South Yorkshire Times, October 14th 1944
“White Paper” On Peace
A White Paper on international security. That description seems to fit the report on the Dumbarton Oaks conference as well as any.
These tentative proposals advanced by the Big Four of the United Nations have not yet the validity of a league of Nations Covenant, but they represent a well-prepared foundation on which it ought to be possible to erect a more permanent framework of peace than has been achieved in modern times. It is not denied that the first League of Nations was the practical interpretation of a worthy ideal. The trouble was that it was not practical enough. Founded on the best of intentions it lacked the ability, as well as the power, to translate these into action when the necessity arose. An examination of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals suggests that the virtues of the old League have been retained but serious efforts have been made to provide a successor more closely related to realities; able to turn more quickly to the material means for keeping the peace.
One aspect of this realism is the prominent share allotted in the operation of the proposed machinery of world order to the great peace-loving powers, Britain, America, Russia, China and, “in due course,” France will have the lion’s share in this all-important task, as they are to have the five permanent seats on the suggested Security Council. Six Assembly are offered to other members of the organisation. As the proposal is that three of these seats should be filled each year, the non-permanent members being elected for two years and that these members should not be immediately eligible for re-election, provision appears to have been made for are reasonable rota of representation for the smaller powers. Some exception may be taken to this differentiation between the position of large and small powers, but the unwieldiness of the old League was one of its great shortcomings, and if a compact executive is to be created it can hardly fail to lean towards those powers on whom the heaviest burden of responsibility is likely to fall.
It is important to remember that the findings of the conference remain to be endorsed by the Allied governments, who are also left to fill in one or two notable gaps in the structure. Chief of these is the question of voting procedure in the Security Council, a point which will not only have to be very seriously examined by the Big Four from their own individual angles, but which also bears materially In the extent to which the smallest powers are to be allowed an effective voice in the counsels of the suggested organisation.
The proposals are not altogether explicit as to how armed force is to be placed at the disposal of the Council. Still, it is a big step forward from the old Legue that the member nations are to hold this armed force ready for the new one, and that there is to be a Military Staff Committee to advise on military measures. What is also encouraging is that the proposals are not confined merely to protective and preventive expedients directed against the eruption of war, but also involve provisions concerning international economic and social co-operation. The aim here is to create conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations. Broadly speaking the aim of the conference seems to have been to retain and expand the highly satisfactory understanding which has been established between the four great powers of the United Nations through the exigencies of war, and to enlarge its scope and extent its spirit in a continuing organisation whose first objective is the prevention of a third world war. However, these suggestions are developed it is of fundamental importance that the nations concerned shall consider themselves not less firmly bound together in the task of safeguarding peace than they have done in waging war. Division then, as now, would spell disaster.