My first words must be to congratulate the President and ourselves on his election to the presidency. Being a mere male, he will not, I fear, as he himself has admitted, be able to preside with the grace of his distinguished predecessor, but I feel certain that he will follow her example in directing our meetings with efficiency, impartiality and courteous firmness.
2. This is the ninth year in which we have come together from all corners of the world to discuss and try to solve international problems in the hope, which is not often enough realized, that by doing so we may ease international tensions and promote human progress.
3. The United Nations, like other human institutions, is developing its own traditions, its own techniques. It has had its successes and its failures. Perhaps a disproportionate amount of attention has been devoted to the latter, which are indeed not so much the failures of the United Nations as an institution, as of the peoples and Governments which make up its membership.
4. This year many familiar faces are back again. This makes for continuity of representation which can be a source of strength to us. Also, many of the same old subjects are back again, some for the third or fourth year in succession. While this can become a source of weakness to the Organization, it is not necessarily so. The basic problems of international politics, arising out of political and economic insecurity, foreign domination and denial of human rights, lust for power, ignorance and greed — such problems have seldom been amenable to quick or easy solution.
5. It is therefore natural, indeed it is inevitable, that we should have a certain number of what I might call hardy perennials again on our agenda. But it is certainly not desirable to have too many of them, or have them kept there for the wrong reasons and with the wrong results.
6. To insist on discussing the same question seven times in seven years does not necessarily bring us seven times nearer its solution. It may take us farther away from that desirable result, and, in so doing, lessen the repute and weaken the effectiveness of the United Nations. There is a danger in using our Assembly and its agenda year after year to apply pressures, without regard to circumstances, which may produce the reverse of the result which we seek, which may, also, subsequently produce equally unconstructive items on our agenda designed to apply counterpressures with equally negative results.
7. Quite apart from this intrinsic reason for us to exercise responsibility and restraint, there is always the consideration that in a deliberative, body such as this Assembly, with the whole world as our agenda, we must apply priorities and show a sense of proportion in selecting those matters which should occupy our resources.
8. Since those resources, including time, are limited, it is essential, if we are to use them wisely, that we should examine the various demands which are made on them in the light of our basic purposes and against the background of the fundamental total problem of maintaining peace in the world.
9. It is true, of course that our title, the United Nations, denotes at this time aspiration rather than achievement. But this does not, I think, give any ground for cynicism or despondency. That our world is deeply and dangerously divided is nothing new in history. What is new is the fatal consequence, not merely for peace, but for existence itself if this division deteriorates into world conflict.
10. In a further effort to prevent such a tragedy, the scope of which is almost beyond our comprehension, those of us who are members of the Disarmament Commission attempted to reach agreement this spring on arrangements and safeguards which could make possible the prohibition of atomic weapons and a general movement towards disarmament. It was disappointing on this occasion for us to find that the Soviet Union seemed as unwilling as ever to accept any adequate system of supervision and control, the indispensable prerequisite to progress in the field. Instead, they sought refuge in a slightly modified version of the old proposal which they have made year after year, that every government should first agree unconditionally to prohibit the use of atomic weapons, putting reliance on each other’s word. If we could have this degree of confidence in mere verbal assurances, mutual trust and good will in the world would be so great, then the need not only for disarmament agreements but for disarmament itself would hardly exist. The hard reality that we have learned through costly experience is that we cannot trust unsupported promises; hence we have to put our trust in something else. The Soviet Union, for instance, and its friends refuse to accept the solemn assurance of its members that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is purely defensive and will never be used for any aggressive purpose. Why, then, would they accept a mere declaration that we would never use methods of atomic warfare?
11. However, the meetings in London this spring were, I think, far from futile in that a new basis was worked out by the British, the French, the Americans and ourselves, on which, once good faith and a general desire for progress are shared among all concerned, a real advance, I think, could be made.
12. In the meantime, whatever reliance can be placed on a reciprocal capacity to blow each other up gives at best cold and limited comfort. I hope that before it is too late something better and more civilized can be found. Thermonuclear devices are too dangerous, the threat that they pose to the very existence of life on this planet is too great, for sane men anywhere to view with equanimity their existence in a divided and frightened world.
13. Despite our setbacks on disarmament, there is hope that progress can be made in international cooperation for constructive uses of atomic power.
14. When he spoke to this Assembly last December [470th meeting] President Eisenhower made the significant proposal that there should be established an international agency under the aegis of the United Nations which would foster the growth of the new atomic technology for peaceful use. We in Canada believe this proposal to be very important, not only for its own merit, but because it implicitly recognizes the principles which are essential to the achievement of prosperity and the diminution of the threat of war throughout the world.
15. The first of these principles is that the endeavour to establish trust between nations by means of co-operative ventures aimed at the social and economic betterment of mankind should not be made conditional upon political agreements which are impossible until such mutual confidence has been achieved. Surely it is one of the first lessons of history and of the study of human nature that trust is a delicate plant of slow growth which takes time to flower, and that, conversely, suspicion is a hardy weed which cannot be killed merely by chopping off its foliage. It was with this in mind that the Canadian Government has observed with very great regret the discouraging refusal of the Soviet Union to consider these United States proposals except on conditions which have already been shown to be unacceptable to the great majority of the Members of the United Nations.
16. The second principle is that proposals for cooperation which are as important as these to all the countries of the world should be developed, in President Eisenhower’s own words “under the aegis of the United Nations” [470th meeting, para. 114]. This is certainly one case in which we should not by-pass our world Organization.
17. Canada, like the United States and other free countries principally involved with atomic energy matters, believes that even in the absence — the regrettable absence — of Soviet Union participation, an international atomic energy agency along the lines proposed by President Eisenhower could usefully be formed by the nations willing to subscribe to its aims and support its activities. My country is in a position to make a useful contribution to the work of such an agency and will be glad to do so. The Canadian delegation hopes that the proposal to establish an international atomic energy agency will prove to be an important step in the liberation of atomic energy from its military bonds, and that as the resources of more and more nations are applied to the problem the advance towards the application of atomic energy to peaceful purposes and for the benefit of mankind will become increasingly rapid.
18. International co-operation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy cannot in itself remove the dangers of atomic destruction. These and other dangers have, however, brought their own response in the determination of many governments and millions of people to use our United Nations for the purpose of avoiding the grim tragedy of total destruction and of bringing about a better world than the one we have today.
19. The evolution of technological processes and developments in nuclear science have made mankind far more immediately interdependent than either public opinion or governments, in any part of the world, have yet realized. But, unfortunately, as our interdependence increases our divisions persist. The undeniable fact is that if we do not find the means to harmonize and reconcile these divisions, they may destroy us all. Naturally, this increases the importance of the United Nations as a centre of negotiation, of reconciliation and of unity. By unity I do not mean the lifeless uniformity which is the ideal of totalitarianism. If we are to do anything about these divisions, we must first recognize and try to understand them.
20. First, there is the fundamental division, as I see it, between totalitarian and free societies. In the former, the citizen is the mere servant of the State while, in international matters, reliance on force and aggressive expansion is a normal development however much the words “peace” and “co-existence” may be used to camouflage and confuse. Free societies, on the other hand, are based on the doctrine, however imperfectly realized in practice, that man has rights and duties above and beyond the States and governments which have been created by him in order to protect his freedom and security under law and justice.
21. Then there is a division between the self-governing and the non-self-governing parts of the world. Many people often, but I think mistakenly, equate this division with that between countries administering colonies on the one hand, and dependent territories on the other. In fact, of course, the non-self-governing part of the world is incomparably greater than this. People who are governed by a dictator whose power is based merely on military or police control are not self-governing, even if the dictator happens to be of the same race and to speak the same language as most of his subjects. The people of a puppet State, the satellite dictatorship of a totalitarian Power, are less self-governing than, for example, the people of a colony which is on the move, though sometimes the move may seem too slow, to national freedom, under a democratic government.
22. Then there is the distinction between the highly industrialized parts of the world, with relatively advanced standards of living, and what are called the under-developed areas. Under the leadership of the United Nations we are trying to do something about this, but the process, we are finding, is bound to be a slow one. I hope it remains steady.
23. The United Nations then, operating in a world thus deeply divided — and indeed made more necessary precisely because of that division — represents and must try to serve men on each side of each of these divisions without betraying or weakening the principles of its Charter in the process.
24. Our direction is clearly, laid down: it is towards economic and social progress and away from poverty; it is towards full and free self-government and away from dictatorial regimes imposed from inside or from outside; towards the progressive realization of human rights and the dignity and worth of the individual person.
25. Our Organization has, I think, had significant success in dealing with each of these three main lines of division in our world. But in each there are problems and trends which cause concern and which, if they got out of hand, could easily lead to grave setbacks.
26. On the road towards self-government, for instance — we sometimes forget this — giant strides have been taken under United Nations auspices, and hundreds of millions of people in Asia, the Pacific and Africa, have during the past eight years become self-governing. But against this we must set the fact that some countries which formerly were self-governing democracies have fallen under foreign domination and have been subjected to totalitarian and outside control. Too often, it seems to me, debates in the United Nations on questions of colonialism and self-government ignore these setbacks, and blur the balance-sheet of freedom. I do not, of course, suggest that we should refrain from trying to make progress in one area merely because no progress seems practicable in another. But we should be careful not to confuse and mislead world opinion on these vital issues of self-government and freedom.
27; But the most important, and incomparably the most important, of the tasks of the United Nations remains that of keeping the peace, or, possibly, establishing the peace. Though in this field, too, we have had a number of achievements, there is less ground for satisfaction, or even for confidence, that the passage of time is necessarily bringing us closer to our goal. There is far more reason for anxiety than for complacency.
28. The United Nations has, I think, shown in Korea that it is capable of taking effective and successful international police action against local aggression. It must be remembered, however, that in this case one great Power — we pay tribute to it — was willing and able to lead and to shoulder most of the burden.
29. But apart from the problem of possible local aggression, and the risk of its spreading through hasty or ill-considered action, there remains the danger of a major conflict. Here, as I see it, the primary object of our world Organization must be prevention, rather than intervention.
30. Such a major conflict could be caused by deliberate aggression, or by accident, or miscalculation. Certainly the history of the last twenty-five years has shown that the danger of deliberate aggression by totalitarian empires is a real one. Such deliberate aggression can be and is being deterred by regional collective security organizations, by defensive alliances, which make it clear that the peaceful nations cannot be destroyed and absorbed one by one. In this way, such arrangements — which are aimed against aggression wherever it comes from — deter attack and serve the cause of peace. They also restore the balance in threatened areas of the world and thereby contribute to stability and security.
31. Where such regional and defensive coalitions are necessary, they can readily be developed within the framework of the Charter. Our Charter recognizes and regulates them, but in no sense prevents them, providing they are organized and operate in accordance with its principles.
32. The United Nations itself, however, as a universal Organization — at least universal in principle — serves a more fundamental purpose in providing an efficient framework and endless opportunities for negotiation and conciliation under a system which embraces both sides in what we call the cold war. Those who would view with equanimity any reduction in United Nations membership so that those nations whose aggressive tendencies are understandably feared would be outside rather than inside our international system, have, I think, the wrong conception of the purposes and the possibilities of our Organization.
33. Quite apart from the danger of deliberate aggression, we must recognize that in a tense and fearful world there is also the risk of accidental war, brought about by miscalculation or a misreading or a misapprehension on each side of the other’s intentions. Whatever the rights or wrongs of any particular situation, mistakes of this kind under modern conditions could be profoundly dangerous to the whole world. For these reasons — I know we all agree — the greatest importance should be attached to measures which can reduce international tensions, lower temperatures and remove the barriers to communication, whether they be psychological or physical.
34. In my view, nothing could be more dangerous in this divided world than a final and complete failure of man’s ability to communicate with man across whatever differences of regime or race or economic conditions, across whatever curtains of fear, or iron or prejudice may exist. As I see it, one of the most vital of our purposes within the United Nations is to keep open and to develop these channels of communication, so that some day — and may it be soon! — when both sides are willing, they may be used for conciliation and eventual agreement.
35. Mankind is only beginning to develop and use the institutions of interdependence, of which the United Nations is by far the most important. This work will not be completed in r lay. But it will not be completed at all unless we keep everlastingly at the job of building, of correcting those tendencies which have already made the work more difficult and which, if we are not careful, may stop it altogether.
36. In my view, one such tendency, as I have already indicated, is that of overloading our agenda with problems, some of which may be beyond the competence of this Assembly, or which can best be dealt with, in the first instance at least, by other methods of conciliation and settlement.
37. The United Nations is the main highway to international co-operation and unity. If we all try to use it at once for our purposes without observing sensible and responsible “rules of the road,” the result will certainly be confusion, and may be collision. On the other hand, if the road is too often by-passed, it will fall into disuse, soon into disrepair, and ultimately into uselessness.
38. I feel sure that we all share the concern expressed by our Secretary-General in his introduction to the ninth annual report over the fact that the United Nations, with its unique facilities for negotiation and peaceful settlement, has not always been used for the purposes which it was intended to serve. You will recall that Mr. Hammarskjold said [A/2663, p. xi]: “To fail to use the United Nations machinery on those matters for which Governments have given to the Organization a special or primary responsibility under the Charter, or to improvise other arrangements without overriding practical and political reasons — to act thus may tend to weaken the position of the Organization and to reduce its influence and effectiveness, even when the ultimate purpose which it is intended to serve is a United Nations purpose.” I think it is important that we recognize that danger.
39. There are, of course, a number of factors which, in certain instances, have brought about this “by-passing”. The Secretary-General reminded us of one when he said that the Organization as it exists today leaves out areas of the world and important States and peoples from its membership. Since 1950, twenty-one States have sought admission to this world forum without success.
40. So long as the United Nations fails to solve this problem of membership and representation, so long will the tendency grow to seek solutions, especially those which affect these unrepresented areas, outside the Organization.
41. Over the nine short years in which the United Nations has existed, it has been threatened from within and attacked from without. But with all its shortcomings it is impossible to visualize a world without the network of practice and precedent, the institutions and procedures for peace making and peace enforcement which we mean by the phrase “the United Nations”. If this United Nations did not exist, we should soon have to find another one.
42. The fact that the United Nations has lost somewhat in repute and prestige in the last few years is, I think, undeniable. That is due in part, I suppose, to the unrealistic expectations many persons previously held of the power of an agency, composed of sovereign States, to settle all the difficult and complex problems which have been thrown at it; it is due also to the deterioration in the international situation following the common victory in 1945; and it is due, finally — and we should not forget this — to certain weaknesses in our Organization and to the reluctance of some Powers, which had been increased by these weaknesses, to use the United Nations as it could and should be used for achieving the objects set out in our Charter.
43. The present situation then is cause for anxiety, but not for despair. It is a challenge to do better, not to lament over why we have not always succeeded.
44. The best way in which this present Assembly can meet this challenge is by making a good record of constructive achievement. My delegation hopes to make a worthwhile contribution to that end.