Laodicea at Lake Success
Nothing is more detrimental to the prestige of the United Nations than the spectacle of constant mass-abstentions when a question of any delicacy is put to the vote. When, last Saturday, a Latin- American motion to rescind the resolution recommending the with- drawal of Ambassadors from Spain was before the Political Com- mittee of the Assembly it was carried by 25 votes to 16, no fewer than 16 other States, Great Britain among them, abstaining. On Monday the same committee recommended the admission of Israel to the United Nations by 33 votes to II, with 13 abstentions, Great Britain figuring once more among the latter. Nothing could be more ignominious in a Great Power than these examples of intellectual or political paralysis. When the world looks for a lead, Great Britain is resolved that in this sphere at any rate it shall not come from her. In the matter of Spain it has been made perfectly clear from various answers in the House of Commons in the past few weeks that the Government favours at any rate the appointment of an Ambassador at Madrid and the admission of Spain to the technical organisations of the United Nations ; it would say little for its political realism if it thought otherwise. It must be presumed to be reluctance to incur the ire of a group of back-benchers that explains this discreditable incapacity to say a plain yes or a plain no to a perfectly plain proposal. Asked in the House of Commons on Monday whether the Government would not take the straightforward course of voting for the Latin-American resolution, the Under-Secretary replied in the negative on the ground that "we do not want to risk any misunderstanding of our political attitude in this case." The judgement on the Laodiceans is worth remembering.
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