175. I have great pleasure, Mr. President, in offering you my warmest congratulations on the well-earned tribute paid to you in your election to the Presidency of this great. Assembly. This honour has an added significance for my country, which is linked to Peru by ancient ties of origin, tradition and brotherhood, since it is an implicit recognition of the values which we in Latin America uphold.
176. More than fourteen years ago I had the honour and the unusual good fortune to take part, as head of my country’s delegation, in the San Francisco Conference which was convened to study the Dumbarton Oaks proposals and, using them as a basis, to draft the Charter of our Organization.
177. This the first occasion I have had since then to attend the General Assembly, although I had the honour to take part in the drafting of the Assembly’s powers in political and security matters as Chairman of Committee 2 of Committee n of the San Francisco Conference of 1945 which drafted this part of the Charter,
178. In the years between, mankind has gained much in experience. Many of the dreams we cherished at that time have faded, while in other fields the outline of reality has become sharper. In 1959, perhaps, we can view with greater clarity and realism the prospects of attaining peace, security, good relations and mutual respect among all the peoples of the organized international community.
179. The theory behind the planning for peace was based on the ideal of complete understanding between the great Powers which have permanent seats in the Security Council and under the current system of voting enjoy the right of veto in matters concerned with the maintenance of international peace and security. But at the same time one cannot overlook the immense contribution made by the small countries which, in their eagerness to proceed with their development in an atmosphere of peace, have shown even greater zeal and enthusiasm in seeking ways to eliminate factors likely to undermine the peace and security they value so highly, and create instead a basis of justice and respect for the dignity of man.
180. In this Assembly some of us may well recall from time to time that the credit for the great victory for mankind which was achieved when the right of collective self-defence was established in Article 51 of the Charter belongs to the countries of Latin America that thronged to the San Francisco Conference, and to their passion for peace, justice and respect for the sovereignty and dignity of peoples throughout the world.
181. However, alliances of certain sectors and regional groups cannot by themselves maintain stability based on respect and fear, and so guarantee peace and security. There are other factors too, which may not be so sensational and coercive as armed aggression, but still go on undermining the foundations of peaceful coexistence. I refer particularly to the immense differences in levels of living in the modern world, which has grown so much smaller and, with the new perspective provided by more rapid communications, has at last Come face to face with the tragic reality.
182. Fourteen years ago at San Francisco I made a statement to the effect that the foundations of universal peace would be laid as soon as there was equal remuneration in every part of the world for the same amount and type of work.
183. We cannot overlook this keen desire for equality, which is one of the mainsprings of human progress. At first, this desire was elemental and intuitive, a striving after a utopian equality to which all men were entitled by the mere fact of their birth. Modern society on the other hand takes into account moral, intellectual and physical qualities in its concept of equality: and that is undoubtedly why we still get the injustice of situation in which the remuneration, for a given unit of effort, is larger or smaller merely because the person concerned was born in a certain part of the world or is the product of a certain background.
184. In modern law mankind has succeeded, after many trials and tribulations, in advancing from a concept of individual privileges based on an uncompromising interpretation of the right of property and its uses and abuses to a social concept of this right. Thus, we have gone beyond mere charity and humanitarianism, and have now arrived at a concept of social security and the right to work which no one in modem society would dispute. This concept must now be extended and applied to the international community in the same way as to the relations between individuals. There is no doubt that mankind is moving progressively in this direction,
185. As society progresses, so a number of assumptions about human nature, once regarded as incontrovertible, are tending to be modified. The idea of the survival of the fittest — the law of the jungle and of the barbarian eras — is now being replaced by a principle of fellowship between the weak and the strong. In this form, the notion of human society approximates to the revolutionary ideas of Christianity and of the philosophers who have championed the superiority of spiritual over material values.
186. To turn to other fields, human society has also made some progress in methods of government by abolishing the political privileges attached to certain families or social classes. Although there are still great differences in political and economic systems, all States have one. feature in common, namely that any person can rise to the highest position in the administration of his community, provided he is qualified to do so by his abilities and talents, regardless of birth.
187. All this is striking evidence that the world has entered a new era in which power is to be used not so that one man can hold sway over another, but to provide individuals, or communities which for one reason or another are under-developed or in distress, with opportunities of overcoming their difficulties.
188. Having made these general remarks, I would like to make some comments on the relations between developed countries and the so-called under-developed countries. There are a number of different points of view from which a country can be regarded as developed. Apart from geographical factors, one contributory element is undoubtedly a country^ firm decision to apply in its national policies the positive outlook inherent in the application of science to technology and of technology to industrial development; at the same time many countries today regarded as underdeveloped may be under-developed only in this material sense, because their national outlook is such that they prefer to devote greater efforts to the development of spiritual forces as yet not fully tapped.
189. On the other hand, the inescapable fact that nations have been brought closer together through the development of communications has revealed wide differences in material standards which none of us can overlook, however great our preoccupations with other matters may be. Hence all peoples are now clamouring for the same rate of material progress as that achieved in the developed countries.
190. We must not forget that in the exercise of human power, be it of man over man or of nation over nation, material factors have always predominated and have acquired a stranglehold; and though some of them may be regarded as of ephemeral importance in the history of mankind, they are still powerful enough to make a deep impression on the minds of the great majority of people. All peoples are eager to overcome their material weaknesses and shortcomings.
191. We cannot forget that within a few years of the signing of the Charter, the world was threatened once more by the prospect of another world war. Small nations and undeveloped countries, which need an atmosphere of peace if they are to develop and exploit their natural resources, have felt the repercussions of this threat, with the inevitable armaments race and the instability of the status of labour.
192. The perplexity aroused by the conflict of interests between the great Powers and the clash of ideologies is such that the man in the street frequently feels thwarted in his efforts to achieve individual and collective economic emancipation. Thus many of the countries concerned are experiencing the consequences of the uneven development which occurs when there is an immense increase in consumer demand without a proportionate increase in productive capacity.
193. If we remember too that recent technological progress has tended not so much to make the machine the servant of man as to make man a slave to the machine, it is obvious that our civilization must undertake a fundamental reappraisal of its values and some readjustment in its methods.
194. The immediate effect, already experienced by societies which are economically weak, has been inflation. Efforts have been and are being made to combat inflation by methods out of keeping with the intellectual development of the peoples concerned. The latter are not always prepared to accept patience, austerity and thrift; as an answer to perpetual poverty; these virtues are surely of value only to a society which has once enjoyed plenty and a high level of living, and has lost them, and may then resort to such methods to regain them.
195. In addressing the Assembly on behalf of my country, I might mention that Bolivia, like other countries, has shown immense interest in the exchange of visits between the Chiefs of State of the United States and of the Soviet Union.
196. In this connexion I would like to indicate a few objectives which, I think, sum up in part what the under-developed countries of the free world are aiming at and would like to see as the outcome of this exchange of visits: Maintenance of world peace, based on respect for the freedom and dignity of all peoples; genuine interchange between peoples, which would gradually eliminate existing cultural and ideological differences and bring the world closer to the ideal of a single human family; disinterested assistance by the developed countries in placing all the discoveries of modem science at the disposal of the backward peoples, so as to accelerate their progress and end the disparities caused by different levels of development; a serious and whole-hearted effort to fix a scale of rewards for human labour, wherever such labour is performed, and the establishment of a more fair and proper ratio in the matter of work done by producers of raw materials and work done in the manufacturing industries. This could lead to the establishment of standards for prices and rewards for labour, and to the removal of disparities which cause so much upheaval in the world today; freedom of transit by land, inland water and sea transport; the right of access for all peoples to sources of scientific knowledge and artistic inspiration; abolition of privilege in regard to technical knowledge, as a means of establishing overwhelming power by a single State; respect for all the spiritual activities of man, and complete freedom of belief and worship.
197. This year there have been many spectacular achievements in the field of science. The great Powers have already taken the first step towards the possible mastery of outer space. If these efforts continue at a rate which now seems feasible, many of our ideas about security and sovereignty will have to be radically altered. Mankind with all its advances in applied science is now approaching the critical moment when it will have to decide its fate — whether to survive and attain greater heights, or to be the instrument of its own destruction. Never before has so much responsibility rested upon so few, and our work at this fourteenth session of the General Assembly must therefore be worthy of this momentous hour in the history of mankind.