72. On behalf of the Government of Ceylon and the delegation of Ceylon, as well as on my own behalf, I extend to His Excellency Mr. Emilio Arenales, the Foreign Minister of Guatemala, sincere congratulations on his election as President of the General Assembly at its twenty-third session. From its vast reservoir of talent the Latin American continent has produced in His Excellency Mr. Arenales, as the incumbent of this high office, one who can be relied upon to maintain the high standards and traditions of diplomacy for which his fellow Latins are rightly renowned. We wish him success in his task of guiding us to a satisfactory conclusion of our deliberations at this session and assure him of our co-operation. We also hope he will make a speedy and complete recovery from his present indisposition.
73. My delegation cannot let this occasion pass without expressing appreciation of the services rendered to the twenty-second session of the General Assembly by its President, His Excellency Mr.Corneliu Manescu, the Foreign Minister of Romania, who discharged with distinction the duty of presiding over a session that extended far beyond the customary period.
74. The General Assembly has before it the document [A/7201/Add.1] which is always awaited with the greatest interest, namely, the introduction to the annual report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization during the previous year. Secretary-General U Thant has provided us with an incisive analysis and objective assessment of the international situation. The suggestions that he has, with such admirable candour and clarity, advanced for the mitigation of the most disturbing elements in that situation may not accord with the policies of individual countries, but that should not cause any surprise. Detachment can be expected only of those countries which are not too involved to be embarrassed. The contents of the introduction to the annual report of the Secretary-General testify to the humanity and sincerity of this conscientious servant of the world community. Those who are committed to courses of action and to policies which are at variance with the Secretary-General’s proposals would neither appreciate nor understand the spirit of compassion that informs this entire document. But at least those who are not so hampered cannot fail to recognize and applaud the courage and initiative displayed by the Secretary-General. On behalf of my Government, I should like to congratulate the Secretary-General on this document and to express our high appreciation of his devoted services to the United Nations Organization and to the cause of peace for which he continues to strive tirelessly despite the fatigue of discouragement and frustration.
75. As the Secretary-General has pointed out, the document makes gloomy reading. We had the same observation to make in our statement in the general debate at the twenty-second session [1588th meeting] in regard to the Secretary-General’s introduction to last year’s report. We stated then what we might well repeat this year: that the fault lies not with the author but with the material. It is only with the Members.of the United Nations that the capacity to produce a record of achievement and hope rather than one of failure and disappointment rests.
76. In the course of the general debate in the Assembly last year we identified two main areas of crisis: Viet-Nam and the Middle East. The problems created by the situation in those two areas continue to present a threat to international peace and security. They seem, however, to have been overshadowed by the crisis in Czechoslovakia resulting from the intrusion of the armed forces of five of the Warsaw Pact Powers into that country to arrest a trend in its political evolution which was considered to be inimical to the interests of the socialist system and to its stability and integrity.
77. All crises of this nature should be placed in their correct historical perspective if this Organization is to find a means of avoiding similar situations in the future. The history of United Nations Charter violations did not commence on 21 August 1968. The Czechoslovak crisis has to be placed in its proper historical perspective lest it be allowed to serve only as an alibi for other and even more serious derelictions in the domain of international relations and international law.
78. While expressing strong disapproval of the Warsaw Pact Powers’ action in Czechoslovakia, as constituting a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, the best service we can render to the Government and people of Czechoslovakia in their present plight is to affirm their right to determine their own affairs free from external pressure. This right is the main attribute of the sovereignty and independence of a country. It is the only foundation on which a stable international order can be established and maintained. Any diminution or restriction of that right through foreign interference, wherever it may occur and whatever the circumstances, should not be countenanced by the United Nations. The principles of the Charter must be upheld and the right of self-determination restored to the Government and people of Czechoslovakia. It is in the name of the Charter that we call upon the Powers whose armed forces are in occupation of Czechoslovak territory to withdraw their forces from that territory without delay and to leave the people of Czechoslovakia free to determine their own destiny.
79. The primary responsibility for preserving international peace and security has been entrusted to the members of the Security Council; and among them the effective discharge of this responsibility falls chiefly within the competence of the two super-Powers. It is to them that this Assembly and this Organization must look for the example that is the real test of leadership. For the great majority of Members of this Organization, devoid as they are of the means of protecting themselves from foreign intervention and from encroachments on their sovereignty and territorial integrity, assurances of security must come from the United Nations and its organs alone, thereby rendering obsolete the need for membership of military alliances which is itself, in a sense, a limitation on national sovereignty.
80. Several international crises can be called to mind which have spelt the collapse of international morality: Viet-Nam in 1954 and onwards, Suez in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968. They serve to remind us that commitment to the principles of the Charter demands more than mere homage to words.
81. Once again today we feel strongly the need for a moderating influence in international relations. This influence can be exerted only by a group of nations committed to neither of the two major ideological and power blocs and their respective supporters. The cold war produced such a group in the form of the non-aligned nations, the only grouping left in the world which, irrespective of all differences and distinctions, can evolve a common philosophy in accordance with the tenets of the Charter. During the last few years we had reason to believe that the group had served a real purpose and had, in some small way, contributed to increasing rapprochement and growing co-operation between the two super-Powers and their respective blocs despite the unsettling effect of the Viet-Nam war. Our hopes, however, seem to have been premature. Once more today non-alignment has an important and vital function to discharge. Every accession to the membership of the non-aligned group can greatly fortify its capacity to exert a moderating influence, to interpose itself in moments of crisis between the two groups, and to endeavour to effect a reconciliation between great-Power interests on the one hand and the principles of the Charter and the processes which it prescribes for the settlement of differences on the other.
82. In our statement in the general debate last year, we dealt at length with the origins of the Viet-Nam conflict. Our purpose in doing so was to refute the plea that foreign intervention in Viet-Nam, despite the Geneva Agreements of 1954, was designed to ensure for the people of Viet-Nam the right of self-determination. It was precisely the right of self-determination, as constituting the free choice by a people of the form of government and the type of political and economic organization they desired, through the free
exercise of the vote, that the Geneva Agreements of 1954 sought to establish.
83. We repeat, today, that strict and scrupulous adherence to the principles and provisions of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 alone could produce a proper settlement of the Viet-Nam problem. There is abundant evidence to show that, in 1956, such a free choice would have given no less than 80 per cent of the vote to the real liberator of Viet-Nam, who is now treated as an enemy of his own people. That, to our mind, is the clue to the origin of the present conflict in Viet-Nam—that, and not the concern of foreign Powers for the right of self-determination for the Viet-Namese people. It would appear that the Geneva Agreements were repudiated not in the interests of self-determination but in the interests of pre-determination of the type of régime that would be installed in Viet-Nam in the wake of French colonialism. Self-determination will have no meaning or value for the people of Viet-Nam if the price of self-determination is to be extermination.
84. The principle of self-determination is merely another version of the principle that the internal affairs of a country are primarily a matter of exclusive concern to the people of that country, and that no interference by outside parties is permissible. Last year we drew attention to the proposal made by the Prime Minister of Ceylon, that the internal affairs of Viet-Nam should be settled by discussion among the three parties concerned: namely, the Saigon régime, the National Liberation Front of South Viet-Nam, and the Government of North Viet-Nam, without any outside interference. My Prime Minister suggested that those three parties should meet in the first instance to discuss the pre-conditions for a cease-fire. First among those pre-conditions recognized by us was to be the cessation of the bombing of North Viet-Nam, to be followed by an agreement on interim procedures for ensuring a Status quo, and by the cessation of belligerent activity by all parties and the withdrawal of all foreign troops.
85. We reiterate our conviction that the bombing of North Viet-Nam must be stopped if the momentum for peace is to be created at the conference table in Paris. Those who have intervened in Viet-Nam should realize that they owe a duty not to half a nation and half a people but to a whole nation and all its people. The time has come for honourable redemption of the promise that was held out to the people of Viet-Nam at Geneva in 1954. By that means alone will peace and hope be restored to that unhappy land.
86. In regard to that other area of crisis, the Middle East, the delegation of Ceylon stated in the General Assembly debate on 12 October last year that the most disturbing feature of the situation then existing was Israel’s unabashed determination to retain control over the vast areas of territory that she had acquired from military operations and to absorb them permanently within her borders by establishing permanent Israeli settlements in them. We stated further that, if the principles of the Charter were to be vindicated, the United Nations must bring all possible pressure to bear on Israel to withdraw to the positions held by it prior to 5 June 1967, and must insist that that withdrawal should not be subject to negotiation or any prior condition. The seventeen months that have elapsed since the war of June 1967 have produced on Israel’s part only a defiant display of power on the anniversary of the war, brutal and calculated reprisals against the Arabs — completely out of proportion to any alleged acts of provocation that occasioned them — and undisguised plans and preparations for consolidation of territorial gains.
87. The resolutions adopted by the Security Council at regular intervals since 22 November 1967, together form the gravest possible indictment of Israeli policies. The Security Council has emphasized the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. It has affirmed that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East requires not merely the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the June 1967 conflict but, equally, the termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and
acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and its right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries, free from threats or acts of force. Along with these requirements the Security Council has affirmed the need for guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area, for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem and for guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones.
88. While two of the Arab nations involved in the June 1967 war have announced their acceptance of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967, Israel’s response has been the imposition of conditions which are deliberately calculated to defeat the purposes of the Security Council resolution, to avoid compliance with it and to thwart its fulfilment. The patient efforts of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General have been foiled and frustrated by Israel’s insistence on direct negotiations with the Arabs.
89. I should like to reiterate the position we took on the occasion of the general debate last year that the recognition that Israel seeks must be the culmination and not the commencement of the process of reconciliation. The United Nations came into being to establish new forms of settlement in conflicts between nations, forms that cannot be reconciled with the claim of a victorious army to dictate terms. Likewise, the right to recognition cannot be asserted through force of arms.
90. We support Israel’s right to exist in peace and security. That right can best be guaranteed by the United Nations. That guarantee is explicitly offered in the Security Council resolution of 22 November 1967. But Israel, by failing to accept the terms of that resolution, seems to have chosen to place herself beyond the pale of international law-and to set herself above the Charter. What this Organization has a right to expect of Israel is not nine commandments as a retort to the Security Council resolution of 22 November 1967, but unqualified acceptance of it.
91. My delegation would like to express its appreciation of the patience and perseverance with which the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in the Middle East, Ambassador Jarring, has persisted in the discharge of a most delicate and exacting mission. We trust that it will be possible for him to continue while the hope remains, however distant, that Israel will show a change of heart and that twenty-one years of turmoil and turbulence will close with the complete pacification of the Middle East.
92. There is still another area of crisis where the threat to international peace and security, though seemingly not so direct and immediate, is no less dangerous for its very insidiousness. The ultimate consequence of the evil policies of apartheid and white supremacy, which are directed towards the perpetual enslavement of millions of Africans in Southern Rhodesia, Namibia and South Africa, could be cataclysmic. The pursuit of these policies cannot be arrested, much less reversed, if the most powerful nations of the world continue to give valuable sustenance, comfort and encouragement to the offending régimes, while making a pretence of loyalty to the principles of liberalism, humanitarianism and democracy. The United Nations must demand that this conspiracy end and that efforts to ensure that elementary justice is done to the African majorities of southern Africa are not fatally compromised by equivocation and subterfuge.
93. The Government of South Africa and its accomplices in Africa, the Government of Portugal and the illegal régime of Ian Smith in Southern Rhodesia, are responsible for the heavy pall of impending disaster that hangs over southern Africa. We hope that the United Kingdom, as the administering Power in Southern Rhodesia, and the other major Powers within whose physical capacity alone it lies to weaken the will of those who are intent on driving Africa to a melancholy fate, will, before it is too late, wake up to their responsibility.
94. The emancipation of subject peoples goes forward and we are happy to welcome to the Assembly the newest Member of this Organization, the Kingdom of Swaziland. We wish the Government of Swaziland success in its task of employing the dignity of freedom to bring the blessings of prosperity and progress to their people.
95. We should also like to extend our cordial felicitations and sincere good wishes to the latest beneficiary of the policy and process of decolonization, Equatorial Guinea. It is fitting that we associate with these felicitations the Government of Spain for its honourable and progressive liquidation of a long imperial heritage.
96. The international scene, though presenting a dismal outlook, is not one of unrelieved gloom. There are a few achievements to the credit of the United Nations which are heartening and show that the hope of international co-operation on important issues is not altogether lost. Chief among these achievements was the approval of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [see resolution 2373 (XXII)] by a convincing majority during the resumed twenty-second session, although the support that the draft treaty received was qualified in many cases by significant reservations.
97. One of the main purposes of the Conference of Non-Nuclear-Weapon States, which was held in Geneva in September of this year, was to contribute towards arrangements for ensuring the security of non-nuclear weapon States in return for their renunciation of the right to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons. The non-proliferation Treaty seeks to arrest the spread of nuclear weapons lest the risk of nuclear war be increased by their indiscriminate distribution and deployment. We regret that the Conference of Non-Nuclear-Weapon States failed to take into account one aspect of proliferation which could be no less dangerous than those forms of it which the Treaty seeks to eliminate, and that is the stationing of nuclear weapons on the territories of States which themselves do not possess, manufacture or control the use of such weapons and renounce the right to do so. The 1964 Cairo declaration of non-aligned countries entitled "Programme for Peace and International Co-operation” and operative paragraph 4 of General Assembly resolution 2153 (XXI) explicitly or by implication seek to prevent or discourage this form of proliferation. The stationing by a nuclear-weapon State of nuclear weapons on the territory of a non-nuclear-weapon State, whether or not it has renounced the right to manufacture or possess nuclear weapons or is denied control over them, is itself a negation of the main principle underlying the non-proliferation Treaty.
98. The overwhelming concern of the entire world is to prevent a nuclear war and the accompanying threat of total annihilation. If the nuclear-weapon States are genuinely anxious to prevent a nuclear war, it is within their power alone to do so by renouncing the use or the threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States. That they have as yet shown no willingness to do so accentuates the fears as well as the doubts of the non-nuclear-weapon States. We have more than once urged that the non-proliferation Treaty should be followed immediately by the following stages of action: a categorical undertaking by the nuclear Powers not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear States; the conclusion of a comprehensive test-ban treaty; the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons and the freezing of stockpiles of nuclear weapons; and finally, the gradual dismantling of the apparatus of nuclear terror.
99. The contention that the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal cannot be undertaken independently of the establishment of a proper balance in conventional weapons strength is inconsistent with the argument that disarmament has necessarily to be a slow process executed in stages and in accordance with a proper order of priorities. If the only priority were to be the final goal itself, which is general and complete disarmament, we would have to resign ourselves to protracted discussion without any practical results.
100. Disarmament has uniformly been treated as a physical and material problem, as one of reducing armaments to the very minimum consistent with essentially peaceful interests and policies. This treatment of the problem is based on the fallacy that war can be prevented by the reduction of armaments. It disregards altogether the immediate causes of war and the tensions that find their climax in war. These are the cupidity of nations, mutual mistrust and fear, and above all injustice. Eliminate them or reduce them and you eliminate war or reduce the risk of it. International conferences devoted to this purpose are more likely to produce results than the discussion of disarmament in an atmosphere of ill-concealed animosity, antagonism and bitter rivalry between power blocs or nations. What we need more than the procedure for settlement of disputes is the creation of that spirit of fraternity between nations which would prevent the occurrence of disputes, the spirit which may best be described in Walt Whitman’s words as “that fervent element of manly friendship that is more binding than law or treaties”.
101. The other achievement of the last year which may be cited with satisfaction, although it marks only a beginning, was the appointment of the Ad Hoc Committee to Study the Peaceful Uses of the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction, and the use of their resources in the interests of mankind. It was my privilege to serve as Chairman of that Ad Hoc Committee and I take this opportunity, the first I have had before the full membership of the United Nations, to acknowledge my
deep personal appreciation of the substantial contribution that the members of the Committee made on a matter that is of the utmost importance to the future of us all. In yet another element, the United Nations has an opportunity for co-operation without conflict, an opportunity for united and common development and exploitation of the fabulous resources of this area for the benefit and enrichment of all.
102. In its final session, which, through the generosity of the Government of Brazil, was held in Rio de Janeiro, the Ad Hoc Committee concluded its deliberations and approved the report [A/7230] that will, during this session, come before the First Committee and the General Assembly. The Committee’s task was to study the question and to indicate practical means of implementing international co-operation in the exploration, conservation and
use of the ocean floor and its sub-soil. Foremost in the minds and hopes of the members of the Committee were the exclusion of the area from military use and its reservation for peaceful purposes and the avoidance of international competition, for purely selfish national interests and advantage, in the development and exploitation of the inexhaustible mineral resources of the area.
103. Important as the definition of a set of principles would be for the regulation of all activities in regard to this area, so far as the economic exploitation of its resources is concerned, and also in the prevention of the use of the area for military purposes, the clear delimitation of the limits of the area in contemplation is an essential prerequisite for further progress with this item. The existing law defining the limits of present national jurisdiction over the sea-bed and the ocean floor and the sub-soil thereof underlying the high seas is too vague and indefinite. If the limits of the area are not known, any principles that are determined and agreed upon will lose much of their relevance and value.
104. My delegation hopes that action can be taken by the international community to examine the question of the definition of the limits of the area and to reach agreement upon it without delay. Any such definition must take into account the peculiar problems of certain countries in regard to the continental shelf bordering their land mass. We recognize the need for maintaining intact the traditional freedoms of the high seas under international law, subject only to such modifications as are indispensable to the profitable exploitation, in the interests of all nations, of the resources of the sea, to the requirements of national security and to the preservation of international peace and harmony.
105. On 13 July 1966, the President of the United States, speaking at the Washington Navy Yard, gave eloquent expression to the principles that should govern our endeavours and shape our decisions in regard to this problem when he stated:
“Under no circumstances, we believe, must we ever allow the prospects of rich harvest and mineral wealth to create a new form of colonial competition among the maritime nations. We must be careful to avoid a race to grab and to hold the lands under the high seas. We must ensure that the deep seas and the ocean bottoms are, and remain, the legacy of all human beings.”
106. That pronouncement is a message of hope. If the principle enunciated there were accepted as an article of faith and of policy by all nations, it could mark the beginning of a new era in international co-operation and could set the United Nations on a course that would lead it to one of its most magnificent achievements.
107. The Ad Hoc Committee was successful in securing a wide measure of agreement on two sets of proposals: one, a draft declaration of general principles proposed for submission to the General Assembly, and the other, a draft statement of agreed principles also proposed for submission to the General Assembly. These are referred to in paragraph 88 of the Ad Hoc Committee’s report. The first, the draft declaration of general principles, was the result of the joint efforts of the Latin American and Afro-Asian groups in the Ad Hoc Committee. The other set of principles, the draft statement of agreed principles, was the product of the efforts of the North American, West European, Far Eastern and Pacific groups of nations in the Committee. Almost all the Afro-Asian members of the Ad Hoc Committee were also in agreement with this draft statement. These two sets of principles constitute a most constructive and valuable contribution on this subject and could provide the foundation for an agreement in regard to the principles that should ultimately be applied to the regulation of all activities in this area and the exploitation of its resources for the benefit of mankind.
108. The developing nations look with hope and expectation to the developed and technologically advanced nations without whose co-operation no progress in regard to this item and towards the fulfilment of the aspirations of the developing nations can be achieved: We hope that, during this session, the General Assembly will take decisions that will carry us forward to the attainment of the objectives and purposes of the resolution of the General Assembly that initiated the examination and study of this question.
109. We are forced to revert to a tone of disappointment when we examine the results of last year’s efforts in regard to questions of trade and economic development. Much was expected of the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development when it met in New Delhi earlier this year, but little was achieved. The Development Decade, with two years more to run, holds out little prospect of that 5 per cent growth rate for developing nations which was its declared aim. For developing countries the stress has to be on primary commodity trade, on preferences for their manufactured and semi-manufactured goods, for increased liquidity and for a greater volume of external finance on more liberal terms. Primary agricultural and mineral commodities constitute 85 per cent of the total exports of developing countries. If petroleum, which is a special commodity affecting a comparatively small number of developing countries, were to be excluded from our calculations, we find that primary agricultural and mineral products account for 55 per cent of the export earnings of developing countries. The chronic instability of these products, the seemingly irreversible downward trend in their export prices, the competition of synthetic equivalents or substitutes, no less than the protectionist policies cf developed countries, are proving to be insuperable obstacles to the economic growth of developing countries.
110. The foreign reserves of developing countries, on which they have to rely chiefly for financing their development programmes, have been subject to the two-fold mischief of falling export prices and rising import prices. The resulting steady decline in their terms of trade has caused a huge flow of resources from the developing to the developed countries, which has correspondingly diminished the benefits of aid to these countries from the developed market economies and multilateral agencies.
111. During the five-year period 1961-1966, developing nations have, as a result of unfavourable trends in the terms of trade, lost in foreign exchange earnings a sum equivalent to approximately $US13,000 million. This figure represents almost 40 per cent of the aggregate official aid that these countries received from the developed market economies and multilateral agencies during the same period. If we were to deduct from this official aid the debt servicing charges as representing an outward flow of resources, it would be found that foreign aid has produced a negligible net flow of resources from the developed market economies to the developing countries.
112. Ceylon has suffered a severe drain of her resources through the sustained decline in her terms of trade since 1958 which was not by any means the best year for her three principal export commodities, tea, rubber and coconut products. The fail in the export prices of these three commodities from the level of prices obtaining in 1958 has entailed for Ceylon a loss of approximately $US281 million in foreign exchange earnings during the ten years since 1958. This is a transfer of resources from Ceylon to her trading partners, chiefly the developed market economies. The figure does not reveal the full effect of the terms of trade as it does not take into account the increase in prices of our imports during the same period. Such foreign aid as we have received during the same period has offered only very limited compensation for this trade loss.
113. These factors do not lie within the control of the developing countries, but they are the principal cause of the stagnation that is so noticeable a feature of the economies of developing countries. We hope that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development will intensify its efforts to secure a satisfactory solution of the problems facing primary commodity trade as a matter of the highest priority and, through the co-operation of developed countries, secure approval of policies on questions of pricing of commodities, access to markets in developed countries, liberalization of trade and genuine transfer of capital resources from the developed to the developing world, so as to enable the developing countries to emerge from their present state of stagnation and stimulate in them the process of steady growth and expansion.
114. All efforts at international co-operation, especially on questions of such moment as non-proliferation and disarmament, can have only a limited effectiveness without the participation of the People’s Republic of China in the work of this Organization. We have heard it said that the present occupant of China’s seat in the United Nations has an unchallengeable right to remain in the Organization as a founder Member of the United Nations. This argument totally ignores the elementary principle that the Members of this Organization are the peoples of the world. It ignores the fact that the Government that represented the people of China at the time of the founding of the United Nations was replaced by the Government of the People’s Republic of China. The Government of the People’s Republic of China alone is the legal representative of the people of China whom it has governed for nineteen years. It is the restoration of the lawful rights of the people of China that calls for the admission of the People’s Republic of China to membership as the sole representative of the people of China.
115. We have also heard it said that, in the admission of the People’s Republic of China, the practical problem arising out of the position of the Chiang Kai-shek régime in Formosa has to be considered. An organization founded on principles of justice and international law owes its first duty to the observation and enforcement of those principles. Practical problems cannot be accommodated at the expense of such principles. Our overriding obligation is to such principles and the discharge of that obligation demands the immediate restoration of its lawful rights to the People’s Republic of China.
116. We hope that those who claim to be genuinely interested in securing the membership of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations will not be so indifferent to their avowed wish as to insist that the question of the restoration of the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China be treated as an important one. If it is important, we should find every means of ensuring it rather than support the surest way of preventing it.
117. May I say, in conclusion, that man’s Olympian genius has brought him within an ace of reaching regions of the universe to which only his proud imagination had previously aspired. The brilliant achievements of the Soviet Union and the United States with Zond 5 and Apollo 7 have thrilled the world. But this should not be the pinnacle of man’s endeavours. If he is to escape a Promethean fate he must now turn from the laboratories of science to the laboratory of human relations and concentrate on a far more important discovery, the discovery of the moral formula that will transform the vision of international brotherhood into a reality.