UNCIO PROGRESS

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 May 1945, Page 5

UNCIO PROGRESS

“BIG FOUR” OPPOSED

AUSTRALIA AND CANADA

SAN FRANCISCO, May 10. After Mr. Molotov had departed, the United States Secretary of State (Mr. Stettinius) and the British Foreign Secretary (Mr. Eden) conferred with the United States and British Ambassadors to Moscow (Mr. Averell Harriman ...and Sir Archibald Clark Kerr), presumably to give final instructions on the Polish question. Mr. Harriman and Sir Archibald Clark Kerr are going back to Moscow, via Washington and London. Mr. Harriman is reported to have asked Mr. Churchill for permission to confer in London with Mr. Mikolajczyk, the former Prime Minister of Poland. UNCIO’S committee on the structure of the General Assembly-voted 23 to three in favour of the Big Four amendment empowering the assembly to recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation likely to threaten the peace. Mr. Vandenberg, author of the proposal, said that without the amendment there would be no provision for review of the tremendous problems arising from the war. A “New York Herald-Tribune” correspondent says: The Committee on Regional Arrangements has appointed the following nations to the committee to try to evolve a formula for dealing with regional arrangements under the world security plan: Britain, America, China, Russia. Australia, France. Chile, Colombia. Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Mexico, and Norway. A “New York Times’s” correspondent stated: “Small middle nations to-day began to try io whittle down the Big Four’s demand as Mr Molotov returned, to Moscow. “The Little Forty-two” opened an attack on two points previously approved by Britain, America, China, and Russia. The first is the authority of the five permanent members of the SecurityCouncil to veto the enforcement action by the regional organisation. The second is the Council’s authority to call on the nations to send troops into action without guaranteeing them any vote on the question. The main attacks came from Australia and Canada, two of the so-called Middle Powers, who have been saying quietly and firmly that they had certain to make about the Big Five’s nroposed rights. The first observations came from Dr. Evatt (Australia), who proposed, in addition to the compromise of a voting formula, that, if the Security Council did not deal with a regional dispute, and did not refer it to the Regional Agency for solution, the Regional Agency should be free to take whatever action it liked under its own machinery. The Canadians said they could not accept the Dumbarton Oaks proposal. The Security Council could demand any nation s forces without the nation or the General Assembly voting. It is generally agreed in San Francisco that in raising these two questions the Australians and Canadians have struck at the heart of the UNCIO’s most fundamental probICITIS. •It was clear at the end of the day that the United States delegation conceded that the agreement reached by Britain, Russia, and China on . the regulations governing regional agencies must again be amended. There was general agreement among the Big Four that the Security Council must not be able to paralyse enforcement action by the Pan-Amen-can Union against aggression.

NEW WORLD COURT.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 9. » The World Court committee at the United Nations Conference has. recommended that a new international tribunal of 15 members should sit ai The Hague. The judges, it is proposed, should be appointed for nine years, with one-third of the Bencn renewable every throe years. No decision was reached as to whether the old World Court system should be continued or a new system established. The committee postponed consideration of whether the Court would have compulsory jurisdiction.

BERLIN COMMISSION

SAN FRANCISCO, May 9._ The French delegation to UNCIO has announced that the joint FourPower occupation of Berlin ■ awaits only delivery by the Russians of travel orders and proposals to the British, American, and French authorities. At present the plans are reported to prpvide for Russia to administer the central and eastern sections, France the northern section, and Britain and America the south-eastern and western sections.

LABOUR REPRESENTATION

SAN FRANCISCO, May 9

The UNCIO committee on the economic and social council voted by 25 to three votes to admit World Trade Union Congress representatives as consultants. On the motion of Mr. A. A. Arutinian, deputy-director of economics at the Soviet Foreign Office, consultants from the International Labour Organisation and UNRRA, the United Nations’ food and agricultural organisation, will also be admitted. Because the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine is beset with uncertainty the Freeland League lor Jewish Territorial Colonisation has submitted a plan to UNCIO delegates for the settlement of Jews in any country where large-scale colonisation is possible. The League, in a memorandum, said Australia, particularly Tasmania, had expressed interest and sympathy. The Australian Press, Church leaders, universities, chambers of commerce, lord mayors, and the trade union movement had endorsed such a project.

FREEDOM OF NEWS

(Recd. 10.35 a.m.) LONDON, May 10. The executive of the International Federation of Journalists cabled a resolution to the San Francisco Conference urging inclusion in the preamble of the charter for a new world organisation of declarations supporting the principle of freedom of news and views, as the sole basis on which the Press car. properly serve the peoples of free democratic nations, and promote international amity.

AUSTRALIAN ESTIMATE

SYDNEY. May 10

Lieut.-Colonel W. R. Hodgson, Secretary of the Commonwealth External Affairs Department and Australian Minister-elect to France, has reached Sydney by air from the United Stites. He has been acting as High Commissioner for Australia in Canada and attended the San Francisco conference. He said that the Polish question should not have been raised at the San Francisco,■ conference. Rather than to have discussed the Polish question at San • Francisco, it should have been settled in talks between . Russian, British and American Ministers. Col. Hodgson added that the raisins of the Polish question concomitantly with the issue of the admittance of Argentina had done a lot of harm to the standing of the conference in the eyes of the world. Col. Hodgson will leave shortly to take up his post in Paris.