Extract from a letter from Francis T. Cremins to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)
(263/5)

[matter omitted]

Suggestions in influential places regarding the ideal of a world parliament or for a United States of Europe under the guardianship of a world organisation, are useful as going beyond what is at present possible, for it is sometimes tactful to aim high. But such political arrangements are hardly for this generation. The requisite spiritual revolution will have to come first - this is needed in any case - with a healthy realization of the grave dangers which confront mankind from the new scientific advances, and from the discontent in the world. The small peoples in Europe or elsewhere would hardly be willing to entrust themselves to the influences which at the present time would predominate in such organisations. In my view, the United Nations organization, as it is, would be something well worth while to go on with, if the right of veto were suppressed altogether, or even suppressed in relation to disputes. It is essential from the points of view of efficacy and confidence that an aggressor should not have the right to render action by the Security organisation inoperative. Other factors, of course, also enter into consideration if the new organisation is to be effective, factors which are very difficult to realize in the spirit at present prevailing. A sound basis of peace to start with is one factor. The League of Nations lacked such a basis, for it was made a practical guarantor of the penal clauses and the territorial settlements of the Treaty of Versailles and of other Treaties, whilst Article 19 of the Covenant, which should have permitted recommendations for revision, was rendered unworkable by the unanimity clause. It is to be hoped that the new Organization will not be equally handicapped.

A speeding up by the United States, at all costs, of the utilization of atomic energy for constructive purposes might have the effect of allaying much of the discontent which is now so widespread, by the enormous improvement in economic and social conditions which it should bring about.

Notwithstanding the many statements by scientists (often contradictory as reported in the Press) and by Statesmen, the vast majority of people do not at all realize the danger which atomic warfare would involve, and consequently a sound public opinion is not being formed. Such realization, if it could be brought home to the masses, should also result in a realization of the imperative necessity for international collaboration and for the removal, by a policy of give and take, of sources of irritation and injustice. An American journalist said to me recently that he had been told in Germany, by one of the American scientists who had worked on the atomic bomb, that publicity in the matter was already five years behind achievement.

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