every other year to short business conferences held in Paris, and that a full Conference in another centre should occur once in two years. instead of annually as at present. The reason for this change in present practice was to save the time and expense incurred by moving large numbers of the Secretariat away from their work in Paris together with Delegations from Member States.

144. At the same time it was recommended that the time of the year in which the General Conference should meet should be changed from the last half to the first half of each year in order to make it easier for persons in academic life to attend and to adjust UNESCO's activities more closely with those of the United Nations.

145. Submitted again to the Third Session these proposals were adopted. It was agreed that the Fourth Session of the Conference should be a short business Conference to be held in Paris in the early autumn of 1949. The change in the date was postponed until the following year for which the Italian Delegation generously invited the Fifth Session of the Conference to meet in Florence in the spring of 1950. Although the Third Session could not finally commit the Fourth Session to accept this offer (because the Constitution reserves the power of determining the site of the next con- ference to the immediately preceding Conference), it nevertheless recom- mended provisional acceptance.

146. Delegates were unwilling to omit from the business Conferences all matters likely to arouse public interest and the Conference accordingly resolved that a discussion on one or more general subjects of popular appeal should be planned and that eminent personalities should be asked to attend the Fourth Session.

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