THE UN's FUTURE
THE London discussions of the Secretary- General of the United.Nations seem to have revolved around the intimately connected sub- jects of the Congo and the organisation's finances. It is the fact that money for the Congo operation is running out which is giving a sense of crisis to attempts to solve the UN's financial difficulties and has aroused irritation at the dilatory and sporadic course which negotiations between Mr. Tshombe and Mr. Adoula have taken.
In these circumstances the idea of putting further pressure on the Katanga Government is an attractive one, and, in,so far as such pressure would be directed towards obtaining for Leopold- ville a share of the Katanga revenue, justifiable. However, in the Congo more haste has often proved to mean less speed, and it would be a pity if any precipitate action on the part of the UN were to throw away the results already achieved in the Adoula-Tshombe talks. The style of African negotiation is frequently slow and tor- tuous, but it is probably better to let it proceed at its own pace. An attempt to force a settlement by more spectacular methods than a diversion of mining royalties would defeat its own purpose and involve the UN in still more extensive com- mitments. UN (and American) diplomacy has made considerable progress in dealing with the Congo situation. The problem is to keep their efforts going until a peaceful solution is reached.
This being so, ,U Thant deserves a sympathetic hearing for his efforts to fill the deficit in UN accounts. It is unfortunate that so many coun- tries have defaulted on their obligations, but this does not absolve those who prefer the UN presence in the Congo to the chaos which would follow their departure from drawing the logical conclusion. Countries that prefer diplomacy in the Congo must be prepared to pay for it, and this lesson has been appreciated in Washington, it not in London. When President Kennedy's plan for buying UN bonds receives Congressional assent, the organisation will be supported by American money to an even greater extent than is already the case. This reliance on American goodwill is bound to pose problems as to the future of the UN. Even in international organisations the rule that he who pays the piper calls the tune can hardly be held in suspense for ever. The UN is an instru- ment of international arbitration—not a poten- tial world government—which (except in the case of Korea) has operated on the fringes of the con- flict between the two great world blocs. Under Mr. Hammarskjold its influence grew through the development of a specifically 'uncommitted' body of opinion, which it was to the interest of the great powers to propitiate and which found expression through the General Assembly. But this kind of influence was dependent on a num- ber of factors which are ceasing to be present to the same extent. The 'uncommitted' powers are more and more divided among themselves—a process which can only be expected to continue as the new African States develop their local feuds—and have shown themselves willing to do anything for the UN except pay for it.
Direct contacts between America and the Soviet Union have by-passed the UN machinery over the most important international problems of the day. And the advantages to be gained by either the US or the USSR from genuflections in the direction of the Afro-Asian bloc have proved to have been considerably over-estimated. The secretary-generalship of U Thant, in fact, seems likely to mark a retreat from the position established by the UN under his predecessor—a position in part due to the inactivity of American diplomacy during the last years of the Eisen- hower administration.
The dependence of the UN on American financial support means that it would be impos- sible for the organisation to carry out a policy of which the American Government and American public opinion strongly disapproved, and, to this extent, the present deficit represents a re-entry of a power factor, which the eclipse of the Security Council in favour of the General Assembly seemed to have eliminated. To overcome his budgetary problems U Thant must seek the sup- port of the great powers. but, in so doing, he is bound to reduce the functions of the organisation from the Hammarskjold concept of an indepen- dent expression of disinterested world opinion to that of a machinery of international arbitration available to those powers who wish to use it.
We must all desire the continuance of the UN and respect the international idealism for which it provides a centre, but it is hard not to feel some scepticism about its ability to resolve more than the most marginal of the problems w bleb w ill beset the world over the next decade.
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