Unrra and the Enemy

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24369, 22 September 1944, Page 4

Unrra and the Enemy

Three cable messages this month, the latest printed' on Wednesday, have pointed to a vexatious problem before the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, whose council, or policymaking body, has just begun its .second session at Montreal. In one of these messages, UNRRA'S Director-General, Mr H. H. Lehman, forecast a clear division of opinion among the delegates whether UNRRA should assist enemy nations. Mr Lehman understands that Great Britain and the United States tend to favour assistance. The Norwegians, however, do not favour “ immediate ” aid; and according to an earlier report by the Associated Press of America, they are solidly backed by the other European members. The problem is not new. It came before the first meeting of UNRRA’s council last November. “It was the apparently “ innocent . topic of •sanitation ”, wrote an observer, “that- showed “ the explosive character of the “ emotional burden which delegates “whose lands had been destroyed “by the Germans carried within “them”. The, resolution then adopted was reported by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in these terms:

If it appears necessary for UNRRA to operate in enemy or ex-enemy territories ... it will do so only from such time and for such purposes as may be agreed upon between the military command . . . and UNRRA, and subject to such control as the military command may find necessary, provided that the council approve the scale and nature of the operations it is proposed to undertake and the standard of provisions, and that all nected with such operation? in ex-enemy territphe? are carried by the ex-enemy country concerned* The Great Powers pn UNRRA’S council have no special voting powers as they had on the council of the League of Nations. Voting on UNRRA’S counjjjl goes by simple majority; and the British amend-

ment to this resolution —an amend- | ment supported by the United States and China—was rejected. The decision was extremely important. The Great Powers asked that the motion be amended so that the enemy should pay “to the fullest “ extent possible ”. The other Powers insisted that the enemy should pay for everything he gets. “Thus, at a crucial point”, commented the “Economist”, “the “ scale of relief is to be divorced “from need, and the principle reintroduced which so bedevilled “ the last attempt at settlement — “that capacity to pay and obligation to pay need bear no relation “to each other ”. The report of the New Zealand delegation may be quoted. It spoke, as the “Econo- “ mist ” did, of “ the hopes held out, “ the solemn promises indeed, as in “ the Atlantic Charter, for equality “ of treatment ‘to victor and van- “‘ quished alike’”; and it came to the conclusion that the decision is “in no way inconsistent with the “belief that the United Nations are ‘“wise enough to understand that “ ‘ they must extend their healing “ ‘ mercies to the peoples of the “ ‘ vanquished States not less than “‘ of the victors ’”. This conclusion is, in effect, the same as that reached by'the “Economist”: “It “ cannot be said that the council “ of UNRRA has formally rejected “ the principle of equal treatment ”, But the “Economist” found the debate significant as pointing to “ ex- “ actly the major error which the “ Allies committed after the last “ war ”. Mr Lehman’s statement this week—that the enemy has been even more ruthless in his treatment of the occupied countries than was known or anticipated—suggests that the temper of the smaller Powers will be no less “explosive” than ■it was last November. The council is to decide the scale and nature of relief in enemy territories; and the smaller Powers, if they wish, can speak with the council’s voice.