In his great pronouncement here the other day, President Truman used the following words: “The United States will support the United Nations with all the resources that we possess”. I begin by saying today, in my Government’s name, “The United Kingdom will support the United Nations with all the resources that we possess”. I think it salutary and timely that such pledges should be given now. Contrary to popular belief, they were not given in 1920. The support of Governments for the United Nations far exceeds what was given to the League of Nations when it was first set up. I think it salutary also that the peoples should know that that is true, for it is the most important single fact in world affairs.
In this debate it is our task to review, for our Governments, and for our peoples, the work accomplished by our United Nations institutions since we broke up in London eight months ago. Every year in the Assembly we shall attempt this task. Every year it will be important. But very seldom will it be more important than it is today. For nothing is harder now than to see our work in true perspective.
Since February last, the minds of Governments and peoples have been given to the Conferences which have been held in Paris. The work of those Conferences has been of urgent importance to the world. But, as my Prime Minister said in the House of Commons two days ago, even the biggest questions there debated are really “very small issues compared with the major issue that confronts the world — the major task of building peace on sure foundations”.
I lived through the Peace Conference in Paris after the first World War; fresh from the battles of that fearful conflict, I was constantly amazed how passion blinded Governments to the true interests of their nations; how, for a tiny irredentum, the friendship of neighbouring peoples would be lost, and the hope of peace imperilled.
The population of Trieste is much less than half a million; less than one per cent of the two peoples who claim it for their own. Even for that half-million, the vital thing is not where the frontier may be drawn, but the kind of life which they will lead in years to come. For the other ninety-nine per cent of the two nations, is it not plain beyond dispute that their overwhelming interest lies in a solution that brings peace and justice? It is perhaps symbolic that, in respect of Trieste, it was decided that the only way to carry out that aim was to use the authority and the institutions of the United Nations. For our task here is precisely to promote the common interests both of the one per cent, and of the ninety-nine per cent of the nations of mankind; starting from the principle, enshrined in every Article of the Charter, that peace and economic progress are indivisible, to free them, by joint international action, from poverty and militarism, and ignorance, and hunger and disease.
Those are the tasks with which in future our diplomacy must be concerned; that is what we mean when we say that the United Nations must be the overriding factor in foreign affairs. Ten years from now, these tasks will look much more important than they seem today. I believe that the beginnings we have made will seem more important, too.
What have we done, since we first met in London on 10 January? At that first part of the first session of the General Assembly, we completed what, in speaking of national parliaments, we call our constituent work. It is not easy work, as more than one of our nations has discovered in recent times. Senator Vandenberg is ardent by temperament, but he is not sentimental. He told the Senate that our constituent work was a “phenomenal success”. Since then the International Court of Justice has come to life; two of our Councils have taken shape; despite unheard of difficulties the Secretary-General has built up a staff. We have begun to learn how these new institutions should be used, to create the procedure, the customs, the technique, which will make them work. Above all, we have settled, for good- and all, that they shall work in public; because, as my Prime Minister said in the Assembly eight months ago: “Public debate is the foundation of democracy and a sure guarantee of liberty and justice against oppression.”
But is that all we have done? Built up institutions, spent the money in the budget, engaged some international bureaucrats to pester the national bureaucrats we have at home? Has the United Nations not helped at all to solve the urgent practical problems of the post-war world?
The Security Council? I quote my colleague, Sir Alexander Cadogan, who has been at every 'meeting since the start: “If the Security Council had not been in existence”, he said in Free World the other day, “the situation in Iran might be much blacker”. “Some people”, he said, “might well believe that if the Council had not dealt with the Syrian and Lebanese complaints, British and French troops might still be in the Levant”. “An ultimatum in the past”, he said, “has normally ended in threats of reprisals or armed action. The United States’ protest to Yugoslavia about the shooting down of aircraft ended with the threat of bringing the matter to the Security Council”. Yes, there is something on the credit side, even there.
The Economic and Social Council? A concrete plan for refugees; a plan to end war restrictions on international travel; the Commissions required to plan for full employment; new organs, already at work, by which the pressing post-war evil of illicit trade in drugs can now be checked; a Commission, with a mandate, which I trust the Assembly will confirm, to draw up what President Truman first called an International Bill of Human Rights; a report on the economic needs of devastated Europe, to be followed by others for Asia and the East, and on the action which must follow that of IJNRRA, that is a part of the eight months’ record of our Second Council.
UNRRA itself — the first and indispensable agent of the United Nations? Untrue and bitter, things have been said of UNRRA. I assert that UNRRA has been a superb and an astonishing success. It has saved whole nations from starvation; it has saved the world from epidemics and civil wars. It has done more than that. It has proved that international institutions, even on the most intricate operating tasks, can be made to work. And this Assembly has played its part. Do you remember Mr. Sol Blum’s resolution and the UNRRA Committee we set up? The resolution had thirty lines; it brought UNRRA something like thirty million pounds — four million dollars a line.
Do you remember our other resolution, about food supplies? It was this Assembly which first warned the world that there might be famine in many countries before the harvest of 1946. We started a great international debate. It moved the Governments to action. Millions of tons of food were saved by new policies, both in the hungry countries and elsewhere. This great and generous country made a stupendous effort — more tons of cereals were shipped per week than had ever happened in history before. Food in great quantities was diverted to the places where it was most urgently required; the threat of death by famine to many millions was removed.
While these emergency campaigns were going on, plans for long-term reconstruction and cooperation have been matured. The International Bank of Reconstruction and the International Monetary Fund, have been set up; we have the right to hope that, in the early future, the Bank may make its first reconstruction loans.
The Food and Agriculture Organization is working. What a magnificent purpose, what limitless perspectives, it has in view! In New Zealand, out of every thousand male babies that are born, only fifty-three, one in twenty, die in their first year. In parts of Asia, the number is four hundred and ninety, nearly one in two, who die. Their mothers eat so little that they have not the strength to keep their babes alive. The Food and Agriculture Organization decided last month, in Copenhagen, to try and end the paradox of hunger in the midst of plenty; of burning wheat in locomotives while men and women starve. Next week a Committee meets to prepare a concrete plan. Who can say that that Committee may not be a milestone in human history?
Public health. Soon our Organization will be at work.
Atomic energy — I will come back to that; made by the Committee on international control. but no record in these eight months can leave out the plan — the revolutionary plan — put forward by the United States and the solid progress made by the Committees on international control.
Of course, all this, in ail domains, is barely the beginning of our work. But already we have accomplished something. We have shown that the Charter and its institutions can be made to yield results. My Government hopes that this Assembly will give a new impulse to the work which we have begun. We want to put the power and the faith of the Assembly behind the Councils, and the Commissions, and behind every member of the Secretariat, whatever the duties he performs. We hope the Assembly will make it plain that, while we want efficiency in all things, the want of money shall not impede the work. Our total budget for the coming year, shared by all of us, is less than half what it cost my country for a single day of war.
We want, on the basis of the decisions already made, finally to settle how our permanent headquarters shall be planned, designed and built. We should like also to make progress about the regional centres which we shall need in other continents, and not least in Europe.
We want in this Assembly to approve the Trusteeship agreements that will be presented, and to bring the Trusteeship Council into being before we separate. We have faith in the trusteeship system; we want to make it, not a static thing of restrictions and controls, but a dynamic force to help us to eliminate whatever evil may remain of the predatory imperialism of the past.
We want to admit new Members of the United Nations — more new Members than the Security Council has as yet proposed. We want to secure, while the Assembly is still sitting, the twenty-two adhesions to the Health Convention that will bring that organization into legal life.
We want to draw up the final Convention on refugees, and get it signed. We want to establish, and establish quickly, the expert Committee which will assess the post-UNRRA relief requirements of countries which are still genuinely in need. We want to set up the International Children’s Fund which the UNRRA Council has proposed. We would like, if we could get agreement, to authorise the Economic and Social Council to set up an Economic Commission for Europe, on the lines which the Sub-Committee on devastated areas has proposed.
We want to endorse the agreements with the specialised agencies which the Economic and Social Council has proposed. But we shall want also progressively to weld those bodies into a single system of United Nations institutions. That will save us money — perhaps a lot; more important, it will promote efficiency in a dozen ways. And my Government remains convinced that the most important single factor is to place the headquarters of these bodies in the new international United Nations centre which we are going to build.
But there are other tasks, less pleasant, but not less urgent, which we must face.
The first is to declare again the basic principle of international economic interdependence, on which so much of the Charter has been based. We have set up a great system of international economic institutions to concert a long term policy of co-operation. Ever since the Atlantic Charter, every Member of the United Nations has agreed that a great increase in international trade, that help by long-term international loans, that the co-ordination of national economic policies, are required, if we are to free mankind from want. We are bound by Articles 55 and 56 of the Charter which are reprinted in the report. Surely we are no longer free to say — as has been said in recent months — that national economic independence is the first essential; that the International Bank will mean the exploitation of those to whom it lends; that our real purpose is to make the bondholders the rulers of the world. To say such things is to challenge the very foundations of the programme on which hitherto we have all agreed. We have agreed, by the Charter, that our common welfare is the test by which economic policy must be tried. We have agreed, by the Charter, that countries with differing economic systems can act together to this end. Our job now is to make this great new system work.
Our second urgent task is to throw the searchlight of our collective wisdom on the recent working of the Security Council; to ask ourselves what is really happening in that important body; to enquire whether any of us can be content, whether it serves anybody’s interest that things should go on as they are going today?
Let me say at once that my Government does not think it wise to attempt, at this first Assembly, to amend our Charter. Whatever changes any of us would like to see, surely we agree that that course must be premature. We must try, first, to work the Charter, if only to discover, by experience, what is really wrong.’ But if it is not useful to discuss amendment, it is useful to discuss why there is already such widespread anxiety about the Council, why already there are such insistent demands that amendments shall be made. The Assembly cannot shirk this duty by appealing to the permanent members of the Council to mend their habits, to show more mutual trust, to avoid indulging in mere propaganda and, in general, to agree. That no doubt is admirable, but it does not carry us much further towards a real result.
I welcome much that the Secretary-General said on this theme in his report. But, if I may say so with respect, he used some phrases which may be misunderstood. “The United Nations” he said, “was not equipped to act as a referee between the great Powers”. But if they have genuine and serious disputes which they fail to settle by bilateral negotiations, where should they discuss them, if not in the Council? Can it be suggested that they should seek agreement outside the Council, as a separate and supreme directorate of their own? My Government would absolutely refuse any such idea. It would be in flagrant violation of the Charter.
The members of the Council do not represent their own Governments alone; all of them, permanent or elected, represent the whole Assembly too. The Charter is quite explicit. Under Article 24, the Members of the United Nations “confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace”, and agree that “in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf”. It acts, not as eleven separate individuals, each responsible to himself alone; it acts as a corporate body, collectively responsible to the full Assembly. Nor is that all. In the second paragraph of Article 24, it is laid down that “the Council shall act” — no option is allowed — “in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations”. These Purposes and Principles are set forth in Chapter I; they include the precise and vital pledges of Article 2.
Members of the Council are not free to do just what they please; they must fulfill the obligations which their membership involves; and they have another duty which the spirit of the Charter quite evidently implies. They must seek with all their power to reconcile their views. In practice this must mean two things. If a permanent member of the Council has a difference with another permanent, or, indeed, a nonpermanent, member, it should seek the views of this other member before it places the question on the agenda for debate. No sensible man ever goes to court before trying at least to seek agreement before he goes.
Second, the search for common ground must involve a little give and take. One permanent member who holds a certain view can hardly invoke the principle of unanimity to demand that four others who take a different view shall conform to his.
What I have said, I think, conforms with the spirit of Article 33, by which the Council acts. It is only when Members of the United Nations have tried and have failed to reach agreement that they should seek the help of the General Assembly or of the Security Council. I regret to Say that too often that practice has not been followed up to the present. Without warning or prior consultation, items have been placed on the agenda of the Council and an acrimonious debate has ended in a vote. As a result, as our Mexican colleague said yesterday, the hope of friendly compromise recedes.
But apart from this there has been what I would call, with all respect, a reckless use of the veto when it comes to voting in the Council. Consider what happened in a recent case. The Ukrainian representative charged the Greeks and British with fomenting warlike incidents in the Balkans; he alleged that Greece was a menace to world peace. He laid his case before the Council; by nine votes to two the Council’s verdict was in favour of Britain and Greece. But that verdict could not formally be recorded — the representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics imposed a veto. So far no real harm was done; the vote of nine to two cleared Greece and Britain with all impartial people throughout the world.
But what followed then? Some Members of the Council felt that the situation on the northern frontiers of Greece was really dangerous; they felt that an explosion might occur, that the Council ought to investigate the facts. They proposed, therefore, to send a Commission of Enquiry to the spot, to find out, on both sides of the frontier, what was going on. And what happened? Again the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics imposed a veto, vetoed an enquiry into charges which it itself had made. Again, the Council’s will was frustrated by a single voice. Consider the principle which this involved. How can the Council carry out the principles of Article 2, how can it seek to prevent breaches of the peace, how can it fulfill its task of settling international disputes in such a way that security and justice are not endangered, if it cannot even make its own enquiries on the spot?
All experience, over many years, has shown that this matter of free and impartial international enquiry is vital. A tribunal that cannot do that will be quite useless as an instrument for settling disputes. Is that really what our Soviet colleagues want? We always understood that, in their opinion, the Security Council should play a most important part. But, very soon, if this goes on, it will play no part at all. Who would take a genuine dispute before the Council, if it were likely to be dealt with as in the Greek affair? In the view of my Government, this is a grave issue, in which the rights of every Member of this Assembly are involved. We cannot amend the Charter; but there are other things which we can do. We can agree on new and wiser interpretations of disputed points; we can facilitate the Council’s action by improvements in its rules of procedure; we can bring a new spirit to the Council’s work — as Mr. Gromyko said in London, we can build a sound and creative atmosphere capable of securing the attainment of positive results.
And we can give the Council some constructive work to do. Under the Charter, it is the Council’s duty to organise the collective system by which alone aggressive war can be restrained. It is its duty to prepare the plans for the regulation of national armaments. This is an immense task, in which the Military Staff Committee must take the early steps. We should like to see that Committee pushing forward with greater energy, and reaching more practical results. We ask our Soviet colleagues, in all friendship and good understanding, to reflect on the speeches they have heard, and to listen to the appeal which we make to them today. Can they not now help us in the Assembly, in consultation with all their colleagues, to examine what has happened in the Council, and to agree on measures by which we can make a new and better start?
I come now to the third and most important controversial question which, as my Government believes, the Assembly should debate — I mean atomic energy.
My Government warmly welcomes the report of the Technical and Scientific Sub-Committee on the Control of Atomic Energy, which it regards as an important preliminary contribution to the work of the Commission. It is a valuable step forward that the scientific advisers of all the nations represented on the Atomic Energy Commission should have agreed on certain fundamental points. These scientists have made it clear that all stages of the processes of harnessing atomic energy are potentially dangerous; and they have agreed that on the scientific facts available there are no grounds for supposing that effective control of all these processes is not technically possible. With this body of agreed scientific information upon which to work, the Atomic Energy Commission can now make further progress with the task, entrusted to it by the General Assembly, of ensuring that atomic energy is so controlled as to be employed for peaceful purposes alone, and of devising effective safeguards to ensure that there are no violations and evasions.
My Government feels that, at this point, it would be valuable to state clearly the conclusions that must be drawn from the findings of the Technical and Scientific Sub-Committee. It is now clear that there is no possibility of making atomic energy available to the world for peaceful purposes, with all the benefits that mankind could derive from it, without at the same time making atomic weapons equally available to any nation wishing to possess or use them. The raw materials, the industrial processes, and the fissile products of these processes are identical, whether they are required for peaceful industry or for weapons of war.
The fundamental issue can, therefore, be quite simply stated. There are only two alternatives to a race in atomic armament with all that this implies for the future of civilization. One is that the nations must be prepared to forbid, not only the manufacture of bombs, but also all the manufacture of fissile material. This must surely be dismissed since it would mean that the great economic benefits which might flow from the peaceful use of atomic energy would have to be sacrificed. No industrial development of it could take place, no research could be devoted to its medical, use, and the large body of scientific knowledge, which already constitutes one of the most remarkable feats of the scientific genius of man, would have to be laid on one side and renounced. And even so, the world would not feel secure, since there would be no certainty that somewhere atomic research and development were not secretly being pursued, and that somewhere on the earth’s surface scientists and industrial organizations had not succumbed to the temptations offered by this new and devastating source of power to prepare a sudden overwhelming access of strength for their country or themselves.
The other alternative is for the nations of the world to agree to some system of international control. This would only be possible if all countries were willing to open their frontiers and permit freedom of access to the extent necessary to enable control to function. That is the simple issue which faces humanity.
The report of the Scientists’ Committee points strongly to the conclusion that a system of international control will only eliminate fear and suspicion if it is so comprehensive that it covers all stages of the industrial processes. By this means alone can the people of the world be certain that atomic energy and the creative genius of scientists, are directed into peaceful channels, and that the menace of atomic warfare has been banished.
This, therefore, is the choice that confronts the Atomic Energy Commission and the world — complete international control of atomic energy for all purposes with safeguards at every stage, and a determination on the part of Nations to carry it out; or a renunciation of the use of atomic energy for any purposes whatever, or the present position, namely an atomic armaments race. Both the latter alternatives involve the prospect of fear and suspicion dragging the world down steadily into chaos.
There may be differences of opinion about the methods of giving effect to a system of international control. But they are consequential matters and they must not be allowed to blind our eyes to the simple, fundamental decision that confronts us.
His Majesty’s Government thinks that the time has come to state the issue in these stark and simple terms; faced with this choice, His Majesty’s Government has no doubt which course the Atomic Energy Commission should adopt. It is confident that a system of international control can be worked out which will provide full safeguards at all the stages described as dangerous by the Scientific and Technical Sub-Committee. Moreover, it believes, that, at the moment, the best contribution that the United Kingdom can make to the solution of this all-important problem as a whole will be that its delegation shall devote all its scientific and practical knowledge and all its resource to the preparation of a draft convention by the Commission.
That is the purpose of the discussions and studies now proceeding in the Commission under the terms of reference; we beg every delegation to do everything in its power to ensure that the Commission shall succeed.
May I now summarize what I have tried to say? Our work is of supreme long-term importance. We have made a good start since January last. We have real results to show. We have now the chance, in this Assembly, to consolidate what has been already done. We can put new power behind the people who will carry on until we meet again. But we must face the fact that the world is still full of fear. If, in this supreme deliberative body, we can confront the three great controversial issues of which I have spoken; if we can reach agreed conclusions, lay down principles on which we can proceed, we may bring back our work into true perspective, and we may begin to dissipate the fear.
Why do fear and despondency pervade the world today? Do peoples, or Governments, still believe that, because we have differing social systems, war must come some day? Surely we put all that behind us when we signed the Charter. We shall never make the peoples understand it, if we revive that grim old doctrine now. The peoples think in terms, not of differing social systems, but of aggression against our common law. They expect our Governments, all our Governments, to fulfill the solemn pledges of Articles 1 and 2. They cannot comprehend why Governments find it so difficult to agree. They are longing for the end of fear. They are longing for simple things; homes for their families, a job of work, sufficient food. They want to leave their children a happier world than they themselves have known; they want to end the things that have made life bitter for them through these long, tragic years.
I hope that this Assembly, and all the Governments for whom we speak, will hear the voice of these anxious, waiting men and women, who ask for rest and peace.