went to war with Ethiopia. Technically he was at war with all the rest of the countries. England and France did not care to make it stick.

That is what you got into in the League, and that is what you will get into in the United Nations.

Take the veto out. You cannot force a great country like Russia or the United States, veto or no veto. If they think their vital interests preclude their doing what they are ordered to do, they will stand up and fight. They will They will say, "Come on, see if you can enforce

it."

Mr. COLMER. If you do not mind just a few of these elementary questions, I appreciate it. I will confess I do not know the answers, and I think I have given a little thought to it.

Along that line, what good purpose will the United Nations serve if it is not amended and cannot be amended? Will it be a sounding board, a forum?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes. The League of Nations did a lot of good through its bureaus, and I think the United Nations can do a lot of good educational work through its bureaus. It is not compulsion. It is just education and persuasion and gathering facts and statistics and laying them before the nations.

Mr. COLMER. It is more or less of a debating society?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes; but it is not a security organization.

Mr. COLMER. I agree with you on that, sir.

Mr. ROBERTS. But I think it is worth keeping all these nations in. I agree with Dr. Judd, we ought to keep Russia in. We ought not to let her out. If she goes out it ought to be her fault and not ours.

However, I see no reason in the charter, or anything else, why, if we think we can have greater prosperity, greater safety, and less expense to hook up with some other nation in a federation, I see no reason why the nations should say, "You should have asked us."

Look what we are doing in military affairs. You know what happened to the money you voted last December. You voted $300,000,000 to France. Ten days later she upped her military appropriation $266,000,000. Did your money go for relief? How can you control that in a league or even in a military alliance? The money that is spent for defense today by the democracies is being horribly wasted because France has one program for an army that is no good. Britain has a program for another army that is no good. We have another program for an enormous defense mechanism. They are not integrated. We are wasting the money. We could spend it all in one pot and under one purpose and under one legislature, and have a different picture.

Mr. COLMER. I am glad to have the opportunity to get an answer to some of these elementary questions that were on my mind.

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not think more difficult questions have ever faced human beings than those we are faced with now.

Mr. COLMER. I do not believe I am prepared to go along with you on some of these matters, but I am glad to have my own immature judgment confirmed, as far as I am concerned, on what the United Nations amounts to.

Mr. VORYS (presiding). Mr. Fulton.

Mr. FULTON. Mr. Justice, I am glad to see you here today, as a fellow Pennsylvanian, and I might say that were my senior partner

Mr. George Alten alive and here today he would feel his junior was much on the short end of the board.

very

I would like to clear up several questions. You said on page 1 of your statement that Russia will not consent. Actually, it does not make any difference whether she will consent or not, originally, because in her present temper and her present policy, she probably could not be depended later to follow it. Is that not correct?

Mr. ROBERTS. I think so. If the last 2 years of history, Mr. Fulton, mean anything, "Agreement" means something different to the Russians than what it does to you and me. I say that without heat or without intended criticism.

Mr. FULTON. With your comment that the United Nations is really a multipartite treaty, if that be the case strictly, what jurisdiction do you think this committee would have to look into any changes of the UN organization? Why should we in the House be concerned?

Mr. ROBERTS. I think you are concerned because this body is going to be called upon constantly for legislation, financial and otherwise, in suport of the United Nations, and I think that you are a body closer to the body of the voters than the Senate, who represents larger multiples States, and it seems to me that things of this kind, advice and expressions from any Member of Congress, are in order. I may be wrong, but that is my own personal view.

Mr. FULTON. While you may disagree and think that it is not worth while to pass any of the resolutions as are here in discussion, nevertheless do you rule out within the immediate future the possibility of a conference to discuss the questions? Would you oppose such a conference as may be had under section 109?

Mr. ROBERTS. I think so. I do not think it will get you anywhere, and I think it will only make your difficulties greater and cause delay. I say the house is afire now.

Mr. FULTON. Going further, you said, too, that the military alliance are not worth much because they can be abrogated immediately by any one of the powers in the alliance.

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes.

Mr. FULTON. Under section 51, as you know, there is provided the system for members getting together for mutual self-protection and defense.

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes.

Mr. FULTON. Would you then say that any proposed getting together in these regional units for self-protection and self-defense under 51, would be in the class of military alliance and therefore bad? Mr. ROBERTS. Well, it would be bad, not because there was anything in the charter to forbid it, Mr. Fulton, but it is just an unworkable set-up.

First of all, you would have the questions of the number of troops each sovereignty contributed, who would have the over-all command, whether you should have an advanced base in a city in France, or some other place. France would say, "You cannot have it there." Our experts would say, "It is no good unless you do have it there." You know those arguments.

Mr. FULTON. There was a discussion of Benelux, and their customs union. That, of course, is a customs union for economic development and cooperation under section 55 and 57 of the UN Charter, and is

approved by the International Trade Organization Convention and Charter.

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir.

Mr. FULTON. On the other hand, Brussels, The Hague, and the Inter-American Conference are actually under section 51, which is different, so they are on a different level. One type is economic and the other is defensive.

Mr. ROBERTS. The other is military.

Mr. FULTON. In addition to that under section 52, you could have regional developments and unions. Of course, the objection to that is that they would have to be approved by the Security Council. Then you could not do that because Russia would veto, would you say? Mr. ROBERTS. I am afraid so; yes.

Mr. FULTON. It therefore leaves you certain things that can be pursued, such as the International Labor Organization, International Trade Organization, International Refugee Organization, and other organizations under section 55, which you do not object to, do you? Mr. ROBERTS. No.

Mr. FULTON. You do believe that under 52 action is not possible because Russia will veto it when it comes before the Security Council?

Mr. ROBERTS. I would think so, and I do not think 52 would do what I want to do anyway, because I think 52 envisages agreements between sovereigns or arrangements between sovereigns. I think 51 and 52 apply to sovereign nations getting together by treaty and agreement. Mr. FULTON. You would have the same objection to 51 as 52, and also the objection to 51 that it would be a mere military alliance? Mr. ROBERTS. That is right.

Mr. FULTON. That causes you to oppose any action under the present set-up under the Charter, except for the formation of a real state? Mr. ROBERTS. That is it exactly, Mr. Fulton, and I find nothing in the charter that remotely prevents that.

Mr. VORYS (presiding). Mr. Lodge.

Mr. LODGE. I regret I was not able to be here earlier to hear your

statement.

Since there is no provision in the Charter which either allows or prevents the formation of the union, which is, as I understand it, what you have in mind, then in that case the important thing to establish, it seems to me, is just what the powers of this union are going to be. I take it, in the first place, it will have the power to declare a foreign policy?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir; it would have all the foreign relations of the member nations, just as the United States embraces the foreign relations of the States today.

Mr. LODGE. That foreign policy would be administered by a cabinet? Mr. ROBERTS. By an executive.

I have no ideas on the form of government. The British will say it should be a parliamentary government, and the Foreign Secretary cught to be under the control of the Parliament. To that I would not object.

Mr. LODGE. It would be a Government responsible to the will of the people.

Mr. ROBERTS. That is my idea of a Government, sir, and nothing else. Nothing else, to my mind, is a government.

Mr. LODGE. There is no question that in the union you envisage the American people would be outnumbered by the others, would they not? Mr. ROBERTS. They might or they might not.

Mr. LODGE. You would at least envisage that possibility? You would at least hope that that would be true?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, by counting noses, if you counted noses.

Mr. LODGE. Foreign policy has in recent times particularly become to a considerable extent a question of money, and it has been the money of the American people. This money is going to the 16 participating nations recently.

Would you suggest in the conduct of the foreign policy, that the outnumbered American people should be called upon to provide funds to implement this foreign policy upon the vote of people who were not Americans?

Mr. ROBERTS. Not the American people, the people of the federation.

Mr. LODGE. But they have nothing, as we know. We are the ones who are providing the wherewithal.

Mr. ROBERTS. I know of no principle that permits the Congress of the United States to vote the money of the people of California for any purpose. If this union has no money in its treasury from taxation that is evenly imposed on people, it would not function. It would not vote your money; it would vote its money.

Mr. LODGE. I am attempting to test the results which will flow from the application of the principle. That is, I realize, a mundane consideration.

Mr. ROBERTS. There were poor and rich States that went into our union.

Mr. LODGE. I make no comment as to the desirability of this principle. But from the application of this principle would there not flow the fact that since these other nations have not enough for themselves, and, secondly, since the United States has been called upon and is still being called upon to provide funds for these nations, in effect, in order to implement a foreign policy which is in large part supported by the American taxpayer, this would put the American taxpayer in the position of having taxes imposed upon him by other people to implement the foreign policy of this union, would it not? Mr. ROBERTS. I would say he would pay taxes just as they do, yes. Mr. LODGE. But you cannot get blood from a stone, Mr. Justice. Mr. ROBERTS. No; but Virginia and New York did not want to go into our union because they said they would be bled for the benefit of the poor States. It has not worked out that way at all.

Mr. LODGE. I am asking you if that is not the fact.

Mr. ROBERTS. I think it is not the fact that the American people's money would be voted to implement the foreign policy of this union. Mr. LODGE. It would not rest upon economic considerations at all; is that correct?

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not know. That would be for the parliament to determine.

Mr. JONKMAN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. LODGE. Yes.

Mr. JONKMAN. However, after 140 years, it did become a reality in the form of income tax?

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, I know the easterners complained about paying for roads in Arizona, but they are paying it, and are pretty proud to be Americans, anyway.

Mr. JONKMAN. You would undergo that risk?

Mr. ROBERTS. Certainly.

Mrs. BOLTON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LODGE. I will be glad to yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio. Mrs. BOLTON. Who would control the flow of immigration?

Mr. ROBERTS. Those are things the delegations from the countries should discuss. I believe, personally, that the immigration should be left where it is in the constituent states for a long period. Then if this union is any good, you will have then equated the scale of living to a great extent, and then I think you can pass the question of immigration of citizens over to your parliament. I think you will need some protection at the start against great bulges of immigration.

Mrs. BOLTON. You are simply calling this group together to devise something?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes; to see if they can devise something. The great thing about my proposition is it commits nobody to anything. It does just what the States did in 1787. They said, "Let us choose wise men." I would, for example, choose four from the House, four from the Senate, eight from the community at large for our delegates, to meet with similar delegates from other nations to explore if this thing is practical and can be done, and report back what they find.

Mrs. BOLTON. To whom would they report back?

Mr. ROBERTS. To the Congress; and then the Congress would submit it to the people for ratification.

Mrs. BOLTON. Thank you.

Mr. LODGE. Will you agree with this, that the American people have paid for, and are paying for, the various economic burdens which fall upon them because of the implementation of American foreign policy? Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir.

Mr. LODGE. You would also agree that that burden falls more or less heavily upon the several States, depending upon their ability as taxpayers to support that burden?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes.

Mr. LODGE. You would agree that that burden, in the case of the union, would fall more or less heavily upon the various members of that union, in accordance with their ability to pay!

Mr. ROBERTS. That depends upon your form of taxation, but “yes,” in general.

In other words, you are paying now the whole sock, are you not? You would continue to pay a lot of this until some of these other countries would have funds and could pay it.

Mr. LODGE. You would pay it not upon the vote of the American people, but upon the vote of all the people of that union?

Mr. ROBERTS. Certainly, a vote of their representatives.

Mr. LODGE. That might be a union in which the American people would be outnumbered?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes.

Mr. LODGE. Therefore, it would be possible for them to place a large burden on the American taxpayer in that connection?

Mr. ROPERTS. Yes, in the sense that the non-New Yorkers place a large burden of taxation on the people of New York today.