United Nations Day

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30580, 24 October 1964, Page 14

United Nations Day

The dispute between the United Nations and those of its members (notably Russia) that are in arrears with their dues, and the need, after 19 years of trial, for a revision of its Charter should not be allowed to obscure the value of this great experiment in international co-operation. If the United Nations has its grievous imperfections, as indeed it has, what else could be expected in an imperfect world? It may even be claimed for the United Nations as a merit that it puts in sharp focus the frailties and foibles of its members. On this United Nations Day the question is not whether the organisation should be supported but how it can be improved. Improvement may mean the acceptance of distasteful compromises, but chiefly acceptance of the fact that all nations, though some more than others, need a great deal more experience in working together. Fortunately, while political experience is sometimes discouraging, the practice of co-operation in the specialised agencies of the United Nations has been most encouraging. The real evidence of their success is that many of them have now become entities in their own right Although the World Bank, the International, Civil Aviation Organisation, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation are seldom thought of as organs of the United Nations, yet that is their point of origin. Political disputes do obtrude unhappily into the work of the specialised agencies, as in the unreasoning vendetta against South Africa: but they still function efficiently. It has been quite remarkable that in these quarrels the officers of the United Nations have behaved, on the whole, like genuine world public servants. They have built up a corporate loyalty, as distinct from national loyalties, that promises well. New Zealand has always loyally supported the United Nations, partly because a remote country with no special foreign interests to serve has fewer temptations to do otherwise. At the same time New Zealand has also had an influence in United Nations affairs disproportionate to its population and wealth. The two facts are, of course, connected; but it is also true that in its policies and in the men it has supplied to international service New Zealand has made a positive contribution to the great project undertaken at San Francisco in 1945. We have no reason to regret it