SECOND PART OF THE FIRST REGULAR SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS I. LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER FROM CHAIRMAN OF DELEGATION New Zealand Legation, Washington, D.C., 7 January, 1947. Sir, — I have the honour to present the report of the New Zealand delegation, of which I was Chairman, on the second part of the first regular session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The Assembly met at Flushing on 23 October, and continued its sessions, in the Assembly at Flushing, and in Committee at Lake Success, until its final meeting on 15 December. Though the Secretariat had done everything possible to facilitate the transaction of business, conditions were inevitably such as to impose a considerable strain on all delegations. A great deal of time was necessarily wasted in transit, in preparing for transit or awaiting transport, and this was especially the case—amounting to little less than three hours a day —when meetings were held, as the majority were, at Lake Success, some 23 miles from New York City, where all the delegations were housed. It seems probable that similar arrangements will have to be made until the United Nations is located in its permanent site, and this fact should be borne in mind in arranging for future meetings. One of the earliest actions taken by the Assembly was to elect three members to the Security Council to replace Egypt, Mexico, and the Netherlands. The result was the immediate election of Colombia, Syria, and Belgium by a very large majority, with India and others receiving a few votes. The ballot for six members of the Economic and Social Council to replace Colombia, the United States of America, Greece, Lebanon, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Yugoslavia led to the immediate election of three members —the United States (re-elected), Venezuela, and New Zealand —to the early re-election of the Lebanon, to the subsequent election of Byelo-Russia, and to a lengthy and indecisive series of ballots for the last place between Turkey and the Netherlands. The matter was finally settled by the withdrawal from the Economic and Social Council of Belgium (which had already been elected to the Security Council) and by the election of both Turkey and the Netherlands to a seat on the Economic and Social Council. The fact that New Zealand was elected on the first ballot was most gratifying. It will be remembered that New Zealand had been a

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