No Card Vote

"If anyone suggested the abolition of the 'card vote' in the trade union movement, he would be defeated by the squeals," was the opening remark of Mr. James Ferguson (M.A., B.Sc., Dip. Ed.) speaking on US foreign policy. "Yet in the General Assembly of the UN, countries like New Zealand with two millions are equated with countries like India with 347 millions."

Thus the US resolution branding China as an "aggressor" was carried when seven countries with a population of 632 millions opposed it and 43 countries with a population of 562½ millions (plus a government claiming to represent the 463 millions in the country being branded) voted for it.

This event, claimed Mr. Ferguson, epitomised the type of crooked dealing by which the US "managed" the United Nations.

Mr. Attlee had stated on 23rd January (six days before this vote) that "We are of the opinion that the UN should not at this stage take a new and important decision." The subsequent British surrender on this point was a result of blackmail.

Breaches of Charter

Other decisions had been taken by the US in open defiance of the spirit and letter of the UN Charter; they had been either later ratified or entirely overlooked by the servile majority in UN.

The Atlantic Pact, said Mr. Ferguson, contravened Articles 52-54 of the Charter which make it quite clear that all such "regional arrangements" must be under the authority of the Security Council unless they are directed against a former enemy.

Sounding-Board

The old lie that the Soviet Union used UN merely as a "sounding-board for propaganda" was carefully nailed by Mr. Ferguson. He pointed out that the Soviet Government had followed up their UN resolution against war propaganda by carrying a law in the Supreme Soviet making propaganda for war a criminal [unclear: offence]. He compared this with the US-sponsored rejection (7-4) by the Human Rights Commission of a Soviet-French resolution condemning race-hate propaganda. The British apology was that such a move would "limit freedom of speech." (Evening Post, 2.5.50.)

At the very first session of the Human Rights Commission in December 1948 the American delegation had proposed that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights be not binding on its signatories. The American suggestion that only "arbitrary" racial and religious discriminations be condemned was defeated 6-9. A Soviet suggestion that the more concrete words "and before the courts" be added to the right of "equality before the law" was vigorously opposed by the Americans, who also fought against a further Soviet suggestion that there be an article stating "that everyone has the right to participate in the elections for the government of his country." The Americans also opposed "the universal right to medical care."

Many such examples could be listed.

Slave-Camps and Smoke-Screens

Salient—15

The Federation did not accept the invitation, neither was the Soviet resolution carried. "Can it be," asked Mr. Ferguson, "That America and her satellites are frightened to have conditions in Siberia compared with those in Nigeria, Alabama, Malaya, Tanganyika, Brazil?"

Shadow of Hiroshima

Mr. Ferguson carefully outlined the history of UN discussions on atomic energy. He stated that many Americans (including Einstein) preferred the Gromyko Plan to the Baruch Plan. In Chapter XI of his book "The Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy." Prof. Blackett characterised this latter plan as "an astute diplomatic move ... a specious plan." He declared that in it the US was expressing a desire not to outlaw atomic energy for war purposes, but for ownership by an international trust (American controlled like other UN agencies, and in this instance badly "capitalist" to boot of all atomic plants.

In other words it was only to be a "maybe" control for America, but unconditional for everyone else.

"If that is bluff, why doesn't somebody call it?" asked Mr. Ferguson. He suggested that the present policy of the US was not concerned with peace or arms production, but with imposing its will on other nations.

Gore in Korea

These facts, together with Truman's jump-the-gun order of troops for Korea, the later fast move put across an incomplete meeting of the Security Council, backed up by hearsay evidence which would be laughed out of any court, and the Security Council's decision for War as opposed to their Conciliation moves in Indonesia, Palestine, and Kashmir—all these things convinced Mr. Ferguson that US-dominated UN policy did not serve the interests of world peace.

Side by Side?

The only answer to that policy lay in insistence on the peaceful co-existence of socialism and capitalism side by side, so that all the world could see which system could use atomic energy and the other resources of the earth most profitably for the peaceful betterment of mankind.

This was the theme of an address by James Winchester M.A.

The question of whether this view did not conflict with Lenin's "State and Revolution" was answered by statements that the Soviet Union had never provoked revolution outside her own borders—such policies went out with Trotski. Allegations of Soviet support to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War had been proven false. Judge Lowe had said there was no foreign money or orders given to the Australian Communists (Evening Post, 31.4.50).

If the people of any nation chose to move to socialism, that was their business. The Italian elections of 1948, events in Greece and France, made it apparent that US policy was to resist such changes to the utmost.

Mr. Matthews' talles on the World Peace Movement as a practicable way of forcing the peaceful co-existence of the two systems onto the world, will be reported in the next issue.

—C.B.