The Assembly will not expect me at this time to follow in any detail the subject which the representative of Syria has just discussed with such passion and erudition. I have no doubt that a detailed examination will occur more than once before each of us returns home.
It is usual, on such an occasion, to make a survey of the work done during the current year. I propose, however, to make this very brief, primarily because it has been done so admirably by so many representatives. I am not going to contend that my Government is in any sense satisfied with the work discharged by the United Nations in the last year. I think, however, that it is only proper in assessing the limited success of the United Nations to note certain points which in any circumstances would militate against success.
In the first place, it is proper to remember that the United Nations has grown in a rapid and even in an impetuous manner. We shall at the appropriate time — through my colleague, Mr. Kenneth Younger, in the Administrative and Budgetary Committee — offer some detailed observations on the growth of the Organization and its appetite for money.
Like everyone else, I want, however, most warmly to pay tribute, on behalf of my Government, to the range of work which the Organization is undertaking under the direction of Mr. Trygve Lie, our Secretary-General. Some of the work should not have been undertaken. Most often, let us admit it, this has been the fault of the Members of the United Nations and of delegations such as my own. Where this has occurred, we must admit our mistakes and cut down the burden of work which we have imposed upon the Secretariat. We shall have to decide priorities and adhere to them.
On the other hand, as everyone who has studied the valuable survey produced by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions must admit, there seem to have been unjustifiable extensions of the Secretariat,, and sometimes work has been undertaken in an extravagant and not very efficient manner. I think, too, it must be admitted that Governments have not always been helpful. They have not in all cases given personnel of the calibre such as the Secretary-General was entitled to expect. I have no doubt, however, that we shall recover from our mistakes, and I want to say here that, whatever cuts my Government feels that it must propose, we are in no way retiring from the full support we have given to the United Nations. Our proposals will be as much influenced by our determination to make the United Nations as effective as possible as by our own temporarily straitened circumstances.
The rapidity of the growth of the Organization and the diversity of tasks entrusted to the United Nations are, I repeat, without parallel. The League of Nations was not asked at the beginning to shoulder a commensurate burden. We must therefore expect to find some comparative inefficiency in the operation of the Organization. Moreover, public opinion, quite understandably, has been too optimistic about the possibilities of this Organization and about the ease with which international problems could be solved. The fact that not only has progress not been in proportion to this unjustifiable expectation, but there has been a deterioration in international relations, has caused a reaction of disappointment and despondency, which is again, I think, quite disproportionate.
Moreover, the complexity and range of our world problems are without precedent. We have been forced to deal not only with the legacies of the war, but also with economic and political problems which challenge the foundations of contemporary society. In the Middle East and the Far East we are seeing a growth, such as we saw in nineteenth century Europe, of strong nationalist movements. They aim understandably at obtaining independence, and they aim, too, at creating new economic relations. Again, therefore, the United Nations has a background which the League of Nations did not have in a comparative degree.
One might have expected that the biggest advance in the work of the United Nations would have been shown in the area in which the Economic and Social Council operates. Again it is unfair and dangerous to underestimate what the Council has done, and I agree most warmly with Mr. Masaryk in emphasizing the importance of this work.
I must, however, associate myself with Mr. Evatt in his fears that we are creating an elaborate harness and forgetting about purchasing a horse. The Members again are partially to blame. My Government, and I as its representative, must accept a share of responsibility. We have rushed ahead to create some commissions which, in the present circumstances, we could well have done without. The Social Commission, for example, has been a great disappointment. Its work is, unfortunately, thoroughly indifferent in character. Nor can anyone be much cheered by the work so far achieved by the Commission on the Status of Women.
Even in areas where we had the right to expect better results, such as the Economic and Employment Commission, our hopes are tempered. I think that much of the dissatisfaction here is due, as I have already attempted to state in the Economic and Social Council, to the fact that political considerations have entered into the Commissions where the technicians and economists should have been encouraged to work, altogether apart from the political obsessions of the individual members. It is still possible to remedy this fault.
Of course, the political and public disappointment with the United Nations has primarily grown from the slow paralysis which the world has been forced to watch creeping over the Security Council; There have been, it is true, some positive developments of the Council to which it is proper to draw attention. The despatch, despite the USSR abstention on certain clauses of the resolution, of a commission to Greece to investigate the cause of the frontier trouble was a distinctive international event. It could have proved a most encouraging example of the help which the United Nations ought to be able to put at the disposal of any nation, but particularly a small nation, in temporary distress.
Even if the resolution recently adopted, which recommended a cease-fire between the Indonesians and the Dutch, and the subsequent appointment of the Committee of Three, does not provide a solution to this problem, it is to the credit of the Security Council that, even temporarily, the two sides have been spared the further ravages of war, and an opportunity for conciliation has been provided.
When I have said that, however, it is almost all that one can say in praise of the Security Council. It is true that some progress has been achieved in the Atomic Energy and Conventional Armaments Commissions, and I shall deal later in some detail with this. Let me refer, in passing, to the question of new admissions, although a number of our colleagues, and particularly our Syrian colleague, have already dealt faithfully with the subject.
The United Kingdom is naturally interested. We are interested in a number of countries for the best reason, because we think their claims are good. Let me mention only one. Can anyone possibly justify the rejection of Eire as a Member of the United Nations? Mr. Evatt, and our distinguished colleague from El Salvador, have both discussed this. Here is a reputable and stable Government whose relations with Members of this Organization are good and cordial. It is, above all, a peaceful nation, seeking by legitimate means to improve, at all times, its relationships with Powers similarly stable and legal. There is not one argument in equity that can be offered against its admission. It is a matter of more than regret to my Government that the question of new admissions, instead of being dealt with in the spirit of the debate and of the two resolutions of the General Assembly of last year, has once more threatened to become the subject of obnoxious horsetrading. This is a wholly unjustifiable disregard of the spirit of the Charter. It is therefore not at all surprising that the work of the Security Council should have driven Powers to consider if, within the Charter, they could find any other instrument through which world opinion could be registered.
As the Assembly is aware, my Government thought that this question of working an untried institution like the Security Council could be aided by what we called a code of conduct. By this code of conduct we hoped to make the Security Council the place where it was possible for a country to obtain decisions based on an assessment of the facts and a sense of justice, having at all times a steady regard for the purposes of the Council and the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.
To that end my Secretary of State, Mr. Ernest Bevin, last year asked the five permanent members of the Security Council to meet in the hope that we could among ourselves secure an understanding, clarifying and unifying our actions, because it was quite clear that within the terms of the Charter and in terms of our position in the world we had special duties as well as special lights, and that we should not seek to avoid the duties and at the same time maintain our title to these rights. I regret, as the whole Assembly must regret, that we failed in this attempt.
Let us look at one or two of the results of that failure. Last year there was a most melancholy incident now known as the “Corfu Incident”. First our ships, moving through the Corfu Channel, were fired upon. The old reply would have been to fire back. Our commanders kept their heads. There was no precipitate action. That was in May. Then in October two of our ships in the Corfu Channel were mined and badly damaged. Forty-four men who were pursuing their lawful occasions were lulled and others were wounded. We acted in. the spirit of the Charter and submitted our case to the Security Council. There we temperately pleaded our cause. There we established the facts. We had the Council with us, as we had world opinion with us. Yet the veto was exercised in the Council, preventing the Council from taking action, preventing a formal expression of opinion on the merits of the case by the members of the Council. We are glad that the question now goes to the International Court of Justice. But from our point of view that is perhaps the worst abuse of the veto in the Security Council, though other nations would, no doubt, offer other examples equally or comparably grievous.
For example, we are all aware of the circumstances which have led the United States to place the Greek question on the agenda of the Assembly, and how the USSR representative in the Security Council, despite the opinion of the majority of the Balkan Commission and of the Council itself, vetoed a United States resolution to establish a commission of conciliation and investigation in the hope of ending what all delegations, including the Soviet Union delegation, agreed in regarding as a threat to peace. On that occasion the veto was motivated by a desire to brand the Greek Government with responsibility for the misdeeds of its neighbours.
In the case of Spain in 1946 — Mr. Masaryk made a good and proper and pointed reference to Spain — the USSR representative preferred to see the Council impotent rather than allow it to pass a resolution which he judged insufficiently strong. In the case of the Syrian and Lebanese complaint earlier in the same year about the presence of foreign troops, a similar impasse would have been reached had not France and the United Kingdom bowed to the evident wish of a majority of the Council and withdrawn their troops, despite the Soviet Union veto,
It is therefore not to be wondered at that the United Kingdom, in view of its failure to get agreement among the five permanent members of the Security Council last year and of the events which have occurred since, is not sanguine about the possibility of reaching fresh agreements in any attempts to deal with this problem until the five permanent members have all determined to live up to their responsibilities and to observe, each of them, a proper code of conduct.
None the less, the United Kingdom will try any method that the Assembly believes is likely to make the United Nations work and will examine any proposals offered in order to see whether, by the use of the proposed methods, world opinion can be mobilized for work in the cause of peace.
We therefore readily understand and welcome this new effort on the part of the United States to reach a solution of the difficulties. I should make it plain that my Government had no foreknowledge of the proposals and that we were not consulted in their formulation. In view of the situation produced by the obviously arbitrary use of the veto during the past two years, and the absence of any indication that that attitude will not be persisted in — any indication at all of a change in attitude — we believe that there is a real need for extending the United Nations machinery for crystallizing world opinion. But we must all admit, and I think our United States colleague will agree, that there must be no question of contravening the provisions of the Charter or of depriving any of the organs of the United Nations of their proper functions. Indeed, all we ask is that these functions should be properly discharged. My Government therefore hopes that the appropriate committee and the Assembly will give the fullest consideration to the proposals offered by the United States for an Interim Committee.
The basis of our problem, as Mr. Bidault said in his most accomplished speech, is that instead of having arbitrators in the Security Council, we have had parties to the disputes, and the problem which concerns everyone at this Assembly is how we are to tackle these disputes which lie between us, threatening the Organization, delaying world recovery, throwing persistent and menacing shadows over our uneasy peace, visiting upon millions of common people hunger, poverty, disease, persecution, anguish and fear.
Several speakers, including our Polish colleague, have referred to the unity of the nations who fought against fascism and have sighed for a retention of that unity. That is, of course — and I do not mince my words — either nostalgic non- sense or dangerous dishonesty. We are no longer the same company of nations who fought. We cannot pretend that a normal world exists until we have achieved a real settlement, a responsible and lasting settlement, with Germany and with Japan. Nor can we pretend that the Bulgarian Government is a choir of angels and any Greek Government a collection of devils, any more than we can pretend that the Egyptian Government is the embodiment of virtue and the Dutch Government a corporate evil. Even if we were the same company, the nature of our task is different. Our job in war was to visit disaster and disorder upon our enemies. Our job now is to bring order to the world as a whole. We have therefore, when we parted with overt war, parted also with that identity of purpose. Further, in war the choice of methods is limited, whereas in peace, even when we secure identity of objective, the choice of methods is complex and diverse.
With this disunity, how then can we hope to secure agreement? I should say, most deferentially, that our only hope lies in all nations accepting several assumptions which are beyond dispute.
These are: no nation has a monopoly of truth. No nation is omniscient. No nation is omnipotent. No reasonable nation can expect at all times to have its views accepted by all other nations. I am not here attempting to say that my Government or the Governments with which we have the most cordial relations arc always right or moral or even expedient or wise in the foreign policy they espouse. I am not, in other words, saying that in disputes and misunderstandings that have, inside or outside the United Nations, been displayed between Britain and the Soviet Union, between America and the Soviet Union, France and the Soviet Union, China and the Soviet Union, Greece and the Soviet Union, Italy and the Soviet Union, Hungary and the Soviet Union, Iran and the Soviet Union, Turkey and the Soviet Union — that in these disputes truth or right or even expediency have lain with all these Powers who came in conflict with the Soviet Union. I am not saying that. But I am saying that if history is any guide it is exceedingly unlikely that the Soviet Union has had all the right, all the wisdom in the disputes and in the solutions which it proposed.
I want to go even farther than that. Since 1917 we have been witnessing a great nation emerge. Its valour, its fortitude, its steadfastness, its ingenuity in the years during which it fought against fascism have established it as, one of the prime Powers of the world. Neither I nor any member of my Government denies the legitimate aspirations of Russia, nor would seek to cabin the extensions which it has legitimately sought and which a great nation by the very nature of its growth must be accorded. But if the Soviet Government — and unfortunately, we can only talk of the Soviet Government, because we have little method of knowing about the Soviet people — if the Soviet Government considers it can in all situations have its will prevail; if it considers that in all areas its power must be extended; if it thinks that in describing any international situation its description must be accepted, then I say without qualification that not only will the United Nations as we know it be destroyed, but the unstable peace of the world will crumble and crash, bringing to us the whole range of hideous consequences to which Mr. Vyshinsky drew our attention the other day.
There are three further conditions of peace which, again most deferentially, I offer to the Assembly. Each Power must be willing to permit reasonable access within its borders to the nationals of friendly Powers, including accredited newspapermen, and to the bona fide servants of international organizations. Each Power must display a consistency of attitude and a sober regard for fact in its pleas, its complaints, its judgments and its contacts. Further, in the international disposal of the problems which lie between us, the nations must not wantonly flout any really world-wide expression of opinion on matters which are of concern to the whole world.
Let me see if I can illustrate some of my touchstones by consideration of the most dramatic performance to which Mr. Vyshinsky has treated the Assembly. I am not going to make the debating points; they almost make themselves. Mr. Vyshinsky complaining of a lack of co-operation by the United States; Mr. Vyshinsky taking the stand to complain of a lack of co-operation by representatives of the United States, is quite clearly meant as a comedy piece for the entertainment of the whole Assembly. Why did he not bring with him to the stand as an example of the bland, the meek, the humble, the mild, the co-operative, the acquiescent, his distinguished colleague and our friend, Mr. Gromyko? Why did he not display, as reputable and incontrovertible evidence of the Soviet Union’s anxiety at all times to co-operate, the register in the Security Council showing that his Government has registered twenty vetoes, and that my poor, belligerent, arrogant, dominant Government has not used the veto once?
Nor am I going to deal with the equally ludicrous picture which Mr. Vyshinsky presented to this august Assembly of the poor, terrorized Soviet Union trembling at the threats delivered against it from Athens and Ankara.
Mr. Vyshinsky dwelt at some length on Greece. He referred more than once to the menace that Greece is, not only to the Soviet Union, but to its three neighbours. No one is really impressed by this. Everyone knows that the Greek forces are in the ratio of about one to five of the three adjacent States which Mr. Vyshinsky asks us to believe are afraid of Greece’s ambitious intentions. I want to make one point in passing. In commenting on the inclusion of the Greek question in the Assembly agenda, Mr. Vyshinsky said that the United States charges against Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Roumania were “utterly arbitrary and without any proof”. He also repeated an inaccuracy which now has common currency against some interested opponents of Greece. Mr. Vyshinsky said that the conclusions of the Commission were not supported by almost fifty per cent of the members. That, of course, is quite untrue. The conclusions which Mr. Vyshinsky dismisses as utterly arbitrary are, of course, endorsed by eight out of eleven members of the Commission. Two of those who did not approve the conclusions were, strangely enough, the Soviet and Polish Governments.
I am not even going to deal in any detail with his most offensive reference to Mr. Winston Churchill, in which lie compared him with Hitler. Mr. Churchill is, of course, a political opponent of mine. I have often disagreed with him. I pray he will be spared for many year's so that in my modesty I may further disagree with him. The Assembly will perhaps permit me to say that Mr. Winston Churchill's record against fascism is better than the record of any Communist I know in any country in Unit light. The Assembly will not misunderstand me if I take this opportunity of reminding it that Winston Churchill was moving about the streets of London in 1940, and in the spring of 1941, an example to our population and to all Europe, walking about, amid the bombs which were falling on us from German planes serviced, for all we know, by Russian oil.
Now, let me look inside Mr. Vyshinsky’s speech for evidence of this consistency in attitude which I insist is essential for the responsible discharge of international affairs. I am confining myself to the speech. If I wanted to look at the activities of the Soviet Union I could illustrate that again and again, because the attitude of the Soviet Union at an international conference is quite unpredictable. This partly arises from the fact that in the Soviet vocabulary, at any rate externally, there are no shades of opinion. Every situation is pictured in terms of black and white; or perhaps, more accurately, in terms of black and red. The criterion by which they establish one situation as evil today is used tomorrow to establish another one as good.
Mr. Vyshinsky complained, for example, that the United States, by bringing the subject of Korea to the Assembly, violated an agreement made at Moscow in December 1945, relating to procedure to be adopted to prepare the people of Korea for independence. I may say in passing that my Government has of course been consistently interested in this subject, and we expect that the United States, at the appropriate place, will be able to make a fair case to show that it has exhausted the use of ail the procedure laid down at Moscow. The point, however, is that Mr. Vyshinsky says that it is bad international practice to bring that subject to the United Nations, because of an agreement made between his Government and the Government of the United States at that date.
But in the same speech it is apparently good practice for Egypt to bring a complaint to the Security Council, although it is not disputed that Egypt made an agreement, which still has nine years to run, with my Government in 1936, covering the subjects which arc disputed at tire Security Council. Moreover, in his attack, Mr. Vyshinsky, who was frequently and quite legitimately the champion of subject peoples, does not trouble to inform the Assembly that one of the points — the main point — upon which the negotiations on which my Government voluntarily embarked broke down, was that the British Government insisted that it could not barter away in any circumstance, however convenient to it, the right of the Sudanese people to decide at the appropriate time what should be their own status.
The point is that there we are confronted with one of the shifts and changes, one of the unpredictable inconsistencies which frequently characterize the behaviour of the Soviet Union Government.
It would perhaps be appropriate for me to turn aside here for a moment to reply in the shortest possible way to the attack made upon my Government by the representative of Egypt in his speech at the eighty-seventh plenary meeting. He complained repeatedly that British troops have been stationed in Egypt for sixty-five years without the consent of the Egyptian people and of their Government. I am not going to pursue the subject. It has been extensively expounded at the Security Council, but I am sure that the Assembly will permit me to say that at any rate from 1914 to 1918 the British troops were not unwelcome in Egypt; nor were they unwelcome when, with our African, Australian, New Zealand and Indian colleagues, they drove the fascists back from El Alamein. It ill becomes any representative of Nokrashy Pasha to come to this rostrum, or any other, and neglect the value of this 1946 treaty, when Nokrashy Pasha was himself a signatory to that treaty.
But let me return to Mr. Vyshinsky’s speech. To give another example of gross inconsistency, so gross that I know that Mr. Vyshinsky, whose lively and precise mind the whole Assembly admires, cannot have overlooked it. He made a further attack, and I am sure it is not the last, on the Marshall proposals and the Paris Conference. I hope I make it plain that I naturally do not object to this attack. But Mr. Vyshinsky, reared on Marxism and now blossoming forth as a champion of laissez-faire economics, made great play with the sovereign rights of these European countries. As has been repeatedly made plain, there are many misconceptions about sovereignty, and I propose later to deal with some of them. But no one dragooned, bludgeoned, importuned or politically discriminated against these sixteen nations who assembled at Paris to make them do so. Their Governments considered the invitation jointly issued by M. Bidault and by my Secretary of State, Mr. Ernest Bevin, and of their own free will they accepted that invitation. Other States equally, I am sure, of their own free will rejected the invitation. The business of attending or not attending was exclusively the business of these States.
But Mr. Vyshinsky went on, with that command of oratory, to work himself into a frenzy of righteous indignation because the nations that attended are asked to take part in a co-operative effort to plan in a limited fashion the economy of Europe. He bases his indignation on the fact that they — and I quote Mr. Vyshinsky — have an “inalienable right to dispose of their economic resources and to plan their own national economy in their own way”. I think that is most excellent. That seems to me most reasonable. That is the understanding upon which they attended in Paris; that is the right which my Government retains to itself, engaging in only such co-operative planning as it sees fit. But Mr. Vyshinsky proceeds to say that the United States is villainous; it is a disturber of the peace; it is a breaker-up of this international structure. Why? Because apparently it chooses to operate this same inalienable right to its own property which Mr. Vyshinsky approves in every European Power, but disapproves of without reserve in the case of the United States.
There is no consistency here. There is inconsistency, the inconsistency which we always associate with frantic, continuous and irresponsible propaganda, but which can have no place — no place, I repeat — in individuals or in Governments if common arrangements are to be fashioned. If we are going to tackle the problems lying between us, one essential, I believe, is a consistency of attitude. For example, we, must try to bring the same judgments to bear on the Egyptian situation, the Greek situation, the Indonesian situation, and to bring to any situation which we fear may disturb international peace the same criteria which, if thought dangerous in Indonesia, will equally be held dangerous in Iran.
But in addition to a sober regard for fact by the operating governments, in addition to a consistent use of criteria and of judgment, if we are to have international agreement and stability there must also be, as I indicated earlier, a willingness among the nations within defined and accepted limits, to submit themselves to international considerations and to accept and operate the decisions or the recommendations of the nations.
Now Mr. Vyshinsky introduced a conception to which Mr. Molotov drew our attention last year, which is completely at variance with these necessities and which I must admit frankly does alarm me. It is the conception of absolute sovereignty.
I believe that at the back of Soviet thinking there is a tactical reason for insisting upon this idea of absolute sovereignty. Professor Korovin, the foremost lawyer of the Soviet Union and a distinguished international figure, whom I remember as a member of the Soviet delegation last year, in a lecture reported in Pravda of 3 May 1947, says this :
“Sovereignty in Generalissimo Stalin’s Soviet understanding is a tool” — the word is worth noting; it is, of course, a translation — “is a tool in the struggle of the progressive democratic forces against reactionary-imperialistic forces. Sovereignty under modem conditions is called upon to serve both as a legal and as an international-political barrier in defence against imperialistic encroachments and in providing the opportunity to construct the most progressive public and state forms — socialist and peoples-democratic.”
In an article by Professor Korovin in the Bolshevik of 19 October 1946, he argues that on the issues of sovereignty and traditional doctrines of international practice the capitalist States aim at maximum limitation, not to say liquidation, of the concept of sovereignty in a world where there exist exploiter and exploited, weak and strong, metropolitan and colonial territories. If sovereignty as well as other legal guarantees of national independence and freedom are thus weakened, he says, this is all to the advantage of the strong and will never benefit the weak. In a world parliament, he argues, the Anglo-American group is certain of a majority, and projects of this kind are merely an attempt of a bloc to dictate to the world.
Of course, we all understand the fears of the Soviet Union Government on this subject. It is an emerging Power. It expects, and has confirmed from experience, that on many issues it would have fewer friends and fewer votes than the established Powers. Nevertheless, it surely must be plain that if we are to adhere to this historically dated and outmoded conception of absolute sovereignty, we shall immediately place obstacles in the way of international agreement. In a fashion, it can be argued and can be shown that every treaty is a diminution of national sovereignty. In a fashion, it is true that membership in every international organization takes away from national sovereignty. That may have disadvantages. I do not think so. But it certainly is plain that the disadvantages of non-co-operation, as Mr. Vyshinsky pointed out to us, are much more hazardous. It does mean, if we take the second course of non- co-operation, that the world breaks into at least two parts.
Mr. Vyshinsky quoted in support of his theory the Charter, and I think he quoted it wrongly. The Charter does not insist upon absolute sovereignty. What the Charter does insist upon is the sovereign equality — and those are the operative words — of the Member States; that is to say that what one gives up, the other equally must give up. That is the basis of any international contract: that the partners to the contract voluntarily cede, for certain purposes, functions of their sovereignty.
But in fact, surd y this is admitted by law, by our presence here. There are problems, not only problems of a political kind but problems of an economic and social kind, that each of our governments admits it cannot solve by unilateral action. Full employment, the limitation of disease, the removal of hunger, the development of energy, apart altogether from the limitation of conflict, are problems which the experts and governments of modern States agree they can tackle only in the context of international action,
Unless, therefore, nations are prepared to come to the table willing to discuss the delimitation of sovereignty in equity and by consent, this United Nations Organization is robbed of its meaning and our presence here is a farce. The functions of the Assembly, of the Security Council, of each of its Councils and all its subsidiary organs are by that attitude thwarted and disturbed. They become instruments through which Powers seek national advantage instead of instruments devised for international common interest.
I want to repeat that I, and all my friends, understand many of the Soviet Union’s suspicions and some of its uneasiness. I want to repeat, on behalf of my Government, that we are anxious, and have been anxious, to admit its legitimate aspirations. I want to repeat that, as the Soviet Union Government knows, we are anxious to be on the most cordial terms with it. We have offered to extend our treaty with it. We entered into trade talks with it, and provided the Soviet Union Government discharges its existing financial contract, we are more than willing to continue these discussions. We go to any international conference where the Soviet Union Government considers that attendance might advance international welfare. We have pressed for the ratification of the peace treaties. We are anxious to co-operate in Germany and Japan. We are anxious at all times to place at the disposal of the Soviet Union Government all the diplomatic instruments, all the conferences, all the international instruments available, and to join with the Soviet Union Government, and with other States, in co-operating to carve out the conditions of peace and of stability.
I can fittingly illustrate this unwillingness to co-operate, this insistence by some States on rights not accorded to others, by discussing the history m the last year of the Commission on Conventional Armaments and the Atomic Energy Commission.
Mr. Vyshinsky most properly called to our attention the failure of the United Nations to implement in a satisfactory manner the General Assembly resolution 41 (I), of last December, relating to the regulation and reduction of armaments. There is no doubt that he does a service to the Assembly and to every Government here represented in insisting on the importance of this work.
Of course, Mr. Vyshinsky made his Government appear the angel of the peace. He says that Britain and the United States made it impossible to reach agreement in this field since they proposed — and I quote Mr. Vyshinsky — “such conditions for the reduction of armaments as could not but frustrate the execution of the Assembly resolution in question”. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, “took a number of steps to co-operate in the positive solution”.
If we examine the proceedings of the Atomic Energy Commission, we shall find that ten of the twelve members of the Commission have pushed on throughout the year with the preparation of plans to control atomic energy as they were directed to do by the Assembly. We shall also find that they have been delayed in their work because the Soviet Union representative, who fortunately has no veto here, continued throughout the year to be guided by his own interpretation of the subject, and therefore refused to conform to the plan of work being developed by the overwhelming majority of the Commission. It is difficult to imagine that the ten nations have been wrong most of the time, and it surely is strange to call the opposition of one, co-operation in international affairs.
I should have to agree that there has been delay in the work of the Commission for Conventional Armaments which was set up by the Security Council only in March. Some of the delay, I am told, was due to fortuitous circumstances and some to pressure of work. But most of it again was caused by the Soviet Union refusal to accept the democratic principle of majority rule and the Soviet Union insistence, even when the Soviet Union delegation was in a minority of one or of two, that it was the duty of the majority to conform to Soviet Union wishes.
Let me give those representatives unfamiliar with the details, and who may think I exaggerate, one instance of this tendency. At the outset of the work of the Commission for Conventional Armaments, the Commission set up a Sub-Committee representing the five permanent members of the Security Council to draft a plan of work. Two drafts were put before the Sub-Committee, one by the United States representative and one by the Soviet Union representative. It is unnecessary to comment on the relative merits of the plans of work, but the United States draft was supported by four delegations and the Soviet Union draft received no support except from the Soviet Union delegation. But there were days of discussion before the Sub-Committee was able by a vote of four to one to report to the Commission itself in favour of the United States draft. Again, at the Commission the same arguments were displayed with approximate!}' the same result.
But it does not even end there. When the Commission reported to the Security Council, a further enormous amount of time was consumed before the present plan of work was adopted — not by a narrow majority, but by a vote of nine to two. And even now, let me remind the Assembly, the Soviet Union representative in the Working Committee of the Commission has announced that the Soviet Union delegation will follow the repeatedly defeated Soviet Union plan of work.
I am not here primarily concerned with saying that the Soviet Union plan of work was not a good one. I am not here even primarily concerned with singling out the behaviour of the Soviet Union delegation. I am here insisting that it is idle to talk of equality when what is really meant is that one delegation, no matter whom it represents, should arrogate to itself rights which it does not accord to other delegations, and should insist that only its peculiar plans are workable. Business cannot be effectively transacted in the United Nations or in any other international conference if this attitude is maintained.
It is easy to conclude that although in the Atomic Energy Commission and in. the Commission on Conventional Armaments there is no veto, the Soviet Union representative has achieved a new weapon — the slow veto. He has retarded the work persistently, not by voting “no”, but by a policy of non-co-operation despite a large majority against him.
As regards atomic energy, with which Mr. Vyshinsky, like other representatives, most properly concerned himself, it is alleged that the United States has refused to prohibit atomic weapons or to permit immediate inspection of plants. As I understand this subject — and it would be highly improper if I did not try to understand it — the United States is ready to subscribe to the prohibition of atomic weapons as soon as an effective security system is working in all its particulars. And upon the same conditions, as I understand it, the United States is ready not only to have its plants inspected, but actually to see them placed under the ownership and management of an international agency or commission. I am not concerned here with what red herrings, in the way of newspaper quotations, are offered to the Assembly,
If my understanding of the United States attitude is confirmed by a study of the appropriate documents, if the United States representative is willing to come to this stand, as I have no doubt he is, to confirm that that is the attitude of the United States administration, then I say it is one of the most remarkable offers recorded in the history of disarmament proposals. If I am to be disputed, let Mr. Vyshinsky come again to this rostrum to tell us of some monopoly of the Soviet Union in armaments Which he and his Government are willing and anxious to place under international ownership and control.
Let me turn for a moment, in an effort to have a correct perspective on this subject, to the Soviet Union proposals for atomic energy control. They were not tabled, it is worth while saying, until 11 June. Because of their lateness, they did in a fashion cut across the plans already being developed by other members of the Commission. Nevertheless, as was its duty, His Majesty’s Government gave the Soviet Union proposals the most sympathetic consideration. At first sight the proposals did not seem to offer the security necessary to justify the internationalization of this dangerous scientific force. Even then, my Government felt it proper to elucidate as clearly as possible what the Government of the Soviet Union had in mind. To this end we submitted a questionnaire. The answers are available, to all representatives. The inquiry did not produce the assurances for which we had hoped, and as a result we had in fact no practical alternative but to confine our efforts to the development of the control plan already under preparation by the majority group. It is, I think, desirable that the Assembly should know that although work on this plan has still a long way to go, and must continue to be the object of intensive and detailed study, it is developing along lines which give promise of general security.
The immediate point is that, if the Assembly is disturbed by the slow progress made by these two Commissions — although the progress they have made should not be underestimated — it has an obligation to satisfy itself as to the cause of the delay; and I am certain that it must conclude, as I have already indicated, that the blame for the delay should be laid upon the shoulders of the Soviet Union Government.
Let me also say this. No country knows more about disarmament than Ours. We disarmed up to such a point that at the beginning of the last war we were almost defeated. No one has given fuller evidence of its willingness to co-operate internationally in all disarmament proposals than our country. But we have a duty a free, elected government to our free, electing citizens, and we must be chary of risking the lives of our countrymen again without proper means of defence. The charge hurled against us here and elsewhere that we are warmongers are nonsense. We have disarmed and demobilized and are engaged in carrying our demobilization still farther. We are co-operating in disarmament, as I have shown, and will continue in that co-operation.
But I repeat on behalf of my Government with all the solemnity I can command, that there can be no systematic disarmament without a real basis in collective security, and my Government is pledged, and pledges itself again, that if the nations will get down to creating such collective security in which everyone will co-operate, they will find Great Britain in the forefront playing her part in this most essential task. Armaments are the result of insecurity; therefore security must take precedence over disarmament. It is to that end that we steadily direct ourselves.
But there can be no road to security as long as there is mistrust among the nations primarily charged with the job of producing it. One of the roads towards security must be the establishment of trust among the main allies. Further, as long as there is mystery and exclusion, there is a probability of mistrust. When Mr. Vyshinsky argued at the eighty-fourth plenary meeting — I have no doubt in perfect sincerity — that his Government was distressed, disturbed and angered at the statements by individual Americans that the Soviet Union was preparing for war and was a warmonger, I wanted to say this: that the reply is not to imprison any individual, American or British, or to suppress any American or British newspapers. The reply is to open the doors of the Soviet Union so that the nations and the peoples of these nations, who have such great sympathy with this new and emerging Power, can see what is going on. The reply is not to criticize others because they allow their citizens to speak freely, but to urge that all countries should tolerate views freely expressed by citizens of free States. The truth needs neither strategems nor defence.
Mr. Vyshinsky also accused us of seeking to divide Europe. This is a monstrous accusation and a good example of my argument here. From the moment that the European war ended, from Potsdam onwards, every argument we have presented on this subject has been based on the economic unity of Germany, together with the need for ensuring that under proper control this economic unity would contribute to the rehabilitation of all Europe. We have been thwarted and frustrated by disagreement and again by a policy of non-co-operation.
It is proper here that I should repeat what has already been said in the House of Commons, that the November meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers seems almost the last chance for securing any agreement on Europe. Further, we made it plain — and we repeat — that we support the Four Power Treaty proposal for security against Germany, and we are stall willing to join in guaranteeing the peace of Europe in any specific instrument. The division of Germany, the rejection of the treaty which might have meant peace to Europe, was not decided by us.
I feel I have been belabouring the obvious. If I have done so, it is not out of vanity, but out of a disturbed sincerity. The obvious is that, if there is a willingness to co-operate by all nations, this Organization can work. There is no need for us to be divided by political, still less by territorial, questions.
Mr. Molotov said at the Assembly last year: “Our people long for lasting peace and believe that only in peace conditions can economic wellbeing and real prosperity be guaranteed for many years to come, together with the free life of the common people and of all mankind”. That is also the objective of my Government. To that end, we have displayed co-operation at every stage in the operation of the United Nations and at every international conference. We harbour no hostility towards the Soviet Union or towards any other nation. Our designs are plain; our doors are open; our Press, our people and our Parliament are free. And I repeat that for these purposes the United Nations is at once the mainspring of our policy and the prime instrument of our policy. We have nothing to hide. We are willing to co-operate to try to secure that objective to which I have just alluded.
Mr. Masaryk told us at the eighty-seventh plenary meeting that the most important element in Europe was the small nation. Mr. Bidault told us, in a forceful and spirited speech, that modem Europe is the heart and core of our way of living, as well as our problem. I knew what both meant. They both moved me, but I think that neither was quite right.
We represent here, as has been so frequently said, the common men to whom Mr. Molotov referred, the mute inglorious Miltons, the Cromwells, guiltless of their countries’ blood. Whoever phrased the Charter, whoever signed it — these, the common men, are the real authors of it. For a moment a regime, a despot, a tyrant may prevail against them; but it is only for a moment. Their heroism, their persistence is the very matter of history, and I say that we are here as the custodians of a Charter that, politically and economically at any rate, represents the fate of the common man now. If we damage this Charter, if we harm it, if we fall short of it, if we come here brave in our power and arrogance and our cunning, then for a moment we may succeed; but history, which is the common man, will overtake us and damn us forever.