Mr. BEVIN said he was glad to have the opportunity of addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations at its third session. It was a particular pleasure to him that it was taking place in Paris, where the Members of the Assembly were the guests of the French Government, of the City of Paris, and of the whole French people.
The long history of France, its many struggles and crises and vicissitudes, and its triumphs, were in a way a symbol of the endeavours of the United Nations, in which the great problems of the day and of the future had to be discussed.
Mr. Bevin proposed to refer to several phases of the work and labours of the United Nations. But there was one subject which he desired to mention at the outset - Palestine. It was a long discussed problem, and it was before the General Assembly now. In the view of the United Kingdom Government, a rapid solution was most desirable.
Mr. Bevin reminded the General Assembly that his Government had held for twenty-five years a Mandate from the League of Nations, the terms of which presented a problem which had proved to be insoluble. The object of that Mandate had been to prepare for self-government in Palestine, where Arabs and Jews could live together in harmony, and the United Kingdom had made many efforts to settle the problem on that basis. All kinds of proposals had been advanced from time to time, none of which had proved acceptable. Nevertheless, His Majesty’s Government had reason to be proud of the contribution it had made during those years to the development of the country and the well-being of its people. Whatever might happen in the future, whatever the decisions the United Nations might make, the future rulers of Palestine would be building on foundations laid by British administrators.
The problem of Palestine had been accentuated by the persecution of the Jews by Hitler. The resulting pressure of Jewish immigration had intensified the conflict between Arabs and Jews. In the end the problem came to be considered insoluble, and the Mandate was surrendered to the United Nations, which was asked for a decision. Considerable time had been spent in the previous year on the Palestine question. Nevertheless, the termination of the British Mandate had unfortunately been followed by an immediate outbreak of hostilities.
The establishment of the truce had been due in large part to the devotion and courage of Count Bernadotte, whose tragic death would cast its shadow over the decision to be taken on Palestine at the present session of the General Assembly. No one had been in a better position than Count Bernadotte to estimate the kind of settlement which would give the best prospects of stable and peaceful conditions in Palestine.
It was therefore fortunate that he had been able, before his death, to complete his report (A/648) to the Secretary-General and so to resent the conclusions to which his experience ad led him. The plan contained in part one of the Mediator’s report was one in which the two parties should be able to acquiesce without sacrificing any of their vital interests; it offered the best hope of healing the breach between those two Semitic peoples, and accordingly the United Kingdom Government had decided to support Count Bernadotte’s plan in its entirety and urged speed in dealing with it.
His Majesty’s Government had always attached the greatest importance to the work of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, It believed that if the problems of the lack of proper food, of distribution, or social unhappiness and discontent, were found to be capable of settlement, and if a great stimulus were given to agricultural production and to means of meeting all the other essential needs of the ordinary people, together with agreed covenants on human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, a great contribution would have been made to a sound structure of world peace.
The representatives present at the Assembly, and the parliaments and other representatives of the world in all fields, should study the substantial measure of progress which had been made in that direction. It was not so great as could have been wished. It had been hindered, like other work, by political differences, and it had been affected by great political problems which divided the world today and which had their repercussions on economic and social collaboration. Nevertheless, it did represent great progress.
The scope of the work of all the specialized agencies was tremendous. Mr. Bevin welcomed the coming into existence of the International Refugee Organization. One of the terrible things in the aftermath of the war and the disturbances which had followed the war was the suffering of the refugees. The IRO had performed very useful work. Mr. Bevin made an earnest appeal for support and aid for that organization, now fully established, from all Members of the United Nations. A really resolute effort by the General Assembly and every constituent Member of it during the coming year could solve that problem finally and clear up the situation left by the war. There must, however, be no excuses for inaction; the problem must be approached with a will to help in its final solution.
Mr. Bevin had been associated with the International Labour Office since its foundation in 1919, and that organization, too, was pressing on with its social work. It had framed an important convention on freedom of association and trade union rights and he urged Governments to ratify it and apply it over the widest possible field.
Another piece of work which merited attention was that undertaken by the ILO in developing its special trade committees, in which people engaged in different industries could collaborate internationally for their mutual benefit and advancement. Experience had shown that when people met and talked in terms of the occupation — miner to miner, textile worker to textile worker, transport worker to transport worker, and so on — rather than in terms of narrow national interests, a great comradeship developed and a great solidarity was evolved. He trusted that the United Nations would foster that development.
As regards the question of human rights and freedom of information, it had at one time been hoped that at the present General Assembly the nations of the world would be able to pledge themselves to a covenant defining human rights. That now seemed doubtful, but his Government would not slacken its efforts to secure such a covenant. It was hoped that the General Assembly would, without dissent, approve the draft declaration on human rights which was now submitted to it, and also that it would be possible to agree upon the covenants covering freedom of information and freedom of association. In themselves those were great instruments. If a definition could be agreed upon as to what human rights each should safeguard; if there were provision among the Members of the United Nations for the free movement of information as well as of individuals, the tension between the Members would be immediately relieved and misunderstanding would ultimately be removed.
Those social activities of the United Nations could however thrive only on a healthy economic foundation. The Charter contemplated a healthy world, economically speaking, and that was unfortunately not the case at present. Nevertheless, the possibility existed for progressively restoring economic health to the world. One of the contributions offered was the Marshall Plan. The United Kingdom was anxious to see the rehabilitation of Europe. While Great Britain was the centre of a great Commonwealth, it was also a European country, and the wellbeing of its citizens depended upon the security and the prosperity of Europe. Britain had always, since the close of the war, been anxious to make what contribution it could, notwithstanding its terrific losses in the war, to European rehabilitation.
Those losses were sometimes forgotten; because Great Britain was an island, it had sometimes been assumed that it had not suffered as others did. He would therefore quote some striking figures: four million houses — one in every three in the country — had been destroyed or damaged. The destruction to factories and installations was valued at over 1,500 million pounds sterling. Nine million tons of shipping had been sunk, and there had been a tremendous loss of a great proportion of British overseas investments.
Owing to the damage to Britain’s economy it was a formidable task to make those losses good, A further handicap was the grave impoverishment of the country caused by two world wars in which Britain had been engaged from the beginning to the end. Thus, in order first to continue the war when it was alone and then to carry on to victory in conjunction with its allies, Britain had sold over 1,000 million pounds sterling of foreign investments, gold and dollars, and had incurred debts to an amount even greater than that.
Therefore, instead of constantly attacking the United States of America, Great Britain welcomed its generosity. In the war itself the lend-lease system had been established; all the Allies had benefited. Then, at the end of the war UNRRA had been set up as a universal contribution without discrimination. The United Kingdom had also made a significant contribution to UNRRA in proportion to the national income, and many other countries in the Assembly had benefited from that effort. Britain did not expect gratitude, but decency should have made them remember that.
Later, Mr. Marshall’s speech had indicated that the United States would make a contribution to Europe, to be applied to the whole of Europe without discrimination, provided that Europe set about helping itself. Britain had welcomed that. It had striven to make it a workable scheme and did not apologize for having done so. Indeed, he was confident that many of the Governments which now pretended to rejoice that they were outside the European Recovery Programme did so with regret in their hearts. When Mr. Modzelewski, the leader of the Polish delegation, had stated that the very fact of Poland’s rejection of the Marshall Plan had made it possible for Poland to establish and carry out its own Polish plan of reconstruction, his words had not carried conviction. All, or almost all, European countries were anxious to come into the Programme, notwithstanding the allegations made in certain quarters about infringement of national sovereignty. It was known that the countries of Eastern Europe had been forbidden to come in, and that was the only reason why they were outside. It was noteworthy that every country really free to come in had come in.
The European Recovery Programme was not charity; it was to assist Europe to get on its feet, to produce for itself, to rehabilitate its industry. It was not designed to take away independence, but to tide over and help in its re-establishment.
Referring next to the Trusteeship Council, Mr. Bevin expressed the view that the Trusteeship Council was not fulfilling the duty laid down for it in the Charter of the United Nations. It would be remembered that it was the United Kingdom Government, together with the Australian Government, which had taken the initiative in preparing the draft of Chapter XII of the Charter. That draft had been based on the recognized and long-standing policy of successive British Governments in regard to all British dependent territories. Together with other Powers at San Francisco, which had had considerable experience with the same problems which faced the United Kingdom in its colonies, a draft had eventually been elaborated and accepted by the United Nations as a whole.
In accordance with the provisions of that Chapter, the United Kingdom and other Powers which administered colonial territories under mandate had agreed to place the territories in question under the trusteeship of the United Nations — he repeated, the trusteeship. Those Trusteeship Agreements had been approved by the United Nations. But although their aim had been to associate the United Nations with the administration of the territories in a general supervisory capacity, it had always been intended — and that was made quite clear by the wording of the Agreements themselves — that the Administering Authority should have sole responsibility for their administration. There now seemed to be a tendency in the Trusteeship Council to go beyond its general powers of supervision, and beyond the terms of the Charter and of the Agreements, and to take upon itself the functions of the Administering Authorities.
In its role of Administering Authority, the United Kingdom was anxious to co-operate, and welcomed constructive criticism. There was no iron curtain around the United Kingdom Trust Territories, nor for that matter around any of the Non-Self-Governing Territories for which the United Kingdom was responsible. But in the administration of those Trust Territories, Great Britain would not be deflected from what it considered the right course by uninformed or prejudiced doctrinaire criticism or by propaganda from people who were not required to reveal the truth about conditions in their own territories.
Two examples might be cited of the sort of criticism in question. The United Kingdom had been severely reproached for maintaining the tribal system in Tanganyika. The tact was that the clan and tribe alone bound the vast majority of rural areas together for community action of any sort. The clan and tribe more than anything else taught and enforced the Social responsibilities and enriched and coloured the lives of individuals. To break that system up, as was suggested, in the name of progress, would be equivalent to destroying the family unit in a Western society. The Administering Authority had a much more constructive and realistic policy. Its aim was steadily to develop the existing traditional tribal organizations into more liberal forms in a way which would eventually result in a system of indirect electoral representation, linking representative local councils with the Central Legislative Council itself.
The second example was the ground-nuts scheme, which the USSR representative had criticized as leading to the disruption of the indigenous economy and the concentration of millions of acres of land in the hands of the non- indigenous population. The fact was that millions of acres of thorn scrub desert were being brought under cultivation; the tsetse fly was being destroyed and an attack was being made on the disease which had made the lives of many Africans «solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short ». The ground-nut scheme was no ruthless experiment. Africans were not being expropriated; the expropriation was of thorn bush and tsetse fly, the enemy of mankind and of the health of the people. Moreover, it had been made abundantly clear that the intention was to make that land habitable and fertile, and in due course to hand it over to the indigenous peoples as fruitful, well-cultivated land which they would be taught to maintain by methods of large-scale agriculture and co-operative farming. A considerable portion of the large sums devoted to that scheme were being spent on establishing schools and training centres for African technicians and artisans; hospitals, and other social measures for the benefit of the local population. If what the United Kingdom was doing were being done by those who criticized here, they would be making great propaganda for their actions and their work in development and for their plans. But it happened to be Great Britain, so the efforts were singled out for condemnation.
Nevertheless, the United Kingdom intended to pursue its policy, in the interest of Africans and other dependent peoples, wherever it was responsible.
There was a misguided idea that the possession of colonies was bad in itself and that colonial Powers could not be trusted to guide backward peoples. As a result, the Trusteeship Council was in danger of degenerating into a platform for political propaganda, which would not serve the interests of the inhabitants of Trust Territories, and could not do anything but undermine the trusteeship system itself. No right-thinking person could possibly want that to happen, and if such misunderstandings were allowed to persist, they would effectively prevent the United Nations from carrying out the great task entrusted to the Trusteeship Council of assisting the Administering Authorities in bringing the peoples in Trust Territories to a stage where they could govern themselves.
Turning to the political side of the activities of the United Nations, Mr. Bevin found it a black and depressing picture. At San Francisco, the United Kingdom had agreed to the Charter, and had decided to base its policy on it. To that policy it had steadfastly adhered.
It would be remembered that at the first session of the General Assembly in London, the United Kingdom had called for the immediate setting up of the Military Staff Committee, with r. view to the quick organization of collective security, so that all could settle down to the tasks of peace in the knowledge that political problems would be dealt with in a spirit of compromise, and that if aggression or disputes occurred, there would, in the last resort, be a collective force available to deal with them
Coincidently, the United Kingdom Government, like many other Governments, had been studying what could be done, not only about the atomic bomb, but about atomic energy. It had realized that while there was such a tremendously important weapon, it must be controlled if mankind were to benefit from the equally important forces of atomic energy that might be available for peaceful purposes. Therefore, in 1945, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mr. Attlee, had come to the United States of America to discuss the problem with Mr. Truman and Mr. Mackenzie King.
The United States should hereafter have full credit for working out the resulting coherent plan for the control and use of atomic energy. It had known, as the United Kingdom had known, that it would be impossible to harness those immense and unparalleled forces for peaceful purposes unless steps were taken to control and prevent the clandestine use of those same forces for secret and disastrous purposes.
In the first report of the Atomic Energy Commission, a committee of experts on which all the Governments on the Security Council, including the USSR, were represented had said:
«With regard to the question posed by Committee 2, «whether effective control of atomic energy is possible», we do not find any basis in the available scientific facts for supposing the effective control is not technologically feasible.»
In later discussions, that conclusion was developed into a detailed plan. The United Kingdom, with the majority, agreed that effective control over atomic energy could have been exercised if the international control agency to be set up were given powers including some form of international ownership, management and inspection. Yet months later, the Atomic Energy Commission itself had reported that it could no longer profitably continue its activities, and that its work in effect must now be adjourned. In fact, however, a resolution was later submitted (A/57 9) by the Security Council asking the Assembly to consider the question again. The reason was fundamentally simple. It was that although the minority often put forward a point of view which could not be disregarded and which should be intelligently discussed, in those matters it resolutely refused to accommodate itself, even in the slightest degree, to the wishes and desires of the majority.
That was a circumstance which not only applied to the field of atomic energy, but was evident in practically all the political activities of the United Nations. It was evident, for example, in the field of disarmament where, although certain progress had been made, work had reached a point where further progress did not seem likely. It was evident with regard to the Military Staff Committee, where the disagreement revealed, both as regards general principles and other matters, showed how remote the prospects of an early agreement were.
Mr. Bevin wished to say, with all the solemnity at his disposal, that if the black fury, the incalculable disaster, of atomic war should fall upon the world, one Power alone, by refusing its co-operation in the control and development of those great new forces for the good of humanity, would be responsible for the evils which might be visited upon mankind.
That lack of co-operation, so obvious on those grave subjects to which he had referred, had almost never been absent at any level of international political activity.
There had been, in that connexion, much discussion about the use of the veto. The United Kingdom Government had consistently held the view that where the vital interests of the countries were in question, the veto was not in itself an evil. It was the abuse of the veto which was the root of the trouble. In other words, that abuse was the most striking instance of the basic fact that progress was unobtainable unless a real attempt was made to regard the majority view as something to which individual views should in general defer, if it were not a question of life and death or of one party being put in a demonstrably difficult position. In some circumstances, therefore, it could be admitted that the veto was necessary and even useful. During the second part of the first session of the General Assembly in New York, at the end of 1946, the United Kingdom had recognized that it was unwise to try to amend the Charter so as to restrict or eliminate the veto, but rather to put forward a code of conduct in the light of which it should if necessary, be exercised. Could not the Organization even now progress along that path and gradually build up some system of case law based on precedents which would define the circumstances in which it was or was not proper to exercise the veto?
The admission of new Members provided an example. It was difficult to see how the vital interests of any one great Power could in any way be affected if there were general agreement on the part of the permanent members of the Security Council not to employ their privileged veto so as to block the admission of any State which was found to be worthy of admission by the normal majority of members of the Security Council. Four of the five permanent members had already agreed to forego their privilege in that connexion; but still many States were penalized by the intransigeance of the fifth State.
The most striking example was that of Ceylon. Ceylon was a State which had only recently emerged into independence but which, nevertheless, had elected to remain in that great and historic community of free nations which was the British Commonwealth. Why should it be penalized for remaining in that community: a community of nations which had taken their place as original Member, of the United Nations? Such a criterion was not applied to any other country remaining in any other community. Yet Ceylon had been refused admission.
The blocking of countries such as Ceylon, Ireland, Transjordan and Italy, for totally irrelevant reasons, produced an acute sense of frustration and, though perhaps not the most important, it was in some ways the most striking example of the exercise of a power which should only be used in the most solemn and exceptional cases.
In the light of his comments about the USSR attitude to security, disarmament, atomic energy and the veto, Mr. Bevin asked in what spirit the latest proposals put forward by Mr. Vyshinsky in his speech should be regarded. Mr. Vyshinsky must forgive the United Kingdom if it was suspicious. His country was a sealed book; no one knew what was happening there. But in the United Kingdom there was a free Press; free access was open to the world. Mr. Vyshinsky could and did quote anything which appeared in print in the United Kingdom about what happened on that side and, in some cases, what did not happen. He had promoted three British subjects, of whom the country had scarcely heard before, to the great pre-eminence of being warmongers. One of them represented the very ancient place called Cambridge, and every student, every professor and everyone else in that University would wonder what that terrible man had been doing before Mr. Vyshinsky discovered him. But who could say what was happening inside the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
The United Nations were invited to put their security in the pool with a nation which would not and was determined not to reveal to the world what it was doing. That looked like a proposal to the Assembly to induce the rest of the nations to disarm while the USSR maintained absolute secrecy about its own military strength and activities. . That was not a situation conducive to confidence or to collective security.
For the people of the United Kingdom it was impossible to divorce the Government from the people. The Government was the people. It was unthinkable that Governments! should draw closer when the people were deliberately kept further apart. It was difficult, if not impossible, to have any useful exchanges between Governments when there was not even a possibility of the normal contact between the individual citizens of the countries concerned.
Mr. Vyshinsky had claimed that contacts between friendly nations of the West were all part of a «cold war» against the USSR. That, said Mr. Bevin, was utter nonsense. There had been a war of nerves, but it had not been instituted by the West. It had begun immediately hostilities ceased. What of the war of nerves on Turkey which had kept that country mobilized so long? Why the perpetual war of nerves involving actual fighting against the lawfully elected Greek Government and the valiant and sorely tried Greek people? The reason was known. It was that the Soviet spider wanted Greece within its web. Why should there be an attack upon the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans? Why should not the United Nations at least watch over — even if it could not fully protect — the inviolability of Greece’s frontiers?
The Council of Foreign Ministers had had a right to assume, when the Balkan treaties had been decided and the agreements and treaties signed, that Greece’s frontiers would be inviolate; that there would be no interference with the internal life of Greece; that it would be left free by its northern neighbours to develop in its own way; that Greece would have its elections, develop parliamentary government and evolve the kind of life it wanted. With all the abuse about «monarcho-fascist governments», the poor people of Greece had never had a chance since the war ended; Greece had not had a moment’s respite either from its neighbours outside or from their accomplices within. The Greeks had been treated by the USSR and by their northern neighbours and friends as if Greece had been an enemy country and if ever a country fought for the Allies in the war Greece had done its share and deserved to be respected. The people of Greece now were unable to sleep in their beds at night with safety. They had been driven out of the villages. There were thousands of refugees. The blame for the woes the Greeks had suffered could not be pinned on the United States and on the United Kingdom, who had merely been trying to assist the Greek people to reconstruct their own lives and defend their own country. All knew of the desire on the part of Greece’s northern neighbours for territorial aggrandizement at Greece’s expense; that had never been disguised.
It could not be expected that those things would be forge ten. And if the « cold war » was to stop — and the United Kingdom had not been in it, except to defend itself — let those who started that war of nerves lift the finger and order it to be stopped. It would be stopped; and the stoppage would be of great benefit to the United Nations and to the world.
In many parts of the world democratic institutions had been attacked through either the Cominform or the local Communists acting under direction. An onslaught had been made, directly and indirectly, on the rights of peoples and individuals. All were denounced as warmongers and as everything that was bad. And yet, when anything was done or said in return, a resolution was introduced into the General Assembly to stop the retaliation because it was offensive. It was the democracies who were the victims of the «cold war», waged almost ever since the Second World War ended.
Mr. Bevin said he had already quoted the figures of the terrible war losses in the United Kingdom, and he acknowledged that terrible losses had occurred in other countries, including the USSR. But in the United Kingdom the Labour Government, elected in 1945, had bent all its energies to complete economic rehabilitation. It could claim without boasting that no country in the world had submitted itself more willingly to voluntary discipline, nor made a greater collective contribution to restore its working life than the United Kingdom had done. But yet through no wish or fault of its own — and that was tragic — it had now been forced to turn from the work of reconstruction and to divert a part of its resources to the production of munitions, which had been virtually abandoned in 194 5. In its concern for the economic and social well-being of the people, the United Kingdom Government had come near to neglecting their safety, which it had been hoped might have been secure in the hands of the United Nations. But, nothing had occurred which gave any sense of assurance, either in the Military Staff Committee of the United Nations or in the Atomic Energy Commission.
The threat of the war of nerves hung over the nations in the activities of the Cominform and other associated bodies. Even in Paris, when there was a meeting to discuss the Marshall Plan objectively, there had been a threat that if it were held, it would be very bad for those concerned. All those things had contributed to uncertainty. To restore confidence now — and confidence was necessary — deeds, not words, were needed. If the deeds were shown and proof given of good faith, the United Kingdom would not be slow to enter into any rational discussion, provided it could expect a spirit of compromise and understanding for mutual interests. But it was not going to be deceived by any specious resolutions.
As a result of bitter experience, the United Kingdom believed that a feeling of security and confidence alone would lead to disarmament. It did not believe that the converse was true. Since Mr. Vyshinsky apparently took the opposite view, he should tell the facts about the armed forces of the USSR. It had been said that they now numbered between three and four millions. Before the war, they were nearer one million. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, had run down almost to its pre-war position. The insecurity of the world had compelled the United Kingdom Government to arrest that downward movement. But where should disarmament begin? What was the basis on which to start? The basis of disarmament was collective security. If a policy of security were built up correctly, the numbers of armies was a matter which settled itself automatically, and there would be no fear of anyone over-arming. It was too expensive, it was too costly, it was too silly, in view of the present economy and the demands of the people, to go on making munitions and arming people.
A start should therefore be made with the Military Staff Committee. Then atomic energy should be considered. All weapons should be dealt with. All countries should be open to inspection. The world should be opened and light and knowledge let in; if it were known what others were doing, the question of physical arms would settle itself. Disarmament presupposed a cessation of the attacks upon national institutions and internal political affairs. Civil war must cease to be an instrument of foreign policy, and assassination and all the rest must be tabooed by everybody associated with the United Nations. All that kind of attack must cease, and it should not even be condoned for one minute. Otherwise, it would not be possible to regard with confidence any resolution which might be put forward.
Mr. Bevin then addressed himself directly to the USSR delegation and declared that in all solemnity the United Kingdom did not know where it stood with regard to the USSR resolution. What was the motive that had actuated the resolution? Was it a compromise to get over a difficulty and then to go back again, because everything seemed to be motivated, notwithstanding what Mr. Vyshinsky might say on the platform, by the Marxist- Leninist conception that there could be no final agreement with non-Communist States; was everything that the Soviet Union Government did to be regarded as tactics, and did it adhere to its given purpose, whatever it said in the process? The United Kingdom was entitled to ask that, because it was striving in the United Nations to clear the ground and to obtain the confidence upon which its actions could be based.
In the writings of Lenin himself, it was said: «We are living not merely in a State, but in a system of States, and the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist States for a long time is unthinkable. One or other must triumph in the end. And before that end supervenes, a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois States will be inevitable. That means that if the ruling class — the proletariat — wants to hold sway, it must prove its capacity to do so by military organization also.»
That quotation could be found in Generalissimo Stalin’s work entitled The Problems of Leninism. Could Mr. Vyshinsky wonder, therefore, that the United Kingdom was cautious about accepting at its face value his statement that the policy of the USSR was one of expanding and strengthening international co-operation with other States that did not think as it did? In that connexion, it had been said that the treaty the United Kingdom had made with France and the Benelux countries was directed against the Soviet Union. Mr. Bevin denied it. Such a thought had never entered the heads of those concerned. But he could give the assurance that it had been decided to build a union — a Western Union — which could stand on its own feet and rally its own people against any aggression that might be launched against it, from wherever it might come.
Mr. Vyshinsky had referred to Germany. With regard to the German situation, the United Kingdom had desired — and desired now — a peace treaty for a united Germany, If the USSR Government really did fear a renewed German aggression, why did it turn down the proposal made by Mr. Byrnes of the United States for a four-Power treaty which was to have contained Germany for forty years? That proposal had been re-introduced at a subsequent meeting of the four Powers by Mr. Marshall, when he succeeded Mr. Byrnes. Had the disarming and the containing of Germany against aggression under a treaty for forty years been accomplished, what a feeling of confidence that would have given throughout Europe, and how every little State in Europe would have grown up and developed!
But it had been refused because of the Lenin doctrine, because convulsions could not have followed if a solid basis of that character had been established between the four Powers. Further, in the development of the Western Union, Mr. Bevin had told Generalissimo Stalin in Moscow quite frankly that the United Kingdom would co-operate with its neighbours just as the Generalissimo had done — a policy about which the United Kingdom had made no complaint. The United Kingdom was co-operating with its friends. It was not suggesting an attack on anyone. That was an old trick which had gone on through the years, as anyone knew who had studied history. Those who made accusations were generally creating a cloak for what they intended to do themselves. That was a very important consideration to keep in mind.
Mr. Bevin, on behalf of his Government, solemnly declared that if the USSR Government was living in fear of any aggression by the United Kingdom on the territory of the Soviet Union, it might rest in peace. The United Kingdom would never indulge in any such aggression. On the other hand, if, having obtained an assured security in their own territory, the USSR then used the territory of other States and the people of other States to prepare attacks upon the United Kingdom, a very different situation would be created in which Great Britain could only look to its defence. His Majesty’s Government was responsible for the safety of its people and must accept that responsibility.
The representative of the United Kingdom then made another statement which he hoped would remove a great deal of apprehension. It was necessary, because so much had been said about communism and capitalism and social democracy and the rest, that the people were confused. He declared that no question was raised over the fact that the USSR was a communistic State. It was not the United Kingdom’s business; that was the USSR’s business. The United Kingdom could not object to the United States existing as a capitalist State. That was not its business. However, Britain claimed a right, on behalf of the people of Great Britain, to develop its State as it felt necessary and as it considered to be in the best interest of the well-being of its own people and in accordance with democratic traditions. If that could be conceded and understood by the five great Powers in the world, then a great deal of the cause of conflict could be removed and the East and West could live together.
Mr. Bevin said that he had not been impressed by the attack on the United States of America. If the representatives of the USSR had any feeling for the simple people of Europe or of the world, if they had been animated by anything but an out-of-date, backward, unscientific doctrine, they would have been the first to applaud the great and unselfish contribution to world recovery that had been made.
He was neither a warmonger nor a pessimist. He still pinned his faith on the ordinary peoples of the world, who would not be deceived in the end by either dialectics or slogans. They might be confused for a time, but, in the end, the simpler folk would discern the truth. Perhaps that was the reason why so much of the truth was denied to so much of the world.
Mr. Bevin urged that the common people should have all possible freedom of movement, freedom of information and contact, so that they could learn that among ordinary people in other countries, as well as in their own, there were no such things as aggressors. It was not the simple people who wanted to fight. It was not they who wanted to take other people’s homes and territories or who wanted to dominate.
After the San Francisco Conference hopes had been high, and it had been felt that finally, with all the mistakes of the League of Nations as a thing of the past, a new instrument had been created which would avoid those same mistakes. It had been felt that the terrible experiences which the world had suffered would lead all statesmen to co-operate. Perhaps hopes had been set too high. Nevertheless, it was better to have difficulties now than to live in a fool’s paradise, and, when the critical moment came, have the instrument break. There might still be time to learn a way to provide means to overcome difficulties such as were now revealed. But, if it were found in the end that it was not possible to proceed on a world basis, as had been hoped, it would be necessary to proceed on a regional basis. There must be agreement with those with whom agreement was possible; work with those with whom work was possible; understanding and trust with those willing to enter into trust and understanding. It might be, after all, that if world government could not come as had been hoped, out of those very regional structures to which the nations might now turn there might yet grow that world government for which humanity yearned and for which it had been striving and struggling for so long.