FUTURE OF MAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26709, 2 March 1948, Page 4

FUTURE OF MAN

Veto’s Effect on Destiny of World ACTION, NOT WORDS, NEEDED P.A. WELLINGTON, Mar. 1. “In the United Nations we have an organisation magnificent to crush a prowling mouse but helpless to fight a marauding tiger.” In these words, the New Zealand Minister to the United States and the New Zealand representative in the United Nations, Sir Carl Berendsen, in a public address to-night, illustrated the effect of the veto on the power of the United Nations to prevent war. Any of the five Great Powers could veto a discussion or action by the Security Council against any aggressor it might support, but any small nation which might be the aggressor could not. prevent action to curb its aggression. The charter was the best possible thing which could be obtained at San Francisco. There were respectable, if inadequate, reasons for the insertion of the veto. All five G v eat Powers insisted on it. The alternatives were a truncated form of charter adopted or none at all.

Sir Carl characterised the veto as a “ crowning and monumental piece of human folly ” as a result of which the organisation had entered the world “ with its hands manacled and its feet, fettered.” It was not an ’adequate system of collective security and would not be as long as the veto was retained.

“ Given time, if God gives us. time, we can get a proper organisation if men will reason and not fiddle,” he said. What should be aimed at was a situation in which an unlawful forge was met by a lawful force. Until that was attained there would be no collective security. What was needed was a body which could establish international law, a body which could interpret international law—that had been established—and a body for enforcing interlational law. “The first international law should be ‘ Thcu shalt not wage war,’ ” Sir Carl said. He would like to see the present single power of veto abolished and replaced by a veto of any two of the five Great Powers. It was not right that the vote of New Zealand, with about 2,000,000 inhabitants, should equal that of the United States, with many times that population, but he would like to see some system of

weighted vote which would take In other things than population—production, willingness to help in world affairs, and so on. 11 If enough wellthinking members agreed to attack any nation which became an aggressor, I am convinced we should never have an aggressor. That is a serious risk, but we must take that risk. The alternative the world needs is not resolutions—it is resolution. If we have resolution we shall never have to use it"

“It may well be that we are approaching a new climacteric in the affairs of men,” he said. “ There is a cleavage between those who believe in the secret ballot and those who believe in secret police.” The difficulty at the moment was heated passions on both sides. The only way to overcome this was infinite patience and determination— determination to hold fast to principle. “If we do not have either, I fear the worst,” said Sir Carl. “ I believe the problem to be solved is a mor.al one. The League of Nations failed for a moral reason. It failed because its members had not the courage to do right. Twice in our day a transgressor has made a raid on civilisation. Twice democracy was unready and had to buy time with the flower of its youth. That cannot happen again in these atomic days, when the first blow may well be the last.”

The remedy, in the first place, was collective security, then distribution of the world’s good things must be equalised even if in so doing we had to give up some of our good things to the less fortunate of mankind, and thirdy, we must approach problems, not with consideration of what was good for us, but with consideration of what was right. “Nothing is politically wise unless it is morally right,” he said. “There must be no compromise of principle. The alternative is a relapse to the old power politics. Enlightened and determined public opinion alone will ensure the success of this great and noble undertaking. In our trembling hands to-day .we hold nothing less than the fate of man. Strong minds, great hearts, true faith with ready hands to do, not tongues to talk, are heeded. You and I can, if we will, determine whether the cloth of man’s destiny will be a cloth of gold or a shroud. We can if we will. Who knows'? ”