UNITED NATIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 December 1945, Page 5

UNITED NATIONS

z COMMITTEES’ PROGRESS "CO-OPERATION & GOODWILL” (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.) LONDON, December 5. Good progress, it is reported, is being made by the eight committees of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations Organisation. Representatives of 51 countries are examining the recommendations of the 14 countries that constitute the executive committee, and all the discussions deal essentially with the machinery for the first meeting of the Assembly next month. The general atmosphere is said to be one of “smooth co-operation and goodwill on all sides,” and it is likely that the commission’s work will be concluded in a fortnight’s time. It seems unlikely that the atomic bomb will be discussed. The implication is that the establishment of an atomic bomb-commission will be relegated to the first Assembly, and that the question may therefore not be raised until the middle of February. The question of the site of the United Nations’ headquarters is still being discussed. A recommendation that it should be in the United States is supported by two of the Big Three —America and Russia. Recent debates in the House of Lords and the House of Commons have shown that Britain regards the United Nations Organisation as the cornerstone of its international policy, but a question that is being asked is, to what extent the organisation should be responsible for the making of a peace treaty. In spite of suggestions, including that made by President Truman that further meetings of the Big Three are not required, there is a feeling that the United Nations Organisation should not be handicapped, as was. the League of Nations, by being linked up with peace treaties, which must inevitably be resented by the defeated countries. MAKING OF PEACE. “The Times,” in a leading article, declares: “The making of peace cannot be the business of the United Nations Organisation any more than it was the business of the League of Nations. Rather than showing that there should not be further meetings of the Big Three, the breakdown of the London conference appeared greatly to reinforce the need for periodical, regular consultations between, the responsible leaders themselves. Present relationships caused by the atomic bomb may have been avoided if machinery had been devised for a three-Power meeting. It is imperative, in British interests, to call for the maintenance of intimate co-operation, both with the United States and the Soviet. The British purpose, as Mr. Bevin has said, must be 'to utilise the United Nations Organisation, and to stretch it to the limit of its capacity from a security point of view. But that limit will be reached at a point far short of British security unless the organisation is itself built so that the United Nations stand or fall together.” New Zealand has a delegation of six attending the Preparatory Commission. Dr. R. M. Campbell, Act-ing-High Commissioner, is chairman of the administration and budgets committee; Mr. J. V. Wilson is a member of the trusteeship committee; Mr. B. Turner is a member of the economic and social committee; Mr. C. Aikman is a member of the international court of justice and legal questions committee; Mr. R. Miller is a member of the trusteeship and information arrangements committee; and Mr. C. K. Knowles is on the committee dealing with the windingup of the League of Nations and the transfer of some of its functions. SECRETARY-GENERAL. LONDON, December 4. On the ground that the secretarygeneral of the United Nations Organisation was the confidant of many Governments, the committee of the Preparatory Commission accepted a Canadian proposal that it was not desirable that any member should offer him—at any rate immediately on his retirement —a position in which his confidential information might be a serious embarrassment to other members. A special committee which is considering where the permanent headquarters of the United Nations Organisation should be located agreed that the organisation must have a radio station and airport. Unrestricted and uninterrupted contact between the United Nations Organisation and all countries should be maintained, and the headquarters should be situated where it was free from any attempts at improper political controls.

PRESIDENCY CHANGES. (Rec 11 a.m.) LONDON, December 5. The Presidency of the United Nations Security Council will be held in turn for one calendar month by members of the Council in English alphabetical order of their names, if the decision to-day of the Security Council Committee of the Preparatory Commissiin is approved by the General Assembly. The Australian delegation to the Preparatory Commission presented a proposal for the establishment of an international centre for exchange of information of technical, economic and social aspects of housing and town and country planning. The proposal points out that such organisation could offer technical information and advice on social principles to all countries which have before them vast programmes of house and town building aimed at overcoming the shortages and physical damage caused by the war. U.S.A. SENATE APPROVAL. WASHINGTON, December 5. The United States Senate passed and sent to the House of Representatives legislation approving of United States participation in the United Nations Organisation. The Senate rejected a proposal requiring, the President to ask Congress for authority each time American troops are furnished to the Security Council. The approved legislation .would require the President to obtain Congressional approval only on the numbers and types of armed forces to be supplied. CHARTER’S RATIFICATION. WASHINGTON, December 4. The State Department has announced formal ratifications of the United Nations Organisation Charter from Panama City, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Norway, raising the total of nations' which had completely approved the Charter to 45.