Decisions at U.N.O.
As the United Nations Assembly draws towards a close it is taking definite decisions on a variety of subjects. The most important is disarmament, and has resulted in Russia's new constructive proposals regarding prohibition of atomic bombs and inspection to guarantee execution of the prohibition being referred to the recently appointed Disarmament Commission. M. Vyshinsky had wanted a full discussion in the Political Committee, but the Disarmament Commission was created precisely to deal with such matters at this, and the right decision has clearly been taken. The same cannot be said of the renewed demand that South Africa should constitute South West Africa a trusteeship territory. This cannot be required under the Charter, and South Africa had already, a year ago, declined to take the course desired. No good can come of further importunity, and harm easily may. Most important of all is Soviet proposal to admit all the thirteen States, fourteen with Libya, which have been knocking at the door for years, Italy, Eire and Ceylon among them. Russia will only admit these and others like them if her own Balkan and other satellites are admitted too. Her veto can exclude any State she wants excluded. Objectionable as it is to admit States whose whole political life is a challenge to the Charter, and which can only be called "peace-loving" in a very peculiar sense, it is not on the whole too high a price to pay for the admission of others which both for their own sakes and the Organisation's ought to be inside. The Assembly can at this stage only recommend. Its function is to elect States on the Security Council's nomi- nation. But a unanimous recommendation would presumably commit both the Security Council and the Assembly itself.
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