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and scale of forced labour in existence to-day. The Slav delegations attempted to confuse the issue by bitter attacks on working conditions in the United States, Colonial territories and Latin America, and reintroduced a resolution previously rejected by the Council, which was couched in propaganda terms and called for the establishment of a Trades Union Commission of Enquiry whose membership would have been weighted in their favour. The Soviet delegate, however, failed once again to answer a direct question whether even such a commission would be allowed into the Soviet Union. The violence of the Slav speeches probably contri- buted to the final result whereby the joint United States United Kingdom draft resolution was adopted with the support of all the members of the Council apart from the Soviet bloc.
Trades Union Rights
6. Another debate which should have been purely procedural but which was turned by the Slav delegates into a full-scale propaganda discussion was that on certain allegations of infringement of Trades Union rights which had been addressed to the United Nations by Trade Union organisations. Eventually a resolution was adopted transmitting to the International Labour Organisation for its consideration in accordance with the agreed procedure allegations directed against certain of its members and asking the Soviet Government and the Governments of Roumania and Spain to state whether they would agree to the transmission to the International Labour Organisation, for consideration by its Fact-Finding and Conciliation Commission, of allegations directed against them.
Procedural Items
7. The Council adopted a resolution declaring that it had no objection to the admission of the German Federal Republic, Japan, Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. The Soviet bloc voted against all these applications, and the Philippines against that of Japan. A resolution was also adopted inviting the German Federal Government to accede to the United Nations Road Traffic Convention.
Foreign Office, S.W. 1, 24th May, 1951.
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