Equally necessary is the creation of a United Nations police force and inspection system. Competent scientists are in agreement that international inspectors could discover in its early stages any attempt to produce the illegal armament, provided the inspectors were given free access into every country.

The United Nations police force would have to be recruited on an individual basis and be responsible to the United Nations alone. It would have to be more powerful than the forces retained by any member nation or group of nations. There can be no peace within or between nations unless there are both established laws, and the certain knowledge that these laws can be promptly and decisively enforced. If such an offer were made by our Government and accepted by all members of the United Nations, universal and multilateral disarmment could safely be undertaken by each nation under a step-by-step agreement with each successive stage verified by inspection, so that as each nation gave up its arms it would be assured that others were doing likewise.

The first step toward these objectives is one that we must take for ourselves. A thorough debate on these measures must be begun in the Congress and accompanied by full public discussion of the issues. It would be a grave mistake to call a general conference of the nations before there was substantial majority support and understanding of the proposals to be put forward by our own Government. This debate would result, we can hope, in a clearly defined and major policy pronouncement by the United States that it was our intention to seek the quickest possible development of the United Nations into an effective federation. The next step would be for our Government to open negotiations with the other nations on the highest level. We can then proceed under article 109 of the Charter to propose the calling of a General Conference for United Nations revision.

This proposal by our Government must be made to all nations. Only under a universal structure of law extending throughout the world can the arms race be ended. We of United World Federalists are under no illusions concerning the character of the Soviet regime, and it is true that the Russian leaders are at present on record in opposition to the creation of enforceable world law. However, the Soviet Government is capable of sudden and sharp shifts in its policy. There is a chance that the Soviet Union might accept a definite and bona fide offer of common security under laws binding them and us alike. They stand to lose as much as we in a continued arms race and suicidal war. We must be willing to explore continuously every chance of obtaining their voluntary consent to the necessary world regulations. and controls.

If the Soviet Union should reject this proposal and if other nations proved willing to proceed, we should not withdraw from the United Nations and attempt to establish a competing organization. Rather the United Nations should be preserved for what it is worth as a forum for discussion. Those nations willing to join with us could then proceed with a partial federation, while remaining active members of the United Nations. This partial federation must not be formed as a mere military alliance against any government and it should only be created on condition that a continuing effort is made to gain the participation of those governments that first choose to remain outside.

Such a partial structure would not be in itself a means of ending the arms race, because so long as any powerful government rejected membership and continued to arm, the partial federation would have to develop a program of common defense. However, two things would have been accomplished.

First, we would have done all that lies within our power to insure the peace and in time we could hope that the political stability and common military strength of such a partial federation would invite eventual partcipation rather than attack. If the Soviet Union first refuses to join, we must wait out a change in Russian policy or leadership, while using every available means to inform the Russian people and convince the Russian Government that a fair opportunity to end the arms race is open to them.

Secondly, we would have actually strengthened our military defenses in the interim, as later expert testimony will help to demonstrate in detail.

In closing, let me remind the commttee of the gathering wave of public sentiment that is rising in every State of the Union and in many other nations in support of world federation.

I believe that the people today are ahead of their representatives in being willing to make some sacrifice of national sovereignty in return for the freedom from fear that only enforceable law can assure. Already 17 State legislatures have memorialized Congress asking that these steps be taken. In town after town, petitions demanding such a policy have been signed by a substantial majority of the voting citizens. In other nations, responsible political leaders have for a long time been advocates of federation-in England, both Bevin and Churchill; in Belgium, Spaak; in Free India, Nehru; in Canada, Prime Minister King. In addition, the constitutions of both France and Italy specifically provide for "limitations of sovereignty" necessary for an international organization which shall insure peace.

It is no longer a question as to whether the world will be politically organized as one unit. The discovery of the new weapons has made it inevitable that within the next few years some kind of world government will be created. We are only free to decide what kind of government it will be and how it is to be established.

There are two clear choices. On the one hand, we can join with other peoples in forming by rational and peaceful consent a federation for our common protection, under which the vast resources of modern science can be shifted from destruction to the means of sustaining life. If we have the foresight to choose this road, there lies before use a more generous existence than men have ever before dared to hope for.

On the other hand, we can cling to the shadowy abstraction of absolute sovereignty and follow the arms race through to its inevitable end in an atomic and biological war eliminating, as Eeinstein has warned, a third to a half the human population of the planet. The victors, if they can be called such, will be forced to establish a naked tyranny and a long night of primitive barbarism will descend upon our ingenious species.

You as the elected representatives of the American people have a large share of the responsibility for this decision. I hope that House Concurrent Resolution 59 will be reported out so that the House as a whole will have an opportunity to debate the issue.

Chairman EATON. Thank you, Mr. Meyer.

The Chair will state that we will begin questioning on the 5-minute rule. Once we have gone around on that, if there are further questions desired, we will leave the time open.

Mr. Vorys.

Mr. VORYS. Mr. Meyer, we are all impressed with your brilliant statement, which brings us up to the question but fails to answer it. You have stated that our Government has not yet defined its idea of the structure of an international security system, and you have listed, not the answers, but the questions that need to be answered. You then recommend that House Concurrent Resolution 59 be thrown onto the floor of the Congress.

As I conceive the responsibility of a committee under our representative system of government, it is the responsibility of the committee to propose, not the questions but the answers. It is our job to carry out the suggestions in that famous book, Peace or Anarchy, and it is your job to propose exactly what steps, with reference to armaments, taxation, international law, limitations of sovereignty, we will agree on in advance to give up for the common good.

Will you, or will some of the later speakers, give us precisely what your recommendations would be as to such a resolution?

Mr. MEYER. Yes. Let me say I agree with you that our Government would have to be prepared to define the areas in which it would be willing to accept some real limitation of its sovereign independence before going to such a conference.

I attempt to define here some of those areas regarding armament production, the power to form a criminal code-under which individuals and governments would both be held responsible-the power to provide an international inspection system which would have free access to the various nations, and a police force that would be preponderantly powerful.

As to the actual details of the constitutional structure itself, it does seem to me that we would have to leave considerable discretion with the constitutional convention itself to decide by compromise what the actual character of the legislature or the executive should be-or the judicial branch, for that matter-and how far the power should extend.

We should avoid going to such a conference with a constitution decided upon and then attempt to push it down the throats of each delegate at the conference.

Would you agree there would be an area of discretion?

Mr. VORYS. It seems that what you say is precisely the reverse of what you have recommended so ably before-that if we go there wide open we get nowhere, because the countries of the world do not know where the United States stands. And if we go with a specific proposal authorized by the Congress in advance saying, "this is our suggestion, gentlemen, and, as you can see by the approval of the Congress in advance, we are willing to go this far," then we have a real proposal to make.

That is the way we suggested the only real limitation of armaments plan ever carried out on this planet. We said: "This is what we will give up. Now, what do you fellows say?"

If

you go in with a definite proposal which we have already authorized our Government to make, we get somewhere. However, to

adopt House Concurrent Resolution 59 when you have no specific proposals, when this committee has no specific proposals, and when, as you have said, our Government has not yet defined the type of structure, it seems to me that is not what you proposed in your earlier writings.

Mr. MEYER. Sir, I would agree that perhaps some change in 59 might be required. Certainly two things should be said.

First, that we recognize there must be a substantial majority support. I do not know how specific it should be. On the one hand, you can be too specific, and, on the other hand, you can be too broad. You cannot define every specific detail in the constitution. You would not want to try that. You would want to define the areas where you would be willing to accept sovereign independence and be willing to compromise on the details. Certainly the resolution shall call for a major policy pronouncement by our Government that it is going to proceed as expeditiously as possible to change the United Nations to include such-and-such powers, and that it is willing to enter into negotiations with other governments to see how they react to such a conference. That may be an improvement on 59. Would you agree to that?

Mr. VORYS. I think it would be the only possible resolution that we would be authorized or justified in passing out of the committee. Chairman EATON. Mr. Richards.

Mr. RICHARDS. Mr. Meyer, you are in favor of the original objectives of the United Nations; is that right?

Mr. MEYER. Yes.

Mr. RICHARDS. You do not think the powers of that body go far enough?

Mr. MEYER. That is my feeling. The original objective of the United Nations was to eliminate the scourge of war, as defined in the preamble. However, the measures set up to proceed with that objective are deficient in many respects.

Mr. RICHARDS. I agree with that, but a baby must learn to crawl before he can learn to walk.

In your proposal here you recommend taxing powers. As a matter of fact, the member nations are already taxed or assessed for the upkeep of the United Nations. Now you propose taxes against the individual citizens of member nations; do you not?

Mr. MEYER. I think there is some area of compromise on that. For instance, there could be a taxing power on international trade or the revenues that would be obtained by the running of these largescale atomic energy plants which would have to be within that organization because of their being so easily switched to atomic bomb production.

The danger is that if you rely on voluntary assessments to be authorized by national legislatures, the UN may lack adequate funds.

You would achieve enormous savings on the tax structure of this country if a world law was set up. We are spending $17,000,000,000 in a competitive arms race. If you can end that and set up an international police force your expenditures for war preparations would be cut, I think, down to about one-tenth of what they are now.

Mr. RICHARDS. You want the United Nations to have power to tax citizens of the world?

Mr. MEYER. I believe some of the tax authorities-and I think some of the subsequent witnesses would be better prepared on this-but I think they feel that such funds could be gotten by taxing certain aspects of international trade. You might not have to get into the business of levying direct taxes on individuals within any separate government.

Mr. RICHARDS. You think the glaring weakness of United Nations is the lack of power over the individual?

Mr. MEYER. Yes.

Mr. RICHARDS. Do you refer to the field of crime, particularly? Mr. MEYER. I refer particularly to the fact that preparation for aggression-large-scale, international preparation to commit aggression-now can go on, and there is no way that it can be stopped, and the only recourse you are left with is that after you are attacked you have the privilege of defending yourself. And that is hardly possible now, in view of the weapons. That was perhaps possible when slowmoving infantry was involved. If you wait now, you wait until all the cities have been completely destroyed. Therefore, you have to have some legal right to proceed in any country against those people responsible for preparing or instigating aggression.

Mr. RICHARDS. Your organization would have been able to call Hitler, Stalin, or Roosevelt before its court.

Mr. MEYER. In 1932 German war preparations would have been easily determined and proceedings brought against those attempting to instigate that program.

Mr. RICHARDS. Would they be able to call the little man on the street who is speaking from a soap box?

Mr. MEYER. I believe there would be a question of whether there was a real and present danger of the words being spoken leading actually to war. I think that would be a decision for the courts to decide.

Mr. RICHARDS. Suppose we cannot do all these things you are talking about? What is the first thing you propose in the matter of the revision of the Charter? What do you think would be the most essential thing, if only one thing could be done?

Mr. MEYER. I think you are suggesting that perhaps the elimination of the veto power might be the first step. I myself feel very strongly that to attempt to change the veto power without many fundamental changes in other respects in the Charter would be a serious mistake.

You are faced with a one-nation, one-vote rule, which is an unjust manner of representation. The people south of the Rio Grande have 22 votes and we, north of the river, have 2. This is unjust.

Mr. RICHARDS. How would you change the voting system?

Mr. MEYER. You would have to change it with an eye to a number of factors. In other words, you cannot base it on population alone. You would have to take into account literacy and industrial development. They would be placed in a general formula determining the number that each country should be permitted to have. These should be reassessed at 3- or 5-year intervals.

Mr. RICHARDS. I believe we will agree, then, that if you can do it without doing other things the most essential thing to do now is to provide machinery to handle aggression and preparation for aggression.