MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
MANY of those who during the last fortnight have had occasion to attend the sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations have been left with an impression of organised unreality. Such an impression is inevitable and un- justified. It is inevitable, since the whole setting of these plenary sessions tends to emphasise external and mechanical arrangement and to obscure the powerful under-current of good intention which undoubtedly exists. It seems incongruous to us that Central Hall, situated as it is in the very dynamo of our machine of government, overshadowed as it is by the Abbey and the Palace of Westminster, associated as it is with purely British causes and controversies, should seek by adopting the exotic habiliments of cloth and bunting to render itself suddenly international. This sense of external in- congruity is increased when one enters the building. Much credit is due to the Office of Works and to the secretariat of the General Assembly for the good taste with which they have transformed Central Hall and for the detailed perfection of the arrangements which have been made. Seldom has any international conference taken place in circumstances of greater mechanical convenience ; a row of glass cubicles allows the broadcasting systems of two continents to relay or to record the speeches of the delegates at the very moment that they are delivered. Yet the very modernity of these arrangements, the arc-lights and the golden microphones, the amplifiers and the air-conditioning, induces a stage or screen atmosphere which is in itself disconcerting. The illumined tribune, the high presidential bench behind it, the immense backcloth of gold and blue are all over life-size ; they reduce the performers to midget proportions ; the plenipotentiary of even the greatest Power seems a little man in black clothes mouthing politely into two golden microphones. This enormous background robs the sessions of all sense of dis- cussion or debate and gives to them the feeling of a carefully rehearsed performance.
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At all international conferences the attention is apt to be diverted !Tom the essential solemnity of the matters under discussion to the incidental movements and whisperings of those who take part. Yet at no international conference that I have attended have the inter- ruptions and the inattentions been so continuous or so obtrusive. There is an incessant movement of people coming in and going out ; the photographers stalk between the rows of blue chairs flashing their apparatus interruptingly ; and the delegates themselves, while listening quite patiently to the speeches which they understand, Will begin to read their newspapers when either a speech or a trans- lation is delivered in some unknown language. The rustle and bustle caused by these circumstances is wider and more persistent than at any other international gathering, and the casual visitor inevitably derives the false impression that the whole business is not taken very seriously by any of the participants. It was my good fortune to be present when Dr. Lafronte, the plenipotentiary for Ecuador, presented to the Assembly the report of the Political and Security Committee on the peaceful development of atomic energy. Dr. Lafronte read the report with impassive dignity, and it was thereafter translated into French. Yet one might have derived the impression• that he was addressing the Assembly upon some wholly secondary topic, and, had it not been for a sudden sharp look of reproof flung at the inadvertent delegates by Mr. Gladwyn jebb, his speech when concluded would not have received even perfunctory applause.
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The conscientious visitor, realising the contrast between his own tense attention and the bored inattention of the several delegations, is all too apt to feel that open covenants are not being openly arrived at, and that the General Assembly is in fact an unreal gathering, summoned only to ratify the decisions come to in private between the Big Three or the Big Five. He observes with regret that countries such as Sweden and Switzerland, whose record and repute should entitle them to a leading place in all international
discussion, play no part in the Assembly, and that other countries, whose influence and experience in world matters are in comparison nugatory, are accorded a prominence which they may not desire and which they certainly do not deserve. The very perfection of the arrangements will suggest to him that everything has been carefully planned and rehearsed beforehand, and that no opportunity is given for the spontaneous interruptions or the ordinary initiatives of debate. As he sits there hour after hour watching this efficient but ineffective performance, his eyes will become riveted upon the great gold emblem which hangs high in the air above the head of Monsieur Spaak. There it glitters in the arc-lights—a huge wreath of laurel protectively surrounding a tiny globe ; and this world of ours, as designed by the bird's-eye view of the interior decorator, seems to centre around the North Pole and to present, even to the most casual glance, a disordered and disunited appearance. Such impressions, as I have said, are inevitable, but they are not wholly justified. There in Central Hall, there in that discreet but garish chamber, the United Nations, through alternating stages of tension and relaxation, of effort and lassitude, is striving to become a reality. The next few days will prove to us whether this first great effort is to succeed.
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To some it appears unfortunate that the United Nations, before its weaning, should have been served with three such indigestible condiments as Azerbaijan, Java and Greece. Others will welcome the chance which, at the very first Assembly, has exposed the Articles of the Charter to such tense scrutiny. The Covenant of the League of Nations was criticised on the ground that it was too idealistic a document, being based upon a conception of human virtue and international good conduct which, had it been a correct conception, would have rendered any League unnecessary. The Charter of the United Nations is now criticised on the ground that it is too realistic a document in that it identifies responsibility with power. Yet surely the fallacy of the idealists of 1918 is being repeated by the realists of San Francisco in a different form ; for if it be indeed true that no international organisation can function unless the Great Powers desire it to function, then it must also be true that if the Great Powers are determined to preserve peace, or to make war, then any wider organisation becomes unnecessary or must be in- effective. The very intricacy of the San Francisco Charter, while it perplexes public understanding, increases the discrepancy between the text and letter of the Charter and the purposes for which it was framed. I fully admit that twenty years' experience of the League has enabled those who drafted the Charter to devise many technical improvements ; viewed purely as a machine, the Charter possesses many gadgets and safety devices which the Covenant lacked. But the detailed perfection of its constitution tends to obscure the funda- mental principles for which the United Nations was created ; and enables a trained jurist, .such as Mr. Vyshinsky, to make cats' cradles with the entanglements of Articles 33 and 34 and 36 and 37. The tides and currents of national ambition or timidity cannot be con- trolled or fortified by even the most expertly woven net.
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The purposes of the United Nations, as defined succinctly in the four paragraphs of the Charter's first article, are admirable purposes. It is for the Council to decide whether or no these purposes have been violated in the three cases which have formed the subject of these appeals. The letter of the Charter provides the occasion, or the excuse, to adjourn the examination of these "situa- tions " or to remit them to the questionable alternative of direct negotiation. The spirit of the Charter admits of no such evasions. There will be many experienced and sincere people who will contend that the United Nations is not old enough to face so sharp a controversy in its first few days. It was in such terms that the League's impotence at the, time of the Corfu incident was excused. But there will be others who would regret if the letter of the Charter were allowed to destroy its spirit, and who will murmur sadly the oldest of all Latin tags: Et propter vitam vitai perdere causal.
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