Political and External Affairs
CHAPTER 26 — Small Power Rampant
CHAPTER 26
Small Power Rampant
DETERIORATING relationships between Russia and the West can now be seen as the clue to much that happened at San Francisco; yet it would be anachronistic to over-emphasise the part played by this development in the minds of most of the participants. Idealism as well as consciousness of tension was brought to San Francisco and, paradoxically, the Allies of the Second World War had their peace conference before the fighting was over and when they thought they were doing something else. The conference excluded, of course, direct representation of the enemy—as the 1919 conference had done—but apart from that factor, it was to an unparalleled degree representative of the world. It provided a means by which the realities of power could be revealed and could be shaken down into a pattern. This process, though at times grievously disappointing, was not without elements of hope.
1 Department of External Affairs, United Nations Conference on International Organisation, Publication No. 11.
1 Churchill, Second World War, Vol. IV, p. 719.
2 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 1642–3. Cf. Hopkins Papers, Vol. II, p. 742.
1 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 1646; McNeill, p. 322.
2 Quoted McNeill, p. 335. The declaration is summarised on p. 331.
Thus far was common ground, but decisions had to follow which would define the new organisation's essential character. One tendency, maybe even a final decision, was indeed embodied in the mechanics of these very preliminary discussions. Despite the vehement demands of Australia and New Zealand for a wider basis of discussion, the future world was being planned by the representatives of the Big Three, with China as a somewhat problematical fourth partner; and the draft proposals before them were frankly based on the presumption of their own permanent predominance. It is true that of the spokesmen present the British delegates knew dominion opinion very well and were understood to be keeping it in mind.1 It is true, too, that throughout the discussions there were regular consultations between the dominion representatives in Washington and the British delegation to Dumbarton Oaks. Yet wise representatives of small powers knew very well that the leaders of their great allies were not seriously concerned about their opinions, and that if a world organisation was set up New Zealand could not stand aside, however grave she judged its defects to be. Even with respect to her well-tried friends in Britain, Fraser knew well that in many cases they had to act without consulting dominion opinion, or even at times against the known wishes of their overseas associates. ‘While the representatives of the United Kingdom honestly give adherence to the whole conception of the Dominions having a full voice in world affairs,’ he said, ‘yet almost automatically they act in an emergency as if that adherence was overlooked for the time being.’ Such action he acknowledged to be at times unavoidable. But, he added, ‘when it comes to a series of events that means practically exclusion, the time is ripe for the next consideration.’
1 SSDA to NZ Minister of External Affairs. 23 Aug 1944.
By September the great powers had carried their theoretically private discussions to the point of agreement on general principles, namely that there should be a world-wide organisation, naturally under their own leadership; and to the point of deadlock on a crucial issue of detail. The problem concerned voting procedure on the Security Council, on which was to rest ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.’ All four powers agreed that sanctions should only be ordered with their concurrence. This departed from League of Nations precedent only in that it limited the veto to the great powers on the Council. The Russians wished, however, that the veto should go further than this. They wished in particular that it should cover substantive questions, that is questions other than procedure, and should be valid even when one of the great powers was party to a dispute brought before the Security Council. After some discussion and long delay the Russian Government announced on 13 September its final and unalterable decision to insist on ‘the principle of Great Power unanimity. In their opinion a world organisation embodying this principle would be quite acceptable to smaller powers whose one ultimate concern was security2.’ The British and American governments said with equal firmness that they could not accept a system which placed great powers ‘above the law’ and that they doubted whether other United Nations governments could be induced to accept such a system.3
1 McNeill, pp. 508–9.
2 SSDA to NZ Minister of External Affairs, 15 Sep 1944.
3 Ibid., and Stettinius, Roosevelt and the Russians, p. 28. Roosevelt does not seem to have felt any incompatibility between his rejection of the idea that one of the parties to a quarrel should sit on the jury in its own case and his support of the Great Power veto on enforcement action.
The deadlock could not be broken, and the sensible course was adopted of publishing the very considerable material on which agreement had been reached. ‘The question of voting procedure in the Security Council’, together with ‘several other questions’, was noted as being ‘still under consideration.’ Among these other questions, incidentally, was that of membership of the new organisation. This was declared to be ‘open to all peace-loving states.’ This cautious phrase decently concealed a further unresolved problem. The Russians tended to think of the new organisation as being a continuation of the wartime alliance. They disliked an American suggestion that a group of non-belligerent states which was predominantly Latin-American should be admitted to it, and their counter-suggestion was that the sixteen Soviet republics should become members. This view caused consternation in the British and American delegations and by mutual consent the whole matter was dropped.1 The remarkable thing about the Dumbarton Oaks conference was the area of common ground. It reflected, in fact, the relationship among the Allies while Germany was still a formidable enemy and before the Russians had established the Lublin government in Poland. ‘The surprising thing,’ observed Stalin piously, ‘is not that differences exist, but that there are so few of them and that as a rule in practically every case they are resolved in a spirit of unity and co-ordination among the three great powers2.’
1 McNeill, p. 506.
2 Quoted McNeill, p. 510, from Stalin, Great Patriotic War, pp. 137–8.
3 Department of External Affairs, The Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, Publication No. 7, 1944. It may be noted that the proposals as issued by the British and American governments were unsigned, since the Russians had made it known that they would not be associated with any proposals arising at Dumbarton Oaks which were signed by China.
The views thus sketched were amplified and sharpened in discussions held in November in Wellington with an Australian delegation headed by Herbert Evatt. The two dominions agreed that ‘all members should pledge themselves to co-operate in carrying out, by force if need be, the decisions of the organisation for the preservation of peace.’ They thought that ‘it should be a positive principle of the organisation, openly declared and binding upon all members, that the territorial integrity and political independence of members should be preserved against a change by force or threat of force from another power.’ Insistence on this last provision, indeed, was ‘the specific New Zealand contribution to this whole debate.’ They agreed, too, in stating the principle of trusteeship in its most comprehensive form.
No pronouncement was made, however, on the vexed question of voting procedure. Presumably, the New Zealand Government at this stage did not attach great importance to the issue. In September Berendsen for New Zealand had said that if Russia proved adamant it might be possible to accept a veto for great powers even when their own cases were in question.2 In October, considered New Zealand judgment appears to have been that she ‘prefers equal voting privileges, but would accept a Great Power veto.’ Her government was not alarmed at the possibility that the veto might be used as a cover for aggression, and on the other hand, pointed out the precedent of the imperfectly legal action taken by the League in the Abyssinian crisis: ‘if the situation is one in which the other Great Powers are prepared to take collective action against the dissentient Power, they will probably find the means of doing so, and of enlisting the co-operation of the Organisation as a whole, even if there is no formally valid resolution3.’ Fraser's own attitude was still tentative. We wish, he said, to avoid any action, however small, that might cause a breach with Russia, ‘because she is essential to the peace of the world’, but the price paid for her co-operation would be exceedingly high if the smaller powers merely acquiesced in their own submergence. ‘It is difficult and it is delicate, but I do not think anything can ever be lost by a declaration of the fundamental democratic principles4.’
2 NZ Minister, Washington, to Minister of External Affairs, 14 Sep 1944.
4 Record of conversation attached to proceedings of 4th meeting, 6 Nov 1944.
The deadlock on voting procedure was at last broken on Roosevelt's initiative. On 5 December 1944 he proposed to Churchill and Stalin a complicated compromise formula. Its effect would be, he explained, that the parties to a dispute should abstain from voting so long as the matter concerned was one of the pacific settlement of disputes, or of peaceful adjustment. On the other hand, unanimity of the permanent members of the Council would be needed in all decisions relating to the determination of a threat to peace or action for removal of such a threat, or for the suppression of aggression or other breaches of the peace. Roosevelt argued that by accepting such a compromise the great powers would strengthen their position as guardians of the peace without deviating from the principle of unanimity in all decisions affecting their vital interests.1 New Zealand, being consulted on this new plan, reported in January 1945 that she saw some difficulties of interpretation, but ‘would welcome an extension of the area within which equality of voting rights as between Greater and Smaller powers is to prevail. If, therefore, it is impossible to secure Soviet adherence to a proposal that the votes of the parties to a dispute should in no case be counted, which is a solution which the New Zealand Government would prefer, that government would support the President's proposal as offering a balance of advantage2.’ In the following month, Roosevelt's formula was placed before the Yalta Conference, with Churchill's acquiescence, and with information that it was satisfactory to the self-governing dominions.3 After some thought it was accepted by Stalin; which represented, perhaps, the main concession made from the Russian side to the general settlement which appeared to be reached on that occasion.
1 SSDA to Minister of External Affairs, 18 Dec 1944. Cf. Stettinius, p. 51.
2 Minister of External Affairs to SSDA, 9 Jan 1945.
3 Stettinius, p. 137.
1 Evatt to Fraser, 6 Jan 1945.
2 SSDA to NZ Minister of External Affairs, 17 Jan 1945.
At San Francisco Fraser fought hard along the lines he had indicated to his Commonwealth colleagues in these preliminary discussions. On 3 May he launched a forthright attack on the veto, as agreed between the great powers. This time he had an answer to Attlee's realism. ‘There is a great difference,’ he said, ‘between a nation defying the Council in violation of its pledge to accept, observe and morally abide by the decision, and a nation being legally empowered to exercise defiance of the Security Council…. It is also clear that if the veto is exercised in such a case defiantly, and perhaps even cynically, the faith of men and of nations in the World Organisation would collapse.’ If the veto, wrong as he thought it in principle, could nevertheless not be avoided, he said it should be restricted exclusively to the matter of enforcement action against aggressors. Fraser also took particular exception to the opportunity which Roosevelt's compromise had left open to the great powers of using the veto in the preliminary stages of handling a dispute in which they were not themselves involved.1
Long discussions followed, and New Zealand supported an Australian amendment to restrict the veto to measures involving the use of force. In practice the United States delegation were the strongest defenders of the veto and discussion became at times heated and personal. On one occasion Senator Tom Connally pointed ‘an accusing finger’ at Berendsen and is reported to have said, ‘You, Mr Berendsen, where would you be today if the United States had had to ask the United Nations for permission to defend your country even before the South Pacific had run red with American blood?’ Eloquence apart, however, the unanswerable case for the veto was simply that the great powers were so determined to have it that, unless it were established, there would be no United Nations Organisation. The New Zealand delegation judged that ‘the veto in the form proposed was repugnant to the wishes of practically every member except the Great Powers and those who by policy or interest made it a point of always supporting the Great Powers2.’ Yet, as was to be expected, the Australian amendment was defeated; there were 20 votes to 10 with 15 abstentions.
1 Department of External Affairs, New Zealand and the San Francisco Conference, Publication No. 10.
2 Department of External Affairs, United Nations Conference on International Organisation Publication No. 11, p. 78.
When the final text of the veto clauses was put to the vote New Zealand abstained lest the provision should lack its two-thirds majority. ‘As it had become abundantly clear that the Charter could not be obtained without the veto in the form suggested,’ reported the delegation, ‘it was on the whole, the wise and proper course at that stage not to vote against the veto and thereby possibly wreck the Charter, but to abstain from voting, making plain to the Conference and the world the reasons for so doing1.’ The matter therefore was closed, with New Zealand adopting her historical position. She expressed her own judgment with cogency and at times with vehemence. Yet her appraisal of her own influence was realistic and she accepted the inevitable with dignity.
Throughout these discussions New Zealand appeared very much as the independent small power, and not at all as belonging to a Commonwealth bloc. Indeed, as a great power, Britain was on this issue in the opposing camp; even if her refusal of further compromise was, like that of the United States, primarily due to belief that the existence of the veto was a necessary condition of Russian co-operation. New Zealand acted more often in accord with other dominions, particularly Australia, with whom her co-operation was close and continuous. Again, according to Fraser's report, ‘Belgium, the Netherlands, Mexico, Greece, Egypt, Brazil, Chile and Cuba’ were states with whom ‘in many important respects we shared a mutual understanding, sympathy and enthusiasm2.’ From New Zealand's point of view, the whole conference was something like a climax in the development of her international status. She was fortified by prior consultation with sister British nations in London, and by their friendly presence in San Francisco. But ‘without impairment of the essential unity and solidarity of the British Commonwealth’,3 she freely and candidly advocated her own individual policy with respect both to the veto and to other matters only less important.
1 Department of External Affairs, Publication No. 11, p. 79; NZPD, Vol. 268, p. 574; Mansergh, Documents, Vol. II, p. 1096.
2 Department of External Affairs, Publication No. 11, p. 9.
3 Ibid., p. 1.
Fraser remained unconvinced, and he brushed aside the difficulties of defining aggression. Smuts and Attlee seemed to him to be talking about prospective conflict between Russia and the West. In so far as this remained a clash of ideas, he could not see how the international organisation could handle it, and he went on to express the misgivings, quoted elsewhere, at the prospect of an ideological war along these lines.
1 SSDA to Minister of External Affairs, 3 Nov 1944.
This campaign culminated, then, in honourable defeat, and much the same can be said of the efforts made by New Zealand and other small powers to obtain, through the General Assembly, a greater share in the determination of action to check aggression. New Zealand pressed forward an amendment requiring that, except in cases of urgency, the Security Council's decisions should be endorsed by a simple majority of the General Assembly. ‘The present proposals,’ said Berendsen, ‘would bind the smaller powers for all time to send their sons to die as a result of decisions taken by unknown men in unknown circumstances based on unknown principles2.’ In the Prime Minister's more temperate phrase, ‘in matters of peace and war no responsible government, large or small, can sign away the right to pass judgment itself, in its own Parliament and through its own Constitution and forms.’ New Zealand, he said, had not shirked her responsibilities in war. She ‘asks now to be given an opportunity to meet adequately her responsibilities in time of peace. We are not prepared to be relegated to a position of “theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die”3.’ The New Zealand amendment was, of course, defeated; but there was some recognition of the principle behind it in the partial acceptance of another amendment on the same subject proposed by the Canadians.
1 Department of External Affairs, Publication No. 11, pp. 22–6.
3 Department of External Affairs, New Zealand and the San Francisco Conference, Publication No. 10, p. 6.
1 Department of External Affairs, Publication No. 11, p. 89.
2 Article 43; and Department of External Affaris, Publication No. 11, p. 90.
Neither vigour of protest nor urgency of argument could, of course, shake the plain fact of great-power dominance. No constitutional nicety could greatly alter the result if the Big Three were agreed; nor could it reconcile them if they disagreed. Half concealed among the debates of the concluding months of the war were problems which had little to do with details of the Charter, with voting procedure, or even with ethics or political principles. Would the wartime co-operation achieved between Britain, the United States and Russia, which was bumpy and uneven, but in the upshot adequate, continue or dissolve? Could Britain, with such associates as she could muster, hold her own with America and Russia politically, economically and morally? Would Western dominance of the world, symbolised in the giant strength of the United States and the power of Western ideas in Russia, continue? Was there any challenge brewing—in Asia and northern Africa for example—to create a problem of adjustment for the stiff minds of men bred in Europe and North America in the half century that closed when atom bombs fell on Japan? Much of the legal and constitutional machinery painfully constructed at San Francisco proved irrelevant to such gigantic problems: both the debates and the provisions resulting from them may have had their main importance in their tendency to make power politics operate more or less smoothly, and with more or less deference to the idealistic and humanitarian aspirations which were reflected, to an exceptional degree, in New Zealand pronouncements on foreign policy.