94. The delegation of Costa Rica takes pleasure in congratulating you, Mr. President, on your election to the presidency of the General Assembly during its thirteenth regular session. My delegation is convinced that the vast experience you have acquired in the service of the United Nations as well as your remarkable moral and intellectual gifts have been the essential factor in your wise guidance of our debates and the skill with which you perform your high office.
95. My delegation will participate in the discussion of the questions and problems submitted for consideration by the United Nations, fully aware of the fact that, in reality, all it can contribute to a solution of those problems is its unwavering intention to be guided in its votes by the highest ideals of solidarity and universal justice.
96. Our intervention in this general debate will be brief and we shall refrain from any examination of the complex and vital questions on the agenda. We wish only to state without rhetoric from this world rostrum, at this opening phase of our session; that Costa Rica, although a minute country from the point of view of the size of its territory and population, is imbued with a lofty sense of its membership. In the United Nations. Mindful of this spirit, Costa Rica desires once again to make known its unshakable belief in the need to keep in force a set of ethical principles and standards, which constitute the sole course for the maintenance of world peace and the achievement, in the near or distant future, of that era of happiness to which we, as members of the human race, are entitled.
97. My delegation will give its complete support to any proposal, any declaration or any cause put forward in the United Nations, which will tend to strengthen politically those systems which respect the dignity of man. We shall support social measures which will not only promote employment but will also enable those obtaining employment to live a dignified and respectable life with adequate remuneration. We shall always support with our vote any measure designed to prevent the outbreak of a further world conflagration which, it is logical to assume, would endanger all humanity.
98. We shall condemn any direct or indirect intervention which endangers the independence of peoples or impairs the integrity of States.
99. We wish to express our full agreement with and great hopes for the efforts being made to promote a world disarmament plan which will free the peoples of the world from fear and enable Governments to devote all their resources to better and more humanitarian causes.
100. I should like to make a brief reference to Costa Rica in support of the position taken by our delegation on the question of disarmament. Since it gained its independence, Costa Rica has always maintained a markedly civilian tradition. It has preferred teachers and schools to soldiers and barracks. We can truly say that we have never had an army. We have always lived in a state of disarmament. The limited quantities of weapons acquired recently, breaking with this tradition, are now being exchanged for agricultural implements. The machete for clearing paths and the plough for opening furrows in the soil have, throughout our history, been the expression of our pacifistic creed and of the civilian bias to which I have referred. Nevertheless, the Costa Ricans have known how to handle a rifle or a cannon in their defence.
101. The delegation of Costa Rica therefore welcomes every effort made in the United Nations to achieve disarmament. We hope that, if an agreement on total disarmament cannot be reached between the great Powers, at least some agreement may be reached to limit with safety the manufacture of implements of war. Consistent with this desire for peace, which is so strongly felt by all Costa Ricans, my delegation is following with particular interest the efforts being made here to regulate atomic tests and to use this tremendous energy in the service of humanity and not for the total destruction of civilization,
102. My delegation has noted that economic studies are growing in importance every day. We have also decided, therefore, to support any proposal to promote these studies or give them their due priority, particularly in view of the many grave implications of the serious condition of under-development in some of the Latin American countries.
103. We are eager to find some positive solution to the problem created by the fall in prices of some of the so-called basic products. The strength of many of our economic systems depends on the possibility of finding for this problem a permanent solution and not merely a temporary remedy.
104. The existence of stable prices for their basic products is an essential condition for the progress of many of the peoples of this continent, Costa Rica, a single crop country, whose principal export product is coffee, has been seriously affected by the impossibility of securing an adequate demand for this basic commodity. In our country, coffee production is carried out on a small-holder basis. Thousands of owners of small coffee plantations are bound to suffer losses if prices cannot be stabilized. The coffee industry provides permanent employment for thousands of workers and farm labourers, and our economy is, to a great extent, based on our foreign trade, the sale of coffee abroad constituting the major source of gold currency revenue. In 1957, exports of this commodity brought in 49 per cent of our foreign currencies, followed by the banana trade with 39 per cent.
105. Large-scale unemployment and fluctuations in the value of our currency would be two of the most serious consequences for our country if we cannot sell our coffee or if we have to sell it at low prices. We have naturally rejoiced at the agreements recently signed in Washington, in this connexion, by certain Latin American countries, but my delegation is greatly concerned that the competent commission should continue the study of the whole question of these basic products, with a view to finding»some permanent solution.
106. The programmes of technical .assistance have been most beneficial to the Republic of Costa Rica. This kind of co-operation is certainly one of the most effective applications of the principles of service proclaimed by the United Nations. Considerable progress in various branches of national activity has been made possible by the assistance of experts sent to my country under the technical assistance programmes. Many Costa Ricans have been granted scholarships, in some cases, for the purpose of taking up new studies and, in others, to specialize in different subjects. These students have increased their knowledge of certain subjects or learnt new skills and have made a great contribution to our development. Certain phases of education have been given preferential advice and assistance under this programme.
107. The Electrical Institute and the Housing and Town Planning Institute have been wisely and generously assisted under this programme in certain branches of work. I wish therefore to take this opportunity to express our thanks to the United Nations for this valuable assistance and to repeat that Costa Rica has decided to co-operate, in so far as its limited possibilities permit, in furthering and increasing this type of assistance, since it is one of the most positive expressions of the solidarity which should prevail between peoples united in the same desire for peace and prosperity.
108. I said before that, in participating in this general debate, my delegation did not wish to raise or examine in detail any particular question or problem. We only wished to come forward at the opening of this new session of the General Assembly to reaffirm our belief in the high ideals of universal amity, referring only briefly, in passing, to certain matters which are of particular interest to our delegation.
109. I said I would be brief, and I shall now conclude by expressing our sincere wishes for the success of the United Nations on which rest the hopes of the entire world.