HC Deb 07 November 1916 vol 87 cc148-62

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 22nd February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Mr. R. LAMBERT

I have no desire to do anything which might under any circumstances embarrass the Government, nor do I intend to use any but the most guarded terms in what I am about to say. The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs the other night made a speech on the Adjournment and used language which, I think, goes a little beyond what has been the constitutional practice of this House. I feel that at a time like this it is all the more important that Members of the House of Commons should be particularly jealous of those privileges which we possess, seeing that all our liberties are built upon precedent, and that if we allow an unfortunate precedent to be established we may find ourselves regretting it afterwards. What did the Noble Lord say? We all know that to undertake to govern a country at a time like this is to undertake a task which is really beyond human powers. We all recognise that. We are perfectly conscious of the many mistakes we make, of the many deficiencies of which we are guilty, but I cannot believe that anything which waters down the responsibility of the Government is likely to improve it. We must do what we think right. We must carry on the Government of the country, badly I agree, but as well as we can do it, Now we come to the all-important words: and we cannot share that responsibility with the House of Commons or with anybody else—not during the War. Towards the end of his speech he appealed to the House to give us confidence and support and not to try to take upon itself duties which with all the respect I have for the House. I am satisfied it is incapable of discharging, namely, the administration of the affairs of this country in a time of great stress and strain, such as that through which we are now passing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October, 1916, col. l668, Vol. LXXXVI.] The point I want to emphasise, and which I object to, is the remark which he makes that the Government cannot Share the responsibility with the House of Commons during the War. The Government cannot, even if it would, divest itself of our share of the responsibility, and, indeed, we have it on the authority of the Prime Minister himself, speaking on 26th July, that that is so, because my right hon. Friend said this: When you come to write the history of the War the responsibility for what was done must be shared by all sorts of people, and amongst others, by the House of Commons. When the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge) interposed "the Cabinet only," the Prime Minister emphasised the point by saying: My hon. Friend has got his share of responsibility. When the day of account comes, and the tribunal is opened and judgment is to be pronounced, we shall all, each in his own measure, some I agree with a greater measure and some with less, have to bear our share of the responsibility. I am bound to say I think there is a great difference between those two utterances, and I think the Noble Lord will, upon reflection, admit that the expressions which he used went, perhaps, a little further than he intended to go. After all, it is not a new doctrine. We have had expressions from time to time in past years, all showing that there is a great responsibility resting upon the House of Commons, and Lord Palmerston, speaking in 1864, said this: Her Majesty's Government are responsible to this House to give every information as to any communication which may take place with foreign governments with respect to our foreign policy. Of course we all admit that at a time of war like this it would be utterly unreasonable to expect the Government to make public important communications or to behave as if no great war were going on. That is not what we want. But we remember certain things. First of all, we remember that in an ordinary Session, in peace time, there is the safeguard that the front Opposition Bench is more or less kept informed of important events which are going on. No one at a time like this wants to move or to support a Vote of Censure on the Government. We do not want to have to censure them after the mistake has been made, but we want, if we possibly can, to give them assistance and to prevent mistakes being made. I very much regret that the other, day the Noble Lord seemed utterly to discountenance the suggestion which was put forward either that we should have a Secret Session to discuss foreign affairs or that something in the nature of the Commissions which are set up in France should be set up in this country. We feel that if only chosen Members of this House, from all parts, could be allowed to know what is going on, a very great deal of the uneasiness which is felt in all parts of the House from time to time would be allayed and the Government would be greatly strengthened, and confidence would be given to the country. I cannot help remembering that so long ago as 1864 Mr. Cobden himself in this House suggested that it was time for a reform of our Foreign Office system on those lines. He suggested that it would be an advantage if something of the kind were established. Fifty years have passed away—fifty years, I will not use the cant term of secret diplomacy, but fifty years during which the House of Commons has often been deprived of the advantage of being able to consult with the Government freely, and the result has been that we woke up one morning in August, 1914, fifty years after Cobden made that speech, to find that we were landed in a most terrible war. We are all of us anxious to help. We all of us recognise that the country is deeply interested in this terrible War, and we all of us want to do all that we can. I would earnestly urge the Noble Lord to consider whether, after all, there might not be a very great deal of advantage if he could possibly, with some modifications, but whether with modifications or without, set up something in the nature of the Commissions in France about which we have heard so much, which certainly have answered very well in that country and which, I believe, would prove the best solution that could be found for the difficulty in which we find ourselves to-day.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

I certainly have no right to object to my hon. Friend (Mr. It. Lambert) having brought up this question, which I quite recognise is a question of very great importance and difficulty. Let me deal first with the unimportant part of it—the question whether I expressed myself properly on Tuesday last or not. So far as that is concerned, I think, if my hon. Friend will allow me to say so, he was a little too hard upon my language. It is quite true that he read perfectly rightly what I said: We cannot share that responsibility with the House of Commons or with anybody else. It entirely depends upon how you read that phrase. What I meant was this: Not that the House of Commons had no responsibility—I should be the last person to assert that. The House of Commons has a great responsibility in all matters affecting the government of this country—but what I meant was that the Government also had a responsibility which is distinct from that of the House of Commons. That was the responsibility which I meant in the phrase I used when I said that the Government could not share it with the House of Commons. It is a very small matter, but that is the true construction of what I said and it is certainly what I meant. I think if my hon. Friend will refer to the earlier observations I made on that occasion he will see that what I had in my mind was this: that in order to secure anything like vigorous—one can only use the same word—responsible administration, you must leave the responsibility to those who are charged with the Executive power of the State for the time being. You cannot share that responsibility. I am sure that is a sound doctrine. It is quite true that if the duties are improperly exercised, if; mistakes are made, if negligence is found to have been committed, then the Minister who is guilty of negligence or of a mistake must undoubtedly be censured by his fellow-countrymen and necessarily dismissed from his office.

Mr. LAMBERT

That is after the event.

Lord R. CECIL

It may well be there are some questions—there certainly are some questions of administration which could be presented beforehand to the House of Commons, and which ought to be presented beforehand to the House of Commons; but in the Department with which I am connected it is unfortunately the case that in the vast majority of cases the Foreign Minister—for it really is he—must act. He has to make up his mind, he has to send a telegram, he must decide and he cannot shift any part of that responsibility on to anybody else. That is what I intended to convey to the House, and I think that my hon. Friend will agree that in that form there is no kind of objection from a constitutional point of view to what I was trying to say.

The hon. Gentleman went on to press upon me what the hon. Member for the St. Augustine's Division (Mr. Ronald McNeill) pressed very much upon me, on that occasion, namely, that some means ought to be found of taking the House of Commons more into the confidence of the Government. Both my hon. Friends will recognise the great difficulty of the position, I know. I have reason to know that the hon. Member for St. Augustine's Division realises it fully. I am very anxious; indeed, nobody can be more anxious than the Minister to be able to make his full defence. Even if he has been wrong, he would like to put before his fellow-countrymen at the earliest possible moment all the reasons which induced him to take a step, and all the difficulties he had in determining the step to be taken. Of course, he wants to lay that before his fellow-countrymen at the earliest possible moment. The difficulty is to find some means by which that can be done, and be done freely, because it is of no use unless it can be done freely, without injury to the public service. I should be very glad to confer with my lion. Friend who has just spoken, or any other Member of the House to see if any plan can be devised which would meet that case. I cannot pretend to feel, if he will allow me to say so—it may be an insular prejudice—a great admiration for the foreign system of Commissions. That seems to be the wrong thing. That seems to be watering down the responsibility of a Minister without giving any real control over policy. I believe that is wrong. I believe that a Minister should be responsible. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I see my hon. Friends recognise the justice of that observation. That I believe to be the right view. Therefore, I am not in favour of introducing, particularly in the middle of a great war, an entirely new constitutional system such as the establishment of Parliamentary Commissions would be, but I am very much in favour, if it could be devised, of some system which would enable the Ministers of the Crown, particularly those connected with the Foreign Office, to give much more freely than they can do in Debate in the House of Commons, the reasons for their policy, the difficulties they have had of all sorts which cannot even be alluded to in Debate in public, and which cannot even be suggested in public, and to lay before their fellow-countrymen what their real case is. I can only repeat that I shall be very glad, as the hon. Member for St. Augustine's Division knows I am very ready, to confer with anybody who takes an interest in the subject on that point, and if any plan can be devised which is not open to the objections to which I have aluded, I am quite sure my Noble Friend Lord Grey will be only too glad to adopt it, as I have had an opportunity of speaking with him on this subject.

Mr. SHERWELL

I think there will be general agreement that my hon. Friend (Mr. R. Lambert) has broached a question of extreme importance and has usefully occupied the hour for this Adjournment Debate. I am not quite satisfied or reassured by the speech of the Noble Lord. I quite agree with him that this is not the appropriate time to consider the subject of such a modification of our present system as would give the House an opportunity of establishing a Commission that might be a sort of intermediary between the Executive and the House of Commons. I do not for one moment suggest that the period of war is the most appropriate occasion for an innovation of that kind. But I would suggest to the Noble Lord, and through him, if possible, to his Cabinet colleague, that a large body of opinion in the country is regarding with grave misgiving this increasing accumulation of knowledge and of power in the hands of a body which, in essence—indeed in fact—is a self-elected body. I think the Noble Lord is wrong if he underrates that growing feeling in the country. If the present stream of tendency in this regard is allowed to continue it will undermine the authority of the Government by destroying the last vestiges of respect for Parliamentary forms and Parliamentary procedure. I am quite satisfied that if we have in front of us an intensification of the purely executive powers and authority of the Administration of the day, we shall have an upheaval by way of revulsion from this particular evil which would do permanent and, perhaps, irreparable damage to those forms of constitutional government as we have hitherto known them in this country.

Might I suggest to the Noble Lord that he has not quite met one point that has very great relevance and importance in this particular connection. We had noticed during the War that increasing disinclination on the part of the Government to take into its confidence the House of Commons in reference to very important matters of State and Executive concern. So far as the divulging of those particulars or data would tend to weaken the action of the Executive of the day, there would be no dissent in any quarter of this House. No one asks or desires to ask that the House of Commons shall so assert its powers, prerogatives, and privileges as to demand the divulging of information the publication of which or the leakage of which would seriously hamper or interfere with the action of the Executive in the conduct of the War. But we have noticed this—we have had a very striking illustration of it to-day—that while the Government has been increasingly jealous of divulging information, perfectly proper and legitimate information, to the House of Commons, it has at the same time pari passu shown an increasing tendency to take certain gentlemen representing the Press into its confidence and to give them from time to time information which is all-important which is denied to Parliament and particularly to the House of Commons. I venture respectfully to submit to the Government that there can be no possible defence for action of that kind. If information is of too sacred or too important a character to be divulged, even confidentially, to the House of Commons, clearly it is information which should not be given to a body of irresponsible gentlemen solely because they are connected with the conduct of the Press of the day. Earlier in the conduct of the War we had the Government actually selecting particular sections of the House of Commons as the recipients of private information, although that information was denied to the House as a whole. Again and again we have had instances of the leakage of information given by the Government to a particular class or a particular group of Members of this House, when that information has been denied to the House as a whole. I submit that the Government have got themselves into a perfectly false position in this regard. Either they must take full responsibility for their action, and say frankly that they do not regard the House of Commons as a party to responsibility for the conduct of this War and must state that they stand upon their individual responsibility as the Executive of the day, or they must show complete impartiality with regard to the channels of information. Do not let them deny to the House of Commons, on the ground of high State policy, information which sometimes the House thinks it has a right to receive and, at the same time, give that information—sometimes of a most important character—to irresponsible gentlemen solely because they are by the accident of circumstances connected with the conduct of the Press of the day.

Colonel GRETTON

I desire to support what has just been said by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Sherwell). The Foreign Office by tradition have been a secret office for many years and the secrecy of their proceedings have been emphasised very materially during recent events. There is a great danger in this matter. They are always talking of the difficulties. Difficulties generally accumulate through incompetence or bad management. There is no reason why any Minister or Government Office should be ashamed of those difficulties if he or it is dealing with them in a competent manner. Therefore I am not impressed by the argument of difficulty. What the House has a right to complain about is that information is given to the Press very often which is not given to it. I am sure the Foreign Office and the Government itself would find it an advantage if it were to take the House from time to time into its confidence and to give it information as to what has passed. We all recognise that many matters occur which cannot be publicly discussed, but there are many matters also which can be so discussed and which it is right the House of Commons should discuss and upon which it is the duty of the Government and of Ministers to give information.

There is undoubtedly throughout the country a growingly profound distrust of Foreign Office policy. It is felt that it has made most conspicuous blunders—the most conspicuous blunders that have been made by any Government Department during the War. We ought to know what their difficulties are, and how it is that they failed to overcome them in the way the nation expected. I am sure this Debate will be most useful if it induces the Government to take the House more frankly into its confidence, and if it results in the Foreign Minister doing so. Surely information which can be given to the Press in confidence may also be given to the House of Commons, so that hon. Members may know what the Government are doing and may be able to judge if they should remain in charge of the conduct of affairs in this country.

Sir E. CARSON

No doubt the question raised to-night is a very important one. One can very well understand why there should be considerable discontent at the present moment. The country thinks it sees from time to time failures in our diplomacy—failures in the management of foreign affairs for which it is unable to account. That naturally creates an uneasy situation and grave anxiety in the country. At the same time, I think it would be well for the House to recollect that this question of giving more publicity to foreign negotiations—to diplomatic negotitaions—is one that has been very often considered during the last; fifty years or more. I have been twenty-four years in this House, and to my knowledge it has arisen on many occasions. But the truth of the matter is that nobody has ever been able to suggest a way in which the House and the country could at critical times get more information in regard to dealings with foreign questions without probably doing a great deal more harm than good. The responsibility must be with the Government—certainly while the War is going on, and as certainly during acute crises before a War. You must leave the responsibility with the Government, and the responsibility of this House is to take care that if that Government fails it shall no longer be trusted. I know of no other responsibility that this House has or can have.

No hon. Member who has spoken in this Debate has given a concrete instance of the kind of information this House should get. I do not know what hon. Members have running in their minds. I do know a great many Members think there has been failure in our diplomacy in the Balkans—they think we have had a policy of drift with regard to Greece. Would they really like, at the present time, to have all the dispatches between this country and Roumania, Greece and Serbia, which have passed during the last year or year before, laid before Parliament and before the country, and before the various countries concerned, with the result that in some country there might be condemnation of this country because it had not paid sufficient attention to it, or condemnation by another Government because it had not received sufficient attention? Such a position would be impossible, and for my own part I have never yet, much as I would like to know many facts, much as I would like to criticise many things which have arisen in various critical situations, I have never yet, in the years I have been in this House, been able to see in what manner these communications could be made to the House and to the country without doing far more harm than good.

I have every sympathy with the observations made by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Sherwell), who asks why the Press should get information which this House does not get. Why should Cabinet Ministers and the heads of Departments—not merely the Foreign Office, but other Departments—convey to the Press with their own gloss upon it certain information which they refuse to give to this House? I never could understand the reason of that. I have a strong suspicion it is an attempt really to square the Press, and I think nothing is more harmful, in the course of the anxious period through which this country is passing, than that there should be an attempt in any way to put a gloss upon or whitewash any Department by putting the view of that Department, not as its view to be challenged but fully inquired into, but putting it forward as a case that is not to be afterwards answered or discussed, and putting it forward in a way which really misleads the public and does not inform the country. What the effect of these interviews is I do not know, but I can only say that, in my opinion, the setting-up of these secret meetings with the Press is very apt to aggravate the position that exists with regard to the giving of information to this House. What is the responsibility that the Press have in relation to the Government? Why are they given information which is withheld from the representatives of the People? I really think some day or other—the sooner the better—we should have a full explanation given to this House as to why this action is taken with regard to the Press. With respect to the other matters raised in this Debate, my Noble Friend has replied as far as any Minister could, when he said he would be quite anxious to consider any proposal of a practical character that could be put before him. I doubt very much, in the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, whether anybody will be able to discover any system by which any information can be given to the public of the character which we have been talking about in this Debate that might not do more harm than good to this country.

Mr. HOBHOUSE

I only wish to say a single word on the subject of the speech which has been delivered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson). If there is one advantage which may come from this announcement made yesterday or the day before, that the First Lord of the Admiralty was going to see a number of Press representatives—what reason there is for it I cannot tell; it may be that suggested by my right hon. Friend—but there will follow the advantage that it will be impossible to refuse to the House of Commons information which is granted to a number of journalists, and I hope that this House may bring pressure on the Under-Secretary, or the Prime Minister, or whatever other responsible Minister may be concerned, to communicate to the House of Commons in private. It certainly was done at the last Secret Session; they should communicate to the House of Commons in private the information which they have given to the journalists. If the journalists of this country are to be trusted, are not Members of the House of Commons equally to be trusted? Is their discretion less? Is their responsibility less? Is it not the fact that not a single reason which the Under-Secretary can put forward could possibly be suggested for not communicating to the House of Commons the information which is given in secret to members of the journalistic profession?

Lord R. CECIL

This part of the Debate has been raised since I spoke.

Mr. HOBHOUSE

The point was raised, it is true, with great force and cogency by my right hon. Friend the Member for Trinity College. With regard to the points raised by the hon. Member for the Cricklade Division, I can only say that, having had an opportunity of looking at the system which prevails in France, a system of Commissions for the consideration of foreign affairs, a system under which the Minister who is responsible to the Chamber becomes practically the mere mouthpiece of the Committee, I think that is not a satisfactory state of things. If you are to have Ministers in this House, they ought to be men speaking with authority and liable to be Parliamentarily punished for the mistakes which they as Members of the Government have committed. It is, of course, impossible, ordinarily speaking, to communicate to the House of Commons information as to negotiations between foreign Powers which would not be made patent to Ministers who conduct them on the part of foreign Powers. Although, as a private Member of the House of Commons, I would immensely like to know a great many things which are going on at the Foreign Office, things of interest not merely to myself, I am content to remain in ignorance of them generally because I am sure publication would not be of advantage to the cause for which they are undertaken. I do not think, especially in view of the circumstances of the times, the House of Commons ought to be put in possession of information of a secret nature provided there has been no disclosure to the Press. The House of Commons will be aware that no information leaked out in regard to what took place at the last private sitting.

Mr. R. McNEILL

There was nothing to disclose.

Mr. HOBHOUSE

Having recently passed two or three weeks in France, especially among the civilian population, I found there was not a single case of revelation of what took place in the French Chamber either in the Press or among the general public by members of the Senatorial body or of the Chamber. There was the most extraordinary reticence observed by the members, and if that could occur in France surely equal reticence could be observed here by the British people, and their representatives could be equally trusted.

Sir J. JARDINE

I think the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. R. Lambert) is to be congratulated on having raised this Debate. Certainly the language used by the right hon. Gentleman (Lord R. Cecil) was a little too ambiguous, and, consider- ing the immense importance of the subject, it was very desirable that he should be asked to explain exactly what he meant. We have heard now that he had no intention of attacking any of the existing prerogatives of Parliament The constitutional doctrine, therefore, remains that we in Parliament constitute the great inquest of the nation, and have the right to inquire into all that goes on. We do that, but there may be times—for instance, when a great war is being waged so near our shores—when that does not fully apply, and we might refuse to demand evidence in regard to every single thing that goes on. On the whole, I am fairly satisfied with the explanation given by the Noble Lord, and I am gratified to find that he and Lord Grey keep an open mind on the question of Commissions. Commissions may perhaps answer well in France. They might answer in this country, with our Parliamentary ways and our various national characteristics, but I should be loth to say whether the system would succeed until I had seen the plan upon which the Commissions were to be made.

In other Departments that method might be used without the dangers that might result from revelations of what was going on in the Foreign Office. I can imagine the view being urged, considering that we hardly ever have any Debate on Indian affairs, that it might be very well if there were a body like one of these Commissions to keep us acquainted with what the Administration was doing, and in that way give to the House greater knowledge of Indian affairs, so that on the next occasion when the Indian matters came forward for discussion there would be more Members than there are now with considerable knowledge of the matters they had to debate. Looking at the fact that most of the things with which the Secretary of State for India deals are not matters of great secrecy, and that every year the India Office publish Reports of innumerable things going on in India, there would not toe the same danger in dealing with these matters in the way I suggest as there might be in the case of the Foreign Office. Certainly, there might be considerable advantage in the House of Commons getting more information, when we consider how very few of the six hundred and seventy Members of this House have an intimate knowledge of that enormous Dependency. To a certain extent that remark applies to another place, more particularly to the scarcity of those who have spent all their time in India and who know the ways of the people as well as the ways of the administration and the politics that connect India with our worldwide Empire and our foreign relations. Possibly the system of Commissions might be useful in some other Departments, but this is not the time to labour any of these points. I am glad that the suggestion has been brought forward and that it has received a sort of sympathetic consideration, but I do suggest that it should be cautiously dealt with before any particular plan is accepted.

Mr. OUTHWAITE

The right hon. Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson) wanted to know some particular examples of the information we desire to be disclosed. I would like to point out to the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs that on one or two occasions I have put down questions only asking for some statement as regards statements already made and divulged by Ministers in Allied countries, and I have not been able to understand why on more than one occasion the Noble Lord should have said it was not in the public interest that such a question should be put. He has taken occasion to condemn me for having put such questions. I will mention one instance. The Minister of Foreign Affairs for Russia made a statement to a newspaper interviewer with regard to the statement made by the Prime Minister in this House as to the future of Constantinople. I asked if we could have the statement regarding this disclosure made by the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, but the Noble Lord seemed to think that there was something improper in my asking that the people of this country, and hon. Members in this House, should know what it was that had been disclosed by the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs. Surely it was perfectly legitimate that we should have information that had already been made public in another country. I will give another instance. There was published in the Press here a statement made by the Prime Minister of France, Monsieur Briand, with reference to the question of Greece's intervention on be half of the Allies. Surely that is a very important matter. According to the Press statement here, which was passed by the Press Bureau, presumably, Monsieur Briand made a very important statement as regards the attitude of Italy towards the intervention of Greece. But when I asked for information about the matter, the Noble Lord seemed to think that it was improper.

Notice taken that forty Members were no present; House counted, and forty Members not being present, the House was adjourned at Seven minutes before Eight o'clock till to-morrow (Wednesday).