BASIS OF PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 91, 18 April 1945, Page 7

BASIS OF PEACE

SMALL NATIONS' PLACE

DUMBARTON OAKS & YALTA

Speaking on some aspects of the Dumbarton Oaks, Yalta, and forthcoming San Francisco Conferences to the Wellington branch of the League of Nations Union yesterday afternoon, the Consul-General of Belgium, M. Araiand Nihotte, said that it was not considered tactful for a diplomat, to point to the naked truth. Everyone in the United Nations was grateful for the steps taken by Mr. Churchill, President Roosevelt, and Marshal Stalin to crush a nation of barbarous killers, whose scientists were recently still busy on research into the best use of the hair of people they had murdered «y millions, pondering whether it could best be used to make ropes, saddle cushions, or mattresses. All would agree, however, with the Belgian Socialist Huysmans, that truth was not revealed by the drafting or repetition of formulae* and communiques, but toy the investigation and balancing of contraries.

-At neither Dumbarton Oaks nor Yalta were the nations of Europe represented. The discussions were exclusively reserved for reoresentatives of the Grand Alliance, which the "New York Times" described as "a little island with an old world-wide Empire to preserve, a continental Communist dictatorship with a revolutionary idea to > defend and propagate, and a young democracy just emerging from splendid isolation to try its hand in an unfamiliar field of world affairs." Power, or mathematical value, alone seemed to count. There was the danger of a definite policy with no room for any kind of real , independence for the smaller Powers. Collective security was given a first-class funeral at Dumbarton Qaks; the proposals of the CJreat Powers allowed them the greatest freedom, and did riot force the Council of Security to assist any small nation which might be. the victim of aggression. They stressed the preservation of peace, but people who believed in freedom could not accept peace as the goal of constructive statesmanship. Mr. Eden, England's Foreign Secretary, had said that any new attempt to subjugate Europe would again bring a combination of free men to defend its liberties.

The document was silent on the fundamentals of peace, an omission which created fears and misgivings that smaller nations would not get their due. The undertaking to "respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing,, political independence of all members of the League", was eliminated, though it was by the violation of tfiese principles that Japan, Italy, and! •Germany had brought about the present catastrophe. Were the peoples of the world to be at the mercy of the mood, the ambition, and the honesty of 3 few great leaders, without appeal? The question of political security was linked with the votes and vetoes of the Council on the one hand, and the position of the smaller Powers on the other. Having proclaimed the principle of .sovereign equality of all peace, loving States, the proposals were being applied to contradict it, in fact the Yalta formula of voting put the Big Powers above the law established for all other nations. He contended, with Mr. Berendsen, that,nothing can be .politically wise unless it is morally right. THE POLISH CONTROVERSY. Dr. Stremienski, representing the Consul-General of Poland, Count Wodzicki, also spoke dealing with the Crimean decisions concerning Poland and their lack of justification by previous treaties or other international commitments. The defined Soviet-Polish frontier showed that 42 per .cent, of Poland's territory and one-third of its population were to be given to Russia. A "new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity" was to be re-formed by reorganising the Rus-sian-appointed Lublin Committee "on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from the Poles abroad." This was the new Government that would be recognised by the .Three Powers which participated in the Crimea Conference. The Polish Government was not consulted when the decisions, which in all the main points were against its will and advice, were arrived at. He quoted a long list of treaties, protocols, conventions, and agreements by Russia with , Poland since 1921, and said that with so anany solemn pledges broken up till now, it did not make the situation any better to refer to the Atlantic Charter.

The Polish nation as a whole, and Poles as individuals, took international obligations entered into by their Government as their own, and were loyal to them to a degree unparalleled by any other nation, he said.

"Not only did Poland remain unswervingly faithful to her aliances, •Ibut she did so against incomparable 'savageries of the enemy, and when faced with the physical extermination of her people. Poland did not ask to fee released from her obligations, though she would have had better moral reasons for this than other people— who did. She did not abandon Britain .when Britain stood' alone. Poland's ;casualties are appallnig; approximately [ten millions, 28 per cent, of her prejwar population. If the sacrifices, the (•willingness to make them, the loyalty ito the common cause/ personal and [national courage, and endurancerwere |to count, one could expect that Poland •would be offered the first place at the San Francisco Conference. Instead, she .is being offered, a choice between an empty chair or a chair filled by a puppet synthetically manufactured by a ioreign authority in Moscow." Agreements entered into by all or any of the United Nations were important with reference to the Yalta decisions, he continued. Articles 1, 2, 3, and 6 of the Atlantic Charter were .of paramount importance. It was difficult to see why the provisions of the Atlantic Charter should have less binding power than any other formally undertaken international agreement. Even if the Atlantic Charter itself ■were not a formal document, the Joint Declaration of the United Nations of January 1, 1942, duly signed in Washington by their plenipotentiaries and accepting the Atlantic Charter as a •'common programme of purposes and principles" constituted a non-equivocal commitment of all the signatories. ' "The Rev. P. Gladstone Hughes, president of the branch, presided.