UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25364, 11 December 1947, Page 3

UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION

OFFICERS ELECTED IN CHRISTCHURCH “Our efforts will have to be superhuman. We are not starting from scratch; we are starting from far behind the point where the League of Nations started,” said Mr A. J. Campbell in an address last evening to a meeting called to form a branch of the United Nations’ Association in Christchurch. Mr Campbell said what had impressed him most on a recent visit to Europe was the intensified hatred between nations and the moral and intellectual destruction. Even within the nations there were deep hatreds and rifts between collaborators, near-collaborators and members of resistance movements. Even members of resistance groups had suffered from moral degradation. The spearhead of their attack was their antisocial actions —disobeying laws, destroying, lying and pillaging. Young people had been trained along those lines and that was one of the causes of the trouble in France to-day, he said.

“Those who should be the intellectual leaders of Europe now have been denied all training, and that will play havoc for some time. The establishment of an effective peace will be difficult unless there is time for these deep wounds to heal. Only by making the United Nations effective will we get that time,” said Mr Campbell. The meeting received the report of a provisional committee set up two months ago to consider the formation of a branch, and two films dealing with the United Nations’ activities were shown. Officers were elected as follows: {iresident. Professor I. L. G. Sutherand; vice-president, Mr J. D. Hutchison; secretary-treasurer, Mr R. K. Jamieson; committee, Misses M. G. Havelaar, D. Chapman, R. Merton, and Mary McLean, Mesdames I. R. Carruthers, M. E. Furey, and Messrs C. F. Saunders. E. Hitchcock, George Manning, H. Winston Rhodes, G. Kelly, R. R. Livingstone, C. S. Thompson. L. H. Booth. A. J. Campbell, Al,bert Rose. W. R. Lascelles, R. A. Cuthbert J. B. Mora, T. R. Hill, Allan .Wills, E. Orchard, the Rev. Canon A. H. Acheson, the Rev. J. E. Stewart, the Rev. P. O. C. Edwards, the Rev Donald McKenzie, and the Rev J. S. Strang.