500.A15A4 Steering Committee/7: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 23—7:05 p.m.]
45. The Bureau (Steering Committee of the Conference) met this afternoon and decided to recommend to the plenary session that Easter recess of 2 weeks should commence on Saturday March 19th and continue to Monday April 4th.
The Secretary-General pointed out that the International Labor Conference desired to hold its meetings in Geneva from April 11th to May 5th and that while he could provide for the work of the committees during this time it would be extremely difficult to hold plenary sessions. However no account was taken of this in the setting of the recess.
Thereupon the chairman introduced a resolution the purpose of which was to throw the entire organization of future work, the examination of all proposals and the setting up of committees to deal with them, into the General Commission which consists of the chief delegates of all countries—in other words a resolution to emasculate the Bureau by handing over all its functions to the General Commission save those of a purely honorary character.
I definitely opposed this procedure on the ground that to send all existing proposals, 30 in number, to the General Commission was merely to invite endless general discussion and that it was idle to hope tedious methodical plan of work could be evolved out of a committee of fifty odd members meeting in public. Furthermore, I pointed out that it was my understanding that the Steering Committee existed chiefly for the purpose of preparing the work and making recommendations thereon to the General Commission and that if it were deprived of this function it would be reduced to making recommendations on official entertainments and the setting of dates of adjournment—its only achievements to date.
I then made the definite alternative proposal that the Bureau should, before the meeting of the General Commission, prepare a detailed agenda for the guidance of the Commission in order to ensure orderly and expeditious procedure. This caused quite a flutter, Beněs and Boncour expressing “serious constitutional scruples” and saying that the Bureau could not do this because it would involve deciding questions of substance which were of the competence of the General Commission. This was an obvious pretext as in previous conferences here the Steering Committee has always directed the work and have thereby materially contributed to expediting progress.
[Page 47]It was pointed out by the Secretary-General that the rules of procedure now existing provided for the setting up of committees by the Bureau. Nevertheless, the resolution advocated by Beneš and strongly supported by Paul-Boncour and Nadolny was adopted giving the General Commission the rights hitherto allocated to the Bureau both for the setting up of committees and for handling of procedure, this involving amendment of the rules of procedure.
I was the only one to oppose this and after I had again made very clear my reasons for insisting on some orderly method of procedure through the Bureau the resolution was adopted.
Immediately after the meeting [of?] the Bureau, the German and French press were informed by their delegations that the General Commission will tomorrow set up a committee to prepare the work and decide on committees and subcommittees and both delegations stated that they would have a majority in that committee for their point of view. This confirms my feeling that the opposition to my proposal was based solely on the desire to engineer more favorable combinations in the new committee than now exist in the Bureau.
We consider this of more importance than a mere point of procedure as experience has shown here that orderly progress can be achieved only by keeping to classic lines. It seems evident that there was a considerable element of failure to grasp the significance of the resolution at the meeting of the Bureau and that when the matter comes up in the General Commission there will be a better opportunity to bring procedure back on the rails.