Complexities at San Francisco
Mr. Eden, Mr. Attlee, Mr. Molotov and the French Foreign Minister, M. Georges Bidault, have left San Francisco, agreement in principle having been reached on major questions among the great Powers. The problems which have called for most attention during the last week have been those of regional agreements and of mandated colonial territories. The Conference was faced with the tact that regional treaties, such as those between Russia and Britain and Russia and France, were already in existence, and that the Latin-Americans want the looser Pan-American understanding of
the Chapultepec Act to have the same efficacy for the initiation of American defence measures. The situation seems to arise that, in whatever part of the world aggression may threaten, action to resist it may be initiated by the parties to a regional agreement before any decision can be come to by the Security Council, which will then find itself confronted with a fait accompli. No country can bo deprived of the right to self-defence, and a regional alliance is only an extension of this right ; but the argument that such right to action deprives the Security Council of its raison d'être will not bear examination, since its supreme function at all times must be to pre- vent a situation arising which would call for resistance to an aggressor. General agreement seems now to have been reached on a draft which permits action against an aggressor under a regional treaty if the Security Council has not already acted. The second question turns on the method of applying the trustee system to mandated territories. The British have accepted the .Ameri- can contention that these territories should be divided into " strategic " and " populated " areas, the former being the subject of report to the Security Council only. They have also given qualified consent to a proposal put forward by America that the Trustee Council should have the right to make periodical in- spections of mandated territory. Lord Cranborne, however, who is staying on at San Francisco, has refused to allow the open- ing of mandated territories to unlimited exploitation through non- discriminatory tariffs, on the ground that colonies should not have less right to consider their own interests than an independent nation. The work in the committees threatens to be slow, as many countries have amendments which they wish to press.
