99. I should like first to congratulate the President on his election. This was a tribute to his personal qualities and to the country and the people whom he represents. As I speak late in this debate, I can add to my congratulations a tribute to the President for the distinction of the leadership which he is giving to us in our deliberations. I should like also to voice our appreciation of the work of the outgoing President, Ambassador Pazhwak of Afghanistan, who presided over so many long and difficult sessions.
100. My second duty is to express the continued adherence of the Australian Government to the United Nations Charter, and its intention to do all it can to uphold its principles.
101. I should like to say a cautionary word about the work of the Assembly. Looking back over the past two decades, I observe a tendency to substitute the political views of a majority of Members for any attempt to interpret clearly and to apply uniformly the terms of the Charter. I ask: is this good for the Organization, for its Members or for international relations in general? I also question whether it can be effective. The General Assembly has power under the Charter to make recommendations, but it has never had the power to bind the membership by a majority vote. As the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs said in 1962, a resolution of the General Assembly cannot be made binding as such upon Member States merely by the device of terming it a "declaration" rather than a "recommendation". The General Assembly may indeed entertain an expectation that Members of *he United Nations will attempt to abide by a resolution generally supported by a large majority. But this is still in the sphere of expectation rather than of legal duty.
102. May I also comment briefly on the pretension that international law can be made by resolution of the General Assembly. In recent years the General Assembly has adopted, in performance of its duty under Article 13 of the Charter, a procedure directed towards eventual additions to the body of general or customary international law. I refer here to the establishment of the Special Committee on the Principles of International Law, whose task it has been to study and prepare texts for consideration by the General Assembly as a declaration formulating and elaborating seven Charter principles of international law concerning friendly relations and co-operation among States.
103. Customary international law consists of that body of rules which have been accepted generally by States as legally binding on them. A rule does not qualify under this heading unless, first, it can be shown to have been accepted generally by the international community and, second, that it has been accepted by members of the international community as law.
104. It is always open to representatives in the General Assembly to make clear, in voting on any resolution, how far these two conditions are fulfilled. The mere adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly will not give its terms the character of law. There have been instances in recent years in which the General Assembly, after considering items of a predominantly political character, has adopted resolutions in terms that could be regarded as interpreting, or making explicit, what would otherwise be only implicit in certain provisions of the Charter. It seems to us to be especially necessary, in such instances, that States should make clear not only whether they accept the provisions of the draft resolution but also whether or not they accept them as law.
105. The Australian Government is even more deeply concerned by the erosion of the principle of respect for the territorial integrity and political independence of States. Throughout the world since the war we have seen the emergence of new States and the re-establishment of old States. We have seen nations in all continents striving to achieve their national identity in accordance with their history and their interest and to establish relationships with one another and to cooperate for mutual advantage. They can only do this successfully in a world in which each and all of us respect the established principles of international relationships. Unfortunately, in our view, this respect has not always been given and some of these new States have been harassed by conflicts which were the result, not of their own internal and domestic stress, but of external pressures and interferences. Subversion, infiltration, foreign intervention to exploit local differences and sometimes even direct attack have added to their insecurity.
106. It is against this background that I want to speak of the current conflict in South-East Asia and particularly the aggression against the Republic of Vietnam and its resistance to that aggression. I should declare plainly at the outset that Australia speaks as a nation which has made its own decision to support South Viet-Nam, is contributing both troops and civilian aid for that purpose, and is firm in its decision to do so. We have chosen to take a side, but we are certainly no less willing or less capable of joining in a debate about the morality or the purposes of the war than are those who have not chosen to take any side or than those who have chosen to favour some other side. We are no less honourable than those who have made no decision at all. Indeed, we may be better equipped to talk because, as well as having applied a moral test to our own actions, we have a closer and more intimate knowledge of situations and events than those who have no first-hand experience of the war and of the countries affected by it.
107. As well as knowing the war at first-hand, Australia perhaps may also have an advantage in having associations with the Western as well as the Eastern Hemisphere. Australia is linked by history with Europe; by geography with Asia. We have been privileged, and we esteem the privilege highly, to have been accepted by Asian countries as a regional member of organizations in Asia and the Pacific and we work together with our neighbours in many efforts to advance the welfare of all our peoples. In trade, diplomacy and mutual security our co-operation with Asian countries grows year by year. So I believe we can speak with knowledge and some understanding as a result of consultation in depth with them. They are our neighbours.
108. What of Europe? Europe colonized our continent. Over the years Europe taught us. We remember the lessons we learnt — respect for political independence; respect for treaty obligations; respect for territorial integrity. We remember the ideas that Europe taught us, such as that peace is indivisible, aggression has to be resisted or it will grow, the rights of small nations should be respected no less than those of the great; self-determination; the need for mutual security. Indeed in two world wars that started in Europe, Australia sent men across the world to fight and die in Europe for what Europe had taught us was right.
109. But are these truths to apply only to selected regions of the world and to old, established nations? Were we right to stand up for them in Europe but wrong to stand up for them in Asia? Are they not also to be upheld among these newly independent peoples which Europe once ruled as colonies but which have now reasserted their ancient identity and who are now seeking to choose their own life and to established it in their own territory? Does it cease to be the business of all of us when aggression takes place and freedom of choice is destroyed by force in the lands where the hope of independence is newly risen? Are force, subversion, terror and direct assaults on liberty recognizable only when they threaten a community that has settled down to the stability of a long-protected security, but unable to be seen when they disturb a struggling people which is still beset by fear? Were we right, we Australians, when we answered a threat in Europe, but wrong when, once again, in the face of a similar threat in Asia we respond to the call of a neighbour, and fact that issue of the overthrow of independence by force in disregard of the will of peoples? Even in the early postwar years it was seemingly good for small countries in one continent to enjoy a guaranteed security with the aid of a Great Power, but somehow it seems to be regarded differently when the same strength is invoked to bring a hope of security to small nations on the other side of the globe.
110. I also ask whether some of us maybe forgetting the realities of the world in which we live. Unfortunately, this is still a world in which peace is kept and security is maintained by military power. We in the Asian region, at least, know that the precarious balance of power has recently been disturbed by the centralizing of authority and the growth of strength in mainland China, and we know that countries on the fringe of China from Korea to India have felt the direct effects of Peking’s aggressive policies. Are such realities of power as these to be recognized only in one hemisphere and not in another? And are arguments that peace and security are global to be true in European or Atlantic power situations but not true when crises of power arise, as they have arisen, in Asia and the Pacific?
111. Surely we are using double standards and surely we are falsifying the issues if, recognizing the realities of power today, we find it improper or worse for one small nation to be protected by a great ally but unexceptionable for some other small nation to be protected by its ally. Some critics have become vituperative about the United States of America for helping South Viet-Nam to defend itself. Again there is surely a double standard and a disregard of reality if we find it villainous for one Power to carry out its policies and discharge its responsibilities as a great Power but commendable for another one to do so.
112. I would not suggest for a moment that any of us can or should rejoice that the world of power should be as it is, but I submit that we are victims of illusions or of prejudice if we make pronouncements and utter condemnations in disregard of the facts of power and the operations of power politics which the Charter itself recognises as being the condition of the world with which we have to grapple.
113. I say, therefore: let us talk like politicians and diplomats with a job to dos and not like sensation-mongers or propagandists. Let us at least allow patriotism to all of those who are d lending what they love and who, because they love it, are dying for it.
114. What is at issue in Viet-Nam? First let me say that as the result of the debate throughout the world, and particularly inside those free and democratic countries which are supporting South Viet-Nam, that question of what is at Issue has been kept alive in this struggle in a way that seldom happens in wartime once a conflict begins. For the most part, the debate so far has not reduced itself to the question of winning or losing the fight. It still concerns itself with the question, "What is the fight about?".
115. May I suggest respectfully, however, that the vital question, "What is at issue?" is not the same question as the one, "What caused the war?". We could go back for many years in time and discuss many different conditions, events and influences which have a bearing on the present situation, and it is true that we will not understand the nature of the conflict, nor will we have a hope of eventually achieving a just and lasting peace, unless we study the causes in that sense. But, surely, the immediate and relevant question arose with the outbreak of hostilities. There was a fire, and the question whether the fire should be fought or whether it should be allowed to take its course without any arm being raised to check its on-rush became the new issue.
116. In some countries — and in my country it is a minority — the debaters take this question of what is at issue and mix it up with the question, "What has this got to do with us? Should we be in it at all?".
117. I think the pragmatic political test on both these questions — "What is the issue? Should we be mixed up in it?" — is the Churchillian one. When Churchill was asked whether Britain should go on fighting after the fall of France in 1940, Churchill answered: "What would happen if we did not?". And his decision to keep on fighting was fateful for many nations represented here today. Apply that question to Viet-Nam. What would happen is clear. The separate existence of South Viet-Nam, temporary though it may be, would end on terms not negotiated freely but imposed by North Viet-Nam. The Government of Hanoi would become the government of the whole of Viet-Nam. The 14 million people of South Viet-Nam would be brought under Communist rule by force, without any chance to exercise their own choice. I say nothing of the suppressive measures that might follow, although the history of the Hanoi régime immediately after the division at the 17th parallel was one of giving very short shrift to those who did not fall into line and of allowing no representative institutions; and since then the methods it has encouraged, supported and directed in the South through its instrument, the Viet Cong, have been the methods of assassination and terror.
118. Should the people of South Viet-Nam have the freedom to choose their own form of government and their own way of life? Should solutions to international differences be imposed by force? Should argument concerning the future of a country and a people cease as soon as one side to the debate abandons the way of negotiation and peaceful settlement and tries to impose its view by unilateral use of force, both hidden and open? Should a small nation yield without resistance when its independence is threatened by force, knowing that it cannot rely on the help of anyone? Now, those are not small and local issues. They are issues that concern every small country that values its own freedom and wishes to maintain its own freedom, in any continent and at any time.
119. Those are the issues which Australia, as a small nation itself, considers important. Surety those who come from distant places and enjoy a sheltered peace can see that. Those nations which live alongside the victims of aggression see the issue more starkly, for what is already happening to one neighbour may happen to others.
120. Australia had no part in the earlier events. We hoped that the Geneva Agreements would lead, with the good offices of all Powers that could play a helpful role, to a new course ending in political stability, security, and perhaps eventually the reunification of Viet-Nam in circumstances that would allow the advancement of the economic and social welfare and the true political independence and liberty of its peoples. We started in 1952 to give the civilian aid which we have been providing, and we have continued to give that civilian aid. It was only when North Viet-Nam created the National Front for Liberation, when it promoted guerrilla war and terror, and when it sent the regular divisions of its own army into the South and organized infiltration and supplies to support the measures designed to master the South by force, that we found a new situation in which the use of force required a response by force to stop it. It was then that Australia answered the request of the Government of South Viet-Nam for support in its defence and gave military aid. We are still giving that military aid, and while that situation remains, our support stands. We do not think our men have died in South Viet-Nam for nothing. We do not think they have died only for us, but for something greater than any single nation.
121. What is happening in Viet-Nam is also of concern to other countries because of its relationship to major questions of world politics. We should all realize that what is happening in Viet-Nam is only part of a condition of international relationships that exists throughout the world. Whether the conflict there ends in one way or in another way, the major difficulties and the major contests will remain both in that region and throughout the world. The ending of hostilities in Viet-Nam will not in itself bring any termination to the greater conflicts, or remove any of the greater dangers that beset the whole of mankind in this nuclear age. But the way in which they end will have immediate consequences for all the nations of the Asian regions, either to brighten their hopes or increase their fears, and sooner or later the way in which hostilities end will make it easier or harder to find any solution to the major problems of peace and security and great-Power relationships throughout the world.
122. In this Assembly debate many references have been made to the bombing north of the demilitarized zone. Few, if any, references have been made to the constant movement of regular units of the North Viet-Namese Army into the territory of South Viet-Nam. The war has been carried into the South and, to interdict this movement and to increase the difficulty of maintaining it, air strikes are being made at selected targets in the North. By its own restraint, the United States of America has already withheld from full use of the power it has. Some critics appear to think that it is not enough for the United States to tie one arm behind its back; they think It should fight with one arm and kneeling, against an unrestrained enemy.
123. More of the speakers in this debate, however, appear to have made the point that bombing should be stopped in order to bring about some form of negotiation. Saying so, they have admitted that bombing itself is not an issue. This is not a war about bombing. In urging a cessation of bombing, they have recognized bombing as a military activity that, they say, might be handled in such a way as to give to the North an inducement to talk. Presumably, it is not the only possible inducement. If stopping the bombing should not in fact result in talks between the parties, will it then be advocated that some other inducement be offered — say, the withdrawal of some other form of warfare — and if that is not sufficient, will the stripping act continue to the point of total exposure until the opponent is lured away from his devotion to the use of force and is attracted to the method of peaceful settlement? But at that moment the defenders would then stand naked and their enemy might still not have started to talk.
124. Surely those who say that the bombing should cease in order to bring about talks ought to be able to give some convincing proof that the cessation of the bombing will in fact lead at once to the beginning of a process of peaceful settlement. It is true that in this debate some have voiced their own hopes, some have made reports about what they have heard; but none has spoken in this debate with certainty, and none can so speak on such matters. The one place where convincing proof can be given is Hanoi. The one authority that can say with certainty what would happen when the bombing stopped is the Government of North Viet-Nam. The only words that have been heard from Hanoi to date are words of contumely and rejection.
125. South Viet-Nam and its allies have declared their readiness to enter into negotiations without conditions, or to discuss the conditions in which negotiations might be opened. The Government of the United States has offered to stop the bombing as a first step towards negotiations, provided that some reciprocal gesture is made, or some reciprocal restraint is observed, by the other side as an earnest of their good faith.
126. The regrettable fact is that every effort to start discussions has been rejected with scorn by Hanoi. The régime there still believes that it can achieve its conquest of the South through continued violence. North Viet-Namese leaders maintain that they have the right to continue hostilities in the South while demanding freedom from hostilities in the North. They assert that the United Nations has no role to play in ending the conflict. They claim that agreement could be reached only on the basis of points which call for the unilateral withdrawal of forces supporting the Government of the Republic of Viet-Nam and the settling of the affairs of South Viet-Nam solely in accordance with the programme of the so-called National Front for Liberation, which is clearly unrepresentative of the great majority of the population of South Viet-Nam. A revealing statement by a North Viet-Namese major-general, Tran Do, in a document captured only this year shows that the North Viet-Namese "basic intention is to win militarily. We mean to end the war through military victories".
127. All of us are deeply moved by the suffering of war. A country like my own looks only for peace and co-operation with its neighbours and hopes for a lasting and just settlement in Viet-Nam. But we have no illusions about the nature of the conflict there and the importance of it not only to the Viet-Namese people, but to the entire region and to ourselves and to the world. Behind a just and guaranteed settlement, the peoples of the Asian-Pacific region, including Viet-Nam, could go about their task of building up their countries and strengthening their economies. Indeed, great progress is already being made behind the barrier which is opposed to aggression in Korea and Viet-Nam and elsewhere. But if a peace settlement in South-East Asia were not based on just and lasting foundations, all that we could expect in the area would be further propaganda threats, subversion and aggression in accordance with doctrines and principles which we have already seen operating over recent years.
128. The Australian Government has no interest in seeing a particular form of government, a particular ideology or social system established in South Viet-Nam. Our only concern is that no régime, no ideology or social system should be imposed by force on the people of South Viet-Nam without their freedom of choice.
129. For its part, the Australian Government has pledged itself, together with the Republic of Viet-Nam and the other Governments helping in its defence, to pursue any path which could lead to a secure and just peace, whether through discussion and negotiation or through reciprocal actions by both sides to reduce the violence. One possible way to peaceful settlement might be found in a return to the essential principles and provisions of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 on the cessation of hostilities in Viet-Nam. A settlement on that basis could be complemented by a return to respect for the provisions of the Geneva agreements of 1962 on Laos, whose territory, as we have heard this morning, continues to be violated by the regular forces of North Viet-Nam. The Australian Government, however, is flexible as to the means by which negotiations or discussions might be opened, and as to the method of negotiation and participation in such negotiations. The essential point is that’ a political solution should be sought by whatever means is likely to succeed.
130. Once again, it is necessary to speak in this Assembly of relations with China. In the past year we have seen the effects of internal conflicts inside Communist China. We have witnessed the shameless treatment of foreign diplomatic representatives, and attacks on embassies, the provocative incitement to disorder in Hong Kong and the outbreak of fighting with India along the border of Sikkim. These events must surely reinforce the doubts expressed last year when the General Assembly decided not to make any change with regard to the representation of China in the United Nations. Even if it were assumed that the Peking régime wanted admission to the United Nations — and it has denied this — the effect of such admission on our Organization would be profound. We can only judge from what the Chinese régime has said and done how It would regard the principles of the Charter. We cannot move to a position in which we say in effect that it does not matter in the least whether a Member of the United Nations — in truth a new party to a contract — accepts the principles of the Charter or does not accept them.
131. It is the hope of the Australian Government that, over a period of time, mainland China will be accommodated within the international community. But the admission of Peking to the United Nations would not be a short cut to that ultimate objective. It would not automatically make mainland China accept new obligations, and the great problems of peaceful coexistence would remain. I find it difficult to believe that the mere assumption of a seat in this Assembly would make such practical difference in the conduct of Peking's policies.
132. Those who urge the representation of the Peking régime in this Organization insist that admission would entail recognition of Peking's sovereignty over Taiwan and the expulsion and abandonment of the Government of the Republic of China. No one who has visited Formosa has found anything that would indicate that the people of that island wanted to be ruled by Peking. The Republic of China is a founding Member of this Organization and has participated constructively and peacefully in international affairs and has fulfilled all the obligations of membership of the United Nations. Moreover, over the past twenty years great strides have been made in promoting economic progress which has brought the standard of living in Taiwan to one of the highest levels in Asia.
133. Some have argued that, since the overriding objective is to come to terms with the 700 million people of mainland China, we should allow the 14 million people of Taiwan to be jettisoned in the interest of a settlement. Coming from a country which itself has a population smaller than that of Taiwan, the Australian Government finds this argument quite unacceptable.
134. All these difficulties do not mean that we must abandon the search for an accommodation. Developments within mainland China bring no comfort to those countries in the region which have to share their future with the people of China, No one in the Asian-Pacific area pretends that China can be ignored. But the countries of the region have a real and common problem, which is how to bring about a situation in which they can live alongside mainland China free from the fear of intervention and aggression, from the export of world revolution as interpreted by Peking and practiced by the Red Guards, That remains the major task for the diplomacy of the region and indeed of the world. None of us would be wise to be permanently hostile to a neighbour, but it would be foolish to pay no regard to the terms and the principles on which we could live as good neighbours.
135. I shall have time to touch on only one other topic. Under the Charter the United Nations is directed to promote higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development. Further, all Members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in co-operation with the Organization for the achievement of those purposes.
136. In the introduction to his annual report [A/6701/ Add.1], the Secretary-General expressed concern that we are not winning the war on want and pointed out that the responsibilities for combating poverty lay heavily upon developing and developed countries alike. Australia is fully conscious of its own responsibilities in this regard and shares the Secretary-General's concern about the loss of momentum in international aid during the Development Decade. There has been no loss of momentum in Australia's own efforts. In 1960-1961, at the beginning of the Development Decade, Australia was making an annual aid allocation, apart from its efforts in Papua and New Guinea, of $US22 million. In the current financial year, that figure will be $US57 million, or two and a half times as much as we were giving at the commencement of the Development Decade. Including assistance to Papua-New Guinea, our contribution runs at over $US14 per head of the population. Expressed as a percentage of national income, the figure has increased year by year until it now stands at approximately .75 of 1 per cent, or one of the highest percentages of national income in the world. All our aid is in the form of non-repayable grants which are a direct charge on the taxpayers of Australia. Recently we accepted a new undertaking, arising from the Kennedy Round, to make an annual food aid contribution of approximately $US 15 million.
137. But having said that, I want to emphasize that in our view international assistance and relief is not enough and it is quite inconceivable that it should be accepted as the normal condition for economic relationships. Our President, in his address of 19 September, suggested, and I paraphrase his words, that until it has been possible to organize the economic development of the world in such a way that countries themselves will be able to provide for their own populations a decent livelihood from their own resources, there will be no real solution to the development problem which is consonant with self-respect and stability. I agree with that view and I say that already we have some conspicuous examples of countries which have broken through the development barrier as a result of the application of external aid to their own efforts.
138. All this points to the importance of international co-operation over the whole field of economic relations. It means in particular that the provision of capital funds should be in such forms as to allow the development of national resources in ways which do not destroy the objective of the investment by creating unbearable debt and interest burdens. Moreover, it means that countries which begin to develop their resources must have the opportunity to dispose of their production profitably. To help a nation to develop its productive resources without ensuring access to markets is futile.
139. A further crippling problem lies in the hard fact that the goods which developing countries wish to import are largely consumer manufactures and capital goods to develop the industrial sectors. In contrast to the trends towards lower world prices for unprocessed primary products, which are usually the products of developing countries, world prices of manufactured goods and capital equipment have been rising. The developing countries, faced with falling export receipts because of the decline in the price of their products, and a rising import bill, due to the rise in the price of manufactured products, have little to spare to provide capital for their economic development, particularly for infrastructure efforts, such as education and communications.
140. While these problems are clearly recognized and discussed at great length in international circles, little has been done to overcome them. Most of the measures which have been taken are palliatives which can help to deal with the effects of the problems but do little to overcome their basic causes. A 5 per cent improvement in the terms of trade of the developing countries would bring to these countries more usable foreign exchange in one year than they now receive in the form of capital aid.
141. In various national and international organizations, work is going on in these fields and it should, in the view of the Australian Government, be pushed forward with urgency. I am happy to state that in one of them — preferences in favour of developing countries — Australia, by arrangement with GATT, has instituted a scheme of such preferences unilaterally. But although we have an admittedly high standard of living, we are ourselves in many ways in the same vulnerable position as the developing countries, because 80 per cent of our export income is tied to primary exports. We therefore favour commodity agreements which would stabilize the prices of these primary exports, and would bring more in the way of development and security to developing countries than all the aid that is ever likely to be given. Assured and rising income from exports is the sure road to economic development, and I would appeal to the great industrial nations of the world to try to see the problems of economic development in this light and, particularly in North America and Western Europe, to give guaranteed access to the products of the developing countries at fair prices.
142. Naturally the developing countries do not wish forever to have the role of producers of raw materials for the industrialized nations. They want for themselves the spreading of urban employment and the cushion against external economic fluctuations which comes with industrialization. But rapid industrialization is not simple, and there are some recent examples of the waste of resources in attempts to build up for prestige purposes industries which have been inappropriate to administrative skills or the economic environment of the countries concerned. Theories concerning the best methods by which developing countries may accelerate their growth rate are numerous, and no one theory is applicable to all developing countries or even all countries within one region. But most developing countries are primarily agricultural countries, and the most effective method of development would therefore seem to be to work by balanced development between agriculture and industry.
143. The first step in industrialization should logically be the processing of primary products, thus providing domestic employment opportunities and leading to the production of more valuable exportable goods. I emphasize again, however, that this process will come to nothing if the advanced countries erect tariff barriers which make it difficult, if not impossible, for the developing countries to sell their processed products.
144. The overcoming of these problems of trade and development, in our view, is not just a matter of importance; it is critical for the stability of the
world order. There is a two-way relationship. The less developed countries need political stability and security so that they may plan and work for their future with assurance. On the other hand they need economic and social change to give the strong foundations for that peace and stability.
145. These are great tasks in which we should be joined in great common effort, calling for imagination, daring and steady resolution, so that all the peoples in all the lands can see the hope of freedom from fear and freedom from want.