Before speaking on some other matters, I should like to add my tribute and that of my country to the devoted labour that has gone into the completion of this United Nations Headquarters building. The Secretary-General, Mr. Trygve Lie, has praised the work of others [376th meeting]. But it is in no small measure due to his tenacity and devotion that we Member nations now find ourselves established in these very well organized permanent Headquarters.
21. Secondly, I should like to congratulate the President of the General Assembly on his election. Australia welcomes his election both as a person and as a Canadian. Under his, impartial and competent guidance, we are confident that discussion of the vital issues before us will be conducted with fairness and dispatch.
22. Of the many important items on our agenda, war-torn and unhappy Korea transcends all others. I think that is the one point on which the majority in this Assembly will agree with what was said in the remarkable tirade we heard from the leader of the Soviet Union delegation in this chamber on 18 October [383rd meeting].
23. Men are fighting and dying while this Assembly is in session. We have had a draft resolution from the Polish delegation [A/2229]. We have heard thousands of words from Mr. Vyshinsky. But where do they take us? Neither dealt with the vital issue which is preventing a cease-fire: the forcible or non-forcible repatriation of prisoners of war. Korea is not a problem which the General Assembly can deal with — and forget — by the adoption of a resolution. Let us endeavour to strip the verbiage and get down to the hard facts of the Korean situation. The machinery to stop the fighting in Korea has been in existence at Panmunjom for fifteen long months, If the Communists sincerely wish peace — as the world understands the word “peace" — the door is open.
24. It may be suggested by some that we should take the armistice negotiations out of the hands of the present United Nations negotiators and deal with them here, or in some other way. Australia is not prepared to do this. Australia has complete confidence in the negotiators acting on behalf of the United Nations at the cease-fire talks in Korea. We stand firmly by them. The United States Secretary of State said in this chamber on 17 October [380th meeting], only a few days ago: “Korea is a test, not only of our courage at the initial moment of decision, but even more of the firmness of our will, the endurance of our courage. The aggressor . . . now counts for victory upon those of faint heart who would grow weary of the struggle."
25. Australia is as shocked as any nation by the needless death and destruction in Korea. Our fighting men — of the Navy, Army and Air — were amongst the first in action against the aggressor in Korea. Australia has the proud record of having been in both world wars against aggression from start to finish, and we shall see this situation in Korea through to the end.
26. United Nations efforts to achieve an armistice have been constant, and our negotiators have gone to the limit in an effort to reach agreement. On paper we have had an armistice agreement since last April — and agreement on every point at issue except that of the repatriation of prisoners of war. On this issue we stand firm. We are not prepared to compel prisoners by force to return when they have a reasonable fear of danger to life or liberty. Will anyone deny the decency or the humanitarianism of this stand?
27. Soviet Union armies in the past have gone much further than the principle that I have just enunciated. In an ultimatum to the Commander of the German troops at Stalingrad on 8 January 1943, the USSR guaranteed, to all who surrendered, “return after the war to Germany or to any country where the prisoner of war desires to go". A similar offer was made to German troops later in the Budapest area. An official Soviet Union publication, referring to this latter instance, described it as “expressing the highest act of humanitarianism".
28. And it must be remembered that we have not adopted this principle out of any particular love or regard for these communist prisoners. After all, they fought ferociously against us, the simple fact is that we are striving to uphold a principle as vital as freedom itself. I have heard no convincing reason given by the Communists for the rejection of the principle that I have stated regarding prisoners of war, but I have read a series of blunt and abusive refusals.
29. The women and children of Korea — both North and South-are frying as much as anyone for this failure to reach agreement, If it could be agreed that fighting should stop, the United Nations stands ready to furnish rehabilitation and reconstruction services for civilians not only in South Korea, but also in North Korea. They are all Koreans. But I have not heard of any similar offer of rehabilitation and reconstruction on the part of the Soviet Union or communist China,
30. It may be asked — I have no doubt it has been asked and will be asked — “What are we fighting for ?“ I think the best and shortest answer is that which Mr. Churchill gave in reply to a similar question during the 1939-1945 war, when he said: “If we stopped, you would find out.” In Korea, we have repelled aggression, and the very fact that we intervened has been a warning to aggressors that they cannot ravage and outrage other countries with impunity. Our resistance to aggression in Korea may well deter aggression elsewhere, maybe on an even more formidable scale,
31. We are still hopeful of an armistice. I assure the General Assembly that my delegation will examine the question of Korea with the greatest of care in the First Committee, while preserving the principle to which I have referred.
32. I should like to make a brief reference to the United Nations, not to its successes or failures, but to its composition. I feel strongly that some way should be found of breaking the deadlock which is preventing a number of countries from joining the United Nations for reasons not related to the Charter. A great majority of Members have believed that a number which have applied for admission since 1946 are fully qualified under Article 4 of the Charter. On the other hand, the Soviet Union has endeavoured to secure the admission of some others which, again in the opinion of the majority, are not so qualified, The exclusion of so many countries from this international forum is a disability reducing the exchange of views and curtailing our activities and usefulness. By admitting more Members, we wish to give the Organization the widest possible representation.
33. But we must remember the Charter on which it rests. I remember the wise words of the President, on 14 October [377th meeting], when he said: “The United Nations, we should not forget, is not a super-government.” The Charter permits discussion of a wide range of subjects. But at San Francisco, it was agreed to impose limitations without which our deliberations might be so wide as to prove endless and fruitless. To my mind, the Charter must be regarded and considered as a whole. At San Francisco, the document would not have been acceptable to many of us had not its various provisions been interrelated. In this connexion, I refer to Article 2, paragraph 7, which prohibits the discussion of matters of domestic jurisdiction.
34. By stating broad humanitarian principles in the Charter, I do not think that the nations at San Francisco had in mind that the Organization would thereby be permitted to discuss or to intervene in questions of domestic economic or social legislation. The objective of international welfare which has its expression in the Charter is an objective of international co-operation towards an ideal, and not an authorization for the Organization to attack individual States on matters which are the subject of its own legislation. I say this without regard to the merits of any particular situation,
35. I cannot emphasize too strongly the view of my Government as to the need to keep the whole of the Charter in perspective in this way. The suggestion that the United Nations has the right to discuss anything within the scope of the Charter notwithstanding Article 2, paragraph 7, even though it may not have the competence to make recommendations thereon, is in our view not in the best interests of the United Nations as a co-operative instrument in international affairs,
36. In the opinion of many of us, there have been not only discussions, but positive recommendations, particularly in the past two or three years, on matters not contemplated by the Charter. This has been particularly apparent in the work of the Fourth Committee of the Assembly, Frequently, the Committee has sought to impose its will in contravention of the Charter. There has been an underlying innuendo that countries responsible for dependent peoples and Trust Territories are bent upon maintaining the status quo for some selfish ends of their own. The fact is that the responsible Powers have been loyally carrying out their duties under the Charter in accordance with principles accepted not only by those Powers but also by all Members of the United Nations by the act of signing the Charter. Indeed, better conditions exist in certain colonies or dependent territories than exist in the countries of some of the critics.
37. The world has become accustomed to attacks on what is called colonialism. They spring from the concern of all Members for the rights of dependent peoples. But there is much of which one can be proud in the record of the so-called colonial Powers. In the past decade, as Mr. Acheson very rightly pointed out, 624 million people have attained full nationhood and independence. Others are moving towards self-government in accordance with principles that have long existed and which have been restated in the Charter of the United Nations. Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon, Israel, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Libya and Eritrea — all new nations — are surely proof of the good faith of the colonial Powers.
38. Communist propaganda holds that nations responsible for the peoples who are not yet self-governing are interested solely in their exploitation. This specious plea is designed to help identify communism with nationalist aspirations. But for these people, communism offers only the kiss of death, the mortgaging of freedom, before freedom itself is attained.
39. Fortunately, the leaders of nationalist movements have been forewarned of this. They have seen the proud independence of countries like Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic States become a tragic — but, we hope, only a temporary — memory. While colonial Powers have, since re war, brought to nationhood an impressive number of countries, many of them represented here today, the Soviet, Union has destroyed the independence of no less than seven nations, There could be no greater fallacy than to believe that communism is the path to greater freedom or welfare,
40. My own country, Australia, was a collection of colonies only fifty-odd years ago. Along with many other colonial countries, Great Britain protected us and assisted us with men, money and markets until progressively we achieved complete representative self-government in all aspects of our domestic and international affairs.
41. There are dangers in the premature granting of self-government. A people must be ready to take effective measures of defence and must learn to direct their economic affairs before self-government can be exercised. Leaders prepared for their responsibilities must emerge. Otherwise, autonomy can lead to chaos and poverty, the breeding ground of communism.
42. We are sometimes criticized by certain countries forgot providing social services in our Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories on a scale far beyond that which exists in the countries of some of our critics. Our critics might be reminded of the biblical injunction: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged ... And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” I shall say no more than this, although there is a very great deal more that could be said.
43. The simple fact is that, so far as Australia is concerned, we recognize fully the obligations that we have accepted towards the indigenous peoples of Papua and of the Territory of New Guinea. We propose to carry out these obligations in the letter and in the spirit, as we have done in the past. If anyone imagines that we are exercising these responsibilities for selfish gain, let me say that since Australia accepted the Trusteeship Agreement for New Guinea, our dependent territories have cost metropolitan Australia a net amount of £14, 900,000. Each year we have made grants to our territories several times the value of the revenues of those territories,
44. Those who have had experience of primitive peoples in many countries know very well that the too rapid impact of what we are pleased to call civilization can utterly corrupt and destroy them. There are many essential things that can and should be done, but there is much else that can be done only gradually and with understanding if the people are to survive.
45. We should recognize the problems and difficulties facing the administrations of the many new nations that have come into existence with complete autonomy within the last ten years. Many are evolving governments best suited to their own conditions. Levels of industrial development and standards of living vary immensely from country to country. If some nations can be of assistance in helping the newer nations to raise their standards of living, they should do so with no strings attached. If assistance is not wanted, that is the affair of the country concerned. No one will attempt to impose it on them. But modern techniques of production, both industrial and agricultural, can do much for them.
46. It is a common form of communist propaganda that technical assistance is another form of colonialism. This, of course, is not the fact. It is action for the common good. Economic development not only benefits the people directly concerned, but also those of other nations. Food and want are global problems, not merely regional or national.
47. The USSR has never offered technical assistance to the rest of the world except recently, for obviously self-interested political purposes in limited areas. The Soviet Union belongs to none of the economic and humanitarian agencies of the United Nations. The Soviet Union has made no contributions to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund or the International Refugee Organization. These are facts that need to be said and said again. In the days when they still had some measure of independence, the Governments of Czechoslovakia and Poland made such contributions, but in the last three years not a penny has come from Eastern Europe for these programmes. The Soviet Union is a country of 200 million people, or thereabouts; my own country, Australia, is a country of eight and a half million people. Under United Nations and other programmes of relief and assistance, Australia has contributed or pledged no less than $180 million. The USSR has not contributed a penny. This is a record of which we are proud, and it is a record which stands in stark contrast to that of the Soviet Union.
48. I now wish to say a word on the food problem. The world is short of food, and the situation is worsening. Food production has lagged behind population increase. According to a United Nations survey, there is 5 per cent less food available per capita today than there was in 1939. Next to maintaining peace, mankind’s most urgent task is to increase the world’s food supply. Twenty years ago, the League of Nations reported that half the world was suffering from malnutrition. The population of the world is currently increasing by about 30 million people a year, and yet exportable food surpluses are declining. The remedy must be applied in terms of individual countries and regions, and technical assistance and other means of increasing agricultural production should be given the highest priority.
49. The major food-exporting areas of the world are North America, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. However, the food-exporting potentialities of these areas, taken as a whole, have declined over the past fifteen years. Adverse seasons in one or another of these areas could create a desperate situation,
50. In Australia, we are making every effort to stimulate and encourage increased food production. I need not go into detail. We are hampered by a shortage of capital — the best fertilizer in the world. With adequate capital, we could in the long run make substantial increases in food production, Great things could be done in Australia if we could link the provision of additional capital with immigration, irrigation and food production. Similarly, faster development would be possible if the present heavy burden of rearmament forced on us by the threat of communist aggression were to be lifted. But we are short of capital for the basic irrigation products and to meet the cost of additional land settlement on which greatly increased Australian production largely depends, However, apart from our domestic Australian situation, Australia has, in common with other British countries — the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand — concerned itself with the foodstuffs situation in the countries on the Asian mainland to our north, Through the Colombo plan, we and others are doing all we can to help in a variety of directions, particularly with respect to food projects. The United States has taken splendidly helpful action. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development is supporting developmental projects designed largely to increase food supply on the Asian mainland.
51. Mr. Vyshinsky seemed to find some grim satisfaction in the fact that there is a world shortage of food. Yet the Soviet Union has done nothing to help. We, the democracies, have made every effort to help. The simple fact is that the Soviet Union, practically alone of all the Powers which could help the food situation, particularly in southern and Southeast Asia, has done nothing and shows no sign of wanting to do anything.
52. Does it not all add up to a rather simple answer? We, the democratic countries, recognize the existence of the food problem, and we are assisting the governments of the countries concerned with freely given aid to the limit of our abilities. The USSR, on the other hand, apparently hopes to produce doubts and fears by stressing these problems — but does nothing about them. One can only assume that the Soviet Union is not interested in solving these problems but is interested only in fomenting discontent arising out of them. In other words, the Soviet Union has a vested interest in discontent.
53. I should like to speak briefly about the Soviet hate campaign. We are all familiar with its charges of germ warfare, imperialism, racial prejudice and all the rest. Clearly it is the aim of the Soviet Union to attempt to drive a wedge between the United Kingdom and the United States. If this is so, there are a great many of us who have an interest in this matter. British-American co-operation is an anvil that has worn out many hammers. I have no doubt that it will stand up to a sickle as well.
54. On Saturday morning, I listened attentively to the leader of the Soviet Union delegation. His speech contained nothing new. I think that that is generally agreed. Most of it reiterated the false and blatant propaganda that the USSR had been trying to sell for a great many years. By the use of quotations, largely taken out of their context, he sought to show that all the United States wanted was war, that its whole system was geared to war, and that it was arranging a series of aggressive actions to encircle the Soviet Union. He even went so far as to suggest that the ANZUS arrangements recently contracted between the United States, Australia and New Zealand, fitted into this pattern of aggressive alliance. But if Mr. Vyshinsky thinks — and I do not believe that he does — that our Pacific security arrangements are threatening the Soviet Union and are designed for anything other than our self-defence, he need have no fear.
55. The democracies certainly have, in recent years, banded together in various parts of the world in their own defence. The United Nations Charter provides for this and sanctions it. The reason why we have done this is that we believe it is essential to make provision against the aggressive tactics of the USSR, Despite that country's talk of disarmament, there are no features connected with Soviet Union armed might which have yet given us any particular cause for confidence. Our confidence stems from our growing strength. We are under threat — and we are taking adequate measures to protect ourselves,
56. I shall now speak on peace and disarmament, How many words have we heard from the USSR about these two ideals of all humanity! For the reason why we hear so much about this, I refer the General Assembly to the History of Diplomacy, an official publication of the Government of the Soviet Union issued in 1945. It gives, with disarming frankness, the motive behind these campaigns. The following quotation that I am going to read — a short quotation — shows the callous Soviet regard for the effectiveness of certain kinds of dishonest propaganda: “To the same groups of examples of the concealment of predatory ends behind noble principles also belong the instances of the exploitation of the idea of disarmament and pacifist propaganda in the broad sense of the word for one’s own purposes. “From time immemorial, the idea of disarmament has been one of the most favoured forms of diplomatic dissimulation of the true motives and plans of those governments which have been seized by such a sudden ‘love of peace!.”
57. I do not think that one could have a more cynical and frank statement of the Soviet Union attitude towards the world or expression of propaganda in recent years. On Saturday, Mr. Vyshinsky, in particular bitterness towards the United States, made his protestations about the desirability and possibility of peaceful coexistence in this world, I believe, a mockery,
58. Contrast his charges with the claim published in the Soviet New Times on 13 August 1952, which told its foreign readers: “The Soviet Union fosters in its citizens a spirit of respect for, and peaceful co-operation with other nations, The Soviet way of life does not tolerate the propaganda of animosity, let alone of hatred, towards the peoples of other countries.” I hope that no USSR representative will be kept from sleeping by laughing at this unfortunate contradiction on the part of the Soviet Press.
59. Let me now say a word about the fantastic charges about germ warfare in Korea. The charges have, of course, been specifically denied time and time again. Impartial investigation was proposed by the United States when the charges were first made, and, as we all know, it was refused.
60. For myself, I consulted our leading Australian authority on virus and communicable diseases, Sir Macfarlane Burnet, a man whose reputation and experience is not without repute in scientific circles throughout,, the world. Sir Macfarlane Burnet has allowed me to quote him regarding allegations that germ warfare has been carried on in Korea. He said the following: “The whole question of spreading disease by such methods has been extensively and openly discussed in literature on the subject. It is the general opinion of bacteriologists that any attempt to initiate epidemics which would then spread widely amongst enemy personnel is bound to be fruitless. “No intelligent bacteriologist could ever believe that the dropping of plague-infested fleas or typhus-infected lice could have more than a minor psychological or nuisance value. The spread of any epidemic is determined almost wholly by the condition of the population concerned. “In areas where plague or typhus are already present, as in North Korea and Manchuria, the occurrence of outbreaks will be determined by local conditions such as the degree of overcrowding, the presence of rats and the immunity of the population. “The deliberate liberation, by any means, of the responsible germs could have no more than a trivial effect on the incidence of diseases. No significant military effect could be expected. It is unthinkable that any responsible officer would have ordered such action.” I have a longer and very much detailed statement from Sir Macfarlane Burnet on this subject which I shall make available at a more appropriate time, when this matter is discussed — as I have no doubt it will be — in the relevant committee.
61. Obviously it is no use appealing to the Soviet Union to desist from the campaign in which it is engaged. The General Assembly has already passed resolutions against war-mongering, war propaganda, and false and distorted reports, all of which are ignored by the country which initiated them. We can and shall answer the allegations of the Soviet Union Government, and in strong terms, but it will not go unnoticed that we do not engage, as regards the peoples of the USSR, and the peoples of other countries in the hands of the USSR, in the sort of vilification practised by that Government.
62. The peoples of the world have to try to understand each other. The Charter enjoins us to do just that. Its purposes, which have been callously ignored by some, even Members of the United Nations include the following: “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples…” and “To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations… What a mockery has been made of those purposes by some of our colleagues in this Organization! What a travesty they have also made of resolutions, largely instigated by themselves, dealing with questions like war propaganda! If anything is going to produce a war in this world, it is sowing the seeds of hatred among peoples.
63. There is an old tale among some of the peoples who live on the foothills of the Himalayas. It goes like this: “One day as I was walking on the mountainside, I saw at a distance what I thought to be a beast. As I came closer, I saw that it was a man. As I came closer still, I found it was my brother.” It is a far stretch from the Himalayan foothills to this modem chamber. But the councils of the nations could well heed the moral of that simple folk tale if we are to live in peace and understanding in the world.