Britain Views the United Nations

Why is British opinion toward the United Nations lukewarm. Why does Britain believe there is a real danger that the UN Charter may serve the lawbreakers rather than the law abiding. How have the United Nations activities affected Great Britain's relations with its dependent territories. These are questions that will be discussed today by our distinguished panel on Britain views the United Nations the strength and value of the United Nations as an instrument to maintain peace and to promote the betterment of mankind depends upon the use which each member nation makes of it to better understand the attitudes and policies of key nations toward the United Nations. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is sponsoring a series of 27 books on this subject. One of the recent violence is Britain and the United Nations by Jeffrey Goodwin prepared in cooperation with the Royal Institute for International Affairs. Our panel has used this book as the main source for today's informal discussion. With us in the studio at United Nations headquarters in New York are Sir Pearce and Dixon permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations. Mr. Alex Faulkner correspondent for The London Daily Telegraph.

Mr. Frederick Hugh Washington correspondent for The Chicago Sun Times and Professor Alan Evans historian author and prominent member of the English Speaking Union Professor Nevins will act as chairman as today's discussion. Professor weapon's Thank you. Let me address my first question to serve Pearson. And it will respect public opinion toward the United Nations in Great Britain. We have a feeling I think it is justified that public opinion has a more direct impact on governmental policy in Britain and the United States because you have a parliamentary government that is more directly responsive to public opinion. Now I don't we also have a feeling that public opinion toward the United Nations in Great Britain has been rather warm acquiescent unexcited either against or for that organization. Would you comment on that impression. Pearson I'd be glad to.

I think it in a sense it is true that it is somewhat critical as to would I wouldn't say look warm in my country towards the United Nations and to out to understanded one has to go back a little to the time when it was funded. The thought and hope was that when the United Nations was founded that it would develop into an organization which was devoted to maintaining peace but maintaining peace with justice and the thought was that this would be done through the cooperation of the major powers. And of course there has been disappointment that this in fact has not happened. Furthermore there has I think be a kind of disillusionment going to the fact that the instead of the Security Council maintaining peace in the way we had hoped it would. That Matters have progressed to

a calm under the control of matters of peace and security have tended to come under the purview of the General Assembly which was really thought all the more as a kind of well polymer or as your publication says of the town meeting of the world. And it was not thought to be suitable for that kind of activity here. In more recent times of calls we have rather got the feeling in my country that as a result of the one country one vote principle built into the United Nations things can go rather wrong in the general assembly. To put it in a phrase it just doesn't seem I imagine quite wrong to most of my countrymen that a small country removed from some area which to Britain seems to be a

vital area vital to the peace of the world that a country there or a group of countries quite remote from it should have. Determining votes as they do under their Bantu under the charter is deciding what in fact should be done about the issue in question. Another words are the sort of overriding sense of disappointment that the U. And has not proved quite so well. Fact it was had been hoped at the start. I was thinking of the fact that in the old days of the League of Nations. So Robert sessile and John Smart's headed crusading bodies which constantly. Agitated for a greater appreciation of the work of the League of Nations and which defended its activities so enthusiastically. Have you any comment Mr. Faulkner on this British sense of disappointment in the achievements and workings of the UN. Well Professor Evans I think that there's a person Dixon did very stately of the feeling in England in terms of gentle understatement. And I would like to ask him whether he thinks

that him and he can be put a little more strongly I was thinking of the speech which the British prime minister Mr. McMillan made at the Point University. And he was talking he was talking about the founding of the United Nations and the enthusiasm with which this great new organization was with got underway and he spoke of the first class of enthusiasm the founders of the United Nations organization had in their belief that they found the answer to the problem of of preventing international workers and so on. But he went on to say once again events have proved too strong for us to make anything like a world. Well community all at once has been too big a step and this time the attempt has foundered on the deep division in the well between different concepts of society of government of man himself and of man's relation to his Creator. Now would you go so far as a person as to say that the United Nations has funded. The original conception has that will remain something what is the new direction that it is taking that it can usefully take.

It's in a sense got to be managed and new techniques I think have to be to be applied to it. These are relatively new acts of diplomacy and this comes to a point which is quite close to my heart the technical methods that can be applied in order to make something and something valuable to everybody out of this institution that I think was inherent in the prime minister's speech was a metaphorical Yes indeed and in other words he was perhaps the most valuable use of the United Nations as a meeting place well where diplomats from all foreign countries could meet informally at all formally as they please without the formality of a foreign ministers meeting it doesn't have to be organized it can take place any time according to the development. That's certainly one side of it. There again a great deal of technique is used in here I think what is required is selectivity. One point of view is that every issue will want to be brought to the United

Nations or rather anyone who wishes should be enabled to ventilate any particular issue. There is of course a voting procedure to decide on what issue should be brought. My experience is that sometimes sometimes out of mischievousness sometimes out of perhaps lack of judgment issues abroad which really are not to be brought because when they're debated you know in public. In an age of 81 nation forum then the resulting debate really instead of lowering the tension raises it it raises the temperature literally. Then there's the question of public and private diplomacy. Now the United Nations is a constitutional forum for public debate and open diplomacy public debate is certainly valuable very valuable for the ventilation of great issues in the advertisement of causes. But when decisions are acquired private or courage or diplomacy is more likely to achieve results if

you can win a headline by scoring off an opponent in public there is we must admit a temptation to be rude. On the other hand mutual respect which was the tradition of the AU diplomacy is more likely to operate if exercised if diplomacy is exercised in private. You know word international activity in an open public forum such as the United Nations is need special techniques and restraints. If the results are to be satisfactory some of those issues of pertaining to colonial policy have been de And one reason for a certain British irritation was the United Nations has a feeling that sometimes interference as between Britain and their colonies or other nations and their colonies has been ill advised. Now we have here a gentleman from Chicago Mr. Cooper Chicago has been historically a center of anti-colonial feeling.

When you say something about you know of the United Nations as a forum for discussion of colonial policy Mr Q That's a Nevins if I may before we get started on the Colonial question I'd like to add one point which I think was barely touched upon in explaining why gain much greater interest of the British public in the League of Nations has turned into a large degree of apathy towards the Union. And I believe that those of us who frequently attended the lead council and need assembly in the 20s and 30s who recall how the British played a dominant part in the league of dominant in a desirable sense of the word deed. When the British delegate got up to speak it was the moment when many delegates and journalists would go to their places and listen it was an event. Now with the riots

of two other major powers with the decline of British power in world affairs obviously the role of Britain in the UN is no longer comparable with that in the week. And it seems to me that that plays a very important part in explaining the relative lukewarmness of the British public towards the United Nations. Yes I think it's possible. You know what is great with that Sir Percival. Yes. There's also of course a fundamental difference many fundamental differences between the league and the United Nations. The main one being that the league was not anything didn't even pretend to be a universal organization of the United States while they were not members of it. It was very Your opinion of the United Nations is and that of course we didn't see as it is I think an assett you have never had anything in Britain are strictly comparable to what we call our isolationist sentiment in America. Our desire to retreat from the world altogether.

Well I think you had the Beaverbrook mentality of Empire isolationism which is comparable in the sense of well I think it would be a mistake to forget that we are capable of being uncertain. Of course a person would you say that as a newspaper man who covered the United Nations from the early days when they remember they used to meet up at Hunter College and then out of Lake Success. And I remember very vividly how in those early days every meeting of the Security Council that was it was a matter of intense interest I mean great subjects were being debated and every everything that was said was reported in great great detail whereas in recent years the public interest in the debates of the Security Council for various reasons but you can tell us about have has declined enormously and now it seems to be little more than a talking shop in the mind of the public place where speech is made for propaganda purposes nothing is achieved. Now this inevitably makes the thing down. People won't take an interest in the thing means not have partners not do things.

Well I would agree Professor Davids I would agree of course that this is really at the heart of the matter. The budget charged with maintenance of peace and security has not been able to of operation effectively. Because it was the reason is that it was based on this assumption of great power unity and that has not been forthcoming. And the Soviet Union have used and abused their veto quite reckless there. But. Certainly this could also have been able to do quite a lot and I still think it counted. It kind of helps smaller countries with up to a certain extent. Remember the case of the Sudan quite recently. That brings us back to her personally colonial question which is a very fluid discussed in New York recently published for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on bread home on the United Nations. Let me ask you if you could again what would be the middle washed or not have to move toward.

I don't read under the relation between written on our columnists. Well I should explain if I mean allow myself a personal note that I am in Washington rather than Chicago although I write for a Chicago this paper but I think that the Midwest isolationism symbolized by Chicago is to a very large extent a thing of the past I think that Chicago and the Midwest have been integrated into the United States as the United States has been integrated into world affairs and as to the whole question of colonialism in the UN. Certainly this has created an entirely new situation about Switzer person will have very much more knowledge than I. But the emergence of the Afro-Asian bloc of the so-called Bandung group some 29 nations of Africa and Asia a group which on many occasions has not only prevented

the necessary two thirds majority required for some major decisions but it played a crucial part in many world issues. I think that the colonial issue of the rise of nationalism in the undeveloped areas of the world has reshaped the UN in a manner which was not foreseen by its founders. What do you think of that dancer person. I think on one hand. Isn't this everything to be everything everything to be said for the new nations raising their voices in the United Nations. It's a most valuable thing. It's really are one of the chief assets of the organization that it comes near to with some significant exceptions to representing the universality of the world as it is present. What is what is not good about it is something that's much more subtle and complicated and that is when

nationalism allied with anti colonialism is is he's got hold of and exploited sometimes and this often happens it's done in a subtle kind of way by Soviet propaganda playing on these sentiments. And it is of course a very curious signal that this is not true of all form of terrorist but some are inclined to discount the risks of what I would call Russian colonialism. Presumably because they've never experienced it. So that is the thing that needs to be kept an eye on and to come to the feeling in my country about this that I think that it's more a feeling of irritation and bewilderment. We simply don't understand with our call it colonial record over the past century has witnessed evolution and is still witnessing the evolution of the British Empire into the British Commonwealth. We simply don't understand when it's ready is

when our friends pull for this kind of mist of US propaganda. I must say it's a person that all I'm all thoughtful Americans certainly have been greatly impressed by the emergence of such new countries has gone on. By the creation of the British West Indies Federation has a new self-governing dominion by this gradual growth in responsible self-government throughout the redish dominions and at the same time. Wouldn't you admit Mr. Faulkner that some of the criticism of colonial policy not only British but French It has sometimes been helpful in results. Yes I agree Professor Evans I think it has done a great deal of good in that sense. But what we are more conscious of in England because we are interested naturally in what they say at the United Nations about British colonies is the often mistook his use of the forum to make charges about British colonies which we feel are not justified. We feel that they they have but they have a

political motive. We feel that the object is not not to benefit the people who live in these countries but to start trouble. What do you think the person is about and I agree that that has to the heart of the videos that you have here is a stage which ought to be used for peace with justice and economic development and used to a certain extent Bettys M.P. it was one of the important elements of the United Nations as the Economic and Social Council president Evans in this book which we are discussing I noticed at one stage they said it was a question in the minds of many English people who followed its work as to whether it should be wound up was it doing its job. They they suggested that the that many of the technical agencies were doing a better job. More efficient job than the council itself as the Economic and Social Council perform the double to be hoped it will perform. I think you do. I think so. Our own view and I think this is generally shared is that the most valuable of all these programs serve

economic programs and not talk about the social side the moment it is the is it the technical assistance program. Yes because that is you know deals with the infrastructure NAMI infrastructure of underdeveloped countries. As far as our interrogators are a concern since the funds for technical assistance are limited we always try and do what we can on our own without coming to the UN for help. I don't think that. Since neither of our two British friends in this panel has mentioned the subject perhaps out of coyness it should be recalled here that there is more than one type of colonial power that Britain really has a most admirable record in the last 13 years or so considering her behavior towards India Pakistan Burma Ceylon Malaya Garner and other areas. And if you compare that

behavior for instance with that of the Portuguese Administration her overseas territories which is very much 19th century if not 18th century. I think you find that you must distinguish between the colonial powers which were discussed on a great deal of the great contrast between British policy in Russian policy doesn't it. No question that essentially Russia is a colonial power and no one uses a been greater than the ones which Russia has that is a of course a fact it is also a fact that in many colonial areas and the areas which have emerged from colonialism that is not recognised because it does not correspond to that concept of what they call salt water colonialism. So they simply do not regard Russian imperialism as colonialism. I hope it is recognised however in the United States. And interestingly in some countries as India now as our time is short. I just turn to another subject on which

there is a great difference I'm honestly between Britain and the United States. The admission of China to the United Nations could you say something to clarify your British policy regarding the Imperial trying to repair some. Yes it's a this of course is is a highly charged subject at the point of calls is who should occupy the seat. China has Chinese representation. China is a permanent member of the organization and sits here. The question is which government should occupy it. Our approach really is this that as everyone knows we are we are. We have recognized the government of kin. And when I say recognized I don't mean it's been done with any particular approval we've just accepted them as the government. And that is a principle which we usually act on in matters of recognition as regards the representation. My own feeling is that some time or other you really will have to be dealt with it will have to be regulated in some way. Otherwise we

will till that is done. I think that the situation in the Far East itself will always remain rather equivocal and also the it it's difficult for the United Nations to say that it represents read it well when you have 500 to 600 million Chinese are represented here. But on the other hand this is such a question on which feelings run so high that we have always been ready to go along with procedures to postpone the issue a vital issue I suppose is whether China is less dangerous or more dangerous inside or outside the US. Have you any feeling about that. Mr. Faulkner Well first Nevins I've just been burning to ask a person a question I don't know whether he want to answer it or not but time has passed when the United Nations is organized and it was a great part was given a seat on the Security Council as a great power. But now if we come to the stage about fine everybody does agree and perhaps United States may one day a day agree that China should be

admitted as a as a as a member of the United Nations do you feel that you would still have a right to a seat as a great part and the other part such as that you grow in Canada for example even India which might have a greater claim to a permanent seat near separation is really a different question I wonder if we're not barking up the wrong tree in saying when you're talking about China as a great power it is still a great power in the old fashioned sense. Our feeling is that she is potentially a great power. She has a larger population potential issue where she has also vast natural resources and China has been very rapidly industrializing and sort of in another generation she may be one of the three greatest powers in the world. Who knows. What is your feeling about that. Well my feeling is that there is much more reason to regard China as a great power of the next couple of decades or so than there was at the time when she was so treated during the Second World War. I just as you say she is being industrialized at a rate considerably more rapid than India.

Her natural resources which are untapped and her population within Homo genea team undoubtedly give her the qualifications of a great power and in this respect I believe that American policy will have to undergo some adjustment I suppose that most Americans have asked to identify the two principal achievements of the United Nations would say first it assisted in bringing Israel to birth and kept a certain measure of balance and Near Eastern Affairs. And second it was instrumental in ending the rocket of burden from the British point of view. How would you agree you know would you have a different set of achievements to point out. I was told there was just about right wouldn't you mention the Korean War. That should be mentioned it was a tremendous thing to have taken up the challenge of aggression. Yes I mean

the United Nations if it that John has not been taken up might have funded completely in the same way as the League of Nations. Well I know what I think we wanted to do. We wanted to maintain justice and redress injustice. We want it to a vet of the peace before they break out into anything which is just constantly trying to do it trying to do at the moment. We wanted to help keep the peace as it tries to do in the Palestine question. And we wanted to act as a center of conciliation which it has been doing in the case of disarmament and to give one of the station and may perhaps will do again. And in general we want it to. Be used as a means to contributing to easing of tensions and world stability and not to be used for ambulances as a means of increasing tensions. That is well puts a person and I'm sure the author of Britain and the United Nations

would agree. In his book he observes that in spite of its many vices it too is the United Nations symbolizes those ideals of a just peace the rule of law and the mutual welfare of the human race to which the majority at least of informed opinion in Great Britain feels itself committed. And his final conclusion is and I quote as a power the strong vested interest in a more orderly international society. Great Britain would almost certainly be very much the loser. Well I have faith in the ultimate meaning and purpose of the United Nations to wear that. Thank you gentleman. You have been listening to an informal discussion. Britain views the United Nations based on the recently published book Britain and the United Nations by Jeffrey Goodwin sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Royal Institute for International Affairs. Participants on today's panel worser Pearson Dixon permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations. Mr. Alex Faulkner correspondent for The London Daily Telegraph. Mr. Frederick Hugh Washington correspondent for The Chicago Sun

Times and Professor Allan Nevins historian author and member of the English Speaking Union or a free catalog of the Carnegie Endowment publications in the field of international relations address a post-card to catalogue Carnegie Endowment 3:45 East forty six Street New York City. The address again is three forty five East Forty sixth Street New York City. This program originated in the studios of the United Nations and was prepared under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The preceding tape recorded program was distributed by the NEA E.B. Radio Network.