San Francisco

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 314, 29 June 1945, Page 5

San Francisco

tend that all has gone well at San Francisco; dangerous to praise the achievements and _ forget the failures; foolish to be elated by one or alarmed by the other. The fact that so many delegates have argued for so many weeks without an open quarrel is of course a great achievement in itself; but it is not the achievement they hoped for when they first met. The foundation hope no doubt was a firm enough agreement to confirm politically what had been achieved by arms: if iB would be dishonest to pre-

anything had to remain unsettled, they were anxious that it would not be a major issue-especially the issue of issues: the restoration and protection of peace. It is not as certain as it could be that this has been achieved, but it is fairly cer- * tain. Power has been left in hands able and determined to use it, and that is a good enough start for a police‘ force. But the purpose of a police force is the suppression of lawlessness, and that is only one step towards peace. It is peace when the creat maioritv have lost

the inclination to challenge the law, when the policeman... has every good man’s support and cooperation. To those who looked as far ahead as that, San Francisco would certainly seem disappointing, and even a little depressing; but their optimism was neither wise nor safe. On the one hand the military victory had been so overwhelming that other ways of dealing with war-makers must have seemed a little unreal. On the other hand those who met at San Francisco were not machines but men, some of them tired, many of them suspicious, and nearly all of them impatient of the high-soaring altruism of 1919. Yet they fought with words for two months and parted allies. They held some questions over, but they hammered out agreéments on enough major issues to allow the remaking of the world to go on. If we find that. less than enough we have been ex‘pecting much and have forgotten a good deal more.