Mr. BALAGUER said that it was the first time that the General Assembly of the United Nations had met on the soil of France, the mother of liberty and the cradle of human rights. If the atmosphere of the world were at present less charged with anxiety and if the shadow of a fresh catastrophe did not darken the future of humanity, it would have been said that that change of headquarters, apart from whatever other motives involved, fulfilled a purpose of incalculable moral value. The three regular sessions of the Assembly of the United Nations had been held in the three countries of the world which most strongly represented the principles of political freedom and of respect for individual rights. The United Nations Organization, born in San Francisco, had been initiated in London; it had drawn its first breath in England, as though it had been desired that the representatives of all the nations should strengthen their faith in the renewal of liberty by the splendid sight of a famous people which had just arisen from the ruins of war, as a symbol of the indestructibility of the human spirit and as a symbol of justice and right — values which would never die, however persecuted.
The General Assembly had then moved to the United States of America, the most powerful democracy on earth and the home of the people which had decided the issue of the tremendous conflict by throwing into the balance the most formidable fighting machine that the world had ever seen.
The capital of France, the country which, with the Encyclopedists, had seen the birth of the loftiest ideals of modern political thought, now welcomed the United Nations. France, a great country, which was the pride of Latin culture, would by its history give the moral impulse required to overcome the feelings of distrust and pessimism which were beginning to undermine the foundations of the United Nations as in its last days they had those of the League of Nations.
The Dominican Republic, heir, like all the Latin American countries, to a French culture which almost from the beginning of nationhood was identical with that of Spain, had come to the Assembly in the hope that the atmosphere there would inspire the representatives of the great Powers, in whose hands was the fate of all humanity, to come to a friendly agreement which would remove once and for all the danger of a new world war, which, if it happened, would be the third ordeal which civilization would have had to undergo in the short course of one generation.
The contribution that a small country like the Dominican Republic and many others which were taking part in the Assembly on the same basis, protected by the inalienable principle of equal sovereignty, could make for the cause of world peace and recovery, was undoubtedly small. But within those limitations, which were necessarily imposed by its area and by the opportunities open to it, his country was proud of the faithful way in which it had carried out the terms of the San Francisco Charter and of the sacrifices it had made to join, to the extent permitted by its resources, in the gigantic task of world moral and economic reconstruction. The foundation of the United Nations Charter, as also that of the Covenant of the League of Nations, was respect for the rule of law, the essential condition of the peaceful co-existence of States within the supreme order of international relations. In the Secretary-General’s annual Report, the Dominican Republic had been mentioned among those Members of the United Nations which had accepted without reservation the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. The Dominican Republic had thereby shown its firm intention to have recourse at all times to the processes of law for the settlement of its disputes with other countries.
In the Secretary-General’s report, the Dominican Republic had also been mentioned among those countries which had offered their protection and help to the children of the war devastated nations of Europe. Ever since the United Nations, by the creation of the International Children’s Emergency Fund, had begun its efforts on behalf of war orphans, his country had considered that the American nations, for the very reason that they were furthest from the war-darkened scene and had best escaped the terrible moral consequences of the war, were among those which should take a leading part in that magnificent humanitarian crusade. His country would accordingly, through the initiative of its President, contribute 250,000 dollars to the Children’s Emergency Fund, and it had, at a co3t of nearly 500,000 dollars, constructed a building which was even now ready for the reception and lodging of 2.000 European children.
In all the other fields of activity of the United Nations, his Government had associated itself strongly with the unprecedented task to which the United Nations was pledged: the task of restoring to the world its lost confidence and stability. Apart from its work in the Interim Committee, where it had upheld several important recommendations such as those relating to mediation and peaceful means of settling disputes, his country had, during the year covered in the Secretary-General’s last report, given the maximum amount of co-operation to the United Nations, not only in the economic but also in the moral and legal fields.
Turning to his country’s position in relation to the items of the agenda which would attract the greatest attention, Mr. Balaguer said that his country belonged to the American continent, a part of the world where there had been set up standards for the co-existence of nations which in many cases, if only by reason of the respect with which they were viewed, had superseded the traditional standards of law.
Two of the most important items of the agenda for his country were the problems of Greece and of Spain. Both those problems were essentially one from the legal point of view, for both were closely connected with the principle of the non-infringement of sovereignty and of the non-interference of a State in the domestic affairs of another State. When those problems came under discussion, the Dominican Republic would not fall into the contradiction characterizing the attitude of those countries which were strong protagonists of the principle of non-intervention when their own interests were involved or the interests of supporting ideological regimes but which were opposed to the same fundamental principle — the essential basis of relationships between States — when the Governments of countries of a different ideology were involved. The great Powers, which as such held the fate of the weak States in their hands and by their power had an influence upon the destiny of the world, could allow themselves such contradictions and at times confuse right with political expediency; but the smaller Powers, whose only protection was the principle, so often ignored in the history of international relationships, of the legal equality of sovereign States, could not with impunity turn their backs upon legal and moral standards which guaranteed their self-determination and represented for them the great armies and the guns of the great Powers. The fate of the small nations, which were in the great majority in the Assembly, would assuredly be very precarious if they took part in the discussions guided only by political interest and ideological passion. If they did, there would happen to them what had happened to Diomedes, who died, devoured by the very horses he had taught to eat human flesh. Men and governments were ephemeral, and the only enduring realities in the life of peoples were moral principles and the rule of law; unchanging conceptions that every country should preserve, surrounded, like the vestal virgins of old, by a kind of holy inviolability. If, by dislike for a political system or by doctrinal scruples, the small nations were to abandon any of the rigid principles of morality or right, they would merely betray the vital interests of their peoples and, blinded by the mirage of the non-essential, sell the birthright of future generations.
The Dominican Republic would conform to the same standards in discussing items of the agenda involving legal questions concerned with the domestic jurisdiction of States. In the discussion of problems such as that raised by Chile in relation to the USSR and that concerning the treatment of Indians in the Union of South Africa, his delegation would favour solutions ensuring respect for the traditional principles of public law which at the same time did not intrude upon the private domain of national sovereignty.
If it were possible to find a more liberal interpretation of certain Articles of the Charter, such as those relating to the right of veto which had been set up for the benefit of the great Powers, the Dominican Republic would, without hesitation, join the group of weak countries which desired the reduction to a minimum of the irritating privilege of the veto which violated for political purposes the principle, that , could not be surrendered, of the equality of States.
Mr. Balaguer affirmed, in conclusion, his faith in the work of the United Nations. That Organization was the only ark afloat amid universal shipwreck, the only legacy of human solidarity left to a sceptical and ruined world that had survived the horrors of war, and it would, as the Secretary-General had so well said in his report, undoubtedly serve to bring the great Powers together and lead them to continue the conversations begun at San Francisco. But it also served, and that was of great importance, to keep alive the vacillating faith of the small nations in justice and right. The representatives of all the free peoples of the world, when they returned every year after a session of the Assembly, carried back to their own countries fewer hopes than they had had when they set out. But, despite their discouragement, when they summed up the work accomplished yearly on behalf of peace and realized that nothing positive had been done, they nevertheless preserved intact their faith in international justice, because for weeks on end they had been present at discussions in which the powerful nations had bowed on many occasions, in obedience to the provisions of the Charter, before the will of countries which lacked the power to make themselves heard on the field of battle, and because they knew that the very existence of the United Nations was in itself a guarantee of order and a call to reason in the midst of universal anxiety and anarchy.