Budgeting for Peace
By The Rt. Hon. PHILIP NOEL-BAKER, M.P. .
OW that the heat of controversy is over, it may be useful to consider the proposal of the British Minister of Education at the last Conference of U.N.E.S.C.O. that its two-year budget should be reduced from the $20.5 million, which the Director-General, M. Torres Bodet, had put forward, to $17.4 million—a cut of $3.1 million, or 15.25 per cent. After debate, the Minister's figure was raised to $18 million. Twenty-nine of the sixty-eight Members of U.N.E.S.C.O. voted for that proposal; twenty-one against; the rest abstained or stayed away. Thus, by the vote of less than half its members, a cut of $2.5 million was made.
What have we saved by this " economy " ? What is the loss that may offset the saving ? We saved eleven per cent. (the British share) of $1.25 million—just under £50,000—a year. We lightened the burden on our taxpayers by one-fifth of a penny per annum per head of our population. We shall each be richer by the price of a few matches in 1953. Was there waste in U.N.E.S.C.O. spending which our proposal will cut out ? Perhaps; in every administration there is some saving that might usefully . be made. But U.N.E.S.C.O.'s internal control was pretty tight; Torres Bodet exercised a close and detailed super- vision; its Budget was " vetted," not only by its own Executive Board, but by the Advisory Committee of the United Nations, whose experience and thoroughness, not to say severity, are known to all. U.N.E.S.C.O.'s accounts are audited by Sir Frank Tribe, the Coinptroller and Auditor-General of the United Kingdom; that in itself is no small guarantee. The frac- tion of the one; fifth of a penny that might have been wasted was fairly small.
What have we lost by this " economy," assuming that U.N.E.S.C.O. is' worth while; that the Chancellor, Mr. Butler, was right to set up its predecessor, the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education, in 1943; that we seriously intend to achieve the purposes embodied in its Constitution, which we signed? We have lost M. Torres Bodet, whO resigned the office of Director-General when the Budget cut was made. Torres Bodet was -admirably qualified to serve U.N.E.S.C.O. He had been Minister of Education, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, in his native country, Mexico; he was used to the responsibilities of leadership in public, and in international, affairs. He was bi-lingual, and bi-continental, from his birth; his mother was French. Before he began his political career, he had won wide literary fame by his writing in one of the richest of human tongues, his native Spanish. Today he is one of the four or five greatest living orators in French. He is a man of great practical ability, and great personal drive. When he became Minister of Education he organised 60,000 centres of instruc- tion to fight illiteracy, manned in great part by volunteers— doctors, lawyers, civil servants, people of leisure; within two years a million and a quarter men and women had learnt to read and write. Above all, he is, in the words of an American colleague, " a dedicated man." Simple, even ascetic, in his personal life, industrious to a fault, he brought to U.N.E.S.C.O. a burning faith in its mission, and a compelling resolution that it should succeed. There were men and women of more than forty nationalities on his staff; he had the ardent and unanimous devotion of them all.
We have lost the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of his Executive Board, who resigned with Torres Bodet, when the Budget they had approved was cut. Both M. de Carneiro of Brazil and M. Ribnikar of Yugoslavia were outstanding men; the political significance of their countries' leadership in U.N.E.S.C.O. is.. plaint We have lost the " modest develop- ments " of U.N.E.S.C.O.'s work which Torres Bodet had pro- m posed. The Conference, when it reduced the Budget, did not strike one single item from the programme which he had laid before them. But the programme must become " a paper façade "; the developments cannot now be carried out. We have even lost part of the work which U.N.E.S.C.O. has been doing hitherto. The annual income voted is, in money, what it was last year; but prices have risen; that means, in effect, a cut of seven per cent. Since the essential services of U.N.E.S.C.O. had already been vigorously pruned, it is the " field activities " that will be reduced.
What are these " field activities " ? What is the work we set U.N.E.S.C.O. up to do ? First for Torres Bodet, and most essential, is to give the United Nations its proper place in the national educational systems of all U.N.E.S.C.O.'s Member States; to make the peoples understand the Charter, the Declara- tion of Human Rights, Collective Security to uphold the Rule of Law, the essential unity of mankind, and the imperative necessity of international co-operation in the modern world. " What sense is there," asked Torres Bodet, " in having a principle for which millions of men lay down their jives, but which teachers do not mention in their classes ? " Remember- ing how the League of Nations came to disaster over Abyssinia, when the common people of every nation wanted to stop Mussolini's aggressive war, but did not know enough about the Covenant to realise how and when their Governments betrayed it; remembering how the Second War almost inevitably followed from that, must we not agree that this task is vital ?
Second, for Torres Bodet, was . U.N.E.S.C.O.'s world- campaign against illiteracy among adults. He wanted to do for other nations what he did for Mexico twelve years ago. When men learn to read and write, they open the treasure-house both of spiritual and material wealth. We think there can be no true civilisation that is not built on democracy and human rights. How can either be a reality for men and women Xo whom newspapers and books mean nothing ? The Western nations are devoting many millions to raising the living standards, increasing the wealth production, of the under- developed countries of the World. Mr. Eugene Black, the President of the U.N. International Bank, travels from continent to continent, working at this task with faith and vigour. The Bank's loans so far total £600 million. " But," says Mr. Black, " the execution of development schemes is grievously hampered by illiteracy." U.N.E.S.C.O. has given help and guidance in their anti-illiteracy campaigns to the Governments of many countries; but the task is vast=nearly half the population of the world can neither read nor write.
U.N.E.S.C.O. has developed a new conception that may be of inestimable value to Mr. Black, and to all who are working to wipe out poverty and disease in Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere. They call it " fundamental education." They send a team of experts to a village or a valley in a backward country where living-standards are very low. The experts study what the people need to know to raise their standards : how to care for their cattle, the making of roads, simple sanitation, the three Rs, the elements of local Government. By teaching them these things, they make development schemes possible where they were impossible before. There is a most successful Fundamental Education Training Centre at Patzcuaro in Mexico; a second has just been started in Egypt, with General Neguib's strong support. It is one of the hopes for the Middle East. Field projects have begun in seventeen countries. Under Torres Bodet U.N.E.S.C.O. took the lead in a world campaign for free and compulsory education, and in a scientific campaign against racial prejudice. It established an Interna- tional Centre of Workers' Education in France. It promoted inter-university co-operation; replaced the books that Hitler burned; organised regional conferences of Government officials, particularly in Asia, on public education. It started unifying the Braille systems of writing for the seven million blind people in the world, which led to the creation of the World Braille Council.
All this work, and how much more, must be hampered by the loss of Torres Bodet, and by the recent Budget cut. I believe the loss will far outweigh the trifling saving that was made. But the true lesson of this event applies not to U.N.E.S.C.O. only, but to the U.N. itself, to F.A.O., I.L.O., W11.0., the Interna- tional Bank. All this work needs, not budget-pruning, but great expansion, as quickly as it can efficiently be done. It is defence • expenditure, if the purpose of defence is to prevent another war. To strengthen the moral forces behind the Charter; to build up, by successful achievement, the authority of the new international institutions; to rid the world, by constructive international co-operation, of poverty, ignorance and disease— this is as urgently important as to increase our arms. It is a task in which all the backward countries ardently desire to share. But it will fail if the advanced countries, who ought to lead, seek first to save their pence.
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