EUROPE OR AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26027, 15 December 1945, Page 7

EUROPE OR AMERICA

UNITED NATIONS ORGANISATION QUESTION OF HEADQUARTERS (Official News Service) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 13. Delegates who have so far spoken in favour of the United States as the permanent headquarters of the United Nations’ Organisation considerably outnumber those > favouring Europe, but there is much speculation whether the required two-thirds majority, will be attained if a vote is eventually taken on the broad issue of the United States versus Europe. The question of how best to reach a decision remains unsolved and has been largely neglected. So far only the Canadian and New Zealand delegations have put forward any alternative. The Canadian delegation has suggested a series of votes by secret ballot on specified sites. New Zealand also refuses to see the problem in terms of Europe versus the United States, and has urged a patient sifting of the comparative advantages of all the actual sites that any member may consider suitable. * The New Zealand delegate, Mr J. V. Wilson, declared that the Preparatory Commission could thus provide itself with a list of perhaps four of six sites which would reflect the real wishes of its members much more truly than results obtained by more trenchant methods. Fuller technical information concerning the suitability of these favoured sites, perhaps by inquiry on the spot, could be made between now and the first meeting of the General Assembly in January, when the final decision could be made. In those conditions, Mr Wilson added, it might be made unanimously. Until the voting procedure is determined, the New Zealand delegation has refrained from stating its own preferences concerning a site. Mr Wilson did, however, make reference to Geneva, about which there has been in the background of the debate an implicit but almost unspoken understanding that the new organisation will not return, to the home of the League of Nations. This understanding, whiph is based primarily on the fact that the Russians have ruled Geneva out, has been accepted only with a great deal of regret by the delegates of several nations. New Zealand is one of these. Mr Wilsop said that had there appeared a prospect that Geneva could be unanimously accepted, his delegation would have advocated it as offering at least as much as any other site the conditions necessary to success. “We should have hoped any objections could be met by the creation, should the interested States concur, of an international zone comprising the League buildings, but extending well beyond them,” he said. “We should have thought it a good augury if the United Nations had resolved to return to the very place where the forces of order allowed themgelves to be divided, defeated, and dispersed by the Axis Powers.”