4 INTELLECTUAL COOPERATION IN WAR-TIME AND PLANS ... 385this and like the rest of the conference, they too assumed that the fate of
peoples living in colonial situations could no longer be treated as a con-
cern of the colonial powers alone: the ‘watching world’ had an interest in
their destiny.^134
Nonetheless, although the representatives of Britain, Fighting France
and the Netherlands-Netherlands Indies at the conference were more
than willing to accept the view that the colonial powers ‘owed a moral
obligation to the rest of the world to account for their stewardship’
and the view that this obligation might be discharged via some form
of international supervision, they were not willing to countenance the
idea of international administration of the colonial areas in the Pacific
region.^135 The reasons given for their rejection of the idea of interna-
tional administration encompassed the following: that it would be
impractical, that is, an international administrative authority would lack
the requisite experience and knowledge; that it was doubtful whether
any of the subject peoples would favour sovereignty over them being
transferred from a national to an international authority given the dis-
ruption that that might entail; and that it was unnecessary given that the
colonial administrations of the major colonial powers in the region were
already governed by the moral criteria that inspired calls for international
administration.^136
Many members expressed unhappiness with Churchill’s qualifications
in respect to the Atlantic Charter and thought it was a matter of urgency
that the British government, preferably in the form of Churchill himself,
clarify the question of the charter’s applicability to India. Without such a
clarification one member argued, the United Nations, and in particular
the Chinese and Americans, would continue to entertain suspicions that
the British were not sincere in their promise that India would have the
fullest self-determination after the war.^137
(^134) Astor, foreword to International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, War and
Peace in the Pacific, iv, and International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, ed., War
and Peace in the Pacific, 54.
(^135) Astor, foreword to International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, War and
Peace in the Pacific, iv, and International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, War and
Peace in the Pacific, 52, 56.
(^136) International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, War and Peace in the Pacific,
56.
(^137) Ibid., 66, 119, 123.