CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE
THE trouble with the Earl of Horne is that hex is not Mr. Butler. His attack on the United Nations, had it been made by the Home Secre- tary, could have been written off as another of Mr. Butler's celebrated indiscretions, whether cal- culated or not. A question or two from the Oppo- sition when Parliament- reassembled, mainly for form's sake, a shuffle by the Prime Minister, a lop-sided grin from the culprit, and it would have been all over ,until the next time. But the Earl of Home, strange as it may seem, can nor- mally be expected to say what he means, and indeed to mean what he says.
Nor is it possible to dismiss the Foreign Secre- tary's remarks, as it might have been had they been made by his predecessor in the past, as the views of a somewhat over-parted politician play- ing in a drama a little too deep for him. The fashionable Left-wing stereotype of Lord Home as an effete upper-class noodle is ludicrously wide of the mark. Despite the aristocratic absurdities of his mien, Lord Home has been a Foreign Secretary of very much greater weight and shrewdness than is generally realised. This, indeed, is to a great extent why the Left-wing stereotype has been constructed; the Earl of Home has been, and has been seen to be, one of the leaders of the 'hards' in the Government, and many of the 'sons' outside it know this very well. Lord Home's behaviour at the United Nations last year, for instance, in standing up very squarely to Soviet threats, and his resolute support of a firm Western policy over Berlin, has been by no means to the taste of the appeasers; but he has deserved for it the thanks not only of the Berliners but of all those whose concern is to preserve both peace and freedom. His celebrated exhortation to his fellow- countrymen to get a grip on themselves was like- wise ridiculed by those who had long since lost their grip on everything; but as a warning that a nation without belief in its aims or determination to pursue them is in grave danger, it was both necessary and true. The real menace in Lord Home's Berwick speech is that there is no reason to suppose it anything but fully representative of the Govern- ment's thinking in this field. There is indeed a crisis of confidence in the United Nations. But it has been artificially created, and Lord Home's speech is an unhappy indication that the British Government is, to say the least, not energetically involved in attempting to allay it. The trouble stems, of course, from the desire of too many governments, and prominent among them ours, to believe that the United Nations can be more than the sum of its parts while working busily to ensure that it is not. The United Nations is not, and has never had a chance of being, a World Government or anything like it. There is nothing mystical about its sessions, and nothing comes out of them that could not be predicted by anyone familiar with the views of the organ- isation's members. Communist nations behave like Communist nations, colonial powers behave like colonial powers, African nationalists new to self-government behave like African nationalists new to self-government. In other words, the nations behave selfishly, pursuing their own national ends. There is nothing surprising in this, and it would be putting the matter on far too lofty a plane even to find it deplorable.
Yet when ,too many other governments behave like his own, Lord Home complains. When other countries pursue their own interests instead of ours, he permits himself to wonder whether the organisation has 'had its day.' But he cannot have it both ways; if ,Britain—very properly— cannot divest herself of sovereignty because the United Nations is demonstrably not the right body to receive it, why should other countries be expected to do the same? Of course the struc- ture of the organisation has become lop-sided as the new nations have gradually increased their numbers within it. But this was inevitable from the start, and only those who persisted in regarding the organisation as a kind of super- government should be surprised. It cannot be too often emphasised that on the major international political questions the UN is a debating cham- ber, not a senate. With all its imperfections, if provides the one place where the nations can meet and talk, on a global scale, instead of resorting to war on the same scale. Nations may continue to ignore the Charter when they feel like it—to a Hungary and a Suez there is now added a Goa; but it is, for all that, the best United Nations we have. And the best United Nations we have is also the best hope we have. It would better become the British Government to get behind and push rathe than stand in front and obstruct, or stand to one side and sneer.
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