DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.

HC Deb 12 February 1910 vol 112 cc121-78

[SECOND DAY.]

Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Question [11th February],

"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—[Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Rhys Williams.]

Mr. BOTTOMLEY

I imagine that no old Member returning to the House after an absence of several years can fail to be impressed by the new atmosphere of responsibility which permeates our proceedings as compared with the state of things in pre-war days. I suppose it is that the old system of make-believe and party intrigue, which His Majesty in his Gracious Speech calls "disunion," has come to an end and that we are plumbing the depths of the world's verities. I shall endeavour not to be unmindful of the awful, the majestic burden which rests upon the shoulders of His Majesty's Government, which, as I take it, it is the duty of every Member of the House, wherever he sits, to whatever group he belongs, to do his best to lighten. But it does not follow from that that we are bound to give a blind, unquestioning acquiescence to anything and everything that the Government proposes, and I feel that upon the shoulders of some of us who stand aloof and outside Government circles there is an equally grave responsibility, especially those of us who in some form or other have taken an active part in various phases of the tragedy of the past five years, and, above all things in the case of those who, like myself, in the early days of the War, sent scores of thousands of men to the Colours and, unhappily in too many cases, to their death. If I have come back to this House with one determination more fixed than another, it is that I will do everything in my power to fulfil and honour the sacred covenant which in the name of the State I entered into with those gallant fellows, which was that if they went out to the trenches and did their part, as God knows they have done, we at home would do ours; and that meant that we would first of all requite their services in the field, that if misfortune overtook them in the way either of wounds or death, neither they nor their dependants should ever have cause to regret the fact that those men answered their country's call; and, over and above all that, that when the day of peace arrived, we would insist upon securing such a new order of things as to make all the bloodshed and sacrifice of the War well worth while. That being my view, I approach the consideration of His Majesty's Gracious Speech in that spirit, but I want to make it clear that I do not think any of us is called upon to regard the Treasury Bench or the Government as so sacrosanct or as armed with such an unquestioned mandate and authority that we need be over-fastidious and scrupulous in criticism or placing our views before them. After all, the Government with this overwhelming majority—some 300 I believe—has been elected, as this House has been elected, by less than half the voters, and on any equitable system of gauging the voice of the country by the votes recorded at the poll, allowing for split votes and other considerations, instead of the Government having a majority of 300, their correct arithmetical majority is nearer forty, and my hon. Friends on the right ought to have at least another 100. Apart from that there is another consideration. Above all things we wanted to ascertain the views of the fighting men, and we entered into special arrangements to give them the franchise. It is no exaggeration to say that, despite the official estimate which was given from the Treasury Bench, that under this arrangement 70 or 80 per cent. of soldiers would vote, not more than 25 per cent. at the most recorded their votes. I am going to give illustrations from perhaps the most enlightened constituency in the Kingdom, that of South Hackney. In South Hackney the absent voters' lists contained 7,100 names; but so utterly, hopelessly useless was it, that when the attention of the authorities was called to the matter they consulted the Records, and other sources were consulted and the Town Hall authorities of Hackney agreed that not more than 5,900 of the 7,100 names could possibly be addressed with any hope of reaching their destination. Therefore, we reduced the 7,100 votes—and the same thing has happened in the constituency of almost every Member if he only took the trouble to check it—to 5,900. Out of that 5,900 I had 1,700 returned through the dead letter office. That is typical of what was going on all over the country.

An HON. MEMBER

How many votes were recorded?

Mr. BOTTOMLEY

In South Hackney the percentage was larger than in any other constituency. I did not mention it because I did not want to base a false argument on false premises. In South Hackney about 3,000 voted, and I am sorry to say that of these 3,000 my opponent got three.

An HON. MEMBER

Did you see them?

Mr. BOTTOMLEY

Yes, I saw them all counted. I was my own election agent. In these circumstances the Government must not put itself on too high a pedestal as representing a solid community. Incidentally I observed with some disappointment a day or two ago that a notice of Motion had been given of a Bill to relieve certain Members of the House of re-election on their appointment to office. I should have thought the Government would be glad to avail itself of the opportunity of really testing the opinion of the country, especially when one of these offices concerned no less important a post than the Minister of Labour. I do not know how far that appointment meets with the approbation of the Labour Members. I have the utmost admiration for the learned Gentleman who is proposed to be appointed. But he is a lawyer. I thought lawyer politicians had had their day. Heaven knows I have no cause to quarrel with lawyers. They have been my best friends in days gone by. So long as we have in this country a system of education under which, although every citizen of the realm is supposed to know the law, it is kept a profound secret from him, I suppose the lawyers are a necessary evil; but I should have thought that the Government might have afforded that lion-hearted leader of labour, Sir Leo Chiozza Money, the opportunity he seeks of measuring swords with the proposed new Minister of Labour. However that may be, I only mention these things as indicating that the Government's claim to a mandate in spite of the overwhelming majority which it has in this House, will not bear investigation. I have seen indications already in the last few days that lead me to think the Prime Minister cannot rely, in view of some possible developments in the near future in connection with the Peace Treaty, upon quite such a docile majority and following as he anticipated.

I now come to the King's Speech. The King's Speech is a mere phrase—a conven- tion. We all know that His Majesty, as a constitutional monarch, always adopts the declaration which his Ministers place before him. I should be indeed guilty of disrespect to His Majesty if I thought he was responsible for the stilted English, the clumsy construction, and the grammatical crudity of this particular document. As a rule it is drafted by the Prime Minister, but I know the Prime Minister has been very busy. I am wondering whether he delegated it toa small committee of his Ministry and officials, consisting, say, of Lord Milner, the Colonial Secretary, the First Commissioner of Works, and Sir Eyre Crowe, the Permanent Under-Secretary to the Foreign Office. However, we have it, and having it before ns we have to take it with respect and thankfulness. I had the privilege once again on Tuesday last of standing behind you, Mr. Speaker, in the House of Lords whilst His Majesty read the Speech. His Majesty did not read many lines before I had something in the nature of a shock. I found his Ministers, through him, assuring us that, having regard to the strategical positions we have now obtained on the Rhine, we have no cause for alarm in the event of the Germans deciding to renew the War. It was three months ago yesterday since the Armistice was signed. I happened to be with the President of the Board of Trade at his office on a matter of some State importance, at any rate to me, when the maroons sounded out the glorious tidings, and the right hon. Gentleman said "Now we shall be able to get on with the business of the nation." We have had the Armistice, we have had these Conferences and conversations, and the rest of it, and yet we solemnly put words into the mouth of His Majesty as to the possibility of Germany deciding to renew the war. That is a profound reflection upon the diplomacy and the statesmanship which, from the very outset, has muddled the whole matter of this Armistice. When the enemy sued for the Armistice it was because the enemy knew that he was hopelessly beaten; because he knew, in the words of Field-Marshal Haig, that a great offensive was coming within the next two days, and that he was unable to give or to receive battle. When he appealed for an armistice the terms of that armistice ought to have been left entirely and absolutely in the hands of Marshal Foch and Field-Marshal Haig, and no politician had any right whatever to be at the table at which those terms were discussed. An armistice is a military matter, and the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House know very well that if these Generals had been left to determine the terms of the Armistice they would have been the unconditional surrender of arms and the immediate march of the Allied forces into Berlin. That is the only way in which you are going to stop all these rumours and fears of further outbreak of hostilities. And it is the only way to impress the Teutonic mind. If the Prime Minister does not know that fact, he has facilities at hand for being enlightened on the subject without putting himself to much inconvenience. I say that those words should not have been put into the mouth of His Majesty unless the Government had felt that the contingency of a fresh outbreak of hostilities is not so remote as it would have us think.

I venture to call the attention of the House to two statements made within the last few days. The first is by Marshal Foch himself: We have the best reason to believe that Germany is not continuing to demobilise. She has now concentrated more than eighteen divisions under Hindenburg on the Eastern Front. We have also the best reason for believing that Germany is keeping other troops under arms under a pretext of economic necessity. Some of the military authorities think that Germany has enough war material to give the necessary armament to 3,000,000 men. Those words were spoken by Marshal Foch within the last three days. Then we have M. Clemenceau—who with great respect, I think knows as much about the War and the circumstances of the War as even the Prime Minister himself—saying, It is said the War is won, It would perhaps be more accurate to say that there is a full in the storm. At the very least it is necessary to provide for all eventualities. With the British Army demobilised, and the American Army returned home, and France isolated, there might be danger of Germany reopening the debate of arms. Those are solemn utterances by perhaps the two greatest authorities who can speak on this matter. I ask the House whether it is not a serious thing that, after three months of armistice and after having had the enemy absolutely in our hands and at our mercy, we should have to contemplate even the remotest possibility of a fresh outbreak of hostilities?

Leaving that matter for the moment, I want to say one word on two omissions in the King's Speech, which, so far, have not been commented on in this Debate. First of all, the mind of the country, as far as I have been able to gather—and I have many opportunities of doing so—has been very seriously disturbed during recent months by this American ideal of "freedom of the seas." The King's Speech is absolutely silent on this subject. I was hoping that the Prime Minister, when he addressed us yesterday, might have told us whether he had yet succeeded in obtaining from President Wilson something like an understandable definition of those words. We are told that there is "complete accord." I venture to suggest that it is a most curious phrase to put into the King's mouth. I would like the Leader of the House, before the Debate closes, to tell us whether the freedom of the seas is still a matter under discussion, and, if so, what it means. When we know what it means we can grapple with its possibilities. Then there was no reference to a relaxation of the restrictions under the Defence of the Realm Act, One half of them, at least, are no longer necessary. Much of the unrest about which we have heard so much can be traced to unnecessary interference with the rights, liberties and habits of the people. I mention those two things in passing, simply in the hope of eliciting from the Leader of the House some assurance that they will not be lost sight of.

A great deal of this discussion has turned on the subject of labour unrest, and as there is an official Amendment of the Labour party on the subject it would be impertinent on my part to attempt to even make a suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman on my right (Mr. Adamson). Yet I may point out that while the Leader of the Labour party formulated five or six points which he thought accounted for labour unrest, I could not help being struck by one wonderful omission. He said nothing about the wicked, shamelss profiteering which has been goiing on with the foods and necessaries of the people, and nothing about the way in which at this moment the Government is holding up food supplies which could be furnished to the people at infinitely less cost than is the case to-day. This question of profiteering has a deep meaning which, if I may say so, even the Leader of the Labour party has not mastered. Many people are under the impression that because the Government is imposing a tax of 80 per cent. on the excess profits of such contracts, therefore we are getting four-fifths of our own back again. This is the greatest illusion in the world. The Excess Profits Tax is a tax on the workers of the country. You allow the contractor to supply his goods at an inflated price, which is obviously a great deal more than he ought to charge, and you say. "We will say nothing about it so long as we stand in with you and share the swag." That is the attitude of the Government who allow this profiteering to go on. I am not going to weary the House with illustrations, but I was struck with one case the other day. Take the case of the firm, which I believe is not unrepresented in this House, which controls the great cotton industry of Coates. A reel of cotton which before the War cost about 2d. now costs 7½d., and the profits of Coates's last year, after providing for Excess Profits Duty, were £3,500,000!

The Government which has allowed that cannot complain and cannot be surprised if there is restlessness among the people. It cannot be surprised if, when you have all the great multiple tea shops willing to sell tea at 2s. or 2s. 2d. a pound, and it insists on their charging 2s. 8d., there is unrest. It cannot be surprised when you have millions of tons of meat held up by an American meat trust—which is a very practical side of American idealism—that there are all these signs of unrest. The Prime Minister yesterday surpassed himself when he tried to explain the reasons for this unrest. He said that the workers were war weary and nerve wracked, and did not quite realise all they were asking. He condemned, as one would have expected him to do, the recklessness and extravagant dishonesty of many of the unofficial demands made in the name of Labour; but I would remind the Prime Minister—and I wish he were here—of what he himself said about eighteen months ago, when, perhaps, his judgment was less mature than it is to-day on these social problems. Addressing a great Labour gathering, he said: My advice to you after the War is to make your policy audacity, audacity, audacity. 4.0 P.M.

He cannot complain, therefore, if he is taken at his word. But unrest is not confined only to industrial classes. It shows itself to be as great, or even greater perhaps, among the fighting and ex-fighting forces as among the workers. Can you wonder? The way the pensions are being muddled, the way the allowances are being muddled, the way this Armistice was so shaped that it led the average fighting man—and he is a civilian first and a soldier afterwards—to think it was a peace treaty and not an Armistice, led him to think the War was over, especially when he was invited to vote "for the man who won the War," and for "early demobilisation."

The soldier and the ex-soldier are great elements in the unrest. I receive every week in some other of my activities evidence to the justification these men have for their discontent. Can you wonder? I wish the Secretary for War had not gone out of the House. When some poor devil, wounded, broken in the War, dies in a hospital, a wire is sent to his widow informing her of the death, saying that they are "prepared to forward the body on to you and pay the carriage to the station, but you must pay all other charges of fetching and burying him." One case came before me the other day where the body of a gallant soldier who had been four years in Mesopotamia without one day's leave was sent in a case of sawdust with a shroud only half covering it, with the back eaten by rats and mice, and the poor woman had to fetch it from the station and to pawn some of her humble articles of furniture to pay for the expense of a firing party to perform the last honours to her dead. That is no exaggerated case. I know cases where men arriving home from the front are immediately arrested by the Poor Law authorities and put into prison for non-payment of rates. I know of cases where little dead children have been awaiting burial because a woman could not got her allowances and pension. I say that all this adds to the unrest. The Prime Minister threw out the intimation recently that he recognised that all was not well, and he said, "We will welcome suggestions." I am going with the utmost respect to throw out to the Labour party what I conceive to be a practical and practicable suggestion. You have sitting in Paris a Conference to settle the Peace and the War. Surely, while that is going on, you might now appoint a home conference here to settle industrial peace, and have the representatives of capital and of labour—even the most extreme amongst them—round a table, and see if you cannot set up some Department of the State and some machinery which will prevent unofficial agitators from destroying the greatest charter labour possesses—see if you cannot devise some machinery for settling labour disputes. If the con- ference, well attended as it would be, arrived at conclusions simultaneously with that of the Paris Conference, it would be of no less interest and value to the nation than that which will terminate the unhappy War. I submit this to the Labour party for its consideration.

I want to say a word about another item in the Speech. It is an item which I assure the Leader of the House no amount of Parliamentary skill, no depth of eloquence, or appeal to the loyalty of his followers, will ever enable him and his Government, should they desire it, to evade. That is the payment by Germany of the cost of this War. For some time the Prime Minister did not include that in his programme. President Wilson forgot it altogether. Some of us did our best to "ginger up" the Prime Minister on the subject, and before the election took place the Prime Minister—I have his speech here—announced that although originally the Government Departments had advised him that Germany could not pay the cost of the War, in the end he said that he had had a Committee of great experience, appointed, and they thought that the assets of Germany, the wealth of Germany, have been under-estimated in the past, and that she is wealthier and has greater capacities than we had given her credit for. He added there is no doubt that Germany herself thinks so, and can pay a very substantial sum towards the cost of the War. The Prime Minister said in that same speech that he was going to appoint another Allied Conference to go further into the matter. These Conferences bewilder me. All that we have done is to appoint another Commission to inquire into Germany's financial capacity. I was told yesterday by the Prime Minister that some very eminent gentlemen sit on that Commission. Three names were mentioned; they left me quite cold. Mr. Hughes, a splendid patriot and a lover of mankind and of his country, so far as I know, possesses no special qualification to investigate the financial capacity of Germany. Lord Cunliffe—the name suggests to me the Bank of England. Well, there are business gentlemen in this House, and they do not want me to tell them that there are governors of the Bank of England who are very much interested in Germany not being called upon to pay much indemnity. I could mention the name of a man who has at least £5,000,000 of German bills unpaid, and he is very solicitous of the solvency of the enemy country. Then there is the name of Lord Sumner. I seem to remember him as a Chancery judge who, on more than one occasion in the course of his professional career, said that he understood nothing about figures. All Chancery judges do say that. No, he was a King's Bench judge. But why this solicitude about Germany's capacity to pay? In the course of a somewhat active career I have once or twice found myself in the Law Courts, and by those occasional miscarriages of justice which will occur, I have now and then lost a case—usually, by the way, when I had an eminent counsel to represent me, instead of doing it myself. But on not one of those occasions do I remember the judge saying: "Will it be quite convenient for him to pay the money?"

Putting the lowest view of it you like we hope Germany has lost the War. We believe she has, and judgment should be entered against her for the full amount. The German Reichstag, when Germany thought she was winning the War, proposed an indemnity of £9,000,000,000 against Britain alone. I have made our Bill out. It comes to £10,000,000,000. I say that we ought to register judgment for that amount, issue execution, and if she cannot pay, seize the country. Give every German a living wage according to his own low standard of comfort and run the country. That is the way it should be done. I am given to understand—I suppose the Leader of the House would give me a negative shake of the head if I asked if it is so, but it is so—that there is no idea at all on the part of the Allied Conference to-day of pressing Germany for the whole cost of the War. What we talk about now—I say we, but I mean the Allies plenipotentiaries—is reparation for damage done, and then only for wilful damage—broken windows and that sort of thing. If the enemy shot at an aeroplane and brought down a church steeple you do not pay for it because you did not mean to do it. It reminds me of the story of two men fighting a duel, a thin man and a fat man. The fat man complained that his opponent had the advantage of a target three times larger than he had. The seconds solved the difficulty by chalking out a portion of the fat man's body to equal that of his opponent. When he said "What happens if he hits me outside the chalk line?" They said, "That will not count." We are bringing the indemnities down to this level, to the level of wilful damage of non-military description.

I elicited by interpolation yesterday that the Peace Treaty will be submitted for ratification. I asked whether the House had the power to alter it. With seven years' experience of this House, I recall at least one occasion when we had a somewhat useful object lesson. It was the Bill for setting up the South African Union. When it was here for ratification the Minister in charge said, "Understand you must take it or leave it; you cannot alter a single comma or cross a 't.' "That is exactly what is going to happen about this Peace Treaty. There is not a member of the Treasury Bench who will contradict me when I say he will not put that Treaty on the Table and invite the House to revise any one of the provisions. Why should we be fooled in this way? There is not an hon. Gentleman supporting the Coalition who is not pledged to the teeth to get these indemnities, and when I find His Majesty saying in his Speech that he hopes that in a short time a preliminary Treaty will besigned, I want to say: Let it be initialled by the delegates; let the Peace Conference do that, in order that the Peace Treaty may be submitted to all the responsible Parliaments of the people, that you may have a peoples' peace on a peoples' war. I will be no party, as far as I have a voice in this House, to smuggling through a Treaty in the terms of which not one of us has the slightest voice. I say that unless that Treaty is put here for confirmation of the House of Commons—and I find it weak on this question of indemnities—I will do my utmost to get other Members to support me in holding it up at the lasts moment. I warn the right hon. Gentleman, and do it deliberately, that he may shed a very large portion of his majority if he takes that course. Let the Peace Treaty be initialled provisionally. I am not so sure that Mr. Wilson would find that he speaks with absolute authority as the voice of America on this question. I think America might like to consider the Treaty. I do urge the Government to give some consideration to the views of this House on this subject and to enable us to at least justify the main plank of the platform on which we were elected. So far as the Treaty is concerned, that is what I have to say; but I should like just to add one word about the question of the Colonies. There again we have come to this House bound hand and foot by the pledges of the Government. When the policy of the First Lord of the Admiralty, as he then was, was announced, we were told that it expressed the view of the Government and that in no circumstances whatever would we disregard the views of our Dominions in regard to the late German colonies. Just as in the case of indemnities so in the case of the colonies this House has no choice. It has come here with a mandate. We will not have another Ireland on the borders of our Empire. As far as Ireland is concerned, His Majesty expresses himself as deeply grieved with the condition of affairs there. The Prime Minister did not mention Ireland, but he said that never again will the Government countenance anything in the nature of forcible resistance to law and order, and therefore I may assume now we shall take a short cut of some kind or other towards a solution of this long-standing problem, and that we shall make a stand on this matter on the basis of the principles which the Prime Minister has enunciated.

There is one other matter I want to say a word about. We are told that this Peace Conference consists of representatives of no fewer than thirty countries, twenty of which at least have had no more to do with the War than Timbuctoo, countries like Nicaragua, Liberia, Uruguay, Hiati, and Guatemala. But what have they to do at this stage with the settling of accounts between Great Britain and Germany? All this vague nonsense about the League of Nations at this stage is a menace to the Empire. While you have thirty nations sitting round the Peace Table, including all those eminent States which I have just mentioned, there is one little State which was the first to come to our rescue in the Balkans, which almost committed suicide in the cause of the Allies, and which has been forgotten. Little Montenegro has done everything she could, and I wonder whether the Leader of the House will tell us whether it is part of a bargain that Montenegro is to be handed over to her traditional enemy, Serbia. I say that the Peace Conference at this stage ought to be confined to the Great Powers concerned in the War to get a settlement with Germany, and then they can discuss the League of Nations to their heart's content. I understand that President Wilson is about to pay a visit to the United States. I dare say, when he gets there, he will find that the idealism of which he has spoken so much is taking a very practical and definite form. While we are indulging in all this nonsensical and Utopian talk, America is securing the food contracts for the world, is going in for the rebuilding of Belgium and other parts of the Continent, and, us America always does, is "scooping the pool." There is no idealism in the American merchant or contractor, and I say we ought to leave the League of Nations, over until we have got the terms of peace settled and have made our victory absolutely assured.

We are assured in the King's Speech—and this is a statement which requires very great consideration—that the progress of the Conference is going on interruptedly with perfect success, and then there is a phrase put into the mouth of His Majesty to the effect that "there is no disagreement." That is either true or false, so far as those who put the words into His Majesty's mouth are concerned. If there is no disagreement, then we must assume that the "freedom of the seas" has gone; we must assume that our Dominions are to be supreme with regard to the ex-German colonies; we must assume that tie Prime Minister's pledge about indemnities is to be carried out; we must assume that all that we stood for at the last election has been conceded. With the utmost respect to the Government, I think that is an unfortunate phrase to have put in. No disagreement about indemnities! No disagreement about the colonies! No disagreement about the freedom of the seas? When one of two things has happened; either the Prime Minister—and if so all honour and credit to him—has succeeded in carrying through the pledges which brought him and us here, or somebody has sold the pass. We shall soon know. But there may be troublous days ahead if it is found outside—and here in this House we are only the reflex of the outside public—if it is found outside that all our protestations of fighting for the men who won the War, all our protestations about demobilisation, about fair and generous treatment for the dependants of those who haw fallen in the War, about social reconstruction, about better chances of life, happiness, and comfort are merely lip-service of conventional political expediency—and then I will not answer for safety and good order in this Empire. It is because I believe, as a result of my, it may be, unorthodox and unconventional meetings with the soldiers at the front, but, knowing so much of their aspirations, and, incidentally, mixing a good deal with the class for which my right hon. Friend near me speaks, that I say I am certain they are looking to us at this hour to prove that we can do something for them which is better than the anarchism and Bolshevism which is being offered them in some quarters. I have spoken critically of the Government, but at the same time with a desire, which I am sure is shared by every other Member of this House, to help in any way I can to round off any corners either in this House or out of it by means of good home propaganda, by telling the people the truth, in every way in my power. I am here to do my bit I am, as is every hon. Member, actuated by only one ideal, and that is that the fruits of this victory shall not be lost, that the seas of blood and of tears, which have saturated the earth for nearly five years, shall not have been run in vain, and that we may grasp from this ghastly tragedy something well worth winning and well worth keeping. Then every Briton will be able to walk with head erect, and Civis Britannicus sum shall still be the proudest motto in all the world.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL

There were two points in the eloquent and very interesting speech to which the House has just listened which particularly impressed me. Let me, at the outset of my observations, state how thoroughly I am in agreement first of all with what the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bottomley) said with regard to making Germany pay. I am certain that everyone on this side of the House will agree that there was no point upon which feeling and opinion in this country was more decided than its determination that, when peace was signed, Germany should pay the whole cost of the war. I entirely agree also with the hon. Gentleman who expressed the view in a very entertaining way that it is entirely a wrong method to set about establishing committees to examine what Germany can or cannot pay. I agree with him, and I am certain that the country intends to insist as far as it can that the claim against Germany shall be made out, and that after it has been made out Germany shall be made to pay, and if there is any suggestion of her inability to pay, that can only come up for consideration when every effort has been made to collar her resources. People speak as if the pay- ment by Germany was to be a mere book-keeping operation—as if a mere balance-sheet is to be drawn up, the balance on one side to be debited against Germany, who is then to be asked to be kind enough to make an early settlement. The sort of payment which I think we ought to insist upon Germany making is a payment to the Allies, not in gold or in manufactured articles, which would merely stimulate her commerce against ours, but we should require her to deliver to our account her raw materials and other resources, out of which we may pay our own costs and the costs of the Allies, and at the same time get materials for our industries. In that connection I would like to say that there is one payment Germany should be forced to make in kind. Germany has deliberately, in the course of this War, destroyed much property belonging to other countries which no money and no commercial transaction could ever restore. Let me take a single example.

Germany, in the early part of the War, destroyed one of the most splendid libraries in the world. No money can restore to us the Louvain Library. But there is a splendid library at Leipzic, and why should not that be taken to make good the loss of Louvain? In the same way many beautiful churches have been, destroyed in France and Belgium, and, among others, I am afraid to say, to a great extent the most glorious cathedral in the world. Priceless stained glass work has been lost and cannot be replaced. There is nothing like it in Germany, but if there is to be found in any German public building any tolerably good stained glass, I would prefer that, in restoring the cathedral at Rheims; we should take even the inferior stained glass at Cologne rather than that new glass should be put into the windows. Thus the reparation we call upon Germany to make will not be confined to mere commercial transactions, but we shall endeavour as far as possible to make Germany pay in kind where no other form is possible. The second point in which I was in thorough agreement with the hon. Member was when he spoke of the very serious situation which has been brought about by the apparent revival of the military strength of Germany. It is quite true when discussing these matters the Prime Minister rather deprecated the House debating them at all, and certainly no one is less desirous than I am of introducing topics into the Debate which the Government seriously think it would be a public disadvantage to discuss. I think Lord Curzon in another place gave a much fuller reply with regard to the Paris transactions than did the Prime Minister here. Lord Bryce, and other persons competent to deal with them, discussed detailed matters in connection with the settlement of Europe. I do not think, therefore, that any serious complaint can be made if we in this House also take the liberty of referring, at all events in a guarded manner, to the transactions which have been going on in Paris. The Prime Minister has told us that the Treaty of Paris will be laid on the Table of this House before it is ratified. If that is so, I think the Prime Minister really ought to feel thankful to any of us, who have, been necessarily more in touch with the opinion of the country than has been possible for him during recent weeks, if we give him some indication of what is in the minds of the Members of this House and also of the country outside.

The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken referred, naturally in rather guarded terms, to the great influence which has been exerted and is being exerted in the Peace Conference by the representatives of America. I do not think there is anyone in this country who does not follow with the greatest admiration and respect the work that President Wilson has done, both before he came to Europe and since, and he has spoken of ideals and principles to which we in this country give very ready allegiance. But it also seems to me that President Wilson, from the very nature of the case, cannot be thoroughly conversant with the needs either of Europe or of the British Empire. It is quite possible that the needs of European races and European nations and of a very peculiar organisation are not matters which from his point of view he has kept entirely before him. I think it is quite right that the Peace Conference should have been largely inspired by President Wilson's ideals, but if I were to give an indication to the Prime Minister of what is causing a good deal of misgiving in this country, I think it is the fear lest he, in his very proper anxiety to act in co-operation with President Wilson, has given loss support than might have been expected first of all to our other Allies, who, of course, have made infinitely greater sacrifices in the War than America has been called upon to do; and, secondly, whether he has given all the support that might be expected to the legiti- mate aspirations, of our own Dominions. Because, while we join, I think, in wholehearted deference to President Wilson, we look upon our own Prime Minister as our leader and our spokesman, and we do not expect our leader and our spokesman to play a part secondary to that of any other statesman in the world. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, in the concluding part of his speech, said that if there had been no disagreement in the Conference, as mentioned in the Gracious Speech, that the absence of disagreement must be due to the fact that the Prime Minister has obtained all those matters for which he has naturally been standing out. I do not; feel quite confident that that is the case. I do not know whether hon. Members have been following the series of articles written by a distinguished American journalist in the American Press, and copies of which have been appearing in this "Times" in this country. He wrote an article the other day upon the British Delegation, and an article which was intended to be, and was, highly laudatory of our proceedings and our representatives. But in the course of that article he writes this sentence, intended, of course, to be read in America as a tribute to British policy: British policy has ceded everything which the President chooses to make an issue….They have gone a long way to persuade their own Overseas Dominions to abandon even reasonable claims to German soil. I must say that that seems to me to be a rather disquieting announcement with regard to what his been going on in Paris. Does that mean that the Prime Minister has given way on certain issues to the representatives of America? I hope it is not the case that the Prime Minister, unlike the Lord Chancellor in that respect, is affected by a morbid self-distrust. It is not a failing I have ever attributed to my right hon. Friend. [An HON. Member: "Which Lord Chancellor?"] The present Lord Chancellor, who reassured us by telling us that he is not subject to that complaint. What I want to point out is this: If it is true, as this American writer says, that our Overseas Dominions have been persuaded to abandon "reasonable claims" what, may I ask, are those "reasonable claims"? Of course I am not asking for any breach of confidence, but I am simply indicating matters which are causing a certain amount of disquietude. My first question is, What are the reasonable claims, and, secondly, by what methods were the representatives of the Overseas Dominions persuaded to abandon those claims? Was it because they found that if they persisted in them they would not get the necessary support in the Conference, where they had the best right to expect it.

This point as between the American representatives and those of our Dominions appears to have been mainly concerned as to the mandatory arrangement as regards the German colonies. We have never been told what that mandatory arrangement means. The fact is, so far as we can follow the proceedings in Paris, that it looks as if the world statesmen there gathered have been beginning with the coping stone instead of the foundation stone. They have been dividing their responsibility and attributing responsibilities to the League of Nations before they have made up their own minds probably, and certainly before they have told anybody else what the League of Nations is, what it means, and what it is to do. Let me say in passing that the ideal of a League of Nations is one to which I entirely adhere. But the League of Nations is rather taking the place as a blessed word that used to be occupied by Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia has become so familiar that it has become useless as a blessed word. Using blessed words in that sense and making them often factors in a great world settlement with the necessary vagueness which is attached to blessed words, becomes a very serious and practical danger, On this question of mandatory States, that is States that are to receive a mandate from the League of Nations, the essential preliminary questions are what sort of control is the League of Nations to exercise and how is it going to enforce its authority? Those questions cannot be answered unless you first know what is the constitution of the League of Nations and who are going to be its members. I do not know whether these various matters have been decided upon, but it appears to me that they ought to be definitely and clearly decided before it is possible to persuade our Overseas Dominions that they ought to abandon reasonable claims in order to accept a mandate from a body of that sort whose constitution and powers are so very vague. I asked just now who is to be in the League of Nations. I want to know is Germany to be a member of the League of Nations or not? Two views are taken of this matter. I am afraid that there is a good deal of reason to fear that the idea that Germany is either immediately or in the near future will be admitted to be a member of the League of Nations is accepted. Supposing that is so, what will then be the position of a mandatory State required to administer a quondam German colony under the supervision or as trustee for an organisation of which Germany herself is a part. That appears to me to be an arrangement which will produce almost certain and perhaps fatal friction. What would be the position for instance in an African colony or in a Pacific island, under those circumstances, of the native races? Is the code by which they are to be governed to be decided by a League of Nations in which Germany is to occupy a position of, at all events, some influence and power.

There is another point as to which I cannot help feeling a certain amount of uneasiness, because I read the other day in an article in "Le Petit Journal," that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was reported there to have said that in the colonies taken from the enemy the principle of the open door ought to be adopted. If that is the principle upon which these States are to be governed by mandatories from the League of Nations, it means that from the first moment Germany is to be given facilities for peaceful penetration into those parts of the world from which she has just been ejected by British blood and sacrifice. Not only that, but you are to have the open door in these States, and presumably the Hun himself will be allowed to walk through that open door—the Hun himself, of whom the Foreign Secretary himself has said that he was a brute and is still a brute—and yet he is prepared to allow this brute through the open door to walk back as soon as he likes. What will the result of that be to the native races of those States? Take the case of South Africa. How is the Government of the Union of South Africa, acting as mandatory for the League of Nations, to protect the natives in South-West Africa if the open door allows Germans to go back, so that the former knout-wallopers are to go back as spectacled explorers or commercial travellers; and how are the natives to be protected against the vengeance which will certainly overtake them through that policy? In our own Dominions they do not keep the open door into their States. The Union of South Africa has a Customs tariff. Is the Union of South Africa to be compelled to erect Customs barriers between her own territory and the ad joining territory which she is to administer as a mandatory of the League of Nations; and if that is to be the future policy, does not that also indicate an arrangement as unhopeful as it is possible to imagine for the peace and prosperity of those future Colonies? It therefore appears to me that if these matters have been decided in that manner—there is only too much reason to fear they may lave been decided—it is no wonder that the American writer to whom I have referred calls these claims reasonable and that he is a good deal astonished to find that our own people in Paris have been persuaded to abandon, them. While the Conference has been engaged upon these matteis—I will not go so far as the hon. Gentleman opposite, who used very drastic language and said, I think, that they had been at least three months engaged in muddling the whole affair—I do think it is very extraordinary that while they have been discussing matters of the sort to which I have alluded, only in an indirect way connected with the real vital question of the making of peace and of making the Germans pay—

Captain REDMOND

On the point of Order, Sir. May I inquire whether it is proper that the King's Speech should be discussed without a single Minister being present on the Treasury Bench?

Mr. SPEAKER

The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, whose business it is to listen to this matter, is present.

Mr. McNEILL

I agree with the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Bottomley) that, while the Conference has been engaged upon these matters, it is very much to be regretted that apparently Germany herself has bean so far recovering, both internally and from the military point of view, as to raise doubts whether she is not in a position to renew the War. The hon. Gentleman opposite quoted the opinion of Marshal Foch and of M. Clemenceau, and when I saw the language of the French Premier I thought it would not be an exaggeration to describe it as alarming; and it is interesting to observe that that alarming language indicates exactly what the German Foreign Minister himself threatens will be the result if the peace terms turn out not to be to the liking of the German Government. It is quite true that President Wilson has expressed the opinion that the German Army is incapable of further fighting. I hope it may be so, but I confess that, with all possible respect to President Wilson, I should very much have preferred to have that same assurance from Marshal Foch. What is particularly significant is the language in the same speech by M. Clemenceau in which he pointed out that Germany will be able very largely to draw upon Russian resources, resources in regard to which he used this significant phrase, "They are still fruitful but in a state of chaos." I wish I could feel completely assured that we have done nothing to prolong that chaos or to encourage its authors. Allusion has already been made in this Debate to the proposal, which again, I think, originated with the American representatives, for a meeting at Prinkipo between the Bolshevists and the other Russian sections, a conference which can only be likened to a conference between the boa constrictor and the rabbits. It is not at all surprising to find that the rabbits object to meet on equal terms those whom I have so described, and that the proposal has been rejected by, I believe, every sane, moderate section of Russian opinion, while the mere making of the proposal seems to have brought despair to all those sections from Russia which is our bounden duty to encourage and to support, morally and otherwise, to the best of our ability. The Russian Consulate in Paris learned of the invitation with consternation, and rejected it and denounced it with indignation. The Archangel Government went so far as to prohibit the publication of the text of President Wilson's invitation, and when they replied to it they said that no sane and honest Russian could take part in pourparlers with representatives of the Bolshevists. A very significant phrase was used by Mr. Vladimir Bourtseff, who is a revolutionary himself, and who says that it is the equivalent to pourparlers between. Cain and Abel. That shows the harm that has been done by the making of the proposal, which, I think, must have been done without sufficient thought and without taking into consultation those authorities upon Russian opinion which might easily have been consulted in Paris.

Hon. Members who have read the letter published only the other day from the hon. and gallant Member for Stoke (Colonel John Ward), in which he shows what he thinks of those elements, can, I think, form some opinion of the language which he would hold if he were here to-day in regard to this particular proposal. Nowhere was this proposal more strongly objected to than in America itself, and the "New York Herald," which other correspondents say expresses very fairly the general view in America, wrote of it, "Nothing has so shocked the moral sense of right-thinking men as this suggested compromise with crime." We must remember that the opposition in America to proposals made by their representatives in Paris is an important matter, and is a factor which will enter very largely into the success or failure of the work that is being done there. And when we find indications of possible divergence of views between the President of the United States and our own Prime Minister, let us remember that while the recent elections in this country have shown an overwhelming sense of public confidence in the Prime Minister, the elections in America have shown that the President has not got the overwhelming confidence of the American nation, while we must also remember that in a few weeks' time the President of the United States will have to carry on the government of that country with a hostile majority in both Houses of Congress. It is, therefore, a very important thing, in view of the opposition in America to his proceedings in Paris, when we remember that without the concurrence of the Senate there can be no American signature to any treaty of peace; and when we know that all the other statesmen are very rightly attaching immense importance to it, and are willing to make great sacrifices in order that the American signature may be beside theirs on the final Treaty of Peace we shall see that we must look not merely to the doings or the words of the President, but also to the opinion in America which may express itself through the Senate. In that connection there is one point which I must say has been difficult for some of us to understand. The hon. Gentleman opposite spoke about the very disquieting subject of the freedom of the seas. It is difficult to understand, though I have no doubt there is very good reason for it, that while in Paris the President of the United States was leading the Conference very skilfully and very nobly, as I think, along the path leading to a League of Nations, involving as that, we all hope, will do general disarmament all round, at the same time, having a very proper regard for the American interests which he is bound to protect, he was sending messages to America pressing Congress and the Government there to agree to a large programme of naval building. Those are matters which it is rather difficult for us to understand without much fuller knowledge of American domestic politics than we possess, and I mention it for this reason, that I have no doubt that the President is reconciling his duty as a member of the Congress carrying out a great world scheme with his duty as the head of the American Executive charged with the safeguarding of American interests, and all I want to do is to make quite certain that our own Prime Minister is doing the same thing, and that when he is acting as a member of the Congress he is sufficiently keeping in mind the domestic and national interests of this country which it is his duty to safeguard.

5.0 P.M.

I have mentioned these points for one reason only. It would be no benefit to the Government, no help to the Prime Minister in his arduous task in Paris, if he were left in ignorance of the matters which are disquieting some minds here. No Member of this House would be more delighted to act up to the pledges he gave—and I gave plenty of them to come here and support, as far as I could, the Prime Minister in carrying out the peace, as he helped to carry on the War—and to give him the opportunity, so far as I can, of dispelling these matters of doubt which are troubling minds here. We have been told by the Gracious Speech that much progress has been made in these matters. What we want, if we could have it without damage to the interests of the Conference and nation, is to know not only about the amount of progress but of the direction in which that progress has been made. Somewhere or other, Carlyle, speaking of the question of progress, says: Progress—yes; but see that it is not to the bottomless pit and blackness of Gehenna. We hope progress has not been in that direction at the Paris Conference, and I have no reason to suppose it has. I am not speaking in any spirit of apprehension or of censure, but merely of doubt and of hope. I do hope very much, notwithstanding these matters—on which, I fully admit, I am not completely informed—that the Prime Minister, on his own re- sponsibility, not too much influenced by others, will guide us to much safer and more healthy waters.

Mr. DEVLIN

The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Bottomley), whom many of us are glad to see back again in this House, opened his speech with a very optimistic note. He said that he hoped to see the labour of this Parliament fruitful in great and mighty results. Everyone not only listens to, but is profoundly interested in, anything the hon. Gentleman has to say, and I followed with deep and increasing interest the reception in all parts of the House of the varied sentiments he uttered. I noticed that his sentiments were received with prolonged cheers when they were reactionary, and that the House was dumb when he spoke for the causes of humanity. Therefore, I think when he has been in this House a little longer he will come to the conclusion to which I have come already, that this House of Commons, which has sprung into existence in a moment of public panic, is not a democratic assembly, that it represents reaction in its best form, and that even the programme which was adumbrated by the Prime Minister, and which was given forth in the King's Speech, is a programme which will be dissected, analysed and tested, not with a view to the uplifting of the masses of the people or improving their conditions, but to suit the idiosyncracies, tastes and interests of those vested classes which are largely represented in this House.

I have risen for the purpose of asking the Prime Minister, if he were here, or the Leader of the House, if he were here, or the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if he were here, or any responsible Minister, high or low, great or small, this question: What is the meaning of this passage in the King's Speech: The position in Ireland causes Me great anxiety, but I earnestly hope that conditions may soon sufficiently improve to make it possible to provide a durable settlement of this difficult problem. That is a very enigmatical sentence. It is characteristically Lloyd-Georgian. Why was that paragraph put in the Speech of the King, unless we had some explanation of it from the Prime Minister? I waited here and listened to his reply to the two rather meek and humble speeches from the two leaders of the Opposition. I waited here and listened with interest to get some explanation as to what that passage meant. I wanted to know from him what is the position in Ireland, what is the Government in. Ireland, who are the Government in Ireland, what is going on in Ireland, and what you propose to do with Ireland. Do not imagine by your pledge-breaking, by your false promises, by your criminal treatment of Ireland, that you have rid yourselves of your responsibility when you engage in a conspiracy, which is successful, of driving the constitutional representatives of Ireland out of public life. For nearly forty years this party, of which there are only a few of us left, laboured by constitutional means to win the great constitutional end of a great constitutional party, namely, the right of our people to govern themselves on their own soil. We won that great reform by the constitutional judgment of the electorate, of this country. We won it because it was a just cause, and because it was sanctioned by public opinion. We won it because it had the moral sanction of the Colonies. We won it because mankind in every English-speaking country in the world was in its favour. Yet the Gentlemen who from these benches are now lecturing labour upon their extreme courses, are the very Gentlemen who destroyed the possibility of that solution, and have cast Ireland again into the melting-pot of agitation and discontent.

I know that my colleagues and myself will be like voices in the wilderness in this House. As long as we were a strong and powerful party here we made, some impression, although some men may have grown helpless in the task to which we set ourselves, and to which some devoted the whole of their lives. For my part, representing nobody here but my Constituents, not speaking for Ireland, but speaking for justice for my country, as I have pleaded it for every country in the world since I came here, I am here to demand from this Government what they are going to do about Ireland, and I ask that an answer be given to that question. You cannot allow things to remain as they are. Martial law, trial by jury abolished, men not charged with any offence cast in prison and deported without trial, continuous irritation of the masses of the people, constant pin-pricks, no government but the government of a military junta, and no peace or progress, or enterprise or development, because of the discontent and agitation that exist there. Yet the Government sit helpless and hopeless, giving no guidance to the House of Commons—this new, fresh, magnificent democratic assembly, that has come here without principles, but merely to cross the "t's" and dot the "i's" of the Prime Minister. These men know nothing about Ireland. They have heard nothing of our Debates. They have not followed these controversies. They are entitled to get guidance from the Government, and the first thing the Government ought to have done before they go to Paris to discuss the people of Uruguay, Liberia and Bolivia, the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs—before they go to a Peace Conference to determine the destinies of those people, we have a right to ask them what they propose to do for the little nation to which we belong, sacred to us by every tie of birthright and devotion, sacred to us as a nation with its cherished Christian civilisation and its splendid traditions—we want to know, are you going to change your policy? Are you going to do justice to Ireland? Are you going to end this discontent? Are you going to carry out your promises and keep your pledges, and carry out the purpose for which you said you went into this War? I want an answer to that question.

There have been many attempts to solve this problem. It seems to me it cannot be settled by the constitutional will of the English people, because when the English people have declared their will a section of the Members of this House have decided against the authority of this Parliament. You cannot settle it by a Convention which you nominate yourselves, because your Convention held its meetings and prolonged its session for twelve months, and the results of that Convention were fruitless. The only thing I know about the Convention is that the gentleman who was greatly responsible for smashing it has been now placed in the high position of a member of the Government charged with the carrying out of the administration of the Department of Irish Agriculture. That has been the single fruit of this Convention. Since Parliament cannot decide, and since a Convention which you nominate cannot decide, there is only one thing that can decide, and that is to give the Irish people self-determination. Why is that expression which is so sacrosanct when you are dealing with little nations in Europe, an anathema when you are dealing with Ireland? Why is the great democratic principle of the right of a people to determine its own destinies, which is unanimously accepted by all thinking and enlightened men in every part of the world, not to be applied to Ireland? You, no doubt, will say that there is a large minority who will not accept national self-government for Ireland, but you are going to force minorities in other countries in Europe. [An Hon. Member: "Every one of them!"] There are minorities as large in Bohemia and in Alsace-Lorraine and other countries, but they are other people's minorities—not yours. You are so busy taking the motes out of other people's eyes that you cannot see any in your own. What are these minorities in Bohemia, in Poland, and in Alsace-Lorraine to say as to the honour and the honesty of your protestations and your professions if you deny the application of that principle to the one country in all Europe which you control? If those Gentlemen who have got up on these benches had said that the solution of the Irish question is to keep the Irish people down with a military heel, to allow no constitutional principles to operate, to continue to make the rifle of the soldier the determining factor in the adjustment of great public concerns, that could be understood, but you have never taken up that position. The Prime Minister has declared, not once but twenty times, that it is absolutely essential to the safety of the Empire, as well as to the peace and happiness of Ireland, that you should settle this Irish question, and that you should settle it upon lines that will be satisfactory to the Irish people themselves. Why is that not done?

There are only two courses for this Government to adopt. The first is either to give Ireland representation at the Peace Conference or to give her the right of self-determination. Are you afraid to allow Ireland to state her case at the Peace Conference? Is that the reason why she is denied a hearing there? If she has not a good case to present to that of the Czecho-Slovaks, the Jugo-Slavs, Liberians, or the men of other races, well, you need not be afraid! Do you not want the story of Ireland to be told? Of what are you ashamed? Give Ireland representation at the Peace Conference so that she may be heard, because it seems to me perfectly clear that you have not the slightest idea of settling this question yourselves. But supposing you are afraid and shamed by the Liberians and by all the other races! Supposing you are afraid that your treatment of Ireland brought the blush of shame to Bolivia and Uruguay and all the other little nations gathered around the Peace Conference table, then give Ireland the other right—that of self-determination! President Wilson, who, in my judgment, has not received over-generous treatment at the hands of this House to-day. President Wilson not once, I think, but twenty times has stated that the purposes for which this War was won was to secure freedom for small nationalities, and the right for every people to determine its own destiny. That is not the American doctrine only. The hon Member below me (Mr. Bottomley) and the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. E. McNeill) are followers of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister accepted every declaration of President Wilson. He iterated and reiterated that he was in full sympathy and accord with all that President Wilson said on the inspiring purpose of the War. It was for this that countless men went out from Ireland.

Nationalists as sound as I am fought with superb courage and in the early parts of the Warcast lustre and glory upon Irish chivalry and upon Irish fighting power. You think only now of the worse side of Ireland. Public memories and the memories of politicians are short. You remember someone who has said something nasty about a Minister and has been cast into gaol. You forget. the heroic death of Willie Redmond, of Tom Kettle, and the many men who sat on these benches, and who spoke with pleading voices for a solution of this problem which they thought they were solving when they went out to fight for the freedom of small nationalities. We are here to see that that blood has not been shed in vain. I have stated that these are two simple proposals—two sample alternatives, either of which it is in your power to grant. Give Ireland her fair representation at the Peace Conference or give her the right of self-determination. You yourselves have proposed no solution. Therefore we are; entitled to demand that either one or other of the two solutions which we have presented should be accepted by the House, or, if they are rejected, we should be told the reason why.

My position here is an exceedingly difficult and delicate one. As I have said, I have no authority to speak for Ireland; neither have my colleagues. The Prime Minister, the Leader of the House, and their friends have seen to that by their treatment of those of us who through the early and critical stages of the War were faithful to the Allied cause, some of us giving far better and far more genuine material assistance than some of those in this House who prate most about their loyalty. Therefore, I say, the only fruit of your policy, you who are a constitutional party, is to disentitle my colleagues and myself to speak for Ireland. I am, however, representative of a great working-class constituency. I think—if I may strike a personal note without being charged with egotism—I am more interested in great social reforms than in political controversies. One of the ambitions of my life in fighting for the solution of the terrific conflict between these two nations was that I might take some part in my own native land, in a free democratic Parliament, in doing some of these things for the good of the masses, which the Labour party are endeavouring to do in this country. So long, however, as we are denied that right; so long as we are refused the power to apply our capacity, our civic zeal, and our devotion to the people to the interests of our own country, I must, while I am here, not because I want to be here, but because my constituents press upon me to come here, take that interest which an individual Member may in all these burning social questions which have been discussed in the House of Commons for the last two days.

I am not a Bolshevist. Indeed on these questions I am not even an extremist. I confess that I do not like the tone and character of the discussion that has taken place in this House in regard to those most important and vital problems touching the lives of the people which have engaged us yesterday and to-day. I represent a great city which has passed through a great industrial conflict. I deny that the strike in Belfast was ever inspired, engineered, or carried on by Bolshevists. Is that to be the new policy? When we demand justice for Ireland are you to shout "Rebel"? When we ask for freedom are you to cry "Pro-German"? When we advance our case for concession in a great and irresistible demand for a great reform are you to call us "Impossiblists"? Do not try the same game on Labour. It does not solve anything to shout "Bolshevist." All men who know anything of the strike of Belfast know that it was conducted with a dignity, a capacity, and a freedom from crimes of violence unexcelled in the history of any conflict in any part of the world. There was not a single Bolshevist associated with it. I know nothing about the troubles on the Clyde, or in London. I am an Irishman, and I do not interfere in the affairs of Scotland and England. I have learned too much to look other than at my own country, or to try to govern yours. I leave that for British Members to do in Ireland. But I am surprised that the Leader of the Labour party, in yesterday's speech, was so sweeping in his declaration as to the menacing and powerful character of the Bolshevist spirit. I know it exists. These people have agents everywhere. For my part I would not stand on a platform with one of them. But does not the House think that the treatment of our aspirations in a Bolshevist spirit may unwittingly become the instrument of Bolshevist agents, though the development of the matter may be assigned to other causes? When the Home Rule Bill was before Parliament, how was it defeated? Not by reason. Not by argument. Not by votes. Not by common-sense. The justice of the cause had passed out of the arena of discussion. Everywhere it was an accepted fact. What killed it? It was killed by your Bolshevists, clad in black cloth and wearing tall silk hats. I heard the Prime Minister yesterday say—and I would like to quote his words— I am prepared to say with full knowledge that no section of the community, however powerful it may be, can or will be allowed to hold up the whole nation."—[Official Report, 11th February, 1919, cols. 80–81. Is that Cabinet policy? Has the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House subscribed to that? I want to know from him now did he subscribe to that doctrine? Did he believe that the minority in Ireland should hold up the whole nation? Did he not offer to put on a uniform and go over there to fight? Yes, Sir, Bolshevism was born on those benches. It was christened on those benches. It was fostered in every reactionary club and Conservative Association in this country. I remember Mr. Asquith, when in the House, uttering words that now may be regarded, I think, as a true prophecy. He said:— Has the right hon. Gentleman— I think he was replying to the Leader of the House— ever considered what might happen if in the whirligig of political fortunes he and his friends should become responsible for the Government of the country. Has he considered what might be the attitude of the people of Ireland in view of the advice he has given—the attitude not of the minority, but of a very large and overwhelming majority….I say to the right hon. Gentleman and to the friends who are associating themselves with him, that if the contingency, which I have described should arise—and mind you it would arise if you succeed in defeating this Bill—what answer are you to make to the vast majority of the Irish people when they resist the considered determination of Parliament, and appeal to the language of the right hon. Gentleman to justify their action? I am not aware that the right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the House, denounced anarchy when anarchy was preached from the Tory benches.

An HON. MEMBER

The Lord Chancellor.

Mr. DEVLIN

Was it anarchy? Perhaps new Members think I am exaggerating?

HON. MEMBERS

No, no!

Mr. DEVLIN

Let me quote something for them, assuming for the moment they never heard or read of it before. Here is a speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College in Glasgow—of all places in the world, Glasgow! on the Clyde! where Maclean was in gaol and Kirkwood in exile. Here is what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, and I ask the House carefully to consider these words:— The Attorney-General has been reading me a lecture upon what is a serious matter, because I myself once or twice had the honour of being a, law officer of the Crown. He says that my doctrines, and the course I am taking, lead to anarchy. Does he not think I know that? Does he think that after coming to my time of life and passing through the various offices and responsibilities I have accepted I did this like a baby without knowing the consequences? What happened? No consequence followed him because he had on his side the great, the powerful, and the wealthiest party in the State. Anarchy is a crime when it is committed by the man who works before the furnace, when he is fighting for fair conditions and a decent living. Anarchy is a virtue when it is inscribed on the banner of a reactionary party fingering for power and place in this country. That is the only gospel which these gentlemen understand. These matters will be remembered when we come to this question.

I know there were forces at work to bring into Belfast the soldiers of the Army to put down the strike. You did it in Glasgow, and I venture to say that it is only the fear of political consequences which prevented you doing it in Belfast. What did the same right hon. Gentlemen say to those working men who we are now told are Bolsheviks? They were asking that the law of this Parliament, sanctioned at three elections and backed up by the sympathy of the whole world, should be observed, and he said: Had the operations started by the constabulary seizing the old town hall, the Unionist headquarters, it is certain that many thousands of volunteers engaged in work at the Queen's Island shipyards, half a mile away, would have left work and, reinforced by other men, some in the Volunteer Force and others who are not, would have attempted to regain possession of the building. The central office of the Belfast Police is in the same block of buildings, and as a high percentage of Belfast's male population carry revolvers it is doubtful whether the police could have held either the old town hall or their office. That means to shoot their own countrymen, and this determination to defend their homes was called anarchy and Bolshevism. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded: Long before this troops could have arrived the streets would have been running in blood, and by the time General Macready could have reached the city from Hollywood to take over the duties of military governor under martial Jaw, a terrible situation would have arisen. These are the people who now lecture the working classes, and who tell them when they make an attempt to improve their conditions they are Bolsheviks and must be put down by the heavy hand of the State. The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Bottomley) was loudly cheered in this House when he stated that those who were responsible for the War would have to be brought to justice, and I think that was the only sentiment which he uttered that received universal applause in this new Parliament. The hon. Member says he has been busily engaged in the pursuit of other activities, but I would remind him that it is not so long ago that the German Emperor was invited to take charge of Ireland, not by the so-called pro-Germans, but by the very hon. Gentlemen who cheered that sentiment loudest on these benches.

Mr. ARCHDALE

There is not a word of truth in it!

Mr. DEVLIN

Of course I do not expect the hon. Member who interrupts me to accept anything I say, and consequently I always come prepared with my facts and my figures. Speaking upon the gospel of anarchy at Ladybank on 5th October, 1912, Mr. Asquith said: The possession of a conscience and a repugnance to obey inconvenient or objectionable laws are not the monopoly of the Protestants of the North-East of Ireland. This new dogma, countersigned as it is now by all the leading men of the Tory party, will be, invoked, and rightly invoked, cited, and rightly cited, called in aid, and rightly called in aid, whenever the spirit of lawlessness, fed and fostered by a sense whether of real or imaginary injustice, take body and shape and claims to stop the ordered machinery of a self-governing society. Of course he signed it but they did not dethrone the King. They merely threatened him with the German Emperor, and they threatened us with, him also, although our only relationship with the Germans was that our soldiers fought them on the plains of Belgium and France. [An Hon. Member: "What about Roger Casement?"] Do not bother me about him. I know he was in the English Public Service for forty years. In Ireland we may hate your rule but we are never disloyal to the Flag, and when fighting is to be done we are never traitors to one cause or another, and we believe in standing or falling or fighting for it, and the hon. Member opposite never made a more unhappy interruption. [An Hon. Member: "What about Austen Chamberlain?"]

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley)

It would be just as well to remind the House that the rule here is that speeches must be addressed to me in the Chair and not to hon. Members across the floor of the House.

Mr. DEVLIN

I thought you were enjoying it so much, and I thought I might be allowed to give them some quotations. We were told not only that we were to be delivered from our bondage by the German Emperor, but when Home Rule was going through all its vicissitudes and trials we were told that we should not only have to face the prospective incursion of Kaiser William, but also the military power of the British Army. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast (Sir E. Carson) said they had made pledges and promises; when the time comes, and if necessary, they would come over to help to keep the flag flying. Again Mr. Asquith called attention to the serious nature of these declarations. He said in the same speech at Ladybank: A more deadly blow—I say it with the utmost deliberation and with the fullest conviction—a more deadly blow has never been dealt in our time by any body of responsible politicians at the very foundations on which democratic government rests. How, under these circumstances, can the Government lecture these working men upon the extreme attitude that the working classes have adopted in this country I What is it that has aroused the ire of all those forces I It is a modest demand in the city of Belfast for a working week of forty-four hours. And what is there revolutionary in that? There was a meeting called in Belfast during the General Election to which every candidate was invited, and every one of them attended but myself.

Mr. MOLES

No, I did not go, although I was in favour of it.

Mr. DEVLIN

Then they all went except the hon. Gentleman who did not go although he was in favour of it, and they all pledged themselves to vote for a forty-four hours week

Mr. MOLES

Yes, if uniformly applied.

Mr. DEVLIN

I was the only Member who did not attend.

Mr. MOLES

You had no convictions at all.

Mr. DEVLIN

My convictions are well known to the working classes in Belfast, and they understand them perfectly. When the hon. Member opposite comes forward and takes a similar stand to that which I have taken for the last fifteen years, even for the men who have voted against me at every election, I shall not be envious, but I shall be delighted to find him a colleague of mine in the cause of industrial progress. It was a modest request, but there were the same cries of Bolshevism hurled at these men both on the platform and in the newspapers. I say that the only way in which you can kill unrest and Bolshevism is not by pursuing the attitude adopted by Ministers and others who try to find settled reasons for not giving increased wages or shorter hours, but by recognising that democracy is determined to make the world safe for itself. Are we to understand, now that the War is over, that the same old weary cycle is to be continued of crushing the poor, of sweating, low wages, long hours, lack of leisure, after forcing the people from the simpler pleasures and delights of life in order that the great industrial machine may grow greater and more powerful? That is not what the people went into the War for, though it may be the purpose for which jingoes in every part of the world went into the War. Men went out to fight that they might enjoy some of the fruits of their sacrifices, and that they might be enriched in better and higher lives and in nobler conditions by the blood and tears that were shed in that conflict. So far as I am concerned, whether I speak for Ireland or for myself, I shall fight that cause as long as I am in this House, and to any party that pleads that cause and devotes itself to its promotion I and my colleagues will be delighted to give our constant support and our continued co-operation.

I come again to repeat what I said at the beginning. I want to know what is your policy in regard to Ireland? I want an answer from the right hon. Gentleman as to whether he is going to release these political prisoners. I have no doubt that the political prisoners would resent my interference. I do it not because they want me to do it, or desire that I should not do it, but I do it as a lover of human liberty. These men were imprisoned without trial and they were deported without charge made, apart from a fabricated story about a German plot that was invented by someone and given publicity by the Chief Secretary at that time. Never for one moment has any hon. Member of this House been enlightened as to what that German plot was, or who was in it. We were merely told that it was a German plot. All the Government had to do was to fake up some charge, arrest the semen, deport them to some other country without trial, and keep them in prison. I want to know when that is to end. If there, ever was any German plot, they can be no longer in any German plot. They can be no longer of any trouble. Their continued imprisonment is a source of anger, irritation and bitterness. Do you want to continue that? You know, everyone of you, that there was no German plot. The man who told us the story was only Chief Secretary for about a fortnight, and the man who was Lord Lieutenant for five years said that he never heard of a German plot until he read about it in the newspapers. That was the charge on which these men were imprisoned, deported, and kept there without charge. A more grave scandal against public justice I do not think was ever recorded in the history of any country. You had better let out the prisoners. They for the moment represent Ireland; we do not. You must make your arrange- ments with them as to the solution of this problem. If you do not, then the only thing for you to do is to fall back upon those principles which have gone from every platform in these islands and every Allied platform in Europe. You had better put the principle of self-determination into operation as the democratic and inspiring cry which roused your soldiers as they went to battle in the cause of liberty, or you had better give Ireland her right to plead her cause before another and more impartial tribunal.

For my part, like nearly everyone interested either in Ireland or in the welfare of these islands, I am profoundly and passionately anxious that some solution of this problem should be found. I have never been and never will be a party to sweeping attacks upon the English people, knowing as I do how splendidly they have gone out in this War, how uncomplainingly they have suffered and fought, and how uncomplainingly their relatives have borne the terrific sacrifices which have darkened their domestic hearths. I know, too, for I have come into contact with them at various great demonstrations throughout England during the last ten years, how deep-rooted is their devotion to the cause of freedom, and how anxious they are that Ireland should come into her own. It is, therefore, because I believe in the interests of humanity. You talk about a League of Nations. You had better first create a League of Nations here around your own doors, a league between Ireland and England not brought about by the coercive method of the sword or the destruction of constitutional liberty and every form of justice, but a league based upon mutual trust, goodwill, and common understanding. [An Hon. Member: "Is it possible?"] There have been more impossible things than that done. It is thirty years since we heard that cry, and we have seen what has occurred as the result of the "Impossibles" being here in this House and in these islands. We know what has happened during the last thirty years. If Mr. Gladstone's policy had been carried out, you would have Ireland to-day not with a dagger drawn to meet you, but with a warm handshake, a friendly spirit of comradeship, working with you just as we worked with you at the beginning of the War. Listen to the "Impossibles" and you may bring ruin to Ireland, but you will also bring destruction to your Empire.

Mr. CLYNES

I do not intend to say very much on the points raised by the two hon. Members who have just addressed the House, but I cannot approach the main body of the remarks which I intend to offer without saying, on behalf of those with whom I act in this House, how much we are in agreement with the appeal once more uttered by an Irish representative who so eloquently pleats their cause. I must conclude that many hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot hear without certain pangs of regret the language of the quotation which my hon. Friend has used, and, if they, have no painful memories in respect of these speeches delivered in this country and in their own in the years 1913 and1914, I may remind them that these quotations adorn the walls of many of the most extreme and revolutionary clubs in this country. They are to be found in almost every Bolshevik newspaper. They provide very largely the literature and the pamphlets that are circulated, I will not say in any very large numbers, but that, at any rate, are very industriously circulated for propaganda purposes. Accordingly, the members of the Labour party read with very great regret the little phrase embodied in the Gracious Speech from the Throne on this all-important subject of Ireland. "The position in Ireland," says the Speech, "causes the greatest anxiety," and the hope is expressed that things may soon sufficiently improve to make it possible to provide a durable settlement of this difficult problem. That is most unsatisfying. It is a mere pious opinion, not worthy of the statemanship which should have accumulated in this House as the result of the recent election.

Either the Government will finally have to yield to an accumulation of disorder which is rising in Ireland, or they will have to assemble there a sufficient military force to mock the plea which the Government are making at the Peace Conference in Paris for the settlement of the claims being put forward or the ground of self-determination by various peoples in Europe. Finally, the Government will have to yield to the very disorder which its past policy has created. I have no doubt that from the material standpoint, the standpoint of pounds, shillings and pence, or of ordinary prosperity, that Ireland is as well situated to-day as she has ever been in recent years. That only proves that no kind of government of Ireland from this country will be or can be accepted by the Irish people as a good enough government for them. I think it was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman who said one of the wisest things that has been uttered upon this subject. "Good government," he said, "is no substitute for self-government." And in these days when the claim for self-government is being universally admitted, the Government of this country ought, to have more to say to us on this difficult Irish problem than the mere expression of this hope to which I draw attention. I agree with my hon. Friend that in face of the divided opinion in Ireland, and the improbability of that divided opinion being reconciled, it becomes all the more the duty of the Government to face with unusual courage the situation which has so long continued and to apply the provisions of such an Act of Parliament as this House has so repeatedly sanctioned in order to bring this interminable Irish conflict to an end.

6.0 P.M.

I have risen mainly to bring the House back to some of the questions which formed the greater part of our discussion yesterday. I listened with the greatest sense of disappointment to what in the main the Prime Minister expressed to the House yesterday, for it is true, as my hon. Friend has reminded the House, that the Prime Minister, perhaps more than any other man, especially on occasions when he has had to face labour conferences or labour deputations, has given every encouragement to organised labour to expect great things from our Government, not to rely merely upon themselves or their organisations, but to turn to Parliament for the great social changes to which they aspire. Audacity was preached by the Prime Minister as quite, the proper line for organised labour to follow. The Government cannot indulge in such language as we find in the middle of the main paragraph of the King's Speech without following this language up by some substantial action. The speech speaks of "stamping out unmerited poverty, of an intention to diminish unemployment, to mitigate its sufferings, to provide decent homes for the people, to improve the nation's health, and to raise the standard of well-being throughout the community." A Government cannot trade in this language and continue it upon platforms, unless it suits its Parliamentary action to the word. The Labour party for months have looked in vain to the Government for some effective action to deal with housing and with many of the other industrial and social evils which abound. Therefore, I make no apology for asking the House to return to what the Prime Minister himself regarded as the all-important and pressing problem for this House to take in hand. I agree, however—I say this knowing it to be the genuine feeling of my colleagues in this House—that great as our difficulties are and even though they might become greater in industrial England, the sense of relief which we all feel at the termination of the War should enable us, not in any party sense or in any class sense, collectively and unitedly better to handle these problems than has been the case up to the present moment. This abiding liberation from the pressure which the War imposed upon us gives us now the greatest of all opportunities to settle more effectively the great home problems that were placed before the country in so many speeches in the course of the Election. I want at this early stage to repeat a complaint which I have made elsewhere of the failure of the Government to keep faith with the assurance repeatedly and expressly given by the Prime Minister as to the place which Labour would have at the Peace, Conference in regard to the great questions between the nations. The Prime Minister during the course of the War perhaps over-praised labour for the part it had played in it, and thereby gave some stimulus and encouragement to the measure of the terms that Labour frequently demanded. When the Prime Minister undertook to form a Government more than two years ago, he invited the Parliamentary Labour party in this House and the executive of the Labour Organisation in the country, jointly to meet him to consider the conditions or terms on which, as organised labour, we might take some part in the Government which he was to form, and he expressly assured that joint meeting that Labour would have a place at the Peace Conference. If he meant anything, surely he meant Labour as represented by those whom he was addressing—Labour, as represented by the Parliamentary party in this House—twice as large now as it was then—and Labour as represented by the organisation to which his remarks were addressed at that moment. My complaint is that the pledge which was given has not been honoured. There is, therefore, in the country, in the ranks of the army of labour, very keen disappointment at their not having the place in the Peace negotiations which was assured to them. It may be said on behalf of the Government that no party, as a party, has a right to be represented in these negotiations. It may be said that the Government alone, as a Government, have the sole right to conduct these negotiations. Why, then, was the promise given to Labour. If Labour had no right as a Parliamentary body or as an organisation to have representatives at the Peace Conference, why was the assurance given? I can assure the Leader of the House that at the time that assurance went far to persuade many of us of the necessity of taking part in the Government. Those of us who were opposed to taking part in any Coalition Government were considerably influenced by that assurance, and I allege that faith has not been kept either with the Parliamentary party or with the Labour organisations in the country. [An Hon. Memrer: "What about Barnes?"] I have the greatest regard for my right hon. Friend the Member for the Gorbals Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes), but my right hon. Friend was not a Labour candidate at the recent election, he is not a member of the Parliamentary Labour party, and he has no connection with the organisation. He is in no way in association with those to whom the pledge was given at the time of which I speak. If that interjection means that Labour has a right to be represented as Labour, then I claim that the party to whom the pledge was given has a right to suggest who its representatives ought to be. While we may have the fullest trust and confidence in my right hon. Friend as one of the representatives of the Government, we are by no means represented as a party by him and the pledge is not fulfilled.

I have also to complain of the manner in which the Prime Minister yesterday responded to a question put by my right hon. Friend who leads the Labour party with regard to what was to happen to the peace terms when they are signed. It appears that what is to happen is that some four or five right hon. Gentlemen who are at the head of the Government, virtually in the position of dictators, never referring, so far as we know, any of these important and highly controversial questions to this House are to proceed month by month to the completion of their great task, even to the point of signing the terms as they may be arranged by them. Then the finished document is to be placed on the Table of this House. Hon. Members who even might be new to the conditions of Parliamentary work will be well aware that a document so laid is laid with the claim of requiring the ready sanction and obedient support of those who range behind the Government, and that any difference of view would be made a point of loyalty and support to the Government, and would undoubtedly be made a test question, as to whether any hon. Member was giving the support to the Government which he guaranteed he would give when he was before the electors. It is not sufficient that this great task should be completed by just a few representatives at the head of the Government without this House being taken periodically into account, and being given an opportunity of discussing those grave matters which form the subject of settlement between nation and nation. I understood that we had emerged from the days of secret diplomacy, but it does not appear to be so. We have not yet got to the point where these grave questions are to be discussed in the open, and when the Parliaments of the world shall be able to bring to bear their rightful influence in the different stages of the settlement of these all-important problems.

As the Prime Minister is here now, I think I am entitled to repeat, a complaint expressed in the country by some of us, that on the eve of the General Election he failed to do credit to his very high station and great influence in this country, by a most ungenerous and totally unwarranted attack upon the Labour party, when appealing for the support of the electors. I have not the exact language before me, but I recall statements to the effect that the party was dominated by a Bolshevik element, that its decisions in the main were influenced by a body of men who were to be regarded as enemies of their country, and that certain of our former colleagues were named and held up to the ridicule of the electors. I claim that the services of the Parliamentary party, in the main in connection with the War, the services of labour in the country in connection with the building up of an army, and with the supplying of our immense stores of munitions—I claim that all these things entitled labour to a more accurate descrip- tion of its position on the eve of the election than was used by the Prime Minister on that occasion. As a result of that line of conduct the Prime Minister has secured a far bigger personal following in this House; but he has, as every hon. Member now clearly sees, built up in the country a greater degree of discontent, a greater measure of unrest and dissatisfaction than existed even before that election took place. Hundreds of thousands of workmen who readily voted for the Coalition Government, and backed the Prime Minister on the election day, are ready to strike against this Government now and to take the most extreme steps. The reasons for this change are not far to seek. Faith was soon lost in a Government which secured so large a measure of its power by these very doubtful and, I think, unworthy means.

What action has the Government taken in the two or three months in which it has had power to suit its deeds to the words of the Speech from the Throne? Problems are to be handled, houses are to be built, unmerited poverty is to be lessened, suffering is to be relieved, and the standard of well-being is to be built up. I set aside what I think was a totally unjustifiable waste of time involved in the General Election itself, and I come to what has been attempted on administrative lines. Nothing has been attempted, nothing has been accomplished to deal with the labour situation more than could be covered by the word "doles." A very large number of people, in all I believe now some 700,000 persons, very largely women, are receiving State grants week by week for doing nothing. Some millions of pounds of State money are so being paid out. That is not a settlement; that is not a solution; that is not statesmanship. It is a mere device for delaying the task of facing these difficulties as they ought to be faced. Labour does not want unemployed benefit of this kind. It does not want idle pay. It wants wages for work. Surely, with all the preparation of the past year or two, and with all the resources at the command of the right hon. Gentleman, the Government ought to be equal to more effective administrative work than this organised paying out of millions of money for doing nothing whatever. It may be seen in what I understand is the decision of the Miners' Federation, sitting in conference to-day, how little the Prime Minister has so far contributed to a solution of this great industrial difficulty which confronts us. The tone and terms of his speech of yesterday are likely to be interpreted as a challenge to labour, and undoubtedly will provoke some retaliation from labour quarters. I agree whole-heartedly, and I think the whole of my hon. Friends are in agreement also, with the Prime Minister when he said that disorder must be put down, that such acts of crime as in a few instances have been committed, such excesses as I say without hesitation have now and then disgraced the record of Labour, must be resisted. With all that side of his case we are in the fullest agreement, but it leaves his case totally incomplete. The situation is not handled by strong language of that character, for indeed all that labour has to do, if it wishes to create the most serious trouble and nothing more, is not to commit offences, not to break the law, it merely has to stand by. Let labour remain idle on a very large scale for any considerable number of days and the Government is in a totally helpless position. So that more than doles, more than strong language, more than that part of the speech which we had yesterday calling for reverence for the law is required from the Government if this situation is to be faced. The administrative provisions, paying out donation benefit, and the provision under the head of the Wage Regulations Act cannot last very much longer. They both expire in May. What assurance can we have that even this relief in the shape of doles is to be replaced in order to meet the state of unemployment which will then exist? Unemployment is bound to grow unless this urgent work of reconstruction, of which the Prime Minister spoke on the eve of the Election, is to be taken in hand more effectively than it has been up to the moment. What yet has been done or attempted on any one of these matters of substance referred to in the Speech from the Throne? In May of this year you will have hundreds of thousands of women, and men as well, deprived of these doles which the Government is now paying them, and unless by that time this work is hastened and those steps of promptness of which the Prime Minister yesterday spoke are taken, the country will be involved in a long continued, though I will not say endless payment week by week of millions of money for absolutely no kind of service. Work then might be organised, and the changes that we look for from war employment to peace labour might be more effectively put into practice and superintended than they have been.

A few questions yesterday were definitely put to the Prime Minister from this side of the House, which he failed not only to answer, but even to notice. He was asked as to what was the position in Russia? This is a question which is being asked week by week at thousands of meetings. The Albert Hall has rung with it, and however much we might pass by these signs of unrest, they are undoubtedly extending. The public is in a state of mystification, and disgust even, with regard to the situation to which we are parties in Russia. For what purpose is our Army there? What is its object? Is it fair that men who have served throughout the four or five years of war in the Eastern and the Westerntheatres of battle should, as is the case I am told in many instances, be sent out to Russia for a totally unknown purpose? Surely my right hon. Friend who put the question yesterday was entitled to some notice and to some definite answer, if not for his satisfaction, at least in order that the labour mind in the country might be a little more reassured. Absolute silence was maintained by the Prime Minister on the question put to him with regard to Conscription. There is, in the King's Speech, a rather ambiguous reference to future military service, and to the kind of Army that for our present unknown purposes we require. On the eve of the election the Kingdom was assured that Coalition meant the abolition of Conscription. Can that statement be repeated in this House? Are conditions of military service covered by the word "Conscription" to be the means by which any future Army for this unknown purpose is to be created? The country is entitled at this stage to know what is in the mind of the Government with regard to the manner in which the Army shall be got together. for was any reference made in the Prime Minister's speech yesterday to another matter which properly agitates the labour mind During the war many millions of national money were expended in the acquirement of national properties for war purposes Ships, stores, buildings, factories, machinery, and implements of many kinds were required for many purposes. I understand that there is to be some consideration of this question by one of the Departments of State as to how these properties are to be disposed of. The public ought not to be left to the uncertainty of newspaper reports on an important matter of Government policy of this kind. Are all the ships to be sold to private shipowners? Are these properties, stores, buildings, materials, machines, tools and so on to be said on private capitalist terms to private capitalists? We are surely entitled to some answer to the question how these great national properties can now be used by the nation for productive, urgent and necessary work in order that unemployment shall not be receiving the weekly grants to which I have referred, but producing some wealth for the nation itself.

I concluded, after listening intently to the Prime Minister yesterday, that his view was that there are not now available in this country means whereby any considerable settlement of the position of the worker may be made. I would invite the Prime Minister to be a little more definite as to what the wage earners of the country may expect from the policy which he expounded yesterday. I may recall in his hearing what I understood to be the statements which he made. He warned the workers of claims which were deemed to be extravagant, of the impossibility of solving the problem of unemployment by restricting working hours, and of the impossibility of meeting foreign competition and of maintaining British industries if higher wages were paid. I can assure the Prime Minister, if the requires the assurance, that the working class mind works very simply but quite accurately upon these great economic questions, and unless you can give to the workmen material benefit in the shape of less labour and more pay you have not convinced them that you have made their position any better. So that, dross your purposes in what language you choose, you have to meet the material claims of the masses of the wage-earners by lessening the load of their labour where they are carrying too heavy a load and by making their spending power greater in order that they may enjoy more material means of existence. And in that direction my conclusion was that the working classes could not, according to the policy outlined by the Prime Minister, expect any considerable measure of betterment. I agree fully with the Prime Minister that working men can make extravagant claims. I have said that in many quarters during recent months, particularly where I have seen those claims growing. I have per- sonally resisted those claims, as I believe in their interest, and I say to organised Labour that it can make the great mistake of asking and pressing for too much at one time. But there are exceptions even to this general rule, and surely, in reference to those exceptions, the Prime Minister might turn his eye upon some of the balance sheets of trading companies and of great producing companies. Let him ascertain how big have been the fortunes made in the last two and a half years of the War, for instance, say, out of the sale of coal, out of the sale of food, even out of the sale of beer, a subject, by the way, which is one for more than merriment. Let the Prime Minister look up so simple a matter as supplying the people of the country with thread, and see the balance sheets, the size of the profits of so many of these big firms trading in all manner of things and he will at once find an explanation of two things. He will find an explanation of the high price of many articles the price of which ought to be lower, and he will find an explanation of the disgust and the discontent which exists in the minds of working men with regard to the alleged inability of the Government to meet any of these reasonable claims which are being presented. These great fortunes made during the course of the War and as incidental to the War, as almost a condition of trading conducted during the War, area matter rather for shame on the part of those who receive them than for credit. I agree with the Prime Minister in his argument as to the relationship between one trade and another, and to the difficulties of isolating any particular trade or group of trades, and that is why I have desired that no one great organised body of men should take advantage of their organised power to place themselves in any unduly favourable position as compared with their fellows.

But there is another side to this, to which the Prime Minister did not refer. It is the side which calls for exceptional treatment from the law because the men are now in an exceptional position as, for instance, the miner, who is in an exceptional position compared with the clerk or the shop assistant or the postal worker, a locomotive man, or a man making gas or working in a chemical yard. Many men employed in several of the more arduous and dangerous trades are now so excep- tionally circumstanced by their labouring conditions that they are entitled to some exceptional consideration. That, however, does not remove, I hope, the point which I tried to make, that even those who have a reasonable claim can press it too far and ask for too much at one time. But let me in the case of the miners recall to the House its recognition of their exceptional position. I was in this House when by almost a unanimous vote it recognised the dangerous and arduous nature of the miners' work, and the law years ago did for the miner what it would do for no other worker. It fixed his hours of labour by Statute. So that there are exceptions, and these exceptions the Government ought not wholly to set aside. When the Prime Minister or others have to consider the actions which trade unions in these days are obliged to take and the unfortunate manifestations of force in which certain trade unionists are indulging, let them not forget the history—though I am not going into it now—of the origin, development, and establishment of trade unions. They grew out of force. They had to overcome by force the forces ranged against them to get their very life. They had to fight against the law to be recognised by it. In the earlier days of our presence in this House, as the older Members will remember, we constantly had to fight for little things which the country might well have conceded as an act of simple justice. We had to reverse Osborne Judgments and Taff Vale decisions. We had to get the legal right to politically organise ourselves and to pay contributions in order to meet returning officers' expenses. So that in the very birth and history of these organisations there has been left some natural sense and consciousness of the virtues of force in the trade union mind. As this is a doctrine which has been preached in very high quarters, not without success, it is no wonder that in these days it is being imitated by simpler folks who now have the force of numbers behind them.

Against that doctrine of force I put the view for what it is worth to the trade union mind of the ultimate dangers and losses and the present futility of that method on the part of trade unions. I stand not only for respect for the law, because we make it, but because some day those of us who have now to play the part of critic and sometimes of opponent of the Government may for aught we know be called upon by the country to be responsible for the making and admistration of the law. We, or those who are to follow us, who may have that responsibility should be careful of the examples which in theses days of less responsibility and greater freedom we may now set. Therefore, we want not only law in the land and respect for it so long as it is the law, but law within the trade unions, law within these great organisations which sometimes can become so potent as to contest the law and even overcome it. I want to see discipline maintained in these great organisations. Some of these trade unions and their officers are now on their trial. I would ask these officers to show themselves worthy of the occasion and not to surrender their self-respect to any degree of pressure that may be used against them in connection with any one of these industrial disputes. So long as leaders are authorised to lead and are put in positions of responsibility to guide and advise they should insist, if only as a matter of their own self-respect, upon the rules, regulations and procedure of their organisations and their societies being followed just as we would insist upon the law of the land being applied if we were responsible for it.

In this regard I would like to level a complaint at the Government for its lack of alertness, if no more, in following the examples which it has asked private employers to set. I had the honour some time ago of sitting with many other men under the leadership of the Deputy-Speaker of this House, in whose absence I may say that that very useful document the Whitley Report was produced under his guidance, and that the skill, forbearance, resourcefulness and knowledge of men used in building up what is known as the Whitley Report entitle the Deputy-Speaker of this House to the thanks of the nation for the good that I am certain will eventually come from what was done by those of us who were called upon to carry out that task. As representing the men's interest and the masters' interest we found ourselves able to reconcile opposites because of a great sense of public duty and because of the convict ion that it behoved us to try to provide some better way of preventing these industrial differences and of settling them when they arise. The Whitley Report has been before the country for about a year or more. Scores und scores of industries are covered by its provisions. I am attached to a trade union representing more than 300,000 members and covering more than 100 different occupations in which already we have provided representatives for more than seventy different industrial councils sot up under the provisions of the Whitley Report. Hundreds of these industrial councils have been established, and I want to see them followed by corresponding councils in the districts and eventually to see in the workshop committees of men who will act with the management in a spirit of co-operation, who will act not in any frame of mind of revolt against the firm or the heads of it, but with a desire jointly to create harmony and produce the best fruits that can be brought from the joint efforts of those who may be concerned in the shop. In that way the individual workman will have the responsibility placed upon him of taking a personal part in what is called the control of industry in the interests of labour. In such a position I am hopeful that the plain, simple man will eventually feel some pride in taking a useful part in labour's share of the control of industry, of which now so much is said.

What has the Government as a great employer done to make good the provisions of the Whitley Report in their own Departments? Within the Government there is contained, I think, the greatest single employer of labour in the United Kingdom—the Postmaster-General, and in other State Departments employment is given to hundreds of thousands of workers. What example is the Government setting in tie matter of popularising and extending these industrial councils and workshop centres and district committees? I attended a meeting about a week ago of a considerable number of postal workers, and a resolution had to be passed protesting against the failure of the Postmaster-General to set up these industrial councils and to give his employés the facilities for participating in the settlement of industrial disputes which the Government calls upon private employers of labour to put into practice. In some Departments I know something has been done, but I do seriously say to the Prime Minister that the Government has failed to give a lead to employers or to be an example, and that it has lagged behind and waited for a lead from a considerable number of private employers in the country.

Despite these criticisms I can assure my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that so far as we act in opposition it will be with a desire to co-operate with the Government in taking speedily any one of the good steps that have been referred to in the Speech from the Throne. But promptness is everything. This House, consisting in the main of men returned to support a Coalition Government, should begrudge none of its time in acting, when we have overcome the preliminaries of the week, and should tolerate no waste, even by length of speech, but should face as practical workers the conditions of expectance which have been raised by the assurances given to the country. I do not want legislation to be slurred over or scamped, but I would remind this new House that during the life of the late House, for at least three out of four years, war measures were speedily got through. The Government had only to ask for support to receive it. Those were the days of swift and prompt legislation, and by either one means or another in an hour there could be accomplished greater things than were possible by months of time in the ordinary days of party controversy.

Lord HUGH CECIL

Those were temporary laws.

Mr. CLYNES

I would say to the Noble Lord that we do not wish the conditions which the War period has created to become permanent, but, at any rate, they are with us for the moment. The conditions of mind and body which the War has created are with us for the moment, and they may require legislation which in certain of its aspects would be permanent in order adequately to deal with those conditions. The whole of this problem is not covered by unemployment, by low wages, or by any one of the things known to us as industrial conditions. The breadwinners have been lost. Fathers, brothers, and sons have gone, and there is a very natural cry rising from the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people whose homes have been robbed of their dear ones. This is a factor in the formation of the conditions of unrest which the Government must effectively handle, and as these men went out to fight to secure victory for their country they naturally look to the country's Government to look to them in a better way than they were ever supported by the Government before. That legislation which was so simple and easy to get during the War might be taken as our pattern for the peace-time legislation which is now so urgent because of the problems which the War has created. Finally, I agree with another statement made by the Prime Minister, but I wish him not merely to express in very general and moving terms his approval of certain definite things. The Prime Minister must move more than our emotions. He must move those real grievances which exist. It is not enough to say that individual liberty may be enlarged and that certain restrictions ought to taken from us. It is within his power speedily—I will even say at once—to do all these things. Individual freedom was very much curbed during the War. "Dora" is still very powerful. Men, if I may say so, feel its irksomeness. Hundreds of thousands of workmen feel the difficulty of either not being able to get into a tavern or being ejected from one long before the daylight has spent itself. There are many of these restraints which are now severe limitations upon individual freedom, which the Government at once could take away without the slightest risk so far as the War is concerned or the internal security of the country itself is concerned. Delay in this matter will not be readily pardoned in view of the great administrative resources at the disposal of the Government. I can assure the House that it is our honest and fervent desire to work in co-operation with all parties in this House to attain those great ends which constituted in the main the mandate of the Prime Minister when he appealed to the electors of this country, and in securing the attainment of those ends we claim for both hand and brain worker the release from the personal difficulties, from the individual restraints which war conditions impose. We claim for the workers simply fair and reasonable consideration for such reasonable claims as they may make. There is something reasonable in many of the claims for a shorter working day without any damage being done to the commercial and trading prospects of this country. There are ways and means still at the disposal of the commercial genius of the country to enable our firms to be re-adapted, and our businesses and tasks to be conducted on such lines as will give no advantage to the foreigner, but at the same time will give some advantage to the oppressed and overworked masses of the industrial population of this country. If we secure these things both for the hand and brain worker during this, our first Session, then I think the Prime Minister can look forward to the second with every hope of continued support from these benches.

Mr. ARNOLD

I desire to raise the question of Conscription. I am very glad that the Prime Minister is here, as I want to ask him some questions. I and some of myhon. Friends had put down an Amendment on this question, but that Amendment cannot be moved, because the Government have this afternoon given notice of a Bill dealing with the armed forces. They have done this despite the fact that there was no notice relating to the matter upon the Order Paper, and I do ask why this indecent haste? Why could not notice have been given to-morrow? Then, perhaps, this Amendment would have been moved. I regard the whole proceeding as a very wrong one, and I am afraid it is too characteristic of many of the methods of the Government. I am afraid also that it points clearly to the fact that this Bill, when it is introduced, will be a Conscription Bill, and I want to ask the Government to state definitely in the course of this Debate whether the Bill will be a Conscription Bill or not. Two questions relating to this matter were asked of the Prime Minister yesterday—one by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Labour party (Mr. A damson) and one by my right hon. Friend theMember for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean). Yet the Prime Minister, in the course of a long speech, did not say a word about the matter. Now, speaking in Wales recently, the Prime Minister prayed, in the words of the Psalmist, that his tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth if he proved false to Liberal principles. Apparently his tongue did cleave to the roof of his mouth yesterday. At any rate, he never said a syllable upon this vital question.

During the election there was a definite declaration of the Government policy. On several occasions it was stated that the Government stood for no Conscription. It is quite true that I did not believe their promises, because I do not believe the Government, and I do not trust them. In my opinion the election which has taken place was the most fraudulent election of modern times, and the Government have obtained power by methods which are a lasting disgrace to English political life. But although I did not believe the Government many people did, and I want to remind the House of some of the things which happened during the election. Now I will go to the Prime Minister. On 12th December, very near the eve of the polling, the Prime Minister, in reply to a correspondent, wrote as follows: Dear Sir,—You send me a cutting from to-day's 'Daily News' to the effect that a vote for the Coalition is a vote for Conscription, and you ask me if this is true. My reply is that it is not only not true, but that it is a calculated and characteristic falsehood.

HON. MEMBERS

Hear, hear!

Mr. ARNOLD

Very well; wait and see. During the election for Carnarvon Boroughs, election posters appeared calling on the electorates to "Vote for the Prime Minister and no Conscription." Then again on 22nd and 23rd December, when the Government was angling for the soldier's vote—there was still time—there appeared in the Press what was called a Lloyd George programme, and the second item in that programme was "No more Conscription." These are perfectly definite pledges. There is no ambiguity about them, and I ask the Prime Minister, is he going to honour these pledges, and if not, why not? Is it because his Tory masters will not let him? Is that the reason? But whatever difficulties he may have to meet, and they are very great, and entirely of his own creation, I do submit that the Government cannot play fast and loose with this vital issue. The policy of the Government should be, first to announce that Conscription will terminate at the expiration of the Military Service Act, and, second, to urge at the Peace Conference, and to emphasise again and again, that Conscription must be abolished in all countries entering into the Leagues of Nations. If the Government will do that, they will be backed by President Wilson and they will get their way.

This policy which I urge upon the Government is not asking for any new departure nor is it asking for anything inconsistent with the Armistice terms or with the League of Nations. On the contrary, one of the most important of President Wilson's points—and it was these points which really were the basis of the Armistice terms—was No. 4, and it was endorsed by our own Government and the Allied Governments and enemy Powers when signing the Armistice terms—that adequate securities should be given and taken, that national armaments will be reduced down to the lowest point; consistent with domes- tic safety. By no possible interpretation can those words be made to involve Conscription or to leave the least loophole for it in future. Therefore it is idle and irrelevant to argue as some people do that our policy must depend upon what other countries do. If words mean anything at all this No. 4 of President Wilson's terms made an end of Conscription not only in this country, but in all countries entering into the League of Nations. Therefore I am merely asking the Government to reaffirm in effect one of the Armistice terms.

There is now a great opportunity which has never occurred before and may never occur again of getting rid of this accursed system which has brought such untold suffering upon Europe. So far as this House is concerned, it has a grave responsibility in this matter. Conscription was passed by the last Parliament and was accepted by the country, in so far as it was accepted by the country, on one clear, definite understanding that it was to be a war Bill, and a war Bill only. I do not think that there is any dispute as to that. Mr. Asquith, who was then Prime Minister, in reply to a deputation just before the Bill was introduced, said: This is a war Bill and a war Bill only. The present Foreign Secretary, in the House on 6th January, 1916, spoke in the same sense, and later on Lord Lansdowne, who was then in the Cabinet, spoke in the House of Lords in a similar sense. If these pledges had not been given Conscription would not have been passed and could not have been passed; and I ask the Liberal Coalition Members in particular, What are they going to do if the Government refuse to pronounce against Conscription? The simple truth is that in view of the pledges which were given when Conscription was passed, and by means of which it was passed, it would be a distinct breach of faith if the Military Service Acts are continued in any form at all. Such being the case, what excuse can be offered for continuing Conscription?

For myself I have always been against Conscription. I voted against all the Military Service Acts in this House of Commons, and I have been returned by my Constituents resolutely to oppose Conscription in any form, and I will vote against it on any and every occasion. But apart from my own position, I ask again, What excuse can the Government give for continuing Conscription? It cannot be said that Conscription is necessary or will be necessary because of an inconclusive peace. No such situation has arisen. Germany has been crushingly defeated. That really means that the last hope of the conscriptionists is gone. Some people, for lack of a better reason, contend that Conscription will be necessary to ensure the peace. If it is the Government policy—and I think this is the case—to have an army of occupation, then sufficient men could be got for that purpose if they were paid better and treated better. Something has been done in this direction, but not enough. The War Office in their recent statement refer to a gap, which apparently, according to their argument, could only be bridged over by continuing Conscription. But their conclusion was most unconvincing. How can the War Office or the Government or anybody else say that there will be a gap until they have seen what better pay and still better treatment for our men will do? In particular I urge that a Committee should be set up at once to revise and scrap many of the King's Regulations. The men must be treated better and paid better.

7.0 P.M.

If we could afford to pay £7,000,000 a day to beat the Germans and pay interest at the rate of 5 per cent., which is a very high rate of interest, on £8,000,000,000 debt, then we can afford to offer very liberal terms to the comparatively small number of men who will be required to wind up the War. We can afford to offer such terms as will induce a sufficient number of men to volunteer for an army of occupation. But here I come to the Prime Minister again. When it was a matter of getting votes the Prime Minister said, "There must be no army of occupation." He said that in the Bristol speech on 11th December, and later on, in the same speech, he said, "It will not be necessary to have an army of occupation," and he continued to contend that pressure, if necessary, would be brought to bear upon them—that is, the Germans—by economic and international means, and that that would give the best results. For my part, I do not like the economic weapon, but as a temporary measure, to meet an emergency, I should certainly prefer it to Conscription. Further, it is virtually certain that it would never be actually necessary to use the economic weapon. The mere threat to Germany in her present desperate condition would be sufficient to secure compliance with the peace terms.

Over and above all these considerations there is, to my mind, one outstanding reason why the Government should announce the termination of Conscription, and announce it as quickly as possible. The country is faced with many grave problems, particularly with those connected with industrial unrest, and a serious situation will be greatly aggravated if Conscription, which can always be used to depress labour—and the workers know that—a serious situation will be greatly aggravated if this weapon against the workers is still placed by the Government at the disposal of the capitalists. [An HON. MEMBER: "It will not be tolerated!"] Military Conscription always carries with it a great deal of industrial conscription. The Government, when the Military Service Acts were introduced, denied this; at any rate, they gave pledges and promised Amendments. You may give pledges and pass Amendments until you are black in the face, but industrial conscription will still be there. Not only does military Conscription mean that unfair pressure can be brought to bear on individual workers, but also Conscription has been used acid would be used to break strikes. It broke the railway strike in France in October, 1910; this was done by M. Briand. Only last month, in France, the transport workers' strike was broken down by M. Clemenceau in the same way. Notices were posted in the Metropolitan Railway that any demobilised soldier who ceased work would be recalled to the Colours. In this country, last year, the engineers' strike was broken down in the same way, and the Government threatened that men who did not return to work would be taken into the Army. What is that but industrial conscription of the worst kind?

This question of Conscription is a key question. It not only affects industrial conditions, bat determines the character of national life and of policy in its broadest sense. Upon Conscription Prussian militarism and imperialism were built up. I do not propose to go into this matter historically in any detail, but I will just remind the House. It is perfectly true that Conscription came into being in Germany in 1862. Why? [A laugh.] Evidently my hon. Friend does not know. I will tell him why. It was carried through by William I. and by Bismarck because, according to Dr. Friedjung, the historian, William I. was fully aware that a great European policy could not be carried through with a standing army of 200,000 with 400,000 Landwehr, which was sufficient for the defence of the Fatherland, but not for the foundation of a Prusso-German Empire. So Conscription came into being, and having been enacted it had to be rendered palatable by success. Thus came about the Danish War of 1864, which added Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia; and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. These two wars were used by Bismarck as object lessons to show that militarism pays. These and the Franco-Prussian War led to the establishment of the German Empire, and that war went far to convince the German people that the military system of Bismarck was the foundation of their power. I say, and I repeat, that the rise of Prussian militarism and imperialism can be traced directly to the beginning of Conscription in Germany, and I ask "Are we, under whatever specious pretext, going to set out on the same fatal road?" I know it will be said there is no such intention, and if the Military Service Acts are renewed it will only be for a short time, and so forth, I protest against running any risks at all in this matter. There are people who want Conscription, and if the Military Service Acts are continued under one specious pretext, then, in due course, another specious pretext will be forthcoming for continuing them again, and so there is a grave risk of the system being perpetuated. Let us run no risk, let us have done with it. We were told again and again during the War that this was to be the last war; it was a war to end war; a war to end militarism. Now the War is over and won, and won outright. [A laugh.] I say, won outright. Now Germany is down and out—[Hon. Members: "Oh, oh!"]—what are you going to do about Conscription? Quite apart from his electoral pledges, let me ask the Prime Minister this, in conclusion: Were all his speeches during the last four years, about a war to end war, about fighting for liberty and freedom, about the white beaks of sacrifice arising above the mists of the valley, were those all hollow professions? That really is the question, and I ask him to tell us what the policy of the Government is, and I can promise that if they are going to bring in another Conscription Bill it will meet with the stoutest opposition.