A.—2

2

UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION I have the honour to present to Cabinet the report of the New Zealand delegation, of which I was the Chairman, on the proceedings and decisions of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, which was opened at San Francisco on 25 April and concluded on 26 June. I desire at the outset, however, to refer briefly to the earlier British Commonwealth meeting held in London from 4 to 13 April. These London conversations afforded a most useful opportunity to the representatives of United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India to examine in common the Dumbarton Oaks proposals which were to provide the basis of the International Organization Conference in San Francisco. I should like to pay a warm tribute to the able support I received in London from the New Zealand High Commissioner, Mr. W. J. Jordan, and from the New Zealand Minister in Washington, Mr. C. A. Berendsen, C.M.G., who participated with me in these talks. The purpose of the British Commonwealth discussions was not to arrive at decisions, but to secure elucidation of one another's viewpoint and to gain first-hand information on the Dumbarton Oaks proposals from the representatives of the United Kingdom Government, which had helped to formulate them. It was made clear to the public during the London talks that the meeting of British representatives in no way implied any intention or desire to create a " British Empire bloc " which would confront the other United Nations with an agreed policy and a unified vote on all issues. The subsequent trend of debate and voting at San Francisco bore out that fact, and the influence and standing of the British nations was undoubtedly enhanced thereby without impairment of the essential unity and solidarity of the British Commonwealth. I should also like to add that the New Zealand delegation at San Francisco at no time had any illusions as to the magnitude, the complexities, and difficulties of the task that faced the San Francisco Conference. It was inevitable that the conflicting points of view among forty-six nations (eventually fifty were represented) would call for a large measure of conciliation and compromise if a satisfactory Charter were to be written. The New Zealand Government had seen certain basic weaknesses in the proposals formulated at Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta. Its delegation approached the Conference, therefore, with the intention of advocating certain fundamental amendments and, above all, with the desire to play its full part in establishing a world organization that would as far as possible embody those principles of international policy which the New Zealand Government has seen no reason to alter since it put them forward in the critical years before this war. In this spirit and with this object in view, therefore, the New Zealand delegation, in addition to pressing its own amendments, frequently lent its support to generally similar proposals made by other nations, sometimes in substitution for its own, and in other cases it either brought forward or supported proposals that were in line with, or actually emerged from, trends of opinion that became clear as the discussions progressed.