The Press SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1948. U.N. Assembly

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25609, 25 September 1948, Page 6

The Press SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1948. U.N. Assembly

While the world press gloomily weighs the chances of the Great Powers’ agreeing on any of the major international problems, speakers at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in Paris have voiced the almost desperate longing of the peoples of the world for peace. Sadly ineffective as U.N. has been to advance this cause with speed and assurance, it still offers the best hope, perhaps the only hope, of lifting from an apprehensive world its greatest fear. To understand that this is so, if is necessary only to imagine the break-up of the organisation. There is nothing to take its place; and it is not easy to think of anything that could take its place and do better. When the Secretary-General (Mr Trygve Lie) published his annual report, last month, he provided an occasion to examine the assets r and liabilities disclosed in this international balance-sheet. There are very substantial items indeed on the credit side—the achievements of such U.N. agencies as the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the International Refugee Organisation, the International Bank, the European Economic Commission and its subsidiary regional commissions, and the wide and developing services in the economic and social field which were taken over from the League of Nations. But. as the “Economist” remarked in reviewing Mr Lie’s report, neither peoples nor governments 'are thinking of activities of this kind when they criticise the United Nations. It is by its success or failure in preventing conflict that the usefulness of the United Nations must ultimately be judged:

If it is one of the elements in the world lessening hostility and postponing irrevocable resort to force, then its rising budget and the 34,000,000 dollars spent on it in 1948 must be counted cheap indeed. And on this a good case can be presented. The forces making for peace in the world are neither very numerous nor very obvious, but the United Nations is certainly at their head. It is the only place, as the Secretary-General fairly points out, where the Great Powers meet regularly and where, nominally at least, they meet in pursuance of common aims. On occasion this meeting can quite unexpectedly break the hardening pattern of East-West division, as, for instance, when the United States and the Soviet Union found themselves against Britain and China on the issue of Palestine. The fact of continued contact is particularly important when one of the Powers lives so remote and withdrawn an existence as do the Russians.

The article emphasises the' vital functions performed by the Security Council in keeping- a spotlight turned on the trouble centres of the world, often, as in Azerbaijan in 1946 and in Northern Greece and Southern Korea, with the effect of helping to prevent local conflict developing Into a major struggle. The council has also served, very usefully, to help disputant nations to see themselves as others see them. It is chiefly vindicated, however, in the fact that in the last year it has succeeded on three occasions in putting a stop to fighting which had already broken out—in Indonesia, Kashmir, and Palestine.

The limited achievement of 1947-48 [the “Economist’’ summed up] does no more than offer hope. Basically, the future of the United Nations remains as precarious as that of peace itself. The initiatives taken in Palestine, Indonesia, and Kashmir have not yet been crowned with complete success. What success they had has been achieved in spite of the divisions between the Great Powers whose co-operation was to have been the foundation of the Security Council’s authority. The development of effective methods of mediation still hangs in the balance. Yet the mere existence of such a possibility justifies all the expense and energy which have gone into the running of the United Nations in the last three years. If its economic activities and its social effort are added, there can be no doubt that the organisation has every reason to demand the nations’ continuing support.

The General Assembly has elected a president who has no doubts about the future of the United Nations. Dr. Evatt’s confidence that the organisation may function as a “ world Parliament ” and as “ the “ world’s conscience ” has often seemed excessive; but there is comfort in the thought that the deliberations at Paris, so far as they can be influenced by chairmanship, will be inspired by faith and goodwill. Doubt and cynicism could have been found all too easily.