Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1943. AMERICA AND WORLD ORDER.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 October 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1943. AMERICA AND WORLD ORDER.

T-TOPES are raised that the American Senate will pass by a 1 substantial majority the resolution approved recently by its Foreign Relations Committee affirming that, after complete victory, the United States will combine with other nations in the establishment of an international authority with power to prevent aggression and preserve world, peace.

With a similar resolution already passed by the American House of Representatives, the passage of the Senate resolution will be of good promise as it bears on liiturc international relationships and the hope of establishing a world order based on law That promise, however, should not be exaggerated, and certainly should not be taken to mean that the problem of establishing. a world authority’with power to preserve word peace is Io all intents and purposes solved. Apart from all the questions that are involved of agreement between nations—some ol them very complex and difficult questions—there arc features 01. the American Constitution which may in themselves impede more or less seriously the creation, after the war, ol an ekeelive world authority.

One of those features is what has been called “that stubborn constitutional stipulation which requires that any Healy mus. be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate/’ There are 96 members of the Senate and 33 of them, by voting against a. treaty, can prevent its ratification.

In the United States it has been recognised that a Senate minority, objecting to details of a. peace settlement acceptable to a o'reat majority of the nation, might prevent the ratification of the treaty in which the settlement was embodied and methods of overcoming this difficulty, should it arise, have been discussed. One proposal is that a constitutional amendment should be promoted providing that any and every treaty may be ratified bv a simple majority of both Houses ol Congress Such an amendment might not be effected easily however. It would have to he approved in the first instance by two-thuds of the Senate and then submitted-to the individual, legislatures of the 48 States?

As an alternative it has been suggested that American public opinion should be roused so thoroughly to the need tor adherence to the peace settlement and for international ac■ion in upholding peace when it has been established that no litt e band of irreconcila.bles” in the Senate would dare to stand against the unmistakable will of the people. A great deal is being done on these lines and no doubt'it is the most hopeiul course that cap! be followed.

It has to be remembered always that the establishment of an international authority to uphold peace must be based on agreement between many countries and may involve difficulties some of which are not yet defined clearly. In the United States difficulty may arise, over the question of sovereignty. An irreconcilable stand by a Senate minority against any infraction of American sovereignly would block the establishment of an international authority invested, in the words of the resolution at present under discussion, “with power to prevent- aggression and preserve world peace.”

•With the facts placed fully and fairly before the American people it may be hoped, however, that no stand of this kind will be allowed to prevent United States participation in the establishment of an effective international authority.. . It has been said justly that what is needed in the interests of future world order is' the pooling' of some aspects of sovereignty—a pooling in which the rights of all will be safeguarded by defining and ordering these rights.. What is needed, in fact, is an extension to the international field of the principles ot law that operate within the frontiers oE any civilised and well ordered nation.