WORK OF UNITED NATIONS

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26633, 19 January 1952, Page 2

WORK OF UNITED NATIONS

PROGRESS TOWARD PEACE AUSTRALIAN OFFICER’S ADDRESS Whatever critics might say about the inability of the United Nations to avert a third world war, the tact remained that the United Nations had already stopped three wars in progress —in Palestine, in India, and in the dispute between India and Pakistan, said Mr Vernon Duckworth Barker, United Nations Information Officer for Australia and New Zealand, when speaking at the conference of the PanPacific Women’s Association last evening. Though the problems were not all settled between the countries concerned the United Nations had, by its flag and moral force, prevented what could have been the origin of another world-wide conflict. In Korea the tactics had not been successful, but it had to be admitted that a great step forward had been made in progress towards peace. For the first time an international army nad been formed and it had resisted aggression month by month, and had a stand not been taken aggression would have swept across many nations of Asia. Critics who had claimed that the United Nations would never take action had been proved wrong. It was the only institution in the world in which delegates of opposing forces could meet and discuss their differences and by a mediator could come to peaceful terms. At the time of the “air lift” into Germany there had been a grave risk of another world war but in the offices of the United Nations representatives of each side had come to an agreement and war had been prevented. Mr Duckworth Barker told the delegates to the conference that they would be missionaries for the United Nations when they returned to their own countries and it was right that they should be prepared for criticism of the organisation. They would hear it said that the United Nations was unduly influenced by the Great Powers and was not much use to the smaller states. It was inevitable that the most highly industrialised and developed nations should lead the others, but it did not mean that the lesser Powers were not getting their fair share. I here had been many times in the history of the organisation when small Powers, by banding together, had succeeded in making a comfortable majority and winning the vote against the more powerful nations. Greater responsibility had been put on the secondary Powers - and to them had fallen the lot of mediating between conflicting forces. ~ The United Nations was no plaything of the Great Powers. The primar Y Spates paid the greater share of the budget and it was most unfair of critics to say that the upkeep of th.organisation was fantastically expensive. He believed that New Zealand’s annual contribution to the United Nations was something like Is per capita. In Australia it was about Is Gd for each person a year. What was spent in tobacco tax each year in Britain would meet the whole budget of the United Nations and its special agencies for 20 years. Lukewarm supporters had said that the idea of the United Nations was a good one for idealists but in reality it would never justify itself. It would

ivitt for . the organisation to cope ■th a vast problems, he said, but with its flag ana moral force, its world atmb V snh n e^ Or : a an ? its p ayoholog°cal £ /° r dlscussi on it had wnrn? y made S re at advances Its th?3h t Wa ?>, gradually percolating ‘lwonW n h nt Pe ° Ple / Of the world. r wou ld not go so far as to say that hi°UnikW! find a u n open mind to tne United Nations when you go back wiU°find 0 V? c o untri es, but I hope y§u y ill find the door ajar. Put vour toe wii’/ c° d St °P from closing; then you he said nd U gradual ly opens further,” ttX OI 3 e 2? acc ! ss t 0 children gave moulding ‘the en th 0 U ught| d 0 f V t e he Toung read tK n dlo tO to f °c r r e i S ? afTa t irs reports l ad o P f° c' er 'l to gX saia