Mr. President, it gives me a special pleasure to be the first today to applaud your election to the presidency of this session of the General Assembly, a tribute to your personal qualities and to your devotion to the United Nations, and to the constant and valuable support of your country to the tasks of our Organization.
2. It is ten years since I had the honour of being with you and, indeed, of presiding over the discussions in the Assembly. On returning, after a decade, it is with great emotion that I find here the same endeavour to serve our great ideal, inspiring my newly-met fellow-workers as well as those among the old companions who have returned, like myself, to the scene of our joint labours. Ten years ago a hard war had ended, and in the United Nations our main concern and conversations were about peace. Today, when peace is needed as never before in order that mankind may survive, the talk is almost only of war. It is common knowledge that in that space of time, instead of disarming, the nations not only have continued to arm themselves at an increasing rate, but they have even created dreadful weapons which a few great Powers practically monopolize. It would seem that the grim privilege of casting the lot for war or for peace lies in the hands of those who command the newly developed source of energy or who may command it in future. It might be feared, consequently, that conditions would be established which would permit the existence of world dictatorships under the very shadow of the United Nations, in a complete negation of the spirit which brought about the rise of this Organization.
3. A new way of life is thus being imposed upon the peoples of the world. Instead of the promotion of security and mutual confidence between nations, and of growth in individual well-being and equality, we are still confronted by controls and obstacles to a full juridical, economic and social communion. As individuals and as peoples we run the risk of becoming today less free, less equal, and even less peaceful.
4. I hope my fellow representatives will forgive me if I seem rather pessimistic in comparing 1947 with 1957. But I can assure you that the people and the Government of Brazil continue to believe, as I do, that it is here, in the United Nations, that the peaceful solution of regional and world problems and conflicts can and must be achieved.
5. Brazil represents a large part of the territory, the population and the natural wealth of the Americas. We are undergoing a phase of intense development. As a people, we have no aspirations that might surpass the bounds of our possibilities, of our frontiers or of our peaceful and pacifying traditions.
6. For more than a century, we have clung to the principles and commitments of Pan-Americanism, which have welded our continent, not only into a single territory, but also into a single way of thinking, a single sentiment and even a united international attitude. Pan-Americanism has been integrated into the United Nations in order that it may be a servant of world peace. The organization of the continental family has endeavoured always to serve the interests and the progress of the entire world. Of the many thousands of millions of dollars expended by America throughout the world in the years following the establishment of the United Nations, a very minor share was allotted to the countries on our continent. Our various Governments supported and even applauded the decision of an American nation to expend in aid to Western and Eastern Europe, and to Asia itself, larger sums in one year than it had done in an entire decade of co-operation with its sister nations on the continent. This attitude of the United States toward areas overseas did not impair the spirit of Pan-Americanism. It was construed rather as a reaffirmation of its world-wide significance. It never was the purpose of the founders of our system to create a prosperous and happy continent disregarding poverty and unhappiness elsewhere in the world. Only Governments that are not truly and intimately democratic can seek to promote a kind of welfare that is not for all.
7. It was for this reason that, in the middle of the war, the American countries gave support to the establishment of international agencies whose main objective would be to expedite the recovery of the devastated areas. To this end, they contributed the best of the resources at their disposal. The international financial organization created at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held at Bretton Woods in July 1944, and in which all the American nations have a share, included the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It was given two equally important missions: one, that of reconstructing the war-torn areas, and the other, a long-range one, that of providing assistance to economically underdeveloped countries.
8. Today, we see not only that the nations which suffered the most under the impact of war are entirely reconstructed, but also that they have indeed surpassed their own pre-war levels, while the other nations actually show a decrease, both in public and in individual revenue, when their demographic growth is taken into consideration. I do not mean to say that one economic level should apply to all nations alike, but rather that there is a limit beyond which inequality can jeopardize world communion. Returning, however, to the subject of recovery from war-wrought havoc, we see that some of the reconstructed nations have even initiated investment programmes aiming at the economic development of other areas. It is an undeniable fact that the task of reconstruction was fully accomplished.
9. The moment has come, therefore, for the United Nations to give the necessary emphasis, through its specialized agencies, to the problems of development and of economic and social balance. In the specific case of the International Bank, for instance, it is imperative that development should benefit from the priority heretofore given to recovery.
10. I feel sure that the point of view which I have expressed in regard to this problem is not only that of my country but also that of all the American peoples. However, we are not a “bloc”, nor do we want to be one. The American Republics are not led by aspirations of an exclusively continental nature. Ours are well defined ways of political thought, of living, of being, and of conducting international relationships.
11. I return today to your midst with the same mandate from my Government and with the same faith in our Organization. The problems which confront us — such as the wider acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, the equality of nations, the self-determination of peoples, the emancipation of areas under trusteeship, the regulation, limitation and balanced reduction of armaments and armed forces, as well as economic and social development, technical assistance and so many others — should not be looked upon as being too great or too small, too difficult or too easy, or, still less, as insoluble. They are the same problems of mankind, ever cropping up, which man will have to solve if he wishes to survive. Most of these problems have arisen because of our lack of foresight. It is up to us to solve them. To men of good will, a mistake is temporary and may well serve as a stimulus to better thought and action.
12. The exacerbation of nationalism in the world, for instance, is an effect, not a cause. Lack of understanding, inequitable distribution of economic and financial Resources and of production and surpluses: all these have created that and other justifiable forms of national and popular vindication. The less-developed peoples, as well as those which, like Brazil, are in the process of development, should not really be blamed for the present trend towards mistrust, towards misbelief in fair and rational world co-operation. It Is natural that each people should wish to be the master of itself and of its own destiny, to live with and for all the others instead of depending upon them. It is not our wish to impoverish the rich or to weaken the strong. We want an equilibrium of power and a fairer access by all peoples to the instruments of prosperity and to the sources of the well-being of mankind. If we depart from such an orientation, our work here will be in vain, and the problems of the world will multiply in pace with a trend towards an even more armed travesty of peace and an aggravation of misery, of hardship and of fear of those very conflicts which we have set ourselves to eliminate forever from the life of the peoples.
13. I am here to continue the series of efforts which you, Mr. President, and my predecessors have made during other sessions of the General Assembly. Those efforts are pledged, as they have been in the past, to the achievement of the purposes and objectives of the United Nations, in order to help in the solution of all international problems, along the lines laid down by the Charter, as so ably summarized by the Secretary-General in his last report on the work of the Organization [A/3594 and Add.1].
14. Such is our task, our mission and our duty. The best incentive for each and every one of us is the assurance that men and women in all regions of the world look upon the United Nations for guidance and aid, as the last hope for peace and security. It may not always be possible for us to achieve our aims, but the fact carries weight that our Organization can be present wherever might tries to masquerade as right. We may fall short of our task, but the United Nations must keep forging ahead.
15. I cannot believe that, even in this troubled world of ours, anyone could possibly wish to see the doors of this house closed without feeling that the shadows of war would be descending upon the nations to darken forever the relationships between peoples and the most cherished hopes of mankind.