" BUILDING SECURITY "
Six,—Your leading article in The Spectator of March 19th presents an admirable analysis of the existing threat to peace and freedom. But what remedies does it propose ? You describe the good work being done on both sides of the Atlantic to put the Marshall Plan through. But the sixteen nations now conferring at Paris are dealing with economics, not with defence. Is this enough ? You approve the new treaty between ' Britain, France and the Low Countries. Undoubtedly it is a step in the right direction. But the nations who have most to fear—Greece, Turkey, Iran, Norway, Sweden—gain no protection from this treaty. Some of them will hesitate to accede to it, for obvious reasons. You point out that these arrangements will be kept " in perfect harmony with the United Nations Charter." Is it not time that we stopped merely paying lip-service to the Charter, and began to apply its basic ideals in a way that could save the peace ?
In a new statement of policy just issued by the executive committee of the United Nations Association, it is argued that the time has come to strengthen the U.N. Charter. This can be done by the immediate conclusion of a new world-wide defence pact, which would bind all sig- natory nations to take instant action in defence of any victim of aggres- sion. Such a pact would greatly assist those who work for peace in many countries in their struggle against isolationists. Open to all nations, fettered by no veto, it could mobilise the wbrld-wide longing for peace in a way that no local agreements could. It could halt aggression not only in Western Europe but in the Mediterranean and Asia.—Yours, &c.,
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