The Assembly is most fortunate in sitting under the Presidency of one of the greatest figures the Commonwealth and the international community has produced. On behalf of the people of New Zealand, I wish to offer him my warmest congratulations. But I must say that I feel an even greater sense of humility as I come to this rostrum to give my Government's views on what seem to us the main issues before this Assembly. We are all conscious that we are addressing ourselves to a President who is learned, wise and humane, and who is a stranger to cant and an enemy of humbug.
50. I also naturally feel it a very great honour to follow in this debate the distinguished President of Pakistan.
51. I also offer the Vice-President, the representative of Australia — New Zealand's nearest neighbour — my warm congratulations. I am delighted that he should be presiding while I address the Assembly.
52. As I try to answer the simple, direct question, "What does New Zealand expect from the United Nations?", I shall try to avoid cant and humbug by first asking myself the simple question whether what New Zealand is prepared to contribute to the United Nations is consistent with what we expect from it.
53. At the outset I should like to say that above all the people of New Zealand expect peace among the nations, peace with justice and under the rule of law. But today we all know that we have only a precarious peace. We are desperately concerned about the predicament into which we human beings are rushing at ever-increasing speed. We do not like living under the balance of terror — in a world there the arms race is spiralling day by day.
54. We draw only cold comfort from what has been done at Geneva in this last year, and still less comfort from all that has been left undone there in comparison with the rapid pace at which developments have occurred elsewhere in the world. But we still believe that the United Nations offers more hope of getting us out of the predicament than does any other secular institution. I shall say more on disarmament and nuclear tests a little later in my speech.
55. What do the people of New Zealand expect? We expect conditions in which mankind can develop in freedom, unfettered by poverty, ignorance and disease. These are words to which I and my fellow Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth subscribed a few days ago at our conference in London. New Zealanders believe — to put it in our own language — in a fair deal, not just for ourselves but for all men. In New Zealand we have established a society without discrimination, where the dignity and the worth of every human being is recognized. We cannot rest content with any national or world order that is not based on similar recognition of the worth of every human being and on similar efforts to realize it in practice. We New Zealanders do not like living in a world where hundreds of millions of people are hungry and where the gulf between rich and poor, between the industrialized nations and the agricultural nations, appears to be increasing. We have supported and shall continue to support the efforts of the United Nations to do something effective about this situation, which we regard as intolerable.
56. The people of New Zealand expect the United Nations to be a medium for conciliation and for fruitful co-operation. We do not like living in a world where our basic human problems, already desperate enough, are complicated by the sterilities and inhumanities of the cold war. To be realistic, we balance the hopeful signs such as the recent settlements in West New Guinea and Laos against the more menacing portents from Berlin and Cuba. But we feel the menace in some of the opening salvos fired already in this general debate in the Assembly, and we await, with some perturbation, the tests still to come over the Congo and over the financial affairs of this Organization.
57. We well realize that war and peace hang upon these great political problems. We feel deep concern about them, but we do realize the limitations of the small Powers. Here, I must say that we, the people of New Zealand, are dismayed at a state of affairs where a government, a political system, has to resort to building a wall to contain its unwilling citizens. It is a curious world indeed.
58. We are also amazed and alarmed at such a large- scale introduction of armaments and technicians by the Soviet Union recently into Cuba. Perhaps we in New Zealand do not know enough about Cuba. We will not in any way pronounce upon its internal affairs, but we do know that world peace depends upon the two super-Powers showing almost super-human responsibility and restraint. We think that this recent act by the Soviet Union shows a lack of restraint and a lack of proper responsibility in this respect. It does not seem to us to square with the protestations of the representatives of the Soviet Union from this rostrum. To us, wherever the words come from, when they do not mean what they say, we regard them as cant and humbug.
59. But I should like to return to my theme. The people of New Zealand expect the United Nations to be organized so that it can help to produce common solutions for our common world problems. Many of our economic and other problems are on an international scale. They transcend national boundaries, and we all know that despite its limitations on the political side, the United Nations is capable of producing something more than the lowest common area of agreement. From time to time, it rises magnificently to the challenge of the occasion. In spite of that, we in New Zealand have a sense of foreboding about the Organization of the United Nations.
60. We fear that two developments are threatening to reduce the capacity of the United Nations to aid in the task of producing common solutions for our common problems. I refer to the undermining of the financial base of the Organization and the threat to the international character of the Secretariat.
61. We feel it would be tragic if this Organization, the instrument of such high purposes, should founder because it could not pays its way. It is scarcely conceivable to us that this could happen, especially that the United Nations should founder on financial difficulties incurred in the pursuit of its fundamental aim, its most fundamental aim, the preservation of peace. Yet, the cold, hard fact remains that this is a very real danger confronting us at this very moment.
62. It is puzzling and disturbing to the people of my country, a staunch supporter of this Organization from the outset, to find itself in the minority which has paid its full share of the peace-keeping operations in the Congo and the Middle East. By far the greatest cost, of course, arises in the Congo, and that land is very remote from my country. We have no trade with the Congo, nor any material contact or interest in it. Why then, should we pay our assessed share to keep the peace there? Why should we have bought 81 million worth of bonds? We have done so in the firm belief that peace, and the maintenance of peace, is the first and foremost concern of this Organization, in the belief that peace anywhere is the common concern of everyone. This is our faith and our belief; but when others default, especially the great Powers who have special security responsibilities under the Charter, the great Powers for whom there is no excuse of domestic financial difficulty or shortage of overseas exchange, then it becomes a problem for a small country such as mine — and I presume for others — to understand and determine the limits of principle and, indeed, the limits of patience.
63. Our second fear is for the independence of the Secretariat and its consequent efficiency. I would remind the Assembly that the Charter states that the Secretary-General and his staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any Government or other authority external to the Organization. Every Member State has undertaken to respect the exclusively international character of the Secretary-General and his staff. We in New Zealand have been distressed and alarmed at the attempts which have been made to destroy the international character and the international loyalty of the Secretariat by seeking to carry into it the ideological patterns and the political leanings of some of the Governments in this Organization.
64. These notions of a "troika" and of a world rigidly divided into three groups are utterly alien to us and alien to the more adult concept of the United Nations as outlined in the Charter, to which we have all subscribed. We believe that if there is any determined attempt to graft these ideas on to the Organization, they will destroy it because they are foreign to it. Some may see the world in terms of three simple groupings, but why should we, especially the smaller nations, look at the world through someone else's glasses, with their dark and curiously ground lenses?
65. Perhaps some of us fondly imagined that the battle for the independence of the Secretariat was won last year. It now appears it was simply a single battle, and that the campaign continues. We, the smaller nations whose stake in the United Nations is the greatest, must be vigilant to prevent any weakening of the Secretariat, not only at the highest level, but at any and all levels. If the United Nations is to protect the smaller nations, it must have at its centre only those who are willing and able to work in the interest of all Member States of the United Nations.
66. There is yet another factor which could bring the United Nations to disaster, and that is impatience and intolerance, an impatience which is expressed this year in calls for extreme measures to settle some of our rather complex problems. I recognize that the impatience of the pressures for extreme solutions is often the reflection of moral passion, of a burning desire to see justice done to one's fellow-man. We recognize that this is positive and it can be creative. (I need hardly say here that I do not have in mind the solutions invariably proposed by those countries that try to turn this moral passion to cold war purposes.) The problem is to find means of expressing this justified passion within the limits and the objectives of the Charter of our Organization.
67. We believe that the Charter of the United Nations does provide a framework large enough and sound enough to contain and channel this great force of moral passion. Because this issue arises within the context of decolonization and because my delegation will not be authorized to subscribe to extreme measures during this Assembly, I think I owe it to my fellow representatives to amplify the New Zealand position. I do this in the belief that because of New Zealand's record in Western Samoa and its other smaller territories, as well as our record of lack of racial or other discrimination within our country, you will not ascribe our attitude to any basic lack of sympathy or any silly notions of superiority. I believe earnestly that our national record would give the lie to any such thought.
68. The primary roles in the process of Western decolonization are held by the two direct participants — those who have been administering the territory and the people of the territory who will soon be administering themselves. Those are the two vitally interested sections. But there is a third force in this process: international opinion, a very vital and a very powerful force. It finds its main expression in this world Organization, justified by the Charter itself. Experience has shown over the years that the transfer of power is achieved most successfully and with the greatest long-term benefit to the people involved when there is full understanding and co-operation between the two direct participants. The role of the United Nations, as we see it, is to ensure that the forces making for international change are resolved in an orderly and peaceful manner.
69. Comparatively few territories still remain dependent — at any rate, dependent on the West. They remain mainly because they are the most difficult, whether because of their small size, racial tensions, economic imbalance or lack of political development. I know of course that when there are so few left, the inclination is to call for extreme measures to dispose of the problem immediately. It seems the simple thing to do.
70. This, however, is to step right outside the United Nations framework. The goals of peace and self-determination are placed side by side in the Charter. Where decolonization has so far been achieved successfully it has been by reliance on these twin principles of progress and order. The United Nations tradition of orderly, pragmatic progress now faces its most difficult tests. As I have said, the temptation is to short-circuit the issue by imposing or inviting violent attempts at solutions. But we believe the greater challenge to us is to consider each case on its merits and to work out where United Nations guidance, and pressure too if necessary, can be most effectively employed.
71. We agree with previous speakers that the problems of Africa are of the first priority. At the same time, as we reach the final stages of Western decolonization, we should remember that there are people who are still subjected to another system of foreign domination. In New Zealand, we are far removed from the continents of both Africa and Europe, but there is an equal sympathy in New Zealand for the desire of the peoples of both continents to achieve their full freedom and independence. So long as self-determination is denied or threatened anywhere, there is a danger to us all.
72. Fundamental to all the far-ranging and useful activities of the United Nations is the overriding consideration that the United Nations Organization exists to prevent war or, to put it positively, to preserve the peace. That is a factor that we in New Zealand never lose sight of. Above all, knowing that even the smallest conflict may spread and knowing what major war involves for all mankind, we must spare no effort to remove the means of making war. In the field of disarmament, the main impetus must still come from the two major nuclear Powers. But this does not mean that the rest of us can do nothing about it.
73. I have to report that in New Zealand there is a deep and increasing anxiety for real progress in disarmament. This anxiety has been heightened recently by the competitive series of nuclear tests and by the fearsome spectacle we recently had of an artificial aurora produced by American high altitude tests held four and a half thousand miles away in the Pacific. We in New Zealand have always believed that the United Nations has an active and critical role to play in bringing world opinion to bear upon the two nuclear giants. We hope that this role can be brought to bear in a constructive manner so that any decisions which are taken here will not have the effect of making the work of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament in Geneva even more difficult.
74. But we realize that the longer we wait the greater become the difficulties. Additional nuclear Powers may soon emerge to disturb such precarious balance as now exists, to widen the possibility of mishap and to extend the risk that the losing side in a conventional armed conflict will then reach for its nuclear weapons. There can be no illusion about the horrible prospect for all mankind if we fail to achieve disarmament. We, the people of New Zealand, urge that every effort be made to ensure first of all that a test-ban treaty be signed in the very near future. As the President of Pakistan said a few minutes ago when he addressed the Assembly, I say that we shall only delude ourselves if we seek or even if we achieve paper declarations about banning nuclear weapons. They are no real solution. They grasp at the shadows and let the substance slip away. I do not think they create any very great confidence in the world, nor do they build any real foundation for further measures of genuine disarmament. But a treaty could do so, an agreed treaty that provides as much verification as is needed to give confidence. This, we believe, is almost within our grasp today.
75. My Government has noted with gratification the recent evidence that technical developments may bring a solution much nearer. Previous speakers have said that improvement in the means of detecting and identifying nuclear tests held at great distances remove the problem of on-site verification of all tests except those conducted underground. This brings us a step nearer to a test-ban treaty, which would be a small but important beginning of disarmament, just as a moratorium, pending a treaty, would certainly be a very welcome beginning.
76. Man's growing knowledge and wealth give him the power to destroy the world and at the same time to reach the stars. At the same time, this wealth and knowledge and strength give to mankind the means of remodelling its own condition, of abolishing disease and hunger, poverty and ignorance.
77. New Zealand welcomes the decision to designate the 1960's as the Development Decade. We know that the objectives of the Decade can be achieved with the means already at our disposal. It is a question of applying them in the right way and to the proper ends.
78. The United Nations Organization itself has growing resources of skill and experience which can be put to the service of economic and social development throughout the world. The United Nations is in a key position since it can identify aims, it can review progress, and it can map out future lines of action on a world scale. But to act effectively, we believe that it must have a clear and a durable mandate from all Member States. The richer, industrialized nations have a particular role to play. First, they can maintain and indeed increase the resources of the United Nations Organization. Then they can assist the developing countries directly — and I know they are doing this. But the greatest contribution they can make is to permit an unfettered increase in the external trade of developing countries. True, aid is still essential; but we all prefer trade to aid.
79. The success of the Development Decade demands teamwork from the United Nations — from the wealthy countries and from the developing countries as well. Technical advice, external capital and trade earnings are all essential ingredients in the recipe for success; but the decision to use these together with domestic resources lies with the developing countries themselves. Without the will to face up to all the implications of development, nothing is possible.
80. My country, New Zealand, resembles most of the developing countries in its dependence upon the land. Our land is not naturally fertile. We can produce only a very small variety of agricultural products for export. Yet through research and the application of skill, investment of capital and, of course, hard work by everyone in our country, we have achieved living standards which can be regarded as high. We have used a good part of our income to develop national health and education services, housing, land settlement, industrialization, public administration and so on. These are matters which the United Nations is going to concern itself with during the Development Decade. New Zealand's experience in these fields may be of use to other countries. It will always be readily available to them.
81. In spite of our relatively high per caput income, New Zealand's economy is highly vulnerable. As I said, it is based on what we earn by selling a very narrow range of agricultural products in world markets. We have this in common with many other small, developing countries. We are at present faced with declining terms of trade, as are so many others. This is caused in large part by agricultural protectionism and by subsidized exports of the richer, more industrialized nations. The prices of our imports keep rising while the prices of our exports keep falling. Like many others, we are in the position of having to run faster and faster just to be able to stand in the same position in the race.
82. New Zealand believes that the goals set for the objectives of the Development Decade cannot be achieved unless action is taken to liberalize international trade and to restore and improve the terms of trade of primary producing countries. The extent to which developing countries can finance their own development depends largely on the conditions and terms of their external trade. This in turn depends on the trade policies in the stronger, industrialized nations. They therefore have a vital part to play in seeing that producers of agricultural countries get a fair deal.
83. We in New Zealand see economic regionalism as a growing factor in our lives, and not always a beneficial one. It is a process which must affect traditional trade patterns. But we should be dismayed if its growth involved the restriction of access to markets instead of the creation of new opportunities for third countries to trade. Economic regionalism Should be organized in a way that makes growth and expansion possible for other countries. It should contribute to the larger aim of increasing the scope of human progress and well-being throughout the world.
84. In common with a large number of other countries represented here, New Zealand is deeply concerned that the economic policies of all regional groupings should take into account the vital interests of smaller and more vulnerable countries. New Zealand is a developing country, and therefore a net importer of capital. This limits our scope, of course, for granting direct capital aid, though we are one of the few countries which have regularly given capital for unrestricted use by the recipient countries. We are short of capital, but we are fortunate in being able to share with other developing countries those skills which have contributed to our own development. Already, under the Colombo Plan and other international agencies, we are doing what we can to channel the benefits of our own experience to those who can profit from them. Sometimes our skills and our experience, being more recently acquired, have been found by developing countries to be more useful than those of the larger and more industrially developed countries. New Zealand will always be happy to co-operate in examining how that transfer of skills, which is one of the major objectives of the Development Decade, can be facilitated and expanded. We will do all we can as a small nation.
85. Every Member of this Organization knows that the tasks ahead of us during the Development Decade are immense. But at least we have the basic machinery ready for action and if we all have the will to mobilize our resources, the goal of balanced economic and social growth is within our grasp. Our success in this great task will be measured by our determination; our determination will reflect our faith in the United Nations and indeed in the brotherhood of man.
86. Before concluding, I wish to extend my wholehearted welcome and congratulations to the new nations of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Rwanda and Burundi as Members of the United Nations. Soon, we know, they will be joined by two more African States, Algeria and Uganda, and before long by several other States. I welcome the progress being made in Asia, in Africa, and now in the Caribbean, in the achievement of self-determination and self-government. I naturally extend a specially warm welcome to the two fellow-members of the Commonwealth. In our multiracial Commonwealth, we are free and equal partners. We co-operate in an atmosphere of goodwill. We place no restraints upon our members. On the contrary, we treasure the special individuality of each. I think it is interesting to comment that our Commonwealth cuts right across all groupings throughout the world. It is a continuing proof, a daily proof, of the fallacy of any concept that would apportion the many nations of the world into three separate blocs.
87. The United Nations is moving steadily but inexorably, into every worthwhile field of human endeavour. Steadily, inexorably, the great truth is finding expression that all our human problems are interconnected and interdependent and can only be solved adequately by co-operative action on an international scale and by all nations striving for the common good of mankind. We New Zealanders will do our best to accept the implications and the responsibilities of this great truth, and we pledge ourselves — I pledge my Government and my people — to do our best to act upon it.