I desire to take advantage of this opportunity in the general debate to express the views of New Zealand on certain aspects of the United Nations in the light of the situation as it exists today and of the transactions of the Organization up to the present.
I think that the occasion and the situation of the world alike demand that we should all speak with complete frankness. I shall do so, always in a spirit of pure helpfulness and with no slightest intention of obstruction or embarrassment.
In the first place, I should wish to express our understanding and appreciation of the very real difficulties of the Secretary-General in his task of transferring the administrative services of the United Nations from one continent to another, of locating them in temporary and scattered quarters, and of helping indeed to meet some of the staff demands of the Peace Conference. We congratulate him also on his dispatch of responsible agents, even to those Members of the United Nations which are most distant from headquarters, to assist in the recruiting of personnel. In New Zealand, the fullest publicity has been given to all vacancies in the United Nations and, generally, we have done our utmost to assist the Secretariat in carrying out the policies of the General Assembly.
My country is particularly interested in the question of trusteeship, not only because we have for thirty-two years been responsible for the territory under mandate of Western Samoa, but also because of our long and increasingly happy association with our own indigenous fellow citizens, the Maoris, whom we all admire and respect. We can, I think, take some measure of legitimate satisfaction in the knowledge that all the Polynesian peoples for whom we are responsible are increasing rapidly in numbers, and we believe that this fact is not without its evidentiary value as a test of successful administration.
Following upon the undertaking given at the first part of the first session of the Assembly, the New Zealand Government, the first of all, I believe, publicly to announce its intention to transfer an existing mandate to the new trusteeship system, prepared a draft trusteeship agreement for consideration by the Assembly. That draft has been handed in today. The agreement fulfils in our view the conditions of the Charter and we therefore hope that it will be accepted.
In the meantime, we wish to stress two conditions which seem to us to be important to the success of the trusteeship system. Firstly, we look forward to a healthy development of the practice which might be called the jurisprudence of the Trusteeship Council. We expect more good of this condition than the most careful and complete elaboration of the trusteeship agreements themselves. New Zealand gladly pledges its best co-operation with the Trusteeship Council in, the discharge of the Council’s important responsibility.
Secondly, certain aspects of the earlier discussions on trusteeship justify us in reminding the Assembly that the main object of the trusteeship system is the welfare of the inhabitants of the territory held in trusteeship. The system has not, it is true, been devised in the interest of the Administering Authority. But neither has it been devised in the interests of the other Members of the United Nations nor has it been devised as an instrument with which to belabour those Governments which have often, at substantial cost to themselves and with a genuine and encouraging honesty of purpose that is too often misrepresented, undertaken the lengthy and laborious task of assisting and guiding the development of a backward people toward enlightened self-government.
In the discharge of its trusteeship responsibilities, the New Zealand Government, one of the earliest advocates of this system, will make the welfare of the inhabitants its principal concern. It is with this intention that we shall open our administration to the inspection of the United Nations in accordance with the terms of the agreement, regarding them not as judges but as welcome fellow-workers.
While warmly congratulating the Economic and Social Council on much that it has accomplished, we should like to sound one note of caution, indeed perhaps of criticism. We think there is some danger of over-elaboration in the organization of the United Nations. In particular, we question the necessity or the wisdom of equipping each important branch of international activity with the full apparatus of a specialized agency requiring a special international convention treating with the United Nations on a footing of equality and independence. When it is a question of a body dealing with an international activity, the care of refugees or health or scientific co-operation, why must in each case a special convention be drawn up and an independent administrative, legal and financial apparatus be devised?
The Assembly itself is competent by a resolution in due form to create an agency with whatever internal organization might be considered appropriate and — I insist particularly upon this point — to assure to this agency full autonomy within the sphere of its particular activities. Such a method has the value of elasticity. The Assembly can later modify by a two-thirds majority the provisions of the agency’s constitution, thereby avoiding the rigid procedures of amendment which normally attend the constitution of international bodies set up on the basis of separate conventions.
Moreover, we look to the Assembly, as the organizing centre for new international institutions, to give the best assurance of that high degree of financial and administrative integration which is so necessary in order to economize both money and effort. We feel that these problems are treated far too much from the point of view of Powers with vast resources and money and personnel. We were happy to observe the view on this matter expressed by the Secretary-General in his supplementary report to the Assembly.
We are gratified that the Atomic Energy Commission began its work promptly and we hope that it will be able to proceed, as invited by the Assembly, with the utmost dispatch.
The main issue, as far as the possibilities of international agreement are concerned, is already perfectly clear. At the present moment, one State only is in possession of stocks of atomic bombs, and the knowledge of the full process of manufacturing them. That State offers to forego its enormous advantage on certain conditions. These conditions, and especially the right of international inspection, are by no means negligible. But are they unreasonable? The New Zealand Government thinks not. Indeed, we feel it incumbent upon the Assembly to acknowledge as a notable act of international co-operation the offer, be it conditional, of the United States of America to forego its advantage.
Though it is unnecessary to debate the constitutional problems at the present stage, it is clear that no method of inspection or control can be considered effective which requires, at every point, the positive assent of the Security Council. If, therefore, there is to be an international agreement at all, some organ must be empowered to make the necessary technical and administrative decisions without delay.
To delegate a sufficient degree of autonomy to the proposed atomic authority, to save it from being paralyzed from any indecisions of the Security Council, will, we realize, be a difficult matter. But here, of course, is the crux of any effective system of control. But if it be achieved, we see no reason to deny to the Security Council the right to direct the work of the atomic authority in its security aspects, a right which it undoubtedly possesses under the Charter. Let the Security Council by all means exercise its over-riding powers when it can bring itself to do so in a positive sense.
It is not the resolution of the Security Council which is to be feared, but its irresolution. We therefore, share the misgivings of those who think that the creation of an entirely independent atomic authority might impair the Security Council’s position. But we see no inconsistency between the maintenance of that position and the delegation to the atomic authority of a wide range of powers.
I turn now to the question of voting powers in the Security Council which leads inevitably to a consideration of the veto. The views of New Zealand on this matter have been stated from time to time by my Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Peter Fraser, and notably, during the course of the San Francisco Conference. Those views remain completely unaltered, and it falls to me today, merely to re-emphasize those views and to add particularity in the light of what has since transpired. What are the qualifications, the credentials of a small country such as mine to speak at all on this subject? What, indeed, are our rights? Why do we hold that we have not only the right, but the duty, to express our views with clarity and with force?
What gives us this right? We have this right because we have established in our homeland in the southern seas, a true commonwealth, a home of liberty and of freedom where wealth is more evenly distributed, I believe, than in any other country in the world, where all can live a full and ample life, and all can strive, as all do, to lay the foundations for a still better life for our children, and theirs. Have not we, who have so much to lose, a stake in the maintenance of peace and the prohibition of war which would destroy all that we have done so much to create? Death or mutilation is just as stark and poignant a tragedy in my small land as it is in larger countries.
We have this right because twice in our time, isolated though we were, we in New Zealand have been involved in tragic war, the result of events at opposite ends of the world, freely, voluntarily pledging our all in the fight for international liberty and decency, which we recognized at once was our fight too. We have this right, because in that cause we gave our best in blood and in treasure. The graves of New Zealanders throughout the whole world, who died in defence of our beliefs, are a constant and eternal witness to the fact that our support of principles is not confined to words alone. If blood and tears, anguish and sacrifice, are the price to be paid for a voice, a proportionate voice in the world today, then we in New Zealand have paid that price.
We have this right, because the world today is one world; and there can be no lasting peace or prosperity in New Zealand unless peace and prosperity exist throughout the world.
Our demand for a voice is a modest one. We ask no veto; we ask no predominant or decisive voice. We ask for our proportionate voice in those councils which will influence the affairs of man as far ahead as man can see, a proportionate voice, no more, no less.
What now are the views of my country on the question of collective security generally, on the steps that have, up to now, been taken to make a reality of that great dream of mankind? It is just as much a disservice to the cause of peace to ignore the weaknesses as it is not to recognize the strength of the Organization that we have established for that great and high purpose. In the course of my discussion on this subject, I shall be led into some measure of criticism of the Charter of the United Nations — I hope a moderate and a reasoned criticism. That being the case, I wish to enunciate, at the outset, certain general and fundamental principles which I would wish to have understood as applying throughout the whole course of my remarks. I should like to emphasize my hope that what I have said and what I am about to say, should be regarded as one connected whole and not as so many unrelated comments.
In the first place, we, and those who think as we do, recognize and acknowledge at once that the great Powers who played the predominant part in winning the war must similarly play the predominant part in winning the peace. Where we differ from what has been done to ensure this end, we differ only as regards method and not as regards object. We agree therefore that some means must be devised to give to the vote and me voice of each Member of the United Nations such weight and authority as are proportionate to the size and the status of that Member. Where we differ there, we differ as to the means that have been adopted, not as to the end.
We agree, of course we agree, that the mere fact of the establishment of the United Nations, the provision of a public forum from which national policies and aspirations may be voiced, the provision of a table around which representatives of the nations may sit and discuss their problems, one with another, all sitting equally around a common table, all endeavouring to arrive at the highest common measure of general agreement, we agree at once that that is a real and substantial cause for universal satisfaction.
And we agree, and we are most enthusiastic in our agreement, with those provisions of the Charter which contemplate a determined and a long-scale effort to achieve a greater measure of economic justice as between nation and nation, as between man and man, and to provide for a more equitable distribution than exists at present of the good things that this earth can so abundantly provide.
Finally, and I do beg that this be carefully noted, finally, we agree that what was achieved at San Francisco was the very best that could be attained at that time. That may be a regrettable fact; nevertheless it is a fact. And we agree also that what was achieved in San Francisco may still be the best that can be achieved now.
Now, I should like, in the first place, to draw a distinction between the use of the veto power on questions relating to the pacific settlement of international disputes and its use on matters of enforcement. We, in New Zealand, have never been able to understand, and we do not understand now, why the great Powers insisted on tire right of veto on questions calling for a settlement by peaceful means; but this, with the much larger and more difficult question of the veto on enforcement action, was part of the price that the smaller Powers were called upon by the great Powers to pay for the very existence of the United Nations. We agreed to pay this price. We thought it was a high price, but even at that, a price worth paying. But we were not without the most earnest hope that, in due time, we should perhaps obtain a refund, that those Powers which had insisted on this privileged position would sooner or later — and sooner rather than later — find themselves able to agree to a modification of those principles.
I very much question whether anybody in the whole world today is satisfied with the transactions of the Security Council. The proceedings of that body have, it must be confessed, offered a humiliating spectacle. The cause of this humiliation lies not only in a failure to come to agreed conclusions on the substance of the difficult international questions brought before the Council, but even more pointedly in the prolonged wrangles on procedure. In adopting resolutions on matters of substance, the Council is impeded by the veto. All the more reason why, in the field where it is free from this incubus, namely in procedure, it should act with decision ; all the more reason why those Powers which have been granted these extraordinary privileges should see to it that those privileges are utilized with the fullest sense of the high responsibility of those five Powers to mankind.
We sincerely hope that the Security Council will, in the future, find it possible to refrain from discussing at great length whether it should discuss a question. Let it use frankly, and above all promptly, its right to take a procedural vote on the establishment of agendas and other procedural matters.
Let the Security Council, and I say this most earnestly and with all the emphasis of which I am capable, let the Security Council, hampered as it is by the inevitable and at present apparently inescapable voting restrictions of the veto, let the Security Council see to it that all due and proper care is taken, lest by frustration of its efforts to transact its vital business, lest by constant evidence of its futility, the Security Council should bring itself to stultification, and into public disrepute, lest it fail to win that priceless asset, the confidence of the whole world, which is essential to its success.
A second procedural matter of great importance is the participation in the Security Council discussions of Members of the United Nations not represented on that Council. We think there has been, on occasion, undue delay in inviting to the Council a State entitled to be represented under Article 31 of the Charter. Representatives of such States should, in our view, be invited to participate not only in the main discussion, but in all procedural preliminaries such as the discussions on the timing of the debate, whether further documentation is needed and similar matters.
We gladly concede that the principles of free discussion have, on the whole, been upheld by the Security Council, but there have been anxious moments, and a more assured procedure seems to be required.
I turn now to a more fundamental discussion of the voting power of the Security Council and to the question of a possible revision of that power. As a country which, at the San Francisco Conference, offered emphatic opposition to these provisions, we feel it essential to make our position clear. We dislike the veto as much as ever. We believe that, side by side with the resolute effort to remove economic injustices, there must be provided a completely effective system for the prevention of aggression, not at all to preserve the status quo, but certainly to prevent any alteration even of the status quo by individual national force.
We wish to see established an effective system of collective security, under which all contract that aggression against one is aggression against all and will be met and defeated as such. We believe that nothing short of this can, in the long run, be permanently effective: an agreement by all the right-thinking peoples of the world that lawless force will always be met and defeated by lawful force wherever, whenever, with whatever justification, for whatever reason and in whatever circumstances an attempt is made to apply individual national force. Such a system, properly and responsibly applied, with due regard to economic justice, would, we believe, achieve the desired end, but we also believe, that nothing less can be permanently adequate.
I proceed now to an examination of the Charter of the United Nations and to a discussion as to how far what was achieved in San Francisco falls short of the requirements as we see them. I have already made plain how warmly we in New Zealand approve the provision of a roundtable for the public and detailed international discussion of differences. I did not elaborate that point nor did I say how warmly New Zealand approved the procedure established by the Charter for the peaceful settlement of international disputes and differences. But we do not believe that in the last resort the peace of the world can permanently be preserved by words alone.
There are, we know, many, very many, who hold the contrary view and they are, we readily admit, in many cases among the noblest of mankind, but they were not among the authors of the Charter of the United Nations, which clearly and properly contemplates provision of the use of force to repel aggression. As prudent and responsible people, we must look upon the world as it is, not as it might be or as it ought to be. History accords abundant proof of the existence of predatory nations and predatory people who take advantage of the exigencies of the times to oppress and enslave their neighbours, and indeed, to seek the enslavement of the whole world.
Any attempt to rely on words alone to preserve world peace against a determined aggressor must lead inevitably to compromise with evil, to gross injustice toward innocent and helpless people, and to that policy which has become known and properly despised, appeasement. Appeasement, in that sense, leads inevitably to war.
If then, words are not alone sufficient, as is clearly recognized by the Charter, how does the Charter measure up to requirements? It failed in two important respects.
In the first place, it failed because it provides no definite and inescapable pledge that aggression against one will be regarded as aggression against all and repelled accordingly. This matter was much discussed at San Francisco. An amendment to fill this obvious gap in the Charter was moved by my own country. I would remind you that that amendment was supported by no less than twenty-six countries; but I regret to say that it was opposed, and vehemently opposed, by the great Powers and those in agreement with them. Why it was opposed is to be left to the great Powers to answer, but we shall not have a completely effective Charter so long as this essential provision is absent.
The Charter fails, in the second place, by reason of the voting procedure established for the Security Council, which always contained within itself; — and recent evidence largely confirms that fact — the germs of its own stultification. Let us consider for a moment why these provisions were included and exactly what they are. The reasons for inclusion are simple but, I suggest, logically unconvincing. The basic theory was that the great Powers must be given their proportionate and predominate place in the new Organization, and with that theory, as I have already indicated, we in New Zealand are in full agreement. But the provision that was introduced went too far, much too far.
What have we got there as a result of the Charter? We have an Organization in which each of the five great Powers reserves to itself the right in every case, for any reason, however capricious, to decide whether it will or will not take part in any proposed resistance to aggression. More than that, much more, we have an Organization in which each of the five great Powers reserves to itself the right to say not only whether it will take part, but whether the Organization as a whole can be allowed to function at all.
I pause here to compare this privileged position, insisted upon for themselves by the great Powers, with the position of the small Powers, which were asked to agree, and in fact did agree, that they would be bound by the decisions of the Security Council in all cases requiring action on their part. They were required to accept, and they did accept, a provision that for all time to come they would apply force when called upon to do so by the Security Council acting, as it will, at an unknown time, in unknown circumstances, through unknown men, and in accordance with a substantially undetermined or unknown principle under a decision in which the smaller Powers not only have no veto, but no vote, and incredible as it may sound, no voice. I repeat — no vote, no voice, except in the case of those few of the lesser Powers which happen, at the appropriate moment, to have been elected to a seat on the Security Council.
That is the position which the smaller Powers were called upon to accept. They did accept it. New Zealand accepted it, and whatever its manifest imperfections and injustices, New Zealand can always be relied upon to honour its acceptance.
Passing from this aspect of the matter, where are we now in this effort of ours to achieve collective security? We have a system that is not collective and is not security. We have an Organization which cannot act against a great Power, because of the veto. We have an Organization which cannot act against a small Power, if that small Power is supported by a great Power, because of the veto. We have an Organization, then, which can act only against a small Power that is not supported by a great Power.
What then is it that the world fears? Is it an attack on the peace of the world made by a small Power not supported by a great Power? The question, of course, is derisory. If the five great Powers are all agreed in the case of an attempt at aggression, the world has nothing to fear. What we have established, then, is an Organization that can be admirably adapted to crush aggression by a small Power, admirably adapted, to take action in those circumstances where such an organization as this is almost entirely unnecessary, but largely precluded, by reason of the veto, from acting in those cases, and in those cases only, where mankind is in danger.
Indeed, I suggest to you that it is entirely essential that at some time, at some appropriate time — and as soon as may be — the nations of the world, and particularly the great Powers, must consider whether an Organization so limited, as this can confidently hope to achieve its object.
Whoever heard of a fire department, each one of five members of which reserved to himself the right to say whether he would go to a fire — still more, each one of the five members of which reserved the right to say whether the fire department could go to the fire or whether the fire would be allowed to rage unrestricted? Whoever heard of a police department, any one of five members of which reserved to himself the right to say whether he would attempt to arrest a criminal in the act of crime — more than that, any one of five members of which reserved to himself the right, not only to say that he would not attempt to prevent a crime, but to say that the whole police force cannot attempt to prevent a crime, the crime thus being allowed to be committed with impunity?
The great Powers — the great Powers as well as the small Powers — must be prepared to venture some capital in this great movement to ensure against war. They must be prepared to expend a little of their freedom to run their own affairs to suit themselves. They, as well as the small Powers, must be prepared to accept, in such vital matters as these, when the welfare of mankind, and perhaps the continuation of civilization as we know it, are at stake, a measure of third party judgment, to be guided by the public conscience of the world and not by their own unrestricted decision. Where success depends upon the contribution of all, all must contribute in due proportion. What the great Powers are attempting to do is to have their cake and eat it too.
I agree with what was so frequently said at San Francisco: that if any of the five great Powers, any one of the five great Powers, should, in the years to come, unhappily either initiate or support an act of aggression, the world is unquestionably in trouble, in serious and deadly trouble. That trouble is exactly what the Organization we have established is intended to meet; and if we are to shut our eyes to that fact, then we shut our eyes to the facts of international life as, unfortunately, they have existed in the cast and as they may present themselves again in the future.
Let me remind my colleagues that the veto power was insisted upon by the five great Powers at San Francisco, that it was forced upon the remainder. The marriage of the veto to the Charter was a shot-gun wedding. If this matter had been left to the free and untrammelled vote of the delegates at that Conference, it would unquestionably have been defeated. And, I venture to add, were this matter put to the vote of men and women in the street throughout the world today, the veto would be blown away in a gale of indignant repudiation.
The veto power, as it at present exists, is not consonant with any law of logic or of morality. At its best, it is a stop-gap, and an attempt to meet a situation which, all agree, must be met in some appropriate way. It is, in essence, the application of the false and pagan principle that might is right. It is a negation, in the international field, of those principles of equitable democracy which are so dear to such a large section of mankind. It is an assertion of the indefensible principle that the great Powers which, admittedly, include such a large proportion of the world’s population and which, admittedly, have at their disposal an overwhelmingly predominant proportion of the material resources and the physical force of the world, are, at the same time, necessarily the repositories of all the wisdom, all the determination, all the devotion that this great cause of peace demands. Merely to state the proposition in these terms is to emphasize its essential fallacy.
Now, we of the small nations are happily, not alone in our doubts as to the effect of the veto in its present form. Apprehension, serious apprehension, has been explicitly expressed in recent weeks by more than one authority of unimpeachable competence and integrity. Among these, all have noted the recent comments on the veto power made by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mr. Clement Attlee. And those who doubt the wisdom of the veto, at any rate in its present form, have had a recent and most emphatic reinforcement from a source much nearer to us. In a speech to which I shall refer again, made upon his return to the United States in the last few weeks, the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Byrnes, used this phrase: “We must be willing to co-operate with one another, veto or no veto —” may I repeat that phrase, “veto or no veto” “— to defend with force, if necessary, the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Now, I challenge any person in this Assembly, or any person outside this Assembly, to maintain the proposition that the veto, as such, is good in itself. That it was the best that could be achieved at the time, I have already conceded and I freely and readily concede it again. I have no doubt that many will differ from me as to the conclusions which must be drawn from the facts that I have enunciated. But as to the facts, there can be no difference of opinion. Everybody in this room knows that the facts are as I have stated them. It is never wise, in international or national or individual life, to pretend that difficulties do not exist when they do exist. Let us face the facts.
It is proper now to ask what can be done about this situation. I do not pretend to know. The great Powers are, obviously, not at present convinced of the inequity and the dangers of the veto provisions as they exist today. Indeed, they, or some of them, are convinced of the dangers of any other course. By a most remarkable provision in the Charter, it has been made quite impossible to amend the Charter without the consent of each of the five great Powers. Is it too much to say that by this extraordinary provision, combined with a veto, this infant organization has been brought into the world with its hands manacled and its feet fettered? But, there it is.
At this stage, I think no person looking realistically upon the situation today can suggest that it is presently possible to alter the Charter in any material way in this respect, though we are not without hope that some gradual progress can be made, perhaps along the lines of the Australian proposal.
What further can be done? I suggest, at the moment, very little. I suggest, indeed, that all that men of good will throughout the world can do in present circumstances is to pursue the object in view with unremitting determination and to exercise the utmost patience, in the hope and the belief that in the course of time — and please God, before it is too late — it will be possible to establish a system of collective security which can indeed be relied upon to preserve mankind from the horrors of war, intensified a million times, as they have been by recent scientific invention.
Secretary of State Byrnes in his recent speech made the following comment:
“We must co-operate to build a world order; not to sanctify the status quo, but to preserve peace and freedom based upon justice and we must be willing to co-operate with one another — veto or no veto — to defend with force, if necessary, the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Mr. Byrnes has set out, in admirable phraseology, the very core and kernel of the problem. We, in New Zealand are in full agreement — in complete and unreserved agreement — with that policy. That is the objective we must pursue with patience, with firmness and with determination. That, and nothing less. It is that which we must in time achieve, if we are to fulfill our high and onerous responsibility to men and women of good will throughout the world today; to carry out that great trust that rests upon us, for our children and our children’s children, as far ahead as the mind can reach: to preserve them from the horrors of war. That, and nothing less.