The Committees

Cry cry what shall I cry?

The first thing to do is to form the committees:

The consultative councils, the standing committees, select committees and subcommittees. . . .

A committee has been appointed to nominate a conference of engineers

To consider the Water Supply.

A commission is appointed

For Public Works, chiefly the question of rebuilding the fortifications. . . .

O mother

What shall I cry?

We demand a committee, a representative committee, a committee of investigation. . . .

--from T. S. Eliot's Difficulties of a Statesman*

Many U.N. delegates, like Eliot, last week lamented the oppressive necessity of committee labors, as they left the soothing color schemes of the Flushing Meadows Assembly Hall and moved into the modernistic maze of council chambers at Lake Success. But, dreary as the impending committee sessions might be, they held greater promise of concrete accomplishment than the past week of oratory. The delegates would do their real work and fight their real battles in six main committees (each composed of representatives of all 51 United Nations):

Committee One: Political & Security (Spain, disarmament, presence of troops in non-enemy countries, the veto, new members). Chairman: the Ukraine's Dmitri Z. Manuilsky.

Committee Two: Economics & Finance (UNRRA, ECOSOC report on devastated areas). Chairman: Poland's Waclaw Konderski.

Committee Three: Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Matters (refugees, world health organization, equality of women, declaration of fundamental human rights). Chairman: New Zealand's Sir Carl A. Berendsen.

Committee Four: Trusteeship (South Africa's request for the annexation of South-West Africa and Russia's demand for a hand in all trusteeship agreements). Chairman: Uruguay's Roberto MacEachen.

Committee Five: Administrative & Budgetary Matters (first and second annual budgets). Chairman: Syria's Faris Al Khoury.

Committee Six: Legal Matters (adoption of an official U.N. Emblem, codification of international law). Chairman: Panama's Roberto Jimenez.

Miscellaneous: General (Steering) Committee; Headquarters Committee (choice of permanent U.N. site); Credentials Committee; Committee on Contributions (apportioning the share of financial support of U.N.).

The six main committees might branch out into 20 or more subcommittees.

*By permission of copyright owners, Harcourt Brace & Co., 1936.

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