The Grey River Argus MONDAY, NOVEMBER, 15, 1948. AN AUSTRALIAN INTIATIVE

Grey River Argus, 15 November 1948, Page 4

The Grey River Argus MONDAY, NOVEMBER, 15, 1948. AN AUSTRALIAN INTIATIVE

JF New Zealand’s Ambassador to the United States is right in saying that the United Nations is absolutely no safeguard tor peace, that should scarcely mean that Australia’s Minister of External Affairs, Dr Evatt. is foolish when, in his office of President of the U.N.O. General Assembly, he takes the initiative for fresh negotiations for a settlement of the ultra critical dispute over Berlin. It certainly has'been demonstrated that the United Nations is no more than a debating society in relation to the fundamental conflicts which continue to alarm humanity. Ever since the delegates of the fifty-eight countries met in the Assembly more than six weeks ago at Paris, there has been little or nothing, done. At the same time, however, the meeting has not been useless, because it at least has lent emphasis to the fact that there is a widening gulf between the Western Powers and the Soviet bloc. That conflict, in some degree, is reflected by lesser, though not dissimilar, ones in some countries, such as France, where economic strife is hightened by political antipathy. In the case, for instance, of neither the Balkans nor Palestine, let alone China, has anything been done to put a really effective stop to hostilities. The best case for U.N.O. in the meantime is reckoned to be the fact that, securing no solutions, it has at least avoided bad ones. As illustrated by the latest denunciation to which M. Vyshinsky has subjected the Western Powers generally, and the United States especially, the United Nations has shown the nations generally where they stand. That Dr Evatt’s move, which at least has the benediction of the U.N.O. Secretary, M. Lie, is doubted in its consequences, due undoubtedly tp the impression which the Soviet has created by its methods in diplomacy, and in Paris, and in Eastern Europe. The disposition now is for the Western Powers to doubt whether any mere negotiations arc calculated to lead the Soviet to conciliation. They say that the first test is whether the blockade of Berlin is lifted.' Dr Evatt aims at this, by means of a fresh parley. and does not involve the United Nations except as a means of suggesting fresh overtures. He is said to have found the U.N. Assembly so futile as to be moved to make it in some way a little less ineffective. That idea recalls the high hopes of the optimists who launched the Organisation. The uncompromising stand of the Soviet and its associates, illustrated by vetoes and by political, economic and even moral antagonisms, has blasted nearly all of those hopes. Instead, the other nations have been taught no longer to rely on U.N.0., but rather upon uniting and also upon action outside the United Nations. Dr Evatt thus may claim that he is resorting to a way of persuasion towards peace in seeking to revive the Big Four talks, which the Soviet at least has always declared to be the final method of arbitrament.

Dr Evat.t says that the Berlin clanger is breeding the fear of another war, and at the same time preventing U.N.O. from doing anything worth while to replace the cold war with a genuine peace. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the root cause of the Berlin trouble is so deep a difference as makes negotiations thereon as hopeless as negotiations on even wider issues, such as those of armaments, the concept of human rights, or the fomenting of strife among peoples. The question is being asked as to whether Dr wvatt may not have evidence that the Soviet, is now more conciliatory over Berlin than it yet has been. The. conjecture that his appeal may prove only to play the Kremlin’s game is one- more testimony to the loss of optimism in the case of the United Nations. Should the Soviet react favourably, the appeal should not prove harmful. There may conceivably have been some change of mind at Moscow since the Western Powers have displayed a steady growth in solidarity; have continued to effect an economic recovery; and have inaugurated pacts which spell military unity in the face of the dangers threatening European peace. If Dr Evat.t has any evidence that even Berlin might be rescued from- its strait-jacket, ho would be warranted in testing that evidence. Although he has the U.N.O. Secretary for an off-

side? in the matter, he appears otherwise to be playing rather a lone hand. If that seem mere presumption on his part, it nevertheless cannot be decried as biassed, and even thereby may commend itself to Moscow, On the other hand, it would be up to Moscow, in response, to take an objective view, and replace argument by action in the case of Berlin. That there should now be plainer talk about armies and weapons at Paris is not necessarily a bad sign. It points to a possibility that more cards may be placed on the table. If the Westerners have the atom bomb, tliA" Soviet has an army larger than their’s combined, as well as a position of the greatest strategical strength. Realities thought these things be, they are not so much the ones requisite to regain true peace as the principles of equity which U.N.O. was understood to vindicate. Finally, if there should continue to be no Berlin settlement, the upshot may be a reliance on military rather than moral realities.