77. Mr. President, first may I congratulate you upon your elevation, by acclamation, to the high post of President of this Assembly. This honour is a most appropriate recognition of your reputation and accomplishments within this Organization and of the liveliness, the vigour and the sense of purpose which the new States of Africa have brought to the United Nations. I should like also to express our appreciation to Mr. Sosa Rodriguez of Venezuela, for the excellence of the standards he set in presiding ever the eighteenth session.
78. It is, moreover, a source of pride and pleasure to a fellow member of the Commonwealth that this session has admitted three new Commonwealth States, Malawi, Malta and Zambia, to membership. I congratulate all three upon this international recognition of their independent nationhood, and extend to them the best wishes of the Government and people of New Zealand for a peaceful and increasingly prosperous future.
79. This year we are faced with one of those searching moments which, perhaps fortunately, occur but rarely in international relations. For years this hall has echoed with comfortable rhetoric in praise of our Organization. For years we have at critical moments been able to take refuge in generalities, evasive compromises or forms of words meaning all things to all men. Now we are suddenly required to declare ourselves on our deepest and most inward attitude to the United Nations. Without possibility of equivocation, we must now separate ourselves into those who want a strong United Nations and those who want a weak one. No disguise is possible. Our actions here at this session will proclaim far louder than our speeches how we really view the Organization to which we have pledged ourselves.
80. No one can be in any doubt. This is not merely a peace-keeping crisis. This is not just a financial crisis. It is a crisis of the future of the United Nations: a test of what we really want of international co-operation. There are no watertight compartments. Weaker powers of finance and peace-keeping mean a weaker United Nations. A retreat or loss of resolve at this session cannot but strike a severe blow at the powers and prestige of the Organization itself. The result must be a weakening and falling away of United Nations endeavour in all fields, from decolonization to development.
81. New Zealand was fully conscious in 1945 that not security itself, but the way to security lay in the Charter drawn up at San Francisco. We believe that the development of the United Nations during the past nineteen years has taken us some significant distance along that way. And we believe that, if such progress has been made, it has been based on the determination of Member States — of most Member States — to develop the possibilities latent in the Organization set up in 1945 and on their refusal to see the United Nations as a static concept.
82. In the area of the Organization’s prime concern, the maintenance of international peace and security, the Charter itself, as negotiated at San Francisco, was and remains an imperfect document. This is due in part to what New Zealand at the time regarded as a failure to give adequate expression to the positive aim of collective resistance to every act of aggression against any Member State. It is due also, and more excusably, to the fact that it was not possible, at San Francisco, to see the transition which would take place to what Mr. Stevenson has so aptly characterized as our present era of "cease-fire and peaceful change".
83. It was even less possible to make specific provision for the kind of peace-keeping operation which typifies this new situation. These operations, undertaken not to impose a view but to preserve peaceful conditions at the request or with the consent of the host State or States, are something quite different from the enforcement measures to which alone the Charter specifically refers. It is only if this simple fact is kept in mind that the basic weakness of the Soviet Union’s case is realized. Then it is seen that the issue is not one of constitutional or unconstitutional acts, but simply this: is it our will that the United Nations, consonant with its responsibilities, should develop every useful technique?
84. It is the belief of my delegation that United Nations peace-keeping forces have become an essential means of action and have taken their place among the tools available to the Organization for the carrying out of its purposes. I believe that such a peace-keeping mission is exactly what world public opinion expects of the United Nations. It certainly corresponds to the hopes which the New Zealand Government and people have consistently placed in the Organization.
85. It is for this reason that New Zealand has supported the peace-keeping operations of the Organization by its vote, by financial contributions (including voluntary donations) to back its vote, and by readiness to participate if requested. It is because we believe that the United Nations deserves the full support of its Members, discharging the responsibility which falls on them collectively, that we have made available, at the request of the Secretary-General, a civilian police force unit for service with the United Nations force in Cyprus. This unit will remain available for a further period on the island should the Security Council decide to extend once more the mandate of the force.
86. It is because we believe that the United Nations should be guaranteeed the means of speedy and decisive action that my Government recently informed the Secretary-General of its decision, in principle, to designate a stand-by unit, to be drawn from the armed services or civilian police, for service in future properly instituted peace-keeping operations of the Organization.
87. It is because we believe that the effectiveness of United Nations peace-keeping operations can only be enhanced by more thorough preparation that New Zealand gladly participated in the recent technical meeting held in Ottawa for an exchange of experience on past operations — a meeting held at the invitation of the Canadian Government, which has made so notable a contribution in this field. It is for the same reason that my delegation is prepared to give firm support to the Secretary-General’s suggestion that a competent United Nations organ might be authorized to study means of ensuring better, more efficient and more economical peace-keeping operations.
88. Peace-keeping operations such as those carried out in the Middle East, in the Congo and in Cyprus are soundly based on certain provisions of the Charter, as the International Court of Justice has convincingly demonstrated. They are an outstanding example of the Organization’s capacity to evolve, within the framework of its basic document, new procedures for meeting the demands placed on it by an evolving and expanding international community. Nevertheless, my delegation shares the view, put forward at the opening of this debate by the representative of Brazil [1289th meeting] that the time has come when we should consider the inclusion in the Charter of a new chapter making explicit what has been pragmatically developed on the basis of certain provisions of that basic document.
89. It would be essential to such an exercise, however, that agreement should be reached on methods of financing such operations. Since they may be considered to have become a normal modus operandi of the Organization, their financing cannot be allowed to continue on the haphazard basis which has shown such capacity for harm to the Organization. Basic to any settlement on this subject must be the principle that the responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security is one which must be discharged wisely and borne and shared by all Powers, great and small, in a measure to be agreed with proper regard to the capacity of each Member State.
90. A settlement allotting future responsibilities, and involving a proper balance of rights and obligations, would be incomplete, indeed, if a settlement were not made of past obligations. There is not only a pressing need to restore the financial equilibrium of the Organization, and thus remove the restriction placed on its ability to meet fresh demands; there is also a moral problem: what faith can we have in future arrangements if certain Members have been able to show that it is possible to refuse payment of just and proper dues? What faith can we have, indeed, in any undertaking if one so clear as that contained in Article 17 of the Charter is not honoured, even when its full applicability in the particular circumstances has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice? We must be conscious that ability to exercise a financial veto may be as damaging in circumscribing the healthy development of the United Nations as the veto constitutionally exercised in the Security Council.
91. But it is not enough that the Organization should have the ability to mount operations to keep the peace and enforce Security Council decisions. It must also be able to have confidence in the will of its Member States to implement their Charter undertakings. The evolution of the United Nations can be measured in terms not only of its own capacity to, act, but also of the extent to which its Member States feel bound to abide by the principles which it asserts.
92. Respect for national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of all Member States are cornerstones of the United Nations system. The Charter lays down a code of international behaviour which, from the experience the world has derived in this century, is the best prescription that we have for the preservation of peace. It is therefore a source of deep concern to New Zealand, as a South Pacific nation, that the Charter has been flouted, openly, by another Member State in a region adjacent to us. The past two years have seen the growth of a lawless doctrine propounded by one Member State that every form of pressure, including the use of force — admitted openly in the Security Council — may be a justifiable instrument of policy to bring about the dismemberment and collapse of another Member State.
93. It is profoundly disturbing that such an assertion could be made, as though Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter was an obligation to be waived at will, when it has been demonstrated on numerous occasions —one of them a report by United Nations representatives, endorsed by the Secretary-General [see A/5801, pp. 27 and 28] — that the Malaysian Government has the support of a majority of its citizens. When we consider the principles on which the United Nations is based, there are very serious implications for all nations, particularly the smaller nations, in the policy of confrontation — a policy which flaunts the label of "crush Malaysia" — which Indonesia continues to pursue.
94. But when the question came before the United Nations, upon the complaint of Malaysia, the voice of the great majority of Members, through their elected representatives in the Security Council — all save one — and the permanent members of the Security Council — all save one — made clear their support for a resolution establishing the justice of Malaysia's cause [1152nd meeting].
95. I raised this question not only as an illustration of the need for respect for the basic principles upon which the Organization was founded, but because the real tragedy of the situation is that it benefits no one, least of all Indonesia. The so-called policy of confrontation embitters relations among nations, arrests urgently needed economic development, undermines the stability of a large part of a subcontinent, damages the livelihood of millions of private citizens who would prefer to live at peace with their neighbours, and could create a precedent which could threaten the peace in many parts of the world.
96. From the time when Indonesia achieved its independence in 1949, relations between our two countries have been characterized by a singular cordiality. When we voice our support for a peaceful solution to the problem of confrontation, we do so in what we believe to be the best interests of all concerned. The use or threat of force can achieve nothing. If there are differences to be resolved, these can only be resolved by peaceful means and through negotiation and conciliation.
97. The proposal that an African-Asian commission should be established with the responsibility to reach a settlement is one which commends itself to us as a sound basis for permanent settlement. But most important, it is a proposal which has been accepted by both Malaysia and Indonesia. There is only one obstacle to further progress, and that is the failure of the Indonesian Government to accent the one condition rightly laid down by Malaysia, namely, that Indonesia should cease all acts of hostility. This is not a condition which places onerous burdens on Indonesia. It prejudges no issue to be discussed subsequently. It is no more than any sovereign State could or would expect before entering negotiations. It calls for nothing more than a return to observance of the obligations of the Charter.
98. We urge the Indonesian Government, therefore, to reconsider its policy and turn back from the policy of armed intervention which it is now pursuing. The interests of both parties and of the whole area — but also, to return to my theme, the broader interests of the United Nations itself — demand that Indonesia and Malaysia should compose their differences and that Indonesia should respect the independence and territory of Malaysia.
99. I have dwelt at some length on the central theme of peace and security laid down in the Charter, on the peace-keeping operations which derive from this over-all purpose and on a particular and related problem which at present deeply concerns us. I now turn to two other principal activities of the Organization-economic development and decolonization. As I do so I am reminded of the wise observation of Mr. Paul Martin of Canada: "World peace and world prosperity... are closely linked together. A climate of world peace is indispensable if the struggle against poverty, hunger and disease is to be waged effectively and with the full mobilization of all the resources at our command" [1294th meeting].
100. The capacity for evolution of the United Nations, the dynamic approach, has been evident in the economic and social field, as it has been in the field of peace and security. All fields of United Nations work are interdependent, and it seems obvious that if the dynamic approach were to be rejected in the central area of the Organization's concern — peace-keeping — the consequences would spread throughout its structure.
101. The Development Decade, the expression in the economic field of the dynamic approach to the United Nations, rightly emphasizes the co-operative endeavour needed to make the best use of the world's resources, and especially to reinforce the efforts of those countries which have been late in starting along the road of economic development. Older and wealthier countries can do much to supplement action taken by less fortunate countries to achieve more rapid rates of growth; but all countries, whatever their position in the long scale of development, are able to contribute to the aims of the decade.
102. The determination to enhance the, economic growth of the world has found its most recent expression in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development held at Geneva this year. Provision has been made for a further evolution of the United Nations, so that it can tackle more effectively those economic problems which hold back the development of great areas of the world.
103. Priority must be given to solutions which will bring relief to countries afflicted by poverty and economic stagnation. It is the intention of the New Zealand Government to co-operate with others in ensuring that the United Nations economic activities bear fruit. We want to see the new machinery proposed by the conference used to promote solutions which correspond to the facts of a complex and interrelated world economy.
104. One of the United Nations greatest roles since its foundation has been as the guarantor and guardian of the right of self-determination of all peoples. Its success in this respect has been spectacular.
105. New Zealand long ago placed its faith in cooperation with the United Nations as the most effective instrument for a speedy and orderly decolonization. At San Francisco we strove to strengthen this concept in the Charter. In 1960, we voted for the declaration on colonialism [resolution 1514 (XV)] as a reaffirmation of the inherent right to self-determination which is implicit in the Charter.
106. In accordance with that declaration, we have continued and intensified the development of those Pacific Island Territories for whose administration New Zealand has been responsible. In January 1962, the Trust Territory of Western Samoa became a sovereign independent nation. The fifteen small islands of the Cook Group posed a different problem — not as to their right of self-determination, but as to the form that would take. The elected representatives of their 20,000 people weighed all the alternatives, and decided upon full self-government coupled with a freely chosen association with New Zealand. A constitution drafted along those lines, giving the Cook Islanders sole power to alter their future status as they think fit, will be submitted to the electors ai a general election next year; and for the other islands of Niue and the Tokelaus, even smaller and more remote, the same guarantees of early self-determination have been proclaimed.
107. New Zealand has taken some pride in pioneering the application of United Nations principles to the situation of small and scattered islands. It has cooperated closely with the Committee of Twenty-Four in examining the practical means by which a genuine self-determination can be brought about. But one of the problems of small communities is their size. None of us can fail to recognize that the special problems of many Territories now remaining in dependency go beyond size and isolation to touch the very fundamentals of nationhood.
108. When a multiplicity of languages and peoples have been grouped by history within the boundaries of one territory, when age-old isolation and suspicions have not yet been fused into a sense of community — in these circumstances it is not simply a question of offering the means of self-determination. A common national purpose and a national consensus have first to be created. As we recognize the need for urgency in implementing the declaration, we also must recognize the creation first of a sense of community. To do otherwise is not merely to raise more problems than are solved: it is a betrayal of our commitment under the declaration to offer real self-determination to all dependent peoples.
109. There is another class of dependent Territories whose problems are much more saddening because they lie much deeper. I mean those Territories whose advance is bedevilled by racial distrust. The declaration on colonialism applies to those people as much as to others. Yet such Territories cannot fruitfully be treated as simple problems of decolonization. They raise the whole complex and increasingly dangerous issue of race.
110. This issue is one which is now directly engaging the attention of this Organization. It is one which fully engages the interest of New Zealand as a multiracial society, conscious of the difficulties which multiracial societies may confront, but conscious also of the benefits which the harmonious development of a multiracial people may confer on all its members.
111. I have said that we are a multiracial society. Our goal is to become a non-racial society. We have moved towards that goal, but we have not reached it. We are grappling with some of the problems which face so many members of the United Nations. We do not claim to have solved them. Indeed, we shall look for guidance to the results of responsible and constructive discussion of race questions within this Organization. But if we do not claim to have answers, we do claim to have some knowledge, based on our own considerable experience.
112. We know that policies designed to eliminate discrimination must concern themselves with far more than just the law. To clear discriminatory provisions from the statute books may not be a difficult task; to clear away the prejudices from which discriminatory practices spring may be an undertaking of vastly greater difficulty and broader scope.
113. We are familiar with the paradox that the speediest way to eliminate discrimination against a minority racial group may be, for a temporary period, to discriminate in their favour. This we do in New Zealand in the case of our Maori people, particularly in the field of education. We are very well aware that, if efforts such as these are to succeed, the authorities who make them must have and retain the goodwill and have the support of the entire community. Special provision for education or guaranteed representation in Parliament may be entirely beneficial measures. Yet they may fail if their intent is misunderstood. They may even be repugnant if they are felt to diminish the dignity of the people to whom they are directed.
114. These are questions which warrant the most sober and serious examination. They affect us all, for racial discrimination is not just a problem for any one region or grouping in the world. And their discussion will be the more beneficial as the issues are squarely faced.
115. I come now to another most important question: that of disarmament. The Charter is relatively silent on this subject. Yet few issues so awaken the expectations of the peoples of the world, not least in my own country. The role of the United Nations in this respect is not an exclusive one, even though for many smaller countries it provides a unique opportunity to bring their views to bear on these momentous issues. But it is well to have very clearly in mind that the ability of the United Nations to shape and influence the really important decisions, which can be taken only by those primarily responsible, will in large measure depend on the character which we, the Member States, will henceforth wish the Organization to bear.
116. The part which the Assembly itself seems best equipped to play has perhaps been best demonstrated by its consideration of the question of nuclear testing. On this, more than on any other aspect of the complex which can loosely be labelled disarmament questions, it has acted as a representative of world opinion, translating the fears and anxieties felt in all countries; translating also the view that, perhaps more than any other, the complete cessation of nuclear testing, under effective guarantees, would be a step which could give the confidence needed to move closer to measures of real disarmament.
117. The partial test ban treaty has been signed by more than 100 Governments and de facto regimes, and ratified by many. For most, it is an act of moral significance, although it contains the very real undertaking not to encourage or in any way participate in the carrying out of a test explosion. But it is encouraging that this measure of self-restraint has been entered into by a number of countries which; themselves have the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, and to those countries our gratitude for their courageous attitude is extended.
118. But two shadows are cast over this question. They are two reasons why my delegation believes firmly that the Assembly must continue to devote its close attention to it, and I am confident that it will.
119. The first is the explosion of a nuclear device by mainland China. We know, as my Prime Minister stated at the time, that possession of nuclear weapons by Communist China will neither immediately affect the world balance of power nor, more specifically, the military situation in South-East Asia; that there is a vast difference between a first test and achieving even a limited nuclear capability. But this Assembly cannot ignore the fact that this explosion is a deliberate violation of clearly expressed world opinion, justified in the most cynical terms. It cannot ignore the fact that it greatly increases the risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons. And once again, in this connexion, we have reason to welcome the restraint which the Government of India has shown to date in adhering to its stated policy, when its capacity to take similar action is well known. It would be incongruous, indeed, and would weaken the moral force attaching to its stand on the whole matter of nuclear testing, if this Assembly were not to record at the appropriate moment how deeply it deplores this Chinese act.
120. It is with regret that I refer to the second object of New Zealand's concern. Last year, both in the general debate and in the First Committee, the leader of the New Zealand delegation drew the attention of the Assembly to the preparations being made by France to conduct nuclear test explosions In our own South Pacific area. Concern within my country, long and consistently expressed about all nuclear tests, particularly those carried out in the Pacific, is only heightened by the fact that these preparations continue unabated. They continue in spite of the protests which the New Zealand Government and others, with regret, have felt obliged to make. I say with regret, because we are conscious of the extent of our friendship and co-operation with France in other fields. They continue in spite of the call made last year by this Assembly to all countries to become parties to the partial test ban treaty and to abide by its spirit and provisions [resolution 1910 (XVIII)].
121. Elaborate safety precautions, the assurance is given, will be planned. Careful scientific study of meteorological and other phenomena is being conducted. The presence of French populations close at hand is pointed out. There has been comfort in the view taken by New Zealand scientists that, given care, good meteorological advice and patience, an agency conducting nuclear tests in French Polynesia should be able to avoid significant contamination of inhabited islands by early fall-out; that any increase in inherited disease in the Cook Islands — only some 1,200 miles from the prospective scene of the explosions — and in New Zealand itself which might be attributable to fall-out from the proposed tests would be statistically undetectable. All that may be granted.
122. The fact remains that any test series must contribute to an increase in world radiation levels, and that it may well be that more than one series is contemplated. The fact remains that there must always be the possibility of accident or miscalculation, with resultant dangers to the Polynesian peoples of the area with whom New Zealanders have ties of kinship, and in whose welfare and future the United Nations has shown a close interest.
123. The fact remains also that such test explosions may weaken the restraint on others, less responsible perhaps than we know France to be and, unlike France, not already having a nuclear capability, not to engage upon their own programme of nuclear weapons development. This prospect, this most alarming prospect, that it may not prove possible to hold the nuclear club to its present membership, is one, indeed, to which my delegation believes the Assembly at its present session should and will wish to pay urgent attention. My delegation, for its part, is fully prepared to join in efforts which may be initiated at this session to take constructive steps to further the objective of a non-dissemination agreement as contemplated by resolution 1665 (XVI), adopted by the Assembly in 1961 upon the proposal of Ireland.
124. I conclude by saying that New Zealand has, from the outset, looked upon the United Nations as an instrument for peace and progress. But if it is to be an instrument adapted to the tasks which it is set in all its areas of concern, it is essential that the Organization should be able to develop in a gradual and orderly manner, within the limits of a forward-looking implementation of its Charter, and with the willing consent of a broadly based majority of its membership.
125. We have always envisaged that it should so develop, in both its practice and its structure, and we have given consistent support to this process, It is for this reason, to cite one instance, that New Zealand promptly ratified the amendments to the Charter necessary to implement the decision taken by the General Assembly at its eighteenth session to increase the size of the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council [resolutions 1991 B (XVIII)], an increase proposed — on a pattern which in our view was, and remains, very fair to all — principally by the newer Members which had been under-represented in the governing bodies.
126. The whole process of change and adaptation is, in our view, a necessary one. Where there is a broad consensus, it has been shown that the Organization is able to develop in directions which could not be foreseen in 1945. My delegation believes that it is the view of the overwhelming majority of Member States, and particularly the smaller and middle Powers, that this should be so.
127. The present session will put this belief on our part to the acid test, I repeat: this is a crisis of the United Nations. Weaker powers of finance and peace- keeping mean a weaker United Nations in all its fields. I repeat: we must now separate ourselves into those who want a strong United Nations and those who want a weak one. I repeat: our actions here at this session will proclaim far louder than our speeches how we in our hearts view the Organization to which we have pledged ourselves.