WORLD SECURITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25659, 6 October 1944, Page 6

WORLD SECURITY

THE PROPOSED LEAGUE ACTION AGAINST AGGRESSORS (Rec. 11 p.rn.) NEW YORK, Oct. 4. The Dumbarton Oaks delegates believe they have drafted an international organisation different from the League of Nations in five important essentials, says the INew York Times Washington correspondent. First, the new league contains no general guarantees of territorial integrity and political independence of member States, as the League Covenant provided. „ , , Secondly, the Dumbarton Oaks draft rejects the principle that all nations should not only be equal before law, but equal in their authority and functions. All members of the League of Nations had the right to veto any proposal to take military action against an aggressor, but in the new league only permanent members of the council—Britain, American, Russia, France, and China—possess the individual-right of veto. , . _ , Thirdly,’ the new charter does not in its present state place much reliance on the definitions of aggression, but stresses the necessity for the council to take action before aggression actually breaks out. The League Covenant said in effect: Thou shalt not resort to war.” The new charter attempts to meet the problem at the earliest stage and says to all Powers except the big five: “ Thou shalt not grow strong enough to threaten peace. Fourthly, the new charter, unlike the League Covenant, will not be negotiated with peace treaties. The intention is to establish it as soon as possible and keep it as free as possible from all complex boundary controversies that must be settled in peace treaties Fifthly, the hew. charter is not so idealistic and precise as the League Covenant and does not obligate all Powers ahead of time to take certain automatic action under certain circumstances. The new charter does not provide for automatic sanctions. The decision to impose sanctions is left to the judgment of the 11 members of the new Executive Council in the light of the situation existing when the problem arises. , The correspondent adds: "Perhaps the most general criticism of the work of the Dumbarton Oaks delegates is that they were so eager to avoid the mistakes of the League Covenant that they rejected not cnly its mistakes but some of its virtues. For example, the League stipulation that a party to a dispute should not have a vote in its own case has been rejected so far by the Russians, and some observers believe that in rejecting the right of all Powers to veto League action, Dumbarton Oaks delegates have gone to the opposite extreme and devised one set of rules for the big Powers and another set for the rest. The delegates themselves concede that there is some validity in these, criticisms, but maintain that they are drafting the charter not for a perfect world, which would not need a security.league, but for an imperfect world in which even the large Powers would have different approaches to the security problem.”