Evening star., 1945-03-06
Big Three Voting Plan
Called Step Backward
Observer Declares Teeth Drawn
From Dumbarton Organization
BY David Laurence


BY David Laurence
The Big Three have turned the clock
back. The new voting procedure in the
United Nations Security Council, the
authorship Of which has been oficially
attributed to President Roosevelt, takes
most of the teeth out Of the new Dunn
barton Oaks international organization
and offers the world something mani
festly weaker and more cumbersome
than the explicitly worded Covenant OF
the League of Nations.
If the new voting procedure is the
best that can be obtained, it should. of
course, be ratified at San Francisco but
nobody should be deceived into think
ing that a step forward has been taken,
because in reality there has been a
long step backward.
Any one who wants to Judge this
question for himself need only get a
copy of the Covenant Of the old League
OF Nations and compare it with tke
Dumbarton Oaks plan plus the newly
announced voting procedure. The diff
ferences are plain
Under the new scheme a vote has to
be taken by the Security Council to de-
termine whether q dispute should be
investigated or whether a declaration
should be made that the peace Of the
world is threatened.
Under the old League, these steps
were written into the Covenant itself
as original obligations of the Council,
under Articles 13, IA and 15 with mo
chance to upset the automatic opera
ton of those articles by complicated
voting about procedures.
Duties Were Clear.
When moral suasion by means of
publicity as to the merits of a dispute
failed and the Council of the old League
was left with the problem of what to
do, there was a definite commitment
against the use of force by the party in
the wrong. On paper at least, duties
and obligations were clear.
Thus the Covenant Of the old League
reads as follows:
If report by the Council is unani-
mously agreed to by the members
thereof other than the representatives
OF one or more of the parties to the
dispute, the members of the League
agree that they will not 60 to war with
any party to the dispute which COM
plies with the recommendations of the
report
"If the Council fails to reach a re-
port which is unanimously agreed to by
the members thereof, other than the
representatives of one or more of the
parties to the dispute, the members of
the League reserve to themselves the
right to take such action as they shall
consider necessary for the maintenance
of right and justice"
No such provision Is written into the
new charter of the United Nations, be-
cause under the voting procedure Just
announced there has to be vote taken
by the Security Council even before it
can be determined whether the matter
should be investigated, or whether the
council should make any recommends
tions or give any advice concerning the
dispute.
The old League went further and
said Should any member of the
League resort to war in disregard of
the covenants under Articles IL, 13, or
Is, it shall ipso facto be deemed to have
committed an act of war against all
other members of the League, which
hereby undertake Immediately to sub
ject it to the severance Of all trade or
financial relations, the prohibition of
all intercourse between their nationals
and the nationals Of the covenant
breaking state, and the prevention of
all financial, commercial, or personal
intercourse between the nationals of the
covenant-breaking state and the ma
tionals of any other state, whether a
member of the League or not.
On the Use Of Force.
ut shall be the duty Of the Council
in such case to recommend to the sew
eral governments concerned what ef-
fective military, naval or air force the
members of the League shsll severally
contribute to the armed forces to be
used to protect the covenants Of the
League"
Nothing so comprehensive or power
tul in the interest of preserving peace
is to be found in the new plan for an
international organizat ton In fact, the
voting procedure just revealed shows
that the larger nations of the world
are to be appealed to mostly by moral
force to keep the peace, but the smaller
nations may be coerced by the use of
physical force. The question that will
be debated naturally Is why the small
er nations must obey the edict Of the
Security Council, but the larger nations
are not so obligated.
Under the new procedure for the
United Nations also party to . dis
pute. even if guilty of aggression or a
threat to peace, can actually veto and
scuttle the taking of steps to enforce
peace. whether military or economic, by
the other member governments.
This is the position, of course, that
Marshal Stain has held out for from
the beginning, and apparently Presi-
dent Roosevelt has capitulated to the
Russian point Of view on the voting
procedure.
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