Page:United Nations Security Council Meeting 1.pdf/7

7 bilities which we have undertaken in ratifying the Charter, I invite the members of the Council to proceed with the business before us. Let us commence our work in confidence and goodwill, and continue it in that spirit, not unaware of the difficulties which lie ahead, but determined to overcome them.

Edward Stettinius Jr. (United States of America): Before we proceed to the adoption of the agenda, may I congratulate you, as the representative of Australia, on becoming the first President of the Security Council. Also, may I congratulate you on the magnificent address that we have just heard. May I add, on behalf of the United States, that I am glad this honour has fallen to one of the smaller countries elected to the Security Council, and to one which joined so effectively with the larger nations in the grand alliance of the United Nations against the Axis aggressors.

Today's meeting of the Security Council, like last Thursday's meeting of the General Assembly, is an historic occasion.

For those of us who have been working over the past two years to bring the United Nations into being, today is a fulfilment of our hopes. It seems only yesterday, and was, indeed, little more than a year ago, that the preliminary plan of a Security Council began to take shape at Dumbarton Oaks.

But for the world, today's meeting is not a fulfilment but a beginning. The Assembly, together with the Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council, is responsible for building the kind of world in which lasting peace will be possible. The Security Council, on the other hand, must make the possibility a certainty; it must see that the peace is kept in fact. That grave responsibility has been delegated to it under the Charter by all the Members of the United Nations. The powers which the Charter gives to the Security Council are, I believe, sufficient for this purpose.

Whether it succeeds or not, however, depends upon the manner in which the members of the Security Council discharge the special obligation which they have assumed. This is the obligation to agree so that the Council may be able to act, and act effectively. It is the obligation to reconcile our differences, one by one, and to work together to fulfil the purposes and principles to which the Charter pledges all the Members of the United Nations.

To meet this obligation will often be difficult. It will require the highest kind of statesmanship from all the member nations, large and small. But it is an obligation that arises from the necessities of mankind's survival on this planet. The ability to meet it has been tried and tested and not found wanting in the terrible ordeal through which we have just passed. It has been tried and tested and not found wanting in the creation of the United Nations. Its mettle, I believe with all my heart, will stand the tests of peace to come, if for no other reason than because it must.