Australia

I should like first to add my voice to yours, Mr. President, in a word of heart-felt thanks and gratitude to His Excellency the President of the Republic of France and to the Government of France for their very kind hospitality in this beautiful city. 2. I believe that most of us here, delegations from all parts of the world, have come here for one chief purpose: the prevention of war and the safeguarding and strengthening of international peace. This fundamental purpose is the reason for the existence of the United Nations. In the eyes of the average man and woman of every country the United Nations must ultimately stand or fall by its success or lack of success in achieving this aim. 3. No one can contemplate another world war with anything but horror. I have yet to meet a man who has been through one war who wants to go through another or who wants his son to go through another. Two-thirds of the parliamentarians of the Australian parliament, that is of our House of Representatives and our Senate, precisely 66 per cent of our Australian federal parliamentarians supporting the Government, have been through one or other of the two great wars. They do not want, for that reason, to see another. The peaceful intent of the Australian Government is unquestionable. The tragic fact, however, is that today we live in fear of the possibility of another great war. We are in a situation in which, although nearly all countries wish to avoid it, we might be plunged into a new great war. In this situation most of our countries have felt compelled to prepare against the possibility of aggression. Let me say emphatically that, for its part, the Australian Government and the people of Australia have taken their decision to undertake the immense burden of defence preparations with the greatest reluctance, although with full determination. I am sure that this is the case with the peoples and governments of the vast majority of countries. If this is so then why have we done it? Why are we preparing for war ? 4. The choice, unfortunately, has not been in our hands. Increasingly over the past few years one of the greatest Powers in the world has used every form of pressure and propaganda to intimidate, to undermine and to dominate other countries. The attack on the Republic of Korea has increased the tension between this Power and the rest of the world. In these circumstances we have been forced to the reluctant decision that there is no alternative but to join with other democratic countries in arming ourselves to protect the lives, the homelands and the heritage of our peoples. 5. I have said that the fundamental aim of the United Nations is the achievement of collective security against aggression through the united strength of the peace-loving countries. I think that it also needs to be emphasized that such a union of strength threatens nobody, that the United Nations is not an alliance against any State or group of States but a universal body seeking security for all by collective action against aggression. No one but an aggressor or a potential aggressor need have any misgivings about the strengthening of United Nations security measures. 6. We did not join together in the Korean crisis in order to bring Korea and the people of Korea into subjection but to defend and protect them against aggression. Our own Australian forces in Korea were not sent there to impose Australian ideas or Australian ways on the Korean people, nor were the forces of the United States of America, Great Britain and other countries sent there for any such purpose. The United Nations forces in Korea are there to bring about conditions which will give the Korean people a chance to live in freedom according to their own ideas and their own traditions. 7. I paid a visit to Korea a few months ago and was able to obtain at first hand an impression of the situation there. I found what I saw in Korea most impressive and heartening as a demonstration of the way in which collective action through the United Nations can be made an effective and practical reality. In particular, I was impressed by the magnificent spirit of co-operation and unity which prevails among the United Nations forces, and by the undaunted determination of the Korean forces and the Korean people, despite their terrible suffering, to continue to the end their struggle against aggression in which Australia is proud to have provided naval, military and air assistance. 8. I think that all peoples who live under the shadow of aggression have drawn inspiration from the tough spirit of determination to defend their independence that the Korean people have shown. I think also that all threatened countries have been heartened by the speed and effectiveness with which the international community has come to the aid of Korea, and by the great work of relief and rehabilitation for which the United Nations has assumed responsibility. 9. The principal question in the minds of the people everywhere throughout the world is whether or not safety from war can be effectively assured through the United Nations. It would be foolish to expect too much of the United Nations which, after all, is not something distinct from and independent of the countries which compose it. It would be unreal to imagine that if differences between nations exist, as they do in many parts of the world unfortunately, they have only to be brought before the United Nations to find an automatic and immediate solution. As the Secretary-General has recently pointed out so very truly in the introduction to his report on the work of the Organization: “... the founders of our Organization never conceived that its mere establishment would of itself remove or prevent conflicts and differences of national interests... nor would it assure in advance the future good conduct and good faith of governments in all circumstances ”. 10. On the contrary, they considered that a world organization was, as the Secretary-General went on to say: “The one essential and primary instrument... through which the Members nations could over a period of time develop adequate means for controlling unlawful international conduct on the part of any government and for preventing those differences which inevitably arise between nations from leading to further world wars, with the consequent denial or destruction of the political, economic and social progress of the peoples”. Those, if I may say so, were wise words which the Secretary-General used in describing the status, position, aims and, if you like, limitations of the United Nations in the world today. 11. When I hear cynical expressions about the alleged ineffectiveness of the United Nations and its inability to solve all international problems in quick time I think of the analogy of the medical profession. We do not lose faith in the medical profession merely because there are still many serious diseases for which only palliatives have been found. 12. Some dangerous situations have been successfully dealt with by the United Nations. While in some cases these situations may not yet have been fully resolved and still remain troublesome, and while in other cases no solution has yet been reached, they have been kept within bounds and prevented from expanding into what might, in other circumstances, have developed into world war. Above all, the successful repulse of aggression in Korea has given the peoples of the world new hope that the United Nations may be able to assure peace, and new confidence in its ability to do so. 13. There is no doubt that the prime cause of the present weaknesses of the United Nations has been, and continues to be, the policies and activities of the Soviet Union. The deliberate, militant, expansive pressure of the Soviet Union has forced us to rearm, to rebuild our military strength as quickly as possible, or to run the grave risk, if not the certainty, of losing our freedom. I do not know whether the Soviet representatives are familiar with the flying term “ the point of no return ”, which means the point in time which is reached on every long-distance flight when the pilot is obliged to go on and when he no longer has the alternative of turning back. Either the communist and the non-communist countries will find a means of living together peacefully in the world — “ peaceful co-existence”, I believe, is the phrase which the representative of the USSR would use — or they will run into unparalleled disaster with consequences almost impossible to imagine. 14. If the Soviet Union is indeed anxious to avoid this terrible disaster, then let it not press beyond the “point of no return”. Let it act in time, and let it act with simple clarity to demonstrate that it does in fact desire peace. If it does so, it will find that it has not acted in vain and that its proposals have not fallen on deaf ears. Bitter experience has taught us the necessity for some caution in accepting at their face value Soviet professions of peaceful intent. The point I wish to emphasize is that with every day that passes and with every act that widens the gulf between us a real and lasting accommodation becomes more difficult. At what fatal point peace might become irretrievable it is not in the power of any of us to determine. 15. The attitude of the USSR as expressed here has not impressed us with its peaceful intentions. I have been surprised — indeed, maybe, I have been naive enough to have been shocked — to hear a sincere proposal for disarmament treated here with levity by the representative of one of the greatest Powers in the world. Mr. Vyshinsky, who is well known for his mastery of the weapon of ridicule, should realize that there are occasions too serious for its use. The millions of humble people throughout the world who are yearning for peace will be appalled by such cynicism. The world anxiously awaited the policy statement of the Soviet Union in this Assembly to see what contribution that Power would make towards relieving the tension that is concerning, indeed alarming, us all. Mr. Vyshinsky devoted most of what he had to say to violent and unbridled abuse of the democracies and in particular America and Britain. It was strange to me that a responsible statesman could bring himself to make such a dreadful statement in the present condition of the World. As I listened to him — and I listened to him with the greatest possible attention — he devoted very little time or conscious attention to the facts, the truth, the realities of the world situation. I myself was new to an approach of this sort and, as I say, I was possibly naive enough to have been shocked by it. However, there it is. Mr. Vyshinsky did indeed at the end produce a series of proposals. Some of them have already been put before the United Nations in substance on previous occasions and been overwhelmingly rejected. However, for our part, we are prepared to examine on their merits any proposals seriously made. In our view the world situation is too serious for anything but sober, careful and statesmanlike discussion and an earnest search for ways to peace, and I might say in conclusion to Mr. Vyshinsky that proposals of three great governments cannot be discredited by random quotations from dubious newspaper clippings. 16. It is difficult for us to believe in the sincerity of the USSR professions of belief in peace and desire for friendly relations when the Soviet Union persists in its interference in the domestic affairs of other countries. Speaking for my own country, Australia, I can say that there has been a very great deal of Soviet-inspired activity and interference in our domestic affairs. The fact that this interference has been camouflaged and not open is beside the point. These activities are very greatly resented by the vast majority of my fellow Australians with the exception of a handful of Soviet hirelings. 17. Australia is not, by a very long way, the only country I in which these subversive activities are being pursued underground. In recent months I have spent some time in a dozen countries other than my own. In all of them the same pattern can be traced. In none of them is communism welcome, or indeed regarded as anything but a national menace. In each of these countries Soviet agents are working actively to undermine the social structure and to create internal conflict, schism and confusion — in short, to create the conditions in which communism, backed by Soviet power, can dominate. Soviet Russia preaches independence, yet in practice its victory would mean complete loss of national and personal independence, and a subservience to foreign domination more complete than anything which these countries that I have recently visited have ever known before. 18. The simple human fact is that the peoples of the world want to live their own lives in their own way and not according to the dictates of other States or other peoples, and they are obliged, by the growing tension brought about by Soviet policies and methods, to rearm at great cost in a great effort to safeguard their freedom. This is why such enormous effort is being put into the production of arms and consequently less into the production of goods badly needed by all the world’s peoples. 19. At the end of the Second World War the democratic countries disbanded their armies in order to turn their production to peaceful ends and to spend their resources on the many urgent tasks of social betterment throughout the world. But our ability to take advantage of the great opportunity we had has been cruelly limited by the overriding necessities of security. The free nations would still prefer to spend their efforts and resources on the goods of peace and on expansion of world production, but we have had to limit our efforts towards world welfare because of the necessity for heavy contributions to defence. 20. By reason of the fact that I was Minister of National Development in Australia until six months ago, I have personally had perhaps more particular opportunity than most to know how the national development of natural resources is retarded because of the need to strengthen a country against the possibility of war. I know only too well how our developmental plans have had to be cut to enable our defence programme to be enlarged, and how many projects of urgent importance to our national welfare and development have had to be reduced or postponed to make way for defence preparations. 21. Yet, in spite of this, much has been done by international action, and will continue to be done, to assist the development of resources and the increase of welfare in many parts of the world. This work is being carried on through the United Nations organizations and through mutually agreed arrangements made among groups of countries genuinely concerned with each other’s welfare. The finance provided by the International Bank, the technical assistance programmes of the United Nations in all its specialized fields, the economic and technical aid programmes of the United States of America and of the countries of the Commonwealth which are co-operating under the Colombo Plan — these are notable examples of constructive international co-operation for human benefit. The vigorous spirit of national development which has led many countries, for example in Asia, to finance and organize bold new economic programmes, has the practical support of those countries which are able to make contributions in resources and technical experience. 22. So far as my own country, Australia, is concerned, we have sought to use our resources in ways consistent with our international obligations. The absorption of migrants, many of them from the displaced persons’ camps of Europe, has placed upon us the necessity of more rapidly developing our own Australian natural resources. We are compelled, moreover, to divert to the armed forces resources which we could devote to other more peaceful purposes but only at the expense of our proper contribution to collective security. 23. Whilst these two objectives of national policy must be satisfied, we count as no less important our share in the provision of economic and technical assistance to other countries. All the programmes of the United Nations have our full support and we are, bearing in mind our population and our national income, substantial contributors to them all. 24. The Colombo Plan has brought together the neighbouring countries of South and South-East Asia in a new regional arrangement for mutual economic aid. As one of the contributing members, Australia is, by mutual arrangement and without conditions, endeavouring to assist and to co-operate with India, Pakistan and Ceylon, and is providing educational, scientific and related facilities asked for by these and other governments in the area. By our joint efforts those of us who are located in this particular area are endeavouring to fulfil the obligation to assist our neighbours and to supplement the work of the United Nations organizations. While the immediate phase is necessarily one of “collective security”, the ultimate objective is “collective prosperity”. 25. At present the two programmes have to share the resources of the democratic world. The democratic countries desire that “collective prosperity” should as early as possible become the sole aim towards which the whole world can strive. It is clear that real prosperity will be beyond our reach until the present attitude of the Soviet countries has changed, until they have shown that they are prepared to join hands with the rest of us in a common endeavour to achieve common aims of prosperity and peace. 26. The greatest field for the development of the world’s resources and the raising of living standards lies in those countries, particularly of Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, which are sometimes called the less-developed countries. These are the areas of large population but relatively undeveloped resources whose peoples have not achieved the level of technology and prosperity of the western world. In recent years the truth has become clear that the world’s prosperity depends upon the prosperity of all its parts; that no country can hope to live in affluence whilst other countries remain in relative poverty. For generations past the advanced countries have been bringing their knowledge and technical skill to these areas, and have done much to improve the standards of living and social welfare of their peoples. I think that it is not sufficiently recognized that this process has been an integral aspect of what it has become customary to decry as “colonialism”. 27. No one would deny that the colonial system of the nineteenth century had its undesirable aspects. Nevertheless it brought to the less-developed peoples of the world the whole resources of advanced western technology with its new methods and new equipment of production; its techniques of education, nutrition, sanitation and social welfare. With the experience of these new techniques the peoples of the less-developed countries have displayed an increasing desire to share fully in all that advanced technology can do to make men’s fives easier, fuller, longer and more productive. A process has begun which now cannot and should not be halted, for these demands will not agree to remain unsatisfied. 28. The western world has fully recognized the force and justice of this desire for social welfare. It has been prepared, while relinquishing the political control of the nineteenth century, to provide in ever-increasing measure the skill and material resources without which this desire cannot be fulfilled. In recent years we have seen a dual process. On the one hand there has been the emergence of a whole family of new independent nations. On the other hand there has been the development of new programmes of economic and technical aid to assist those countries to establish themselves in ways of their own choosing and to undertake the great tasks of raising their living standards and their production. 29. The conception of technical assistance, and the help given to these new governments are evidence of lightened statesmanship on the part of the technologically more advanced countries. A similar spirit has been shown by the new independent governments themselves. Both parties have realized that each needs the aid and friendship of the other, and that their highest self-interests lie in a future of friendly co-operation. 30. What part in this process has been played by the Soviet Union? So far from helping the peoples of the less-developed countries to find their feet, so far from assisting the new countries to establish themselves, Soviet policy has been one of disruption and the sowing of distrust. The governments which won independence for the new countries have been condemned by Soviet spokesmen as “bourgeois nationalists”, presumably because they have had the good sense to see that co-operation and the acceptance of unselfish aid are better than submission to ideological domination and economic exploitation. 31. What the world needs as a first step to the economic betterment of its peoples is collective security. This security will be attained either by a continued, prodigious effort on the part of the countries of the western world to redress the balance of strength ; or by a genuine co-operation on the part of the Soviet Union within the United Nations directed towards the balanced reduction of armaments and a return to a situation of mutual confidence and trust which were assumed when the Charter of the United Nations was written. 32. There has been much talk of peace from the mouths of Soviet spokesmen, but the Soviet conception of peace looks to us in Australia like a campaign of political warfare designed to disarm the democracies, to lull them into a feeling of false security, to weaken their resolution and to reduce their capacity tor self-defence. We regard the so-called peace campaign merely as an instrument of Soviet national policy. Peace in any real sense can only come from trust and confidence between nations — and the world has concrete evidence, unfortunately, that such mutual confidence cannot exist at present. 33. We must take care, all of us who are assembled here, that we do not come to regard the spoken word as the end point. Words that do not result in action are vain. Courage and faith on the part of our governments and people are called for. If we all — or even a majority of us — have the courage and faith to do the right thing at the right time, collective security can be achieved. If we are faint-hearted and try to shuffle off responsibility on to others, then the world may well dissolve into the chaos that we will deserve 34. It will be along the general lines of this statement that my delegation will approach the detailed discussion of the major issues before us at this session: the report of the Collective Measures Committee; German elections; the questions of human rights and technical assistance, to mention but a very few. 35. I have finished my preliminary remarks on the great general problems we all face at this sixth session of the General Assembly. I most fervently echo the President’s hope that this Assembly may see an advance toward a settlement of the grave issues that face us all. And now, in closing, I wish to express my great pleasure at finding myself once again in this beautiful city amidst the graces of its ancient civilization, which so truly embodies the enduring human aspiration towards freedom.