CONFIDENTIAL
for the promotion of human welfare. Never has there been
comparable understanding of the processes of economic
stability and growth. Never has there been such wide
and enlightened recognition of common responsibility and
the need for mutual aid. Yet the gap between affluence
and economic frustration widens relentlessly. It must
be within the wit of man to reverse the trend /Second
Development Decade7.
(iv) Never have the freedom and dignity of man been more
generally and authoritatively proclaimed as the touch-
stone of public policy. Never have we been more conscious
of, more informed about, persisting infringements of
the basic human rights which put in question whether these
can be made a reality on a universal and lasting basis.
Nor is it always the most blatant violations of these
principles which attract international criticism. It
is not on those whose houses are in good order and who
are putting them into even better order that attention
should focus but on those who shut and bolt the door in
an effort to hide what lies in dark cpannies and corners.
(v) Never has man, through his progress in science and
technology, been so capable of mastering his envioronment.
Yet we become daily more aware of the extent to which we
are at the mercy of these developments, of the extent
to which they gencrate their own backlash in terms of
polution, overcrowding and other threats to our natural
heritage which outrun and defy rational human control.
7
/Reason
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