UN General Assembly
1951

68. There are surely many matters of lesser significance that might usefully disappear from our agenda altogether, or that could be dealt with appropriately by the Interim Committee, meeting when the Assembly is not in session. I was particularly impressed by Mr. Eden’s admonition to us to “grasp definite: and limited problems and work for their practical solution”. It seems to me necessary that we should apply the pruning shears to our agendas, and cut away items which clutter up the agendas without providing any prospect of finality or even progress. It seems to me further that it would be desirable to introduce some system of priorities with regard to the items that remain so as to ensure, firstly, that the Assembly is not called upon to meet for more than six weeks in the year and, secondly, that the Assembly is enabled to devote the greater part of its time to the dominating issues, to working for the practical solution of definite and limited problems. I fear that unless some attempt along these or other lines is made to ensure a more frugal and fruitful use of a more limited time, the Assembly will have to face the prospect in the future of a deterioration in the calibre of its delegates. Already the more important formulators of policy find themselves obliged to hurry away from our discussions after perhaps a fortnight, during which period the Assembly has scarcely yet settled down to its work.