Ireland

As Chairman of the delegation of Ireland, making my first statement in the Assembly under the Presidency of Mr. Boland, it gives me very particular pleasure, to express my delegation's deep satisfaction that the choice of the Assembly should have fallen on him. My delegation, with the long experience it has of his high abilities, is entirely confident that he will preside over our debates with impartiality, courtesy, and firmness and that the Assembly will have, as bur discussions continue, ever-growing confirmation of the wisdom of its choice. May I say to him, in the words of an Irish greeting to a man engaged on a particularly difficult task, "Bail o Dhia ar an obair" — God bless the work. 63. The seventeen new Members which we are proud to welcome here at this Session have joined us at a moment of crisis in the Organization and, perhaps, at a turning-point in world history. The history of the United Nations is indeed not lacking in crises, but the present one, more than any of those which have preceded it, except possibly the Korean crisis, calls into question the very existence of the United Nations as a functioning international body. 64. That question — the possibility that, should we fail here to act in a sufficiently enlightened and responsible fashion, the United Nations may not survive — is one that should be constantly present in our minds as a chastening influence on our emotions, words and deeds. We should ask ourselves, I suggest, what would our situation be if the United Nations were to break down or to become paralyzed. What form would the cold war then take? Would it not be likely to develop into what are described sometimes too airily as "brush fire wars" — wars which, though confined in space, may none the less become appalling national tragedies, like the Spanish war of 1936-1939 in which domestic antagonisms drew in the far greater destructive forces of foreign intervention on both sides? The prelude to the Spanish tragedy had been a catastrophic decline in the prestige and influence of the League of Nations. The sequel was the Second World War. 65. The present crisis and the future of the Organization are closely related to the governing currents of our times, of the mid-twentieth century — the cold war and the widening of freedom. By the widening of freedom I mean, of course, the emergence into independent national life of vast areas, mainly in Asia and Africa, formerly subject to foreign States. The interaction of these great currents, which we feel so directly here in the Assembly, will be decisive for the future of humanity. This is not to say that we are necessarily to be the sport of blind forces altogether beyond our control. On the contrary, man's mind and spirit have always sought to dominate and control the elemental forces both of nature itself and, what is much more difficult, of man's own nature. The nation State itself represents a significant victory over these forces. The tendencies to anarchy and violence, already held in check within the territories of most nation States still have a stronghold, however, in the international field. 66. The supreme task of the United Nations is to control those forces in that field by a gradual process similar to that by which the nation States successfully brought them under control within national territories. To do so it must learn to handle — it has indeed made considerable progress in learning to handle — the two great forces in the world situation of which I have spoken, the cold war and the widening of freedom. I believe that nothing is more important for our deliberations here than that we should rise above polemics and reach a correct understanding of the political interaction of the cold war and the widening of freedom. 67 . As delegations are aware, an important aspect of the cold war is the intense competition — carried on by diplomacy, by propaganda and sometimes by economic and military aid — between two sets of great Powers with radically different political systems, for the support of independent nations and peoples, especially in Asia and Africa. The competition in itself is natural and healthy, at least to the extent that it is a substitute for real war. It is, in fact, a result of the nuclear stalemate, the situation in which great Power groups find themselves estopped, through fear of self-destruction, from using their wealth of destructive power in the pursuit of policy. It is beneficial to the extent to which it tends to inculcate respect for the rights of small nations and for the aspirations of emerging peoples. 68. The competition between the great Powers for the favour of world opinion has been one of the great forces which have brought about the freedom of the many new Member States which we have welcomed here. It will, I believe, help in the future to bring still other nations — and I do not refer here exclusively to those which are usually labelled as colonial — towards independence. Furthermore, even in territories now under alien control, the cold war with the unrelenting criticism which it brings to bear can sometimes have a restraining influence on the controlling Power. 69. At the same time, the competition of the cold war does carry with it the most appalling burdens and dangers. It is a truism that the tremendous sums now being spent on armaments could, if they were devoted instead to a global war on poverty, transform the conditions of human life. But the actual cost of the arms race, staggering as it is, is small in comparison with its potential cost. The intense competition between the Powers in a particular area is always in danger, through miscalculation on the part of one great Power or another, or on the part of local factions championed by them, of slipping into armed conflict leading to a variant of the Spanish tragedy, or even beyond that into the universal and final tragedy of nuclear war. 70. If that is to, be avoided, we submit, two sets of conditions must be fulfilled. Since it is quite unrealistic to suppose that the cold war will vanish from the scene in the near future, we should like to appeal to the protagonists in that high competition to conduct it with a degree of caution and restraint proportionate to the dangers involved. We would appeal to them to take certain steps as safety measures in our common interest, and to the smaller countries to co-operate with them in these precautions. 71. The first step is, I suggest, to control the incidence of flash points, to stop the development of situations in which the nuclear powers might become too deeply involved and from which they could not retreat without loss of prestige. The Congo (Leopoldville) is an example of such a situation which has so far been kept under control — thanks, let me say, to the good sense displayed by the Security Council and the co-operating Powers, to the hard work and skill of the Secretary-General and his staff, and to the loyalty and exemplary conduct of the United Nations soldiers engaged in this historic action. 72. Our second step towards this end is, I suggest, to contain the nuclear weapon and stop its spread to further countries. Every addition to the list of countries possessing nuclear weapons increases the danger of their use for defence, for aggression, for revenge or for revolution. My delegation will introduce a draft resolution at this session suggesting methods for restricting the spread of these weapons of indiscriminate destruction. 73. If we have the good fortune to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to prevent the development of further flash points, we may have time; before the present balance of terror can be upset by the scientists, to adopt the third safety measure, to turn the critical areas of tension in the world into peaceful areas of law. By an area of law I mean a specific region or zone in which the neighbouring States would agree to limit their arms below "blitzkrieg" level, to exclude foreign troops from their territories and to accept supervision by the United Nations of the fulfilment of these conditions. In this way there could be gradually built up, throughout the world, an expanding network of areas in which our Charter pledges would be supported by tangible and effective guarantees — areas in which neighbouring peoples would be definitely committed to seek change and settle disputes by peaceful means alone. 74. At previous sessions of the Assembly my delegation suggested the establishment of such areas of law in the Middle East and in Central Europe. Members of the Assembly who heard these suggestions may remember that they were put forward not as a final solution for the problem of world peace, but as a step towards the gradual attainment of a universal rule of law interpreted and enforced by organs of the United Nations. The same consideration would apply, of course, to any extension of the same principle. I believe that another great region which could benefit enormously from constituting itself, and being accepted as, an area of law is central Africa. This is a theme to which, with the Assembly’s permission, I shall return later. 75. So far I have spoken mainly in terms of what, it seems to me, the rank and file delegations in the Assembly are entitled to look for from the great Powers who are the chief participants in the cold war. I do not think it is unduly presumptuous on our part to express such an appeal, for we smaller countries — the independent countries, the uncommitted countries, call us what you will — it is we who really form the stake in this great struggle. It is surely not amiss on our part, therefore, to state our views on the standard of conduct which is likely to win our confidence and support. The best way for the great Powers to win our confidence and support is by proving themselves loyal Members of the United Nations, and it is our right and interest to make that clear to them. 76. I do not wish to claim, however, that the sole responsibility for preserving the peace, and the sole guilt if it is not preserved, rest on the shoulders of the great Powers. On the contrary, in recent times the weaker countries have come to bear a greater degree of responsibility for peace or war than ever before. That is, of course, an aspect of the cold war. The great Powers — direct conflict between them being almost unthinkable because of the mutual nuclear deterrent — have become more sensitive than ever before to the attitudes of smaller countries. All the reactions of every such country, particularly their votes and statements in this Assembly, are scanned as sensitive indices of the state of world opinion, of what one might call the "score" in the global contest. It may in some ways be gratifying for small countries to find themselves in that position. It may, if we all use our new-found influence wisely, bring us considerable benefit. But it may also, if by bad judgement we should abuse our influence over the balance of power, lead to the destruction of us all. 77. Small nations are not always wiser or better than large ones — however much we may sometimes be tempted to think so — but in the past when large States committed crimes or follies the consequences were normally more vast and startling than those flowing from similar acts of smaller States. We, the recently emerged nations who form nearly half of this Assembly, carry now, however, such a tremendous collective responsibility that if we should err seriously, the consequences might well be as disastrous as those of any error committed by a great Power. Either subservience or recklessness on our part in the present crisis could destroy this Organization and with it our independence. We have to resist the temptation to seek selfish and short-term advantage in great Power competition, and also the temptation to requite past injustices by exploiting the opportunities offered by the cold war. 78. We have, in short, to discipline ourselves as loyal and practical supporters of this Organization. For if, through the collapse of the United Nations, the world were to return completely to the law of the jungle, many of the independent nations represented here might not survive. The United Nations is the best guarantee of our freedom and independence; for many it also offers the best hope of disinterested help in the economic and technical development of which they stand in such urgent need. Fortunately there are convincing signs that the great majority of the smaller nations possess not only independence of judgement but also a sense of responsibility and an appreciation of the vital importance to them of this Organization. These qualities were, I think, magnificently reflected in the fourth emergency special session of the Assembly and, in particular, in the resolution [1474 (ES-IV)] adopted at that session on the proposal of the African and Asian countries, and carried without a dissentient vote, the resolution supporting the continuation of the United Nations action in the Congo (Leopoldville). 79. Our deliberations here this year are dominated — spectacularly dominated sometimes — by the interplay of the cold war and by the other great current of which I have spoken: the widening of freedom, often called the liquidation of colonialism. I speak in this debate for the only Western European country which has had experience, not just of temporary occupation, but of a long historic epoch of foreign rule and of resistance to that rule. We know what imperialism is and what resistance to it involves. We do not hear with indifference the voices of those spokesmen of African and Asian countries who passionately champion the right to independence of the millions who are still, unfortunately, under foreign rule. On the contrary, those voices strike an answering chord in every Irish heart. More than eighty years ago the then leader of the Irish nation, Charles Stewart Parnell, proclaimed the principle that "the cause of nationality is sacred, in Asia and Africa as in Ireland". That is still a basic principle of our political thinking in Ireland today, as it was with those of my generation who felt impelled to assert in arms the right of our country to self-determination and Independence. 80. I hope I may be forgiven if at this point I introduce a personal note, and also say something of my own country’s past. I do so not at all in order to revive past bitterness, but so that our attitude to the present crisis and our total and unequivocal support of this Organization against disruption may be, understood against their historical background. 81. In 1913 I became a volunteer in our national revolutionary army. We had few weapons. We armed ourselves largely with the weapons we captured. We fought elections as well as guerrilla battles until we established our government, with the active support of three-fourths of our people. And that revolutionary government was, of course, refused official recognition. Although one of the Fourteen Points proclaimed the right of small nations to self-determination, our delegates were turned from the door of the Paris Peace Conference in 1921. We had no international forum to appeal to, no United Nations to support our struggle for freedom. In the end, our Parliament accepted a settlement, for four-fifths of our country, which was regarded by all as provisional. Although we have evolved peacefully into complete independence for the greater, part of our country, we have not yet managed to restore the unity of Ireland. We have every hope, however, that national unity will be restored, in the best interests of all concerned, through the steady growth of good will and understanding. 82. In our struggle for freedom in this century we were not, I am happy to say, without active friends abroad — here in the United States and in other parts of the world, and not least in the United Kingdom itself. We owed much to the growing enlightenment of the British political conscience, which in recent years has culminated in the granting of independence to many former colonies and in the extension to them of generous economic and other help. This attitude is a far cry from the days in which tens of thousands of Irish people were sold as slaves in Barbados along with the peoples of Africa, or when they were forcibly exiled to Australia, or left to die by the millions. We have laid aside bitterness regarding those old dark days. But we necessarily retain a historical memory of them, a memory which gives us a sense of brotherhood with the newly emerging peoples of today, a memory which makes it impossible for any representative of Ireland to withhold support for racial, religious, national or economic rights in any part of the world, in South Africa or Tibet, in Algeria or Korea, in Suez or Hungary. We stand unequivocally for the swift and orderly ending of colonial rule and other forms of foreign domination. 83. I should like, on behalf of Ireland, to warn other anti-colonialist countries present here against the propaganda which attempts to represent the United Nations as providing in some way a mask for imperialist intervention. The United Nations is on the contrary a body in which the small nations have an influence such as they have never before possessed in their history: an influence quite out of proportion to their material power and resources; an influence, moreover, which will disappear if this Organization should fail. As a representative of one small nation addressing the representatives of others I would say, adapting the words of the Secretary-General, that this is in a very special sense our Organization. It is both our duty and our interest to rally to its defence when it is attacked. If smaller Powers are to be effective in building a better world order, they must, at whatever short-term inconvenience to themselves, support the Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, no matter where or by whom they may be violated, 84. Some fervent anti-colonialists are inclined, I think, to take the United Nations and their own say in it rather too much for granted and to ignore what an achievement it is from their point of view — how important and at the same time how fragile. Against the background of our own fight for recognition, we view with admiration — and almost with incredulity — this Organization, where every struggling people has its vigorous champions in the Assembly, where petitioners are heard in the Fourth Committee, and where the representatives of many subject nations work for their cause in our corridors under the sponsorship of friendly delegations. Who in this situation, and having in mind past resolutions of the General Assembly and decisions of the Security Council, can seriously maintain that, if we remain loyal to it, this Organization is, or can be made, a tool of imperialism? For my part I find it much easier to understand the view of those who see, and fear, in this Organization an agent for the liquidation of imperialism in all parts of the world. 85. The theory that the United Nations acts as a cover for imperialism is not a spontaneous product of the national liberation movements. It is a product of the cold war working on those national liberation movements. My first reaction always when I hear a great Power encouraging small nations to violence is to question its motives. The supreme interest of small Powers is to reduce violence and to extend the principle of peaceful settlement. The cold war does indeed in many ways exacerbate national claims — in origin perfectly legitimate claims — to the point that they may risk endangering, by their excess, the actual national interests of the countries concerned. 86. For example, one distinguished speaker in our general debate asserted the right to confiscate foreign investments without compensation. Such claims, of course, appeal to deep emotions of resentment at the harsh conditions which too often accompanied the investment of foreign capital in the less developed countries. But it is vital that the emerging countries today should not be blinded by such resentments — which cold war propaganda inevitably exploits — to their real present-day interests. One of these basic interests is the need to attract foreign investments — as indeed the United States did in the nineteenth century — without political strings. A sovereign State has, of course, the right and the duty to see to it that such investment takes place under proper conditions — that its workers are not exploited or its resources pillaged. But if it seriously asserts a claim to confiscation of foreign investments without compensation, then it will receive no commercial foreign investments at all, and one of three things will happen. Either its resources will be left under-developed, or they will be developed at the cost of heavy and sustained hardship and sacrifice on the part of the people concerned, as happened in the Soviet Union, or they will be developed by foreign State investment prompted by political motives and involving serious dangers for the independence of the emerging county. 87. It is very easy for newly emerging nations, or nations which have passed through a national revolution, to be drawn into the cold war. Indeed, they may be drawn into the cold war whether they like it or not. The important thing is that they should remain capable of controlling their destinies and not forfeit the reality of their independence. That it is possible to do this has been shown by the leaders of several nations which, at one time or another, seemed hopelessly involved in the cold war but have since demonstrated their capacity for preserving their independence. Friends of such nations would help them best, I believe, by an effort at patience and understanding and by preserving carefully the distinction between genuine national revolutionary movements and the disciplined centralized international system which seeks to take advantage of such national revolutions. 88. I am far from claiming that the struggle against imperialism, even against the older kind of imperialism, is over. On the contrary, one of the most vital tasks of this Organization is to try to ensure swift and orderly transition towards a new world of free nations. We must help this transition to take place without endangering peace. That this task will be fraught with great difficulty the still menacing crisis in the Congo (Leopoldville) is there to remind us. That crisis is one which touches us all — which has indeed touched my own country, very remote from the area and its problems. It has touched us in Ireland — and the fact is significant — because we are Members of this Organization. We were proud to contribute, at the request of the Secretary-General, an Irish contingent to the United Nations Force in the Congo. We are proud that Irish soldiers are serving side by side with soldiers from Ghana and from Guinea, from Sweden, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Morocco and other lands, in this great international operation designed to help a people, the Congolese, whose wrongs and sufferings — -the dark background to the present crisis — were first made known to the world by a great Irishman, Roger Casement. 89. We very much regret that a proposal was made in this debate to place restriction on the Secretary-General's discretion in the choice of troops to serve in the Congo. In the absence of a directly recruited standing United Nations force, the utmost flexibility of choice should be maintained. I submit that the sole tests for troops for United Nations operations should be loyalty to the Charter and suitability for the job on hand. 90. It is true, of course, that the United Nations Force in the Congo, essential as it is at present, is a purely temporary expedient. Eventually the Congolese will have to work out their own destiny. What that destiny will be cannot be considered in isolation. It is part of the destiny of the latest great region of the world to achieve freedom — central Africa. Central Africa from the Sahara to the Congo, is in dire need of concentrating all its energy and talent on the development of its resources for the benefit of its people. It has been said here that we must not allow it to be Balkanized. But if by Balkanization we mean divided into a large number of sovereign States, let us face the fact that, owing to a history which it now is vain to regret, it has been Balkanized. What is in our power to do, however, is to prevent the repetition in central Africa of the unfortunate history of the Balkans and, indeed, the history of Europe — the history of near perpetual warfare in which resources of men and material were wasted in mutual destruction. 91. The countries of Africa for generations to come will need all their resources to build up the standard of living of their peoples. Outsiders cannot develop these great resources. That is and must remain the sole responsibility of Africans. The carefully thought out plan outlined here [886th meeting] by the distinguished representative of Morocco, Prince Moulay Hassan, will, I am sure, be attentively studied by all the African States. As Prince Moulay Hassan rightly indicated, the problem is primarily for the African States themselves. Outsiders, however, can and should help Africans to help themselves, as proposed to the Assembly [868th meeting] by President Eisenhower in his inspiring and constructive address the other day. Outsiders should help Africans to develop all their rich resources to produce what makes for the good life — should help them to avoid repeating in Africa the bitter conflicts which have characterized the history of Europe and other parts of the world. 92. My suggestion is that central Africa, through negotiations between Africans, should become an area of law in the sense in which I used that phrase before: that agreement should be arrived at between the nations concerned not to change existing boundaries, or settle disputes, by force. Such an agreement might also, we would hope, provide that, as President Nkrumah in his speech before the Assembly [869th meeting] so wisely suggested, nuclear weapons — and for myself I would add other means of mass destruction — should not be introduced to the area; that military forces should be limited to what is required for the maintenance of internal order; that no outside force, except United Nations forces at the request of the countries concerned, should be admitted to the area and that the United Nations, with the concurrence of the major Powers, should be requested to supervise and guarantee the maintenance of the agreement. Such an approach seems to be in harmony with the present-day aspirations of the African peoples. It is our earnest hope that if agreement on some such lines is achieved by African States it will be respected and supported by all other Powers. 93. The crisis in the Congo is one where a people, having suddenly achieved independence, is confronted with the problem of preserving that independence and making it effective. Many of the political problems before us, however, arise where people are still denied their liberty or where their human rights and dignity are not respected. I have mentioned several of these problems earlier in my remarks. On all these problems our views will be governed by definite principles from which we will not diverge for the benefit of any group of Powers. We stand for the self-determination of peoples, against all violations of human rights and human freedom. We stand for moderation and prudence in the conduct of international relations in the light of the overwhelming dangers which beset all humanity irrespective of our differences. We stand for this Organization as our best hope of surviving and successfully adjusting ourselves to the strains both of the cold war and of the widening of freedom. We stand firmly in support of the office of Secretary-General as an office which, under the Charter, provides the means of effective implementation of the Organization's decisions, 94. No triumvirate or committee could replace the Secretary-General for this purpose. A decision to abolish the office of Secretary-General would therefore be tantamount to the disruption of this Organization. And as the Prime Minister of New Zealand pointed out [886th meeting], it would be a breach of the Charter. As regards the present holder of this office of Secretary-General, I can only say that we are fortunate indeed to have as Secretary-General a man who, by his wisdom, impartiality, devotion to duty and loyalty to the principles of the United Nations has earned the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the Members of this Organization — and has deserved the confidence of all. The support of the Assembly for the office and the man has been confirmed by the spokesmen of many independent countries here — and notably in the remarkable address which we have just heard from the Foreign Minister of Iraq. During Mr. Hammarskjold's period of office the United Nations has shown itself an unprecedented instrument of action by the world community in defence of the peace. That instrument is the most precious thing we possess in common. Let us maintain it intact and learn to use it with increasing skill and sureness.