EFORE examining the work of the Council of Europe it is well to consider what it is. It is the product of the Hague Congress of I948, which was held on the initiative of British statesmen, under the leadership of the present Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill. That Congress recommended the establishment of a Council of Europe, consisting of a Committee of Ministers and a Consultative Assembly. It came into being with startling rapidity. In May I949 the Council of Europe was established by a protocol signed by the participating countries, and it met for the first time in August of that year. Almost immediately a Joint Committee was set up of representatives of the Committee of Ministers on the one hand and of the Consultative Assembly on the other, to take decisions in matters of common interest and to establish a liaison between the two. The Council also had from the outset a permanent secretariat consisting of what may be described as international civil servants. In essence it is an attempt, never previously made in history, to combine effective executive international action at governmental level with democratic consultation, not-and I emphasize this-democratic control. As such it is an extremely interesting experiment-shall I call it, in confederation? The Hague Congress, in my view, achieved in the international field a greater measure of practical success than any private and unofficial gathering in modern times. The Council of Europe started off well, and has certain substantial achievements to its credit. It is largely due to pressure from the Assembly that we have, in draft, a Convention on Human Rights which must ultimately be the basis of any genuinely democratic union, and which will one day be enforced by an international court. This draft convention is extremely important, for unless a democratic union has some basic moral code it can never last, or be of very much use. The convention is not at present in the precise form we most desired; but the essentials are included, and for that result the present Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, is largely responsible. The Council of Europe then directed its attention to the widening of its activities, and it is primarily due to the initiative and action of the Consultative Assembly that Federal Germany was so rapidly brought back to the fraternity of the West. The concepts of a coal and steel pool in Europe, the closer integration of the basic industries including agriculture, and of a European army, were subsequently and successively launched on the floor of the Consultative Assembly. A period of confusion then supervened when arguments were vehe33'