MR CHURCHILL SEES UNO AS “BRAWLING COCKPIT”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27017, 28 February 1949, Page 5

MR CHURCHILL SEES UNO AS “BRAWLING COCKPIT”

NZPA —Reuter—Copyright Rec. 9.15 p.m. . BRUSSELS, Feb. 26. “ The United Nations Organisation has been reduced to a brawling cockpit in which insults may be flung back and forth,” said Mr Winston Churchill in a speech to the inaugural Congress of the United Europe Movement. “ The main cause of this disaster is the fact that the world is sundered by the aggression of the Communist ideology through the armed power of Soviet Russia. “ There are several ancient and famous European States which are no longer able to take their stand for those human rights of which they are in so great a need. The yoke of Kremlin oligarchy has descended upon them and they are the victims of a tyranny more subtle and merciless than any known before in history.” Mr Churchill said it must be made impossible for “ such a legal atrocity ” as the trial of the Hungarian, Cardinal Mindszenty, to be perpetrated within the boundaries of a united Europe.

Mr Churchill continued: “After each of the frightful wars which ravaged the lives and homes of mankind, the hopes of humanity have centred upon the creation of an instrument of world government capable at least of maintaining peace and law among men. We have all been grieved and alarmed by the fact that the United Nations Organisation should have been so torn and broken. It has made a far less hopeful start in these first four years than its predecessor, the League of Nations. Mr Churchill referred to the fundamental defects in the structure of the United Nations Organisation which, he said, must be corrected. “ I always felt during the war that the structure of world security could be founded only on regional organisations. Large regional units are a necessary element in any scheme of world government, and unless and until this is done, the United Nations Organisation will be a failure, and even a mockery.” Mr Churchill told his audience of 2500 people that any European country that sincerely accepted the principles of the United Nations Charter of Human Rights would be welcomed by the European Union. Speaking of the proposals at The Hague Congress last May for the creation of- a European Assembly and a European Court for the Enforcement of Human. Rights, Mr Churchill said: “A European Assembly is now on the point of being achieved. We have now to take the second step forward and try to establish, as a practical result of our meeting here, the setting up of a European Court of Human Rights.” Mr Churchill said: “ The division of Europe into two parts—free and unfree—could not remain. In uniting the free countries, which were working together under the Marshall Plan, we recognise that individual countries have special problems. Britain is herself the centre of a free, world-wide Commonwealth of States. We are sure in our own country that a satisfactory 'solution ‘ can be found by which we can develop our new association with Europe without in the slightest degree weakening the sacred ties which unite Britain to her daughter States across the seas.” Mr Churchill said they welcomed as friends and comrades the representatives of the great States and races with whom they had so lately been at war. That was an example cf the force of an idea triumphing over the fiercest passions of men and nations. The progress of the movement had gained momentum in the past year and this was the hour for another positive forward step towards the structure of a united Europe. “The task of our movement is to foster and encourage the pride of being a European. The Europe we are trying to build must be independent, but not isolated. We stretch our hands out in gratitude to the other half of the world across the ocean. We exoress our admiration to the great United States for the part it is playing, not only in the reconstruction of European economy, but also in guaranteeing our security and defence. The Atlantic Pact will give us all the guarantee that the cause of freedom wiil not be aggressively assaulted without effective help coming from the great republic over the ocean." Communists’ Plan Discovered The Belgian police warned that plans had been discovered for a Communist demonstration against Mr Churchill at the Euiopean Movement’s public meeting to-morrow. The Belgian Communist Party’s “ battle orders ” plan to it arshal 2000 demonstrators outside the meeting while 250 determined Communists inside try to disrupt proceedings.