United Nations and United Action
Last Tuesday at Washington the representatives of 44 allied and associated nations put their signatures to the agreement which sets up the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Adminis- tration. The nations, said President Roosevelt, will " learn to work together only by actually working together," and here we have a practical business organisation conducted in their joint names ready to start the work of bringing help to liberated countries. Already in North Africa assistance has been given to the people of Algeria and Tunisia to enable them to pursue their agricultural work. Sicily and Southern Italy have suffered both from the Fascist regime and from the scorched earth devastation ruthlessly applied by the
retreating Germans. As the Allied armies advance in Europe this year and next more and more territory will be freed, inhabited by hungry people lacking food, medicine, animals, agricultural im- plements and seed for sowing. The United Nations jointly have accepted the responsibility for . bringing- succour quickly where it is most needed. The task is complicated by the fact that there are no .big world reserves and that shipping resources will be strained to meet the double needs of war and relief. Nothing but carefully organised pooling of effort among the United Nations to provide the materials and a careful allotment of supplies to the distressed countries according to need will enable the work to be well done. The burden will be shared according to capacity, but the organisa- tion has to be centralised at the top while permitting of decen- tralisation in respect of the countries served. The operation of this service will afford a test of the capacity of the United Nations to work in harness and give them experience for the still greater tasks -which will arise out of the Hot Springs Conference and other under- takings in the sphere of economic and social reconstruction.
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