A Significant Vote
Much more significance than is immediately apparent attaches to the voting for the third of three vacant places on the Security Council at Paris. The two favoured candidates were Greece and Byelo-Russia, one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, and in eight successive ballots neither of the two secured anything like the two-thirds majority required for election ; indeed, they virtually tied time after time, with about thirty votes each. In this matter the British delegation was in a serious difficulty. There has from the first been a gentlemen's under- standing that the Slav bloc shall always be represented by one non-permanent member of the Security Council. On the other hand, the United States is strongly supporting Greece, and our relations with that country are markedly cordial. The voting is, of course, secret, but it is matter of common knowledge .that the British delegation, and all the Commonwealth States except South Africa, have been supporting Byelo-Russia, even at the cost of some tension with the United States, on the ground that agreements must be kept. The decision, which, so far as Great Britain is concerned, was naturally Mr. Eden's, was not an easy one to make, but there can be no doubt that it was the right one, and there are signs that it has impressed Moscow. Good faith pays better than broken faith.
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