UNITED NATIONS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 921, 5 April 1957, Page 11

UNITED NATIONS

»ir,- ihe subjects of most of the talks on Lookout for the past few months have been events in the Middle East, and perhaps rightly so, for this is the first real test of the efficacy of the United Nations Organisation. Two recent speakers have stated in effect that we expected tdo much of UN. As a humble member of the "we" (humanity at large) I think we are entitled to a lot more than we have got. Apart altogether from the trumpetings at its inauguration and the colossal expense involved, what justice has its opinions or judgments carried? Look at the member nations sitting as a jury on

some offender. The British system of trial by jury has been working effectively for some centuries, and is still being evolved to eliminate any possibilities of bias in the jurymen. Can this be said of UN? Take a look at the voting on the first big issue-the alleged aggression by Britain, France and Israel into Egypt. Were any unbiased votes cast? The Anglo-French landing at Port Said took all the ballyhoo out of the Presidential elections and America voted accordingly. The Afro-Asian group voted purely on the colour line. India is still smarting under former British rule, forgetting all the good that Britain did for India, and condemned Britain in most harsh terms. Compare her dilatory and half-hearted condemnation of Russia for her brutal assault on Hungary. Russia and her satellites voted purely on political grounds. Even some of the Western European nations appear to be biased against a powerful nation taking action against a weaker nation, however just the attack may have been. I think it is a fact and not mere jingoism to state that justice as administered in Britain today leads the world. Some international body of jurymen should be set up to which all disputes between nations should be submitted in the first instance, and evidence submitted by the contending nations with free and unrestricted inquiry by the jurymen and taking of evidence on the spot. And the judgment of such a body should automatically carry sanctions with it. Until we get something of this nature we cannet expect any justice as we know it to emanate from the ovresent TUnited

Nations set-up.

J.G.

G.

(Tauranga)

(Abridged.--Ed. )