45. I should like first to convey to you, Mr. President, the Dominican delegation's warmest congratulations on your election as President of the thirteenth session of the United Nations General Assembly. The breadth of your culture, your long experience in the United Nations and your personal identification with the great causes under debate here, fully justify your election and are a guarantee that the course of our debates will be wisely directed.
46. Reaffirming its faith in the United Nations, the Dominican Republic takes part in the work of this thirteenth session of the General Assembly in order to combine its efforts with those of all States which are sincerely seeking, through the practice of the principles and methods advocated by the United Nations, the best solution to the urgent problems which are at present threatening the peace, security and well-being of the international community.
47. My Government firmly believes in the fundamental purpose of this Organization, to whose creation it contributed as a charter member of the great alliance formed on 1 January 1941, while the struggle was being waged on the battlefields of Europe and the Far East for those same principles of freedom and the independence of nations which are now being debated amid the anguish and dangers of the cold war.
48. In accordance with the guiding principles of Dominican foreign policy, the Dominican Government has pursued a course of staunch support for the United Nations. This is demonstrated by our collaboration in the Organization’s collective security programmes and, more particularly, in those which are inspired by a genuine sense of human solidarity, such as the programmes concerned with refugees, child relief and technical assistance, to which we have contributed with a generosity and regularity which have already become proverbial.
49. The interval between the twelfth and the thirteenth sessions of the General Assembly has been one of the most anxious times in the history of the United Nations, The expansionist forces of international communism, faced with the Western Powers' policy of containment, have once again embarked upon a political manoeuvre comparable to the advance and withdrawal of the ocean waves and having the same effect of subterranean erosion, endangering as it does the defence of international peace and security.
50. We have witnessed an exchange of mutually recriminatory letters, which has vividly illustrated the clash between the two opposing points of view; charges have been brought without substantiation and the same subterfuges and sophistries have been brought out time and again, in the apparent belief that the nations witnessing this unedifying spectacle have short memories. This display of barren diplomatic exchanges is proof positive of the need to maintain the system of regional alliances provided for by the Charter at the highest level of effectiveness and unity of thought and action.
51. But what is the real significance of these associations for collective security? Alliances do not rest solely upon networks of bases and the mere interchange of material and equipment. It is essential to bear in mind the spiritual factors involved, for it is those factors which constitute the active principle holding them together. The word alliance signifies mutual respect, sincere friendship, a genuine readiness to afford mutual help and a deep understanding between the parties pledging their respective strength and resources.
52. The ideological conflict which developed in international relations during the period I have mentioned is not, however, confined to a sharp tactical contest on the diplomatic front. The wide disparities in economic development on the present international scene have given international communism a broad avenue for ideological and political penetration, and an opportunity for competition which is fraught with such implications for the future that concerted efforts of the widest and most vigorous kind are required to eliminate these disparities and to direct the fight against want, ignorance and disease along the only acceptable ideological lines, namely those defined at the beginning of Chapter IX of the Charter.
53. Economic and social co-operation may not be used as an instrument of political penetration or of intervention in the affairs of States. It must serve only the ends prescribed by the Charter, which stipulates that social progress and the raising of standards of living must conform to a more ample concept of freedom and that the creation of conditions of stability necessary for peaceful and friendly relations must be based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
54. The vital need to mobilize resources of capital and technical knowledge and to secure steadily improved conditions for the international exchange of goods and services in order to better the social and economic situation of the under-developed countries is confronting the Americas with an extremely painful dilemma, which cannot go unheeded by American statesmen. Either we yield to the blandishments of those who seek to draw the American economy into the orbit of that economic policy which governed by tire principles of dialectical materialism and the class struggle transposed to the sphere of international relations, with all the unforeseeable consequences which a progressive trend in that direction might have, or we accept the challenge to establish in the Americas economic and social institutions of the kind required for the purposes of collective security against aggression and the peaceful settlement of international disputes,
55. We share the conviction of those who believe that the historical community of the American nations has sufficient moral and material resources to develop in our continent, in accordance with our traditions based upon Western Christian philosophy, an outstanding example of international co-operation for the purposes of Chapter IX of the Charter.
56. We are faced, and this should be stressed again, with a real challenge to the future of inter-American solidarity. Just as at the conferences of Havana in 1928 , Montevideo in 1933 and Buenos Aires in 1936 , we succeeded in overcoming the dangerous indecision which was vitiating continental policy towards certain practices incompatible with the principles of the independence and sovereignty of States, and again reaffirmed the principle of non-intervention; and just as, at the conferences at Petropolis in 1947 and at Bogota in 1948, we established rules for collective security and the peaceful settlement of disputes which are an example to the rest of the world, it is now time for us to go beyond the stage of oratorical statements and of reservations inconsistent with the principles of economic and social co-operation which we claim to support, and to overcome the frustrations which attended the abortive Economic Agreement of Bogota, the meeting of Ministers of Finance in 1954 and the Economic Conference in Buenos Aires in 1947, in order to set up a vigorous and effective system of economic and social co-operation.
57. The Dominican Republic shares to the full the anxieties which beset the American continent and which have placed the solution of the serious economic and social problems of the Americas in the forefront of public concern. The Dominican Republic, with a territory of 48,442 square kilometres and a population of 2,698,126 inhabitants, now offers, owing to the programme of political, social and economic rehabilitation introduced by Generalissimo Trujillo in 1930, the spectacle of a nation which is achieving its rightful aspirations within the American community of nations.
58. Yet, twenty-eight years ago the situation in the Dominican Republic offered one of the most depressing examples of economic and social under-development. Our nation was plagued by internal upheavals which precluded any attempt at civilization and culture and threatened to place us outside the ranks of the civilized nations,
59. During the early decades of this century, it became obvious that we must eliminate periods of social depression and embark upon a programme of national rehabilitation. We had to give force and meaning to our constitutional provisions which defined the Dominican Republic as a democratic and representative State, based upon the sovereignty of the people and on the fulfilment of certain essential human rights.
60. Up to 1930 our constitutional history was one of disharmony between the principles proclaimed by our institutions and the underlying economic and social facts. That being so, it was impossible for us to contribute in any way to international co-operation. The limits of our national territory were still undefined owing to the failure to solve the age-old frontier problem; our financial system had collapsed, bringing us to the verge of bankruptcy and anarchy; and our people were decimated by diseases which sapped their productive capacity and were deprived of the most elementary educational and cultural facilities, surviving precariously in a primitive economy. In those circumstances, it was clear that our Government, if it was to salvage the nation, was faced with the exceptional task of breathing life into the shadow of an almost vanished State and society.
61. Our territorial boundaries were fixed by the frontier agreement of 1936 and the gradual economic, social and cultural development brought about by the various Governments which have ruled the country under the same continuing political leadership has made possible such results as the following. In 1930 the country's entire public health budget was no more than $160,000. Today the budget of this important government service is some $8,062,000; it has thus multiplied more than fifty times. Whereas in 1930 we had eight hospitals with 400 beds, we now have fifty-one hospitals with 7,000 beds, some of the hospitals having a greater capacity than all the hospitals in the country together in 1930. The malaria eradication programme is reaching a decisive phase, with a marshalling of health resources never before seen in our history.
62. Our social policy protecting the working classes is reflected not only in our accession to the more important International Labour Organisation conventions but also in the incorporation of the standards laid down in these conventions in our own labour legislation. Our minimum wage regulations are at present being amended in accordance with a plan recommended by the United Nations Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance, the objective being to ensure that the level of wages of the lower-paid working classes rises gradually in step with the expansion of the national economy and thus to preclude inflationary pressures or disturbances likely to make the continuous operation of undertakings uneconomic. Among the more important social security advances is legislation introducing compulsory life insurance for all civil servants and government employees earning less than $400 a month.
63. One interesting item in cur legislation for the protection of the needy classes is Act No. 4,107, promulgated in 1955, which provides for the payment of State allowances to the children of persons serving prison sentences, if they are without means of subsistence.
64. The Dominican Republic's achievements in the sphere of education clearly demonstrate that government activities in our country are firmly rooted definitely and unquestionably in the people. In order to give a rough indication of the growth of education in the Republic in recent years I need only mention that, whereas the population has doubled in the last twenty-two years, primary schools have multiplied their capacity eleven times during the same period. Altogether, 491,158 pupils are enrolled at schools in urban and rural areas; 10,080 adolescents are attending secondary schools and 21,000 are undergoing training in vocational schools, while 4,034 young people are receiving higher education at our university. The most spectacular effort has been the Trujillo universal literacy campaign, whose effectiveness can be judged by the fact that whereas the illiteracy figure in 1950 was 56.8 per cent, it has now fallen to 33.9 per cent. There was, therefore, every justification for the statement made by Mr. Barón Castro, in addressing the third Latin American Education Congress at Ciudad Trujillo in January 1957, on behalf of the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization that illiteracy had shown a lightning decline in the Dominican Republic. This year the Republic's education budget will be more than $11 million, which is a higher figure than that of the country's entire budget before the year 1936.
65. The extent of the Republic's economic progress can be estimated from its agricultural production and industrial development. As a result of the advances made in both these areas, the per caput income of the Republic has risen in 1957 from $174 to $229. This result has been secured through an exceptional increase in the area under cultivation; national production for export, the value of which in 1935 did not exceed $15 million a year, in 1957 reached the highest figure in the country's history — $161 million.
66. With regard to industry, as a result of the Government's policy of stimulating development, there were, in 1957, 2,993 industrial establishments representing a total invested capital of more than $206 million. Economic development policy is based on the provision of absolute guarantees for domestic and foreign capital investments.
67. Great advances have been made in the electrification of the country since this source of power was nationalized. The Government has invested $13 million in the development of hydro-electric-installations. Between 1947 and 1956 the country's consumption of electricity rose to 232 million kilowatt-hours, the increase in 1955-1956 alone being 37,300,000 kilowatts.
68. One of the Government's largest undertakings at present, under the programme for the electrification of the entire country and for the improvement of the irrigation system, which has given such an impetus to agricultural development in the Republic, is the building of the Tavera dam which, when completed, will irrigate 31,400 hectares and will have a capacity of 150 million cubic metres of water. This project is being financed entirely by Dominican capital.
69. This mobilization of the country's natural re-sources and manpower in. order to ensure a steady increase in the rate of economic and social development of the Dominican people is best reflected in the Dominican Government's five-year plan, launched on 16 August 1958, which calls for the investment of some $650 million in economic development and in the expansion of health and educational services.
70. As the Dominican Republic's economy is primarily an export economy, the rate of our economic development depends very largely on tire existence of favourable terms of trade. The Government of the Dominican Republic will co-operate to the utmost in the execution of plans already drawn up for the so-called "Operation Pan-American", but it considers that this programme should also provide for the elimination of certain restrictive agreements resulting in discrimination against the Dominican Republic's most important export product in the United States market. My Government feels that there should be no permanent quota restrictions which discriminate against certain countries. This is a problem which affects not only the Dominican Republic but also the great majority of Latin American countries exporting agricultural and mineral raw materials; it is, therefore, a problem of general concern, and should be included in any programme designed to bring about a real inter-American economic unity.
71. The delegation of the Dominican Republic earnestly hopes that the United Nations will not disappoint the hopes mankind has placed in it and that, during the present session, we shall be able to make a real and constructive contribution to the easing of international tension and come to realize — even those of us who see international relations as a dialectical process — that one of the most absurd contradictions and one which we all have an equal duty to seek to resolve is the paradox of a world becoming increasingly interdependent, yet at the same time driven by fears, antagonisms and rivalries absorbing energies which should rather be directed towards raising the general standard of living of all peoples.