NEWS OF THE WEEK
TRE report of M. Trygve Lie, Secretary-General of the United Nations, to the forthcoming Assembly is a document of con- siderable importance, containing as it does a broad assessment of the position and prospects of U.N.O. at the end of its second year of effective existence. It is no doubt natural for M. Lie to make the best of the organisation of which he is the chief permanent official, and he has in fact expressed an optimism which by no means all well-wishers of U.N.O. will feel able to share. It may be perfectly true that the powers contained in the Charter would have been more than sufficient to cover every situation which has come before the Security Council, but the fact is barely relevant when other powers contained in the Charter enable Russia to obstruct the normal work- ing of the Council disastrously ; and there is no great comfort to be derived from the Secretary-General's observation that if the conflict between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union has been the cause of many setbacks at Lake Success the United Nations has acted as a restraining and conciliatory influence ; a few concrete examples of that would be welcome. It is idle to ignore the fact that the work of the Atomic Energy Commission and the work of the Military Staff Committee—the two bodies which above all others should be able to evolve measures calculated to prevent future wars— have been brought to a standstill by the uniformly non-co-operative attitude of Russia. There is no advantage in using strong language about this, but it is necessary to use plain language ; and it is pertinent to ask whether any progress is being made with the sound proposal emanating from Mr. St. Laurent, the new Liberal leader in Canada, and fully approved by Mr. Bevin, for the creation of an association of nations, members of the United Nations, designed to effect by agreement between them that joint action which if attempted within the framework of U.N.O. can always he blocked by the veto of a single Great Power. The only proposal M. Trygve Lie has to make for any semblance of joint military action is that a United Nations force of from t,000 to 5,000 men should be embodied, to be always available for such purposes as guarding United Nations missions or supervising the conduct of plebiscites or the observance of truces ; if such a body existed today Count Bernadotte's task in Palestine would have been much easier. The coming Assembly, which will in many ways mark a critical point in the history of the United Nations, might well carry this suggestion further.
