declaration, he stressed, was a "key programme" in the struggle for the liberation of all the colonial peoples.
In a later statement, the USSR representative contended that the colonial powers had always objected to the discussion of questions relating to the political development of the Non-Self-Governing Territories. In the case of the "great colonies," where there was a developed national liberation movement, the colonialists were trying in every way to postpone the granting of political independence and to guarantee for the future the position of European minorities in those countries. In the case of the smaller territories, he said, they were maintaining them as bases for colonialism by merging them with the metropolitan countries, a line which was adopted by all colonialists. They were trying to use such territories as strategic bases and points of support for suppressing liberation movements andfor exerting pressure on neighbouring countries.
Discussion of the colonial question was a serious test for the United Nations, the USSR representative went on. Colonialism would be destroyed in any event, with or without the assistance of the United Nations, but the Organization could either accelerate the process, or stand indifferently aside—or perhaps even be an obstacle to the liquidation of colonialism. However, such a strong world opinion had been created in favour of the immediate and complete liquidation of colonialism that it could not be ignored by the colonial powers.
The declaration proposed by the USSR for the immediate and complete liberation of the colonial peoples from foreign domination would, he said, provide a solution of great historical and immediate practical significance.
The United Kingdom representative said he had hoped that the debate could have been a serious discussion of the ways in which all could help to realize the aspirations of those peoples who did not yet enjoy what the United Nations Charter described as a "full measure of self-government"—an aspect of world affairs with which the United Kingdom had long been vitally concerned. But he had been shocked, he said,at the way in which the USSR delegation had sought to pervert for its own purposes the deep and genuine desire for independence of so many millions of people.
The aim of the USSR draft declaration, he went on, seemed to be to generate hatred rather than friendship, violence rather than peace, and chaos rather than order.
Since 1939, he pointed out, some 500 million people formerly under British rule had achieved freedom and independence and their representatives sat in the General Assembly. In that same period, he said, the whole or part of six countries, with a population of 22 million, had been forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, including the world's "three newest colonies"—Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. In addition, the Soviet Union exercised economic, political and military domination over millions of others in neighbouring countries.
It would be of no service to the peoples of the rest of the world to allow the affairs of Africa and Asia to become lost beneath a barrage of charges and counter-charges, the United Kingdom representative declared. All he asked was that the United Nations machinery for dealing with Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories, and the structure of co-operation built up over the years, should not be destroyed by "unconstructive and irresponsible assaults." Those who, like the United Kingdom, subscribed without reservation to Chapter IX—of the Charter—dealing with Non-Self-Governing Territories—and had since honoured it in practice, had already accepted colonialism as an "out-of-date political relationship" in the sense that it involved the permanent subjection of one people to another.
The United Kingdom representative said he found it hard to improve on the terms of Article 73 of the Charter, by which administering powers undertook, among other things, to develop self-government in the territories under their control. However, the problems of the development of political independence varied according to the circumstances of the different territories. For example, there were no fewer than 29 Non-Self-Governing Territories under United Kingdom administration with a population of under one million each; 14 of these had a population of less than 100,000. The people of those small territories, he stressed, had to think carefully about their future. The United Kingdom considered that it had a solemn obligation to work out with the people concerned the form of
