'Churchill may have thought I wasn't serious, last time. He'll find out, this time.' He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. 'How is it, where you are? How is it in Algeria?' he asked.
I told him it was the same story. Rich country, rich resources, natives desperately poor, a few white colonials that lived very well, a few native princes that lived very well, otherwise poverty, disease, ignorance. He nodded.
And then he went on to tell of what he thought should be done: France to be restored as a world power, then to be entrusted with her former colonies, as a trustee. As trustee, she was to report each year on the progress of her stewardship, how the literacy rate was improving, how the death rate declining, how disease being stamped out, how...
'Wait a minute,' I interrupted. 'Who's she going to report all this to?'
'The organization of the United Nations, when it's been set up,' answered Father. It was the first time I'd ever heard of this plan. 'How else?' I asked Father. 'The Big Four--ourselves, Britain, China, the Soviet Union--we'll be responsible for the peace of the world after....
'...It's already high time for us to be thinking of the future, building for it.... These great powers will have to assume the tasks of bringing education, raising the standards of living, improving the health conditions--of all the backward, depressed colonial areas of the world.
'And when they've had a chance to reach maturity, they must have the opportunity extended them of independence. After the United Nations as a whole have decided that they are prepared for it.
'If this isn't done, we might as well agree that we're in for another war.'