UNITED NATIONS’ VALUE

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 14

UNITED NATIONS’ VALUE

USE AS “SAFETY VALVE” ADDRESS BY SIR LESLIE MUNRO (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, January 23. Sir Leslie Munro, leader of the New Zealand delegation to the United Nations and New Zealand Ambassador in the United States, today repeated the words of Sir Winston Churchill: “It is better to jaw than war.” Addressing the Auckland Rotary Club at a luncheon. Sir Leslie Munro said he would far rather that the Korean question came up year after year on the United Nations agenda and be debated inconclusively than that fighting should again break out on that unhappy peninsula. It was a great pity that the United Nations could not,settle several difficult and recurring’ problems, said Sir Leslie Munro, but lack of success did not mean that the organisation was failing. Sir Leslie Munro referred to the value of talk in the United Nations, and described it as a safety valve. “With all its weaknesses,’’ he said, “The United. Nations is a political device intended to be used for the good ol all. Do not expect too much from it, and do not expect too little. “In the short term, this instrument is designed to preserve peace by collective security. “In the long term, it is intended to ensure peace by eliminating many of the causes of war—poverty, ignorance, injustice, and ill health. The United Nations is slowly doing a great deal to remove these grievances.’’ Sir Leslie Munro gave a “clt>se up’’ word picture of the part New Zealand is playing in the United Nations. “For discussion of all subjects the Assembly divides itself into seven committees,’’ he said. “In each of these committees New Zealand has to be represented. for in one world there is no subject which does not impinge, directly or indirectly, on the affairs and future of all member States. “If only to answer fallacious arguments, it is necessary for a responsible State to have effective representation in all the committees of the Assembly; but our duty goes higher than that. We are a sovereign State, we are not in anybody’s leading strings, and we have to play a positive part in accordance with our international status. “The business of a delegation naturally involves a flow of reports, many by telegram, to the capital. Instructions are received and deciphered. There is necessarily, then, an expert personnel, one in Wellington and one in New York. Over alt are the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.’’