The Press WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1945. The Veto

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24591, 13 June 1945, Page 6

The Press WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1945. The Veto

There are, inevitably, serious disadvantages in any effort to simplify the veto issue at San Francisco. It cannot, as it has developed, be fully understood unless the small nations' 22 questions are carefully checked with the 12 paragraphs in which the sponsoring Powers reply. It cannot be understood at all, unless (for example) two facts, or groups of facts, which largely account for the Yalta voting formula, are understood first. These belong to the history of the League of Nations, where the rule of unanimity produced paralysis, while a simple majority rule is unworkable; and to the history of Soviet Russia. This has (intelligibly enough) led the Kremlin to insist that, where the World Organisation faces the risks of war, the Security Council has no guarantee but the unanimity of the five Great Powers of being able to enforce decisions, and therefore the council must not be committed without it. Short of ranging so far and examining so minutely, however, the disadvantages of simplification have to De accepted, as they are for the present purpose. First, the smah nations, whose objection to certain aspects of the Dumbarton Oaks draft and the Yalta formula had been well stated (notably by the Netherlands Government) before the conference began, have continued to do well by arguing their case and pursuing explanations, in detail, of the Yalta formula. Nevertheless, the argument of the case and criticism of the explanations have been driven a little too far. As sometimes happens in such circumstances, one result—not an unhappy one—is the discovery of the obvious. The Official News Service yesterday observed that " however "much is being accomplished here "in such other fields as economic " and social co-operation ", according to " more and more observers " San Francisco is building " a system "of world security that will be no " better and no worse than the will "and intentions of its five major " members". To emerge from three weeks of anxious disputation upon this discovery is to suggest, very distinctly, that the course of the disputation has led away from the significant fact and back to it, as if it were a surprising one. But the words just quoted merely paraphrase what was said, again and again, before the conference began, and was recognised as true. The strength of the security organisation, the worth of the charter as its working code, cannot be more than the will and the good faith of member States, and of the five Great Powers first and last. The more steadily this is regarded, the less important appear such points as Dr. Evatt is reported tp have made when the Great Powers, having defined the several' procedures or stages of procedure at which the veto does not operate, argue that, "beyond this point", the chain of events may run inevitably to " measures of enf orce.ment" and therefore unanimity is essential. ;Dr. Evatt is said to have retorted that, this being true, it is "all the "more" necessary to avoid taking steps beyond the discussion of a dispute and " all the more " necessary to leave the way open to discussion " without the restriction of the veto "at the earliest stage ". This seems to be urged rather by the acute man of law than by the wise man of affairs; for the distinction on which it depends, when it is sougnt out, is revealed as a very fine one. The veto does not apply to "procedural" questions. The Great Powers were asked if, the question arising whether some decision were one of procedure or not, the question should itself be answered as procedural (without veto) or not (subject to veto). The Powers replied that the wording of the charter seemed to make it "unlikely" that the question would arise over any matter of great importance; but that, if it did, decision would have to be taken by majority of seven (including the Big Five). That is, the veto would apply. This is a candid answer to a clever question Dr. Evatt's reading of it, with other answers on procedure, is that the Security Council's freedom to discuss disputes, uninhibited by the veto, is no more than freedom to " discuss whether a dispute can be "discussed and investigate whether "it can be investigated", the veto hanging over any further decision, however logical, necessary, and just. To agree with him, one must wholly ignore the most weighty five lines in the Great Powers' answer: It is not to be assumed that the permanent members, any more than the non-permanent members, would use their veto power wilfully to obstruct, the operation of the council. The desire for perfection in the Charter can be pursued with too much eagerness at this stage, when the rigidities in which perfection may be measured can be dangerous. To project into, an experimental future a system founded and tested during the war. but with a more elaborate superstructure, requires greater faith in the experimental method.