The Substitute for Force: JUSTICE UNDER LAW

Addressing the 18-nation Suez conference in London last week, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles delivered an extemporaneous and eloquent speech on the duties that go with the search for peace. Excerpts:

THIS meeting is far more important than just a question of whether a boat or two gets through the canal or does not get through, or even whether the canal breaks down. Upon what we do, in my opinion, will very largely depend the question of whether or not in fact we are going to build a peaceful world.

We all want a world in which force is not used. But that is only one side of the coin. If you have a world in which force is not used, you have also got to have a world in which a just solution of problems of this sort can be achieved. I don't care how many words are written into the Charter of the United Nations about not using force--if in fact there is not a substitute for force in some way to get just resolutions of some of these problems, inevitably the world will fall back again into anarchy and into chaos.

The United Nations Charter itself does not just say, "There must be peace." What does it say? The very first article of the United Nations Charter says that the purpose of the United Nations is to bring about settlements "by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and of international law."

Now we are faced here with a problem whereby great nations are faced with a great peril. Nobody, I think, can fairly dispute that fact. It is a peril that they could readily remedy if they resorted to the methods which were lawful before this Charter was adopted. Then, we wouldn't be sitting around here--perhaps somebody else wouldn't be sitting where he is, either. But those days, we hope, are past, and there has been exercised, and is being exercised, a very great restraint in the face of a very great peril. But you cannot expect that to go on indefinitely unless those of us who appreciate the problem rally our forces to try to bring about a settlement which is not only peaceful but a settlement "in conformity with the principles of justice and of international law."

It could be felt by some nations that are not immediately involved in this problem that the only aspect of it that concerns them is the problem of peace, and that if you can just be sure that force won't be used, you can just forget about the rest of it. That is only half of the problem, and you cannot solve the problem just by halfway measures which relate only to peace. If we think that the problem is solved because perhaps the danger of war seems a little less than it did--then I believe we will have done a great disservice to ourselves.

What we do in that respect--if that should be what we would do--would be coming back to plague us and haunt us in the days to come. So I say, let's stick together, and continue to work not only for peace but also for peace in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.

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