VETO POWER OF SECURITY BODY

Southland Times, Issue 25669, 11 May 1945, Page 5

VETO POWER OF SECURITY BODY

Attack By Smaller Nations (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, May 9. The correspondent of The New York Times stated that the small and middle nations today began to try to whittle down the Big Four’s demand. As soon as M. Molotov returned to Moscow the “little 42” opened the attack on two points previously approved by Britain, America, China, and Russia: first, the authority of the five permanent members of the Security Council to veto the enforcement of action by a regional organization; second, the Council’s authority to call on nations to send troops into action without guaranteeing them a vote on the question. The main attacks came from Australia and Canada—two of the so-called middle powers who had been saying quietly but firmly that they had certain observations to make about the Big Five’s proposed rights. The first observation came from Dr H. V. Evatt, who proposed, in addition to a compromise on the voting formula, that if the Security Council did not deal with a regional dispute, and did not refer it to a regional agency for solution, the regional agency should be free to take whatever action it liked under its own machinery. The Canadians said they could not accept the Dumbarton Oaks proposal that the Security Council could demand any nation’s forces without the nation or the General Assembly voting. It was generally agreed in San Francisco that in raising these two questions the Australians and Canadians struck the heart of UNCIO’s most fundamental problems. The correspondent of The New York Times said it was clear at the end of the day that the United States delegation had conceded an agreement reached by Britain, Russia and China that the regulations governing regional agencies must again be amended. There was general agreement among 'the Big Four that the Security Council must not be able to paralyse the enforcement of action by the Pan-American Union against aggression. After M. Molotov had departed, the United States Foreign Secretary, Mr Edward R. Stettinius, and the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Anthony Eden, conferred with the United States Ambassador to Moscow, Mr Averill W. Harriman, and the British Ambassador to Moscow, Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr, presumably to give final instructions on the Polish question. Mr Harriman and Sir Archibald are going to Moscow via Washington and London. Mr Harriman is reported to have asked Mr Churchill for permission to confer in London with M. Stanislaus Mikolajczyk.