1. Mr. President, may I begin by offering you my sincere congratulations on your election to the presidency of the General Assembly. You bring to your high office a record of attachment to the ideals of the Charter and mature experience of United Nations activities. Few can claim to have laboured with more devotion in the service of the Organization. I am confident that you will guide our deliberations wisely and impartially. Your election is richly merited.
2. We take up our work here at this Assembly against a background of crises in more than one area. We live in times of peril, labouring under a weight of arms heavier than at any other known time. Even the strongest among us are denied security and are divided by suspicion and fear.
3. The estimated cost of armaments for the current year exceeds $100,000 million — almost too many naughts to write across a sheet of paper. Mankind has had centuries to learn the hard lessons of interdependence. Yet even now, a brief decade after the most bitter war in history, we have travelled a very little way in applying those lessons.
4. In the great issues of war and peace, while we do not have equal responsibility, none of us are without responsibility. Now, more than ever, it is true that no nation can live unto itself. The success of the struggle to overcome poverty in the less developed countries increases human welfare everywhere. The transition from dependence to nationhood — which implies interdependence — in Africa and Asia, confers benefits that are not confined to the newly sovereign countries. Tension and violence in the area of Taiwan, in the Middle East or elsewhere carry more than local threats. The days of limited war are over.
5. If the United Nations is to grow in strength and if the peaceful world community which our interdependence demands is to come about, no Member State, great or small, can be indifferent when urgent problems are brought to this Organization for examination and, we hope, settlement.
6. This year, a full and wide-ranging agenda confronts us. We shall consider the unresolved issue of disarmament on which the survival of the human race may well depend. We shall consider problems directly affecting peace and security in important regions of the world. We shall consider the legal conditions governing the use of the territorial sea. We shall consider and examine the control of outer space for peaceful purposes; we shall pass beyond the limits of this planet. We shall consider and study the problems of trusteeship, of economic and social development. We shall consider the extension of human welfare and the enlargement of human freedom, and thus, the be-all and end-all of all things, freedom of individuals to be themselves and of nations to have sovereign power to determine how they are to govern themselves.
7. The agenda is a mirror of men, of nations, of time and space, a mirror of mankind with its restless genius and dreams, and immeasurable capacity for good or evil.
8. During the last year, many major issues confronting mankind have been left in suspense. One is the unification of Germany, the continued division of which is a source of danger and a deep injustice to the German people. We have a divided Korea. We have a divided Viet-Nam. We have other places where nations, loving one another, are divided. Our job is to find a way where those that have been brought up through the ages and have built up civilizations of their own, and have sovereign powers of their own, shall have the right to live together. Yet in those problems to which it has turned its attention, with vitality beyond the normal, the United Nations, has helped to point the way to reconciliation; and in some disputes it has itself provided the means to make settlements effective. Much of this credit must go to the Secretary-General. He has been called upon to assume very heavy responsibilities, and has discharged them with distinction.
9. My Government has always seen the United Nations as offering the best means of reconciling divergent policies and of breaking down barriers of misunderstanding and hostility to unite nations and races, so that they may all be one whilst retaining their individual freedom. In a time of rapid change such as this, incomparable in history, there is no period of a half-century to compare with 1908 to 1958, a period when so many profound changes that will affect the future years have taken place. And even excepting that half-century. I do not think it is anything but a shadow of the half-century in which we are now entering — 1958, if you like to 2008. Under the Charter we are enjoined to unite our strength, to maintain international peace and security, to seek to maintain the living standards where they are good, and for many peoples, better standards of life in larger freedom. Those injunctions have been imperfectly observed by many who pursue policies of political adventure harmful to international co-operation and to the welfare of their own people.
10. The outcome of the present Assembly's debates and votes will be different if we achieve a more positive emphasis on the human element in the problems we confront. We are not dealing here with abstract political concepts. We must be ever mindful that what we in the United Nations do, or fail to do, will have a profound effect on the lives of hundreds of millions of men, women and children.
11. May I turn for a moment to the most compelling, I believe, of our immediate problems, that of disarmament. Weapons have been developed which could leave the world in ruins and reduce humanity to a remnant shrivelled in mind and in body. Agreed measures to break the nuclear stalemate, check the arms race and lift the pall of fear would bring incalculable relief to every country in the world.
12. There would be significant and astounding economic benefit. Together with the representative of Pakistan, to whom I was privileged to listen this morning [769th meeting]. I call attention again to the statement by the Secretary-General, in the introduction to his annual report for this year — to which we have come to look, as is usual, for a perceptive commentary on the problems of concern to the United Nations. The Secretary-General, therein, reminds us that "... the volume of resources which is absorbed each year" in military uses considerably exceeds the total resources available for economic development in all the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America." [A/3844/Add.l, p. 3.] In terms of human need and of wasted opportunity, it is nothing less than tragic that this should be so.
13. I have two comments to make. How can we have conditions of peace whilst poverty and misery exist for so many hundreds of millions? One and one-half thousand million people are always hungry. How can we justify a life expectancy of little more than thirty years for some with over seventy years for others? I presided over the 1944 International Labour Conference. Out of that Conference came one amazing short statement which is so true: "Poverty anywhere menaces prosperity everywhere."
14. Alongside these first principles and purposes of life, I draw attention again to the international effort to reduce armaments, which up to the present has yielded depressingly meagre results. Yet for all the discouraging history of disarmament, for all the years of apparently fruitless negotiation in the League of Nations and in special disarmament conferences within and outside the United Nations, no Government or person that thinks of the human race as a worth-while body of people in the history of this universe of ours can justify in any way a loss of faith in the possibility of progress and ultimate achievement. Among the many objectives, the primary one at this period must be a comprehensive and balanced programme of disarmament with adequate inspection at every stage. Even if this cannot be achieved quickly, it cannot be achieved too soon. A step-by-step approach is logical and unavoidable. It would be wrong to regard a programme of partial measures as more than a temporary substitute for the comprehensive disarmament that must be sought. We must not regard the cessation of nuclear tests or the establishment of an inspection system to safeguard against surprise attack as a substitute for actual reduction and ultimate abandonment of armaments, invaluable though either Step would be in reducing distrust and tension.
15. The New Zealand Government, for which I speak here, welcomes the progress that has been made towards ending nuclear tests. We have consistently urged that this should be done as soon as possible by an international agreement containing adequate safeguards against evasion. Last year, with fifty-five others, New Zealand endorsed the Western proposals which linked a cessation of tests with a cessation of production of nuclear material for weapons. Those were good proposals. They formed an acceptable basis for a programme of partial disarmament. It is to be regretted that after their approval by the Assembly [resolution 1148 (XII)] one Power refused even to discuss them. But we are nearing something better, I believe, perhaps by the end of the present month. If discussions on disarmament proper are to be resumed, as I hope the Assembly will decide that they should be, those proposals will still provide elements for an agreement. Other elements may, of course, be introduced and modifications made.
16. Even though in itself it is not enough, there is some common ground now between the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom that the question of suspending tests should be taken first. My Government hopes the Assembly will endorse that position. In the absence of an agreement which would link the cessation of tests with other disarmament measures, there is value in a separate agreement to end nuclear tests. For reasons of overwhelming cumulative force, the cessation of nuclear tests is essential.
17. First, it would end the problem of radioactive fall-out from test explosions of nuclear weapons. There has been much controversy about the extent of the danger. Few in the world know its full extent. They only read of it and take the opinion of others. But the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has clarified the issue a little by making plain its view that all steps designed to minimize radiation, including the cessation of tests, would be to the benefit of human health.
18. Secondly, it would, if it were universal in its application, rule out the danger that efficient atomic weapons will be developed by an ever-increasing number of countries. Any agreement among all countries should provide that those not possessing or manufacturing nuclear weapons will, in the wider interests of humanity, renounce the right to produce them.
19. Thirdly, .it would establish for the first time a world-wide inspection system. That is really the key to disarmament. If such an organ could be made to work successfully, it could provide the foundation for control organs to police other and more extensive disarmament agreements. To provide the elaborate control network envisaged by scientific experts who, met in Geneva will, be costly, but the cost will be minute compared with its value. If it works effectively, as I have no doubt it can be made to do, it will dispel the suspicion that "inspection" is only a cloak for spies.
20. Fourthly, an early agreement to end tests would produce another benefit more general and less tangible, but potentially the most important of all: confidence and trust between the nations. What has frustrated and embittered the disarmament negotiations so far has been lack of confidence, warranted or unwarranted. It is that lack of confidence that today is destroying the possibility of building something better. It has sometimes been said that until confidence has been reestablished through the solution of some of the major political problems besetting the world, no progress can be made on disarmament. That is a counsel of despair. But if we forego speeches of mistrust and misrepresentation, so many of which I have heard in this Assembly during the last few days, we could agree on disarmament better than we' would be able to do otherwise. By that time, we would, I think, create an atmosphere of confidence and trust in which the great political differences would have a chance of being reconciled. The two things are complementary. Progress on one is bound to make progress easier on the other. If agreement to end tests can be completed and its observance can be verified — that is most important — tension will be lowered, trust will begin to grow and the way will be open for more fruitful negotiations on the other issues, including disarmament proper, which continue to divide the major systems of power in the world.
21. We should not lightly dismiss the obstacles which still stand in the way of agreement, even on the limited issue of discontinuing tests. There is still a difference among the nuclear powers on the precise terms of reference for the talks to be held at the end of this month. There is the problem of securing universal acceptance of whatever may be agreed upon. There is the problem of the place of China in this particular field. To complete the control system, there must be several testing posts on the Chinese mainland, and this will require the consent of the Government in Peiping. New Zealand feels that any meaningful disarmament agreement must include mainland China. Geography and the population statistics underline this proposition for us in the South Pacific.
22. We must start again the special United Nations disarmament machinery. No negotiations could bring practical results in a committee of the entire eighty-one Members of this Assembly. Negotiations can best be carried forward by a small group meeting in private as in the Sub-Committee of the Disarmament Commission or in the conference of experts on the cessation of tests. I will never forget the despair of Mr. Herriot, one-time Premier of France and later President of its National Assembly, when I talked to him at the disarmament conferences where Arthur Henderson of Great Britain and others were fighting to see if there was a way through after the First World War. But that despair shown by that great man, Herriot, was not justified. If we cannot win through, we are not worthy of being human beings. This problem of organizing discussion of disarmament within the United Nations framework must be considered with the seriousness it merits. The United Nations must play its full and rightful part.
23. No country should refrain from stating its views on these problems when they are before the Assembly. Our voice, small as it may be, will be spoken with optimism. Our vote will be cast with faith. Obstacles that seemed insuperable have been overcome in the course of the past few months. With the great weight of public opinion behind us, I believe that human ingenuity can and will find a way to meet a great, if not the greatest, challenge that the United Nations and history have had to face — namely, disarmament.
24. Just as New Zealand looks forward to progress at this session on the issue of disarmament, so too do we hope for progress in relation to the Middle East. Such a development is long overdue. From the inception of this Organization, the problems of the Middle East have been among the most difficult and the most persistent with which it has had to deal.
25. It is true that much has been done to diminish their magnitude. At this moment, the United Nations Emergency Force, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization and the United Nations Observation Group in Lebanon reflect in practical terms the efforts of the United Nations to preserve stability and to provide assistance to the people of the area.
26. But there is much more that could and should be done. In great degree, Middle Eastern difficulties have been intensified by past failure to face them directly. Arguments in favour of inaction or limited action have always been persuasive, and they still are. But evasion of a difficulty often merely ensures that it will have to be faced later in more complex form. That, I suggest, has been previous practice. But all those who desire to attain the objectives of the United Nations will hope that that experience will have ended in relation to the Middle East.
27. Varying opinions have been expressed concerning the outcome of the third emergency special Session. We were disappointed that there was so little response to suggestions that an effort be made to deal with Middle East issues on a comprehensive rather than a piecemeal basis. On the other hand, the resolution adopted by that session [1237 (ES-III)] — drafted and worked out magnificently, I thought, by the Arabs themselves on the specific issue before the Assembly — contained several valuable elements. It enjoined all Members to observe the obligations of mutual respect, non-interference and non-aggression. It applied to all States, Arab and non-Arab, of the Middle East.
28. The Assembly has received the Secretary- General’s report [A/3934/Rev.1] on his efforts in association with the States concerned to give effective expression to the principles outlined in the resolution. The special purpose of the resolution was to relieve Lebanon and Jordan of the fear of external pressure or interference. It is desirable that there should be a fundamental change in the spirit governing relationships among countries of the area. The practical arrangements suggested by the Secretary-General should encourage the change of spirit. This is essential to the creation of that state of confidence within which the impulse towards brotherhood among the Arab nations may have full scope.
29. Most of my listeners here today have given much time to the study of history. Let them look back and think of the peoples of Asia, some of Africa and of Europe and of this Continent of America, where reconciliation has taken place between peoples of different outlooks, different views, different colour. They have brought into being something that has enabled them to live, each with the other, in freedom. There are examples by the dozen throughout the world of what has been done, and I see no reason why it should not be done in the Middle East.
30. The General Assembly will later discuss the future of two organizations, the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) and UNRWA, which in different ways contribute signally to the maintenance of stability in the Middle East. The latter organization is now in its eleventh year, and UNEF will soon be in its third. Both are beset by great financial difficulties. Both are efficiently administered and operated, but in a condition of financial emergency and stringency. In UNEF, the number of troops has been somewhat reduced; in UNRWA, many important activities have been curtailed. In the case of UNEF, these reductions do not appear to have impaired its efficiency. In the case of UNRWA, on the other hand, the very character and purpose of the enterprise is in danger of being transformed. It is still able to provide the refugees with food, but it is less able today to give them hope — and hope is more valuable sometimes even than food. I believe it is correct to say that more than half of the refugees now are less than fifteen years of age and knew nothing of the original troubles.
31. Despite these limitations, there is still a reluctance among Members of this Assembly to accept the financial obligations involved in maintaining these organizations. This reluctance might be more explicable if their value and effectiveness were in doubt. Yet, their benefit is beyond question.
32. As the result of UNEF, a condition of quiet has been maintained in the area of the southern armistice lines, and this condition has been reflected in other regions.
33. As a result of UNRWA, a great social and political problem has been contained — not solved. Several hundreds of thousands of people have been given food and shelter, and many have been given education, training and opportunity, through work, to regain their self-respect. And there is no self-respect in anyone who is denied the right to work: that is one of the fundamentals of human freedom.
34. Were there no UNEF or were there no UNRWA this Assembly would undoubtedly be faced with massive difficulties. These would not be solely financial — but, in financial terms alone, they would far outdo the demands at present imposed.
35. New Zealand has always held that "the United Nations will be limited in its work and results so long as its Members do not accept the implications — financial as well as political — of the decisions of the Organization. It is essential that at this current session there should be wider recognition of this fundamental principle. There should be a more generous and general response to the needs of UNEF and UNRWA. The mandate for UNRWA expires in 1960, two years from now. If by that time there is no wider disposition to share financial responsibility more fairly, there will be many loyal supporters of the Agency who, will be reluctant to support its extension on the old basis. I hope that we would do this and that many would; but there will be some reluctance. Fundamentally, the change to which we look is a change of heart. The repeated failure — sometimes refusal — of our age is to see human problems in human terms. Nowhere is this failure more apparent than in relation to the Palestine refugees. The essential tragedy of their' present situation is that its human dimensions have been almost completely obscured.
36. Now may I turn for a moment to the Far East, where there is one problem which causes us some concern. I refer, of course, to what has been happening in the off-shore islands area in the Formosa Strait. The possibility that a widespread conflagration could at any time be sparked by hostilities there must be a source of grave disquiet to all in this Assembly, Certainly it is a matter of serious concern to New Zealand which, as a Pacific country, has a particular interest in the maintenance of peace in the Pacific region. While we should be careful not to exaggerate the dangers, neither should we underestimate the gravity of the tension which the mainland Chinese have created in seeking to secure their demands by methods of war.
37. There is an urgent need for the utmost restraint on all sides. Surely it is better to leave the rival claims to these islands undecided in the meantime if the alternative is to be armed conflict and the risk of a major disaster. We will all hope that a cease fire will be brought about as a result of the discussions now proceeding. The United States, for its part, has taken the initiative in endeavouring to find a peaceful solution. It has been met by the mainland Chinese, who have sent their representatives to Warsaw, and discussions are now taking place there. It is equally to be hoped that the mainland Chinese régime will agree to a settlement without bloodshed and violence. Military measures cannot settle this problem. Each side can stop fighting without giving up what it regards as its legitimate claims. I believe that, given the right approach, the War saw discussions could provide a solution to the problem. Should those discussions not be fruitful, other peaceful avenues present themselves. One of these is to be found in the valuable suggestion, made by the Foreign Minister of Norway when he addressed this Assembly the other day [765th meeting], that the parties might be assisted either by a small, balanced group of nations or by the Secretary-General. I believe that the United Nations does not take all the value that it could and can out of the smaller nations that have no axe to grind and no power to exercise except the power of thought and of reason to welcome this suggestion from the Foreign Minister of Norway because of that. Small nations do not necessarily mean small minds. We find big minds sometimes in small nations and, as I say, they have no power that they want to exercise and no axe to grind.
38. Now may I come to another point, technical assistance. I believe that the programmes of technical assistance and other measures of aid to the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America represent one of the most constructive and valuable activities of the United Nations. New Zealand has been a consistent supporter of the United Nations Technical Assistance Programme and will this year contribute £75,000 to the Expanded Programme.
39. The activities of the United Nations in this field will be extended when the Special Fund, which is to be discussed here, is established. As a result of the work of the Preparatory Committee and the Economic and Social Council, there is a common-sense and practical plan for the efficient development of the Fund’s operations. At the appropriate time, New Zealand will make its contribution to the Fund.
40. Because of our close association with the nations of South and South-East Asia, nearly all of which have achieved their independence since the United Nations came into being, -we in New Zealand have been able, particularly through our participation in the Colombo Flan, to see at first hand the magnitude of the tasks, the intensity of present domestic effort and the importance of international assistance to the people of South-East Asia. The Colombo Plan stems from the initiative taken by the Commonwealth countries in 1950. Since its inception New Zealand has made available and remember that we have only two anti a quarter million people — more than $20 million for agricultural, industrial, food-processing and other technical assistance projects. The reason behind that is to help the countries concerned, in a preliminary stage of industrial development, to expand their own food supplies so that in later years they will be able to exchange inside the world of trade the commodities that they produce out of their resources for the commodities which other countries produce out of theirs. But since the inception of the Plan we have found €1 million, except for one year when it was €750,000, or, to give it in another currency, something over $20 million in all.
41. Training has been given in New Zealand to more than 550 persons from the Colombo Plan countries and about ninety of our own nationals have been sent to the different regions as experts in the particular field for which we are noted, agricultural development, and also in social welfare. We are glad indeed that we have been able to provide this material assistance, but we welcome even more the closer relationships and deeper understanding which we share, as a result, with our neighbours in South and South-East Asia. In March of this year I spent thirty-two days there, visited perhaps nine or ten countries and travelled 25,000 miles. I was never more inspired than I was in meeting the people we were able to help and who were also helping us by developing their own resources. We are happy to think that the Colombo Plan has met the prescription given by the representative of Burma when he said that the important thing is to establish partnership, not patronage. Because of our appreciation of the great values, both material and spiritual, which spring from this form of activity, we welcome particularly the work which the United Nations is doing through the specialized agencies and under the programmes of the Technical Assistance Board.
42. No experience of mine during the present year was more inspiring than a visit to an Indian village where the people, with an enthusiasm which was to me unparalleled, said that they had, with old and worn-out tools, achieved their quota under the current Five-Year Plan of India. It was a magnificent example of what can come out of untrained industrial minds because of the vision that their Government had and because they could make their contribution towards it. Everywhere I went I saw evidence of outstanding advances. I know that the achievements of many other new nations are equally impressive. Nationalism has the power to release superb creative energies. In its constructive endeavours this great force — not to divide but to unite — deserves all possible help and encouragement.
43. External aid to the under-developed countries, important though it is, is secondary to the efforts of the people themselves. Perhaps the greatest difficulty which they face in the economic field — a difficulty which confronts many other countries — is the violent swing in the prices that they receive for their basic exports. During this debate, a number of representatives have referred to this problem. None of these countries, I know, wants charity, and they do not want to be made to feel that somebody is being kind to them. They have something to give to all of us, and it is for us to take it for our own benefit, and for theirs also. There are 1,500 million people with less than enough food to eat — I believe that the average number of calories in the daily diet in some places is 1,200 and in others, 1,800, while our average is 3,350, In that connexion there is only one country in which the people eat more than we do in New Zealand, and that is Ireland. The Governments of the underdeveloped countries simply want, through a fair return for their own efforts, the means to provide a decent living standard and better conditions for their peoples. We ought to glory in that objective. Clearly, their efforts to meet their own economic responsibilities Will be frustrated as long as the major nations fail to recognize the need for arrangements which will assure reasonably stable prices for what these people produce and sell, particularly for their basic commodities.
44. Thus, one of the most important tasks in which the United Nations can engage will be to provide both leadership and assistance in the development of procedures which will avoid, as far as they can, these violent fluctuations in prices.
45. Consideration of the problems of the newly independent countries prompts me to refer to the work of the United Nations in the field of trusteeship. As the Administering Authority of the small Trust Territory of Western Samoa in the southern part of the Pacific, New Zealand has a natural interest in the progress of territories under the tutelage of the United Nations. In Western Samoa we have been able, with the wise guidance and co-operation of the Trusteeship Council, to bring the Trust Territory steadily and peacefully to the threshold of self-government, Samoa has now reached the stage where the representatives of the Samoan people exercise in practice almost complete control over and responsibility for the internal affairs of their country. Next year, a mission from the Trusteeship Council, charged with special functions, will visit the Territory. We welcome the opportunity which this visit will present to discuss matters which must be taken into account when the question of terminating the Trusteeship Agreement is considered. I can assure this General Assembly that my Government will give the mission the fullest co-operation and assistance.
46. The variety of activities encompassed within the United Nations is without parallel in the modern world. The Organization alone provides a forum for the discussion and resolution of political problems. It assists the study of economic and social difficulties affecting particular areas of the world. It provides aid in almost every field of human endeavour. It offers the means of realizing the ideals proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln of the equality, the worth and the essential dignity of all men. Through the United Nations, we can best achieve the hope enshrined in the words of the Atlantic Charter that "all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want".
47. We are all constantly impressed with the thought of how much still remains to be done; we can take encouragement and hope from the thought of how much has already been achieved. But — and here I repeat what I said earlier — we must never forget, whatever the character of the problems before us, that we are not dealing with abstractions; we are concerned with human beings. We are seeking simply to provide a better life for people everywhere. The United Nations will continue to be judged on how it helps men and Governments in all parts of the world to secure the full spiritual and material well-being of human beings.