PLEA FOR END OF VETO

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25917, 24 September 1949, Page 7

PLEA FOR END OF VETO

N.Z. DELEGATE TO U.N. ASSEMBLY SIR CARL BERENDSEN’S SPEECH NEW YORK, September 22. The New Zealand Ambassador to the United States (Sir Carl Berendsen) to-day appealed to the Big Powers to find a means to throw off the “shackles of the veto.” which, he said, had crippled the United Nations as a means of enforcing peace, although

i there had been many gratifying achievements. Sir Carl Berendsen was speaking at the United Nations General Assembly. The United Nations had not been successful in its primary purpose—--1 that of establishing a system of collective security, he continued. Until the Great Powers relinquished the veto right—‘‘this blot on the Charter” —there could never be an effective system of collective security. "While each of the five Great Powers insists on retaining to itself the right not only to say whether it itself will take action, but the right to prevent the organisation itself from taking action, even if that one Great Power is in a minority of one. while this blot on the Charter remains, we can never have an effective system of collective security,” said Sir Carl Berendsen. "I do not presume to say to the five Great Powers that they should relinquish that great and pregnant privilege—that is their business: but unless and until they do relinquish that privilege, there can never be an effective system of collective security. ‘ The long and the short of it is this —and sensible men and women throughout the world should always remember: that while we have in this organisation something that is very precious indeed, something that is worthy of all support, we do not have the one thing, the means of defeating aggression, which in the long run man must achieve or perish. "I am one of those who believe that, if the world has the good fortune to enjoy a long enough period of peace, the United Nations will prove itself able to preserve peace: that, if we have sufficient time, we will find means to free ourselves of the shackles of the veto, and to establish an effective organisation of all peace-and-liberty-loving nations, determined to protect themselves, all for one and one for all sgainst any aggression. ’But do we have the time? I do not know, and you do not know. The problem is not only fundamental and I vital; it is pressing, it is insistent, it I is on our very doorsteps, it is in our I every home. Man must solve this I problem, and solve it in time, or I perish.” I Economic and Social Co-operation I Referring to the programme for I technical assistance to under-devel-I oped countries, Sir Carl Berendsen I said: “My Government lays great ■ stress on the necessity for the ecoI Domically strong to assist the ecoI Domically weak. As we have already I announced, when the scheme of techI Eical assistance for economic developI ment comes into operation. New ZeaI land will make its full contribution to I this inspiring means of international I co-operation.” I Sir Carl Berendsen said he hoped I the scheme would be worked’ out I Quickly and put into practice. He I Welcomed the importance attached by I ‘he Economic and Social Council to I the adoption of policies calculated to I lead to full employment everywhere, I 2nd said that this was a fundamental I’cquirement. and had been,an essenI *h] policy of the Nev/ Zealand Gov- ■ ernment. I These things are very good, said I Sir Carl Berendsen. “but they are not -I ?ood enough. Unless now and in the I lears immediately ahead, we are «ucI cessful in preventing war. the soaring I Ropes of mankind will fall to the I Sound. The preservation of peace fl the prevention of war is the first I most fundamental problem, on 1 solution of which everything else I Spends.” I Marriage Refused in Durban. — An I French Mauritian woman I taken home ill with shock to-day I ir ter she had been told by the Driest ] a church in Durban that she was I bo dark to pass as a white woman. J -he priest, who was to have married j -er to her blond Afrikaans-speaking «*ice, reluctantly told her that he 1 Quid not do so because of the new { 'A’th African law banning mixed mar- { -ages. The lav/ prohibits marriages I een European.-; and non-Euro-I eans. “They can gaol me or shoot I ■■€, but I wifi not leave her.” said her I knee. The girl's father said: ‘‘There | Mauritians in nearly all profes- | hns. Some are fair-skinned, but ' Jsny of us are dark.”—Cape wn, September 23.