The U.N. Assembly
The meeting of the United Nations Assembly which has just opened in temporary quarters near New York will be of critical importance. It is an adjournment from the opening session held in London last January and is likely to last at least six weeks. A great deal of constitutional work has still to be got through, including the framing of the organisation's budget and the final choice of a permanent seat—which is pretty sure to be somewhere in the United States. But the vital question is whether there is to be unity within the United Nations. That depends, in Long Island as in Paris sad everywhere else, whether genuine co-operation can be achieved be- tween Russia and the other Great Powers. In the message be gave to the Press on arrival in America M. Molotov declared himself confident that it could ; so did M. Stalin in his recent answers to Mr. Werth's questions. Two items on the agenda may provide a decisive test—one the proposal that the veto exercisable by a Great Power on the Security Council shall be abolished altogether, the other the motion by Russia objecting to the presence of British and Ameri- can troops on the soil of various Allied countries, notably Greece and China. The veto question is crucial. Under Art. 27 of the Charter all procedural questions can be decided by an affirmative
vote of any seven of the eleven members ; on _other questions the majority must include all the five permanent members. What is and is not a procedural question is left undecided, and Russia has so far been disposed to regard nothing as merely procedural and • to claim the right of veto on any proposal that comes up. This threatens deadlock at every turn ; it is doubtful none the less whether anything but trouble could come of an attempt actually to amend Art. 27 at this juncture. If the Russian delegate acts reasonably, in the obvious spirit of the article, all will be well, and it is proper to hope for the best till faced with the worst. No one at any rate can complain that Russia, represented by M. Molotov, M. Vyshinsky and M. Gromyko, is not taking the United Nations Assembly seriously. What remains to be discovered is whether they conceal in the folds of their togas peace or verbal war.
