WAR AIMS.

HC Deb 08 August 1918 vol 109 cc1578-636

Mr. ANDERSON

The House to-day is going to adjourn for some ten weeks, and during that time it is probable that the political and diplomatic aspects of the War may assume a new importance. It will be impossible for the House to discuss those matters. Therefore, we make no apology at all for drawing attention to some of the aspects of the situation now. My own contribution to the problem will be limited in scope, but not, I think, unimportant in character. I would remind the House, first of all, that the War has entered upon its fifth year, and in all the countries there is a growing sense of gravity and seriousness on the part of the peoples in relation to the tragedy that is being enacted. They see on all hands the accumulating misery and the accumulating cost, and I do not believe that the world has ever realised so clearly as it does now the meaning of war and the misery of war. I would draw attention to an article written by a very well-known journalist, Mr. Gardiner, of the "Daily News," in which, speaking of the cost of the War, he says this: We know what war is. We have four years of such experience as the world has never had before. If we sat day and night and saw the ghostly procession of those slain file by in ranks of four, minute by minute, ten years would pass and still the tale of the world's sacrifice of its youth and strength and hope would not have been told. And if, behind the dead, there filed the host of the maimed, the halt, the blind, the dumb, the paralysed, fifty years would hardly exhaust the dreadful spectacle. The material cost we do not yet realise. We are burning down the house of Bo-bo and it makes a fine blaze—plenty of work, plenty of money, plenty of profits. We shall have to wait till the fire is out and we survey the heap of ashes before we appreciate the meaning of these thousands of millions of debt which Mr. Bonar Law announces to a House that used to be seized with visions of national bankruptcy if anyone asked for a million, to build schools, or house the poor, or heal the sick. I am quite sure that what is needed here and elsewhere is not shouting, of which we have had too much in the Press and from the platform, but clear, sustained, and moderate thinking, and that our statesmen should try to do away with non-essentials, false issues, and selfish aims, and, as far as in them lies, move forward steadily towards a good settlement. I am also certain that the ordinary channels of traditional diplomacy have not been adequate to grapple with this new situation. This terrible accumulation of passion, of anger, and of tragedy has overflowed the ordinary banks and channels of diplomacy, and I am going to ask the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Office that, among other things, they should watch very carefully the movements of opinion in the various countries outside the ordinary diplomatic channels, because I am certain that by our declarations we can either help or hinder these domestic movements. I am also equally sure that the progress of these movements or the retarding of them will either lengthen or shorten the period of the War itself. Let there be no mistake about it. In all the countries there are cleavages of opinion not merely with regard to the War, but with regard to the end towards which we ought to move, what our purpose ought to be, and what form the settlement ought to take. If you take Germany, you get, on the one hand, Von Tirpitz, Ludendorff, and Reventlow standing for an Imperialistic Germany with Imperial aims and ideas, and at the other end of the scale you get men like Liebknecht, who is now in prison for standing against a false Imperialism and Kaiserism, but whose influence, though he lies in prison, remains, and in whose constituency a Minority Socialist, standing definitely against the War and against the militarism of Germany, has been returned at a by-election. Side by side with him there are men like Bernstein and Ledebour, who have pursued a moderate policy in Germany all the way through, and who have fought the false issues and aims. I am certain that we ought to be able to differentiate between these men, and by our own policy we ought to strengthen the forces at homo that are definitely against the forces of evil abroad.

It is very often said in this War that the battle is being fought to make this world safe for democracy. If that is true, democratic opinion in all the countries ought to count for much. I cannot help feeling that while we have been striving for unity of command in regard to military operations, there has not been anything like unity of statesmanship among the Allied countries in regard to the aims and purposes which we are seeking to achieve. The opinion is very general that, apart from America, nothing has been done by the Allied Governments to crystallise and clarify opinion, and to make the aims as clear as they might be. That was one of the reasons, though not the only reason, why the Labour and Socialist movements of all the Allies felt that it was necessary to get together to draw up themselves certain aims and certain principles, and, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, an Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conference was held in February in London. That conference represented various movements in various countries. In this country our Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress, representing millions of organised workers, as well as the Labour party were present. The French Confederation of Labour, representing the French trade union workmen, were present. The French Socialist party, the Belgian Socialist party, the Italian parties, and consultative delegates from South Africa, Roumania, and some Slav organisations were also present.

At this conference we were able to arrive definitely at certain principles, and were able to make a certain statement of aims. This document has been offered as the basis of discussion, not between the Governments and the Kaisers of the various lands, but between the organised workers of the different countries, to see how far they are apart and how far they can really come together in formulating a common programme and policy in regard to the future. They have no intention of abrogating to themselves the functions of government, but they do believe that they are able to make a substantial contribution to this question and to clear away a great deal of error and misunderstanding. I should have thought that the Government, so far from placing every possible obstacle in the way of wider communications of that kind, would have been glad to see that movement go forward. What were the principal aims put forward at this Inter-Allied Conference? First of all, in the very forefront of the programme was the question of a League of Nations. I believe that a League of Nations genuinely organised on proper lines is absolutely essential to anything in the way of a reasonable and proper peace. I believe that many of the problems with which we are faced, territorial questions and so on, will remain insoluble without such a League of Nations, and whatever difficulties there are, and nobody disputes that there are difficulties, in the way of forming a League of Nations, they are as nothing to the difficulties resulting from not forming a League of Nations. The Inter-Allied Conference also dealt with territorial questions affecting Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, the Balkans, Austro-Hungary, the Colonies, and so on. It declared definitely that there ought to be no economic war after this War, and that economic war, in the words of Mr. Wells, is "a smouldering war where the fire is apt to leap up at any moment." It dealt with the question of restoration and compensation. It dealt with the question of international conference in the following words: The opinion is expressed that an international conference of Labour and Socialist organisations, held under proper conditions, would at this stage help to remove obstacles to peace. Such a conference should be organised by an impartial committee. An essential condition to it should be that all the organisations represented had publicly declared their peace terms in conformity with the principles of 'No annexation or punitive indemnities, and the right of all peoples to self-determination,' and were working to secure the adoption of those principles by their Governments. This document, with which no doubt the Foreign Office is acquainted, has been sent to the various organisations and to the Labour organisations in the enemy countries as well. I believe that here is an opportunity of helping forward a movement towards a reasonable and a democratic peace. I would like to quote what was said in regard to that conference in February in two newspapers representing such different points of view on many matters as the "Manchester Guardian" and the "Times." This is what the "Manchester Guardian" says: The Governments have so far failed to draw up a common programme of war aims; the Conference has done it for them. All the world can now know the policy of Allied labour, and labour among the Central Powers may usefully ponder it. What will it say? That we have yet to learn, and, nothing must stand in the way of our learning it. For, in truth, it is on the accord of the democracies far more than on that of their Governments for the time being that the future depends. Indeed, it may yet be that only through the effective accord of the peoples can peace be reached at all. It is for the peoples, therefore, to assert themselves, our own people, the French and Italian peoples, the German and Austrian peoples. What hope, will it be said, is there of that? How is a triumphant militarism, at this very moment rich with spoil, to be crushed and broken? Perhaps the triumph is pretty far from being as complete as it seems; perhaps even its leaders have something more than a suspicion that their power rests on no very stable base, and that unless they in their turn can offer their people something more than conquest, can at least assure them peace, there may be limits to the endurance of the most patient. But in order that the peoples in those countries may have some stable ground to go upon, in order that they may know what for them peace would mean, it is essential that the terms should be clearly stated, and stated collectively. That is what the Inter-Allied Conference has done so far as Labour is concerned. It is well done, and the Allied Governments would be well advised speedily to follow suit. When it is fully known to the German people that peace means not subjection but liberty, there is no saying what useful transformations may follow. This is the quotation from the "Times": Let us, therefore, suppose again that the Allied Labour declaration of war aims is brought to the notice of the corresponding bodies in the enemy countries. The first object is to extract an answer from them which will show their real position, and if that agrees in any measure with the Allied Labour views, then to proceed further with negotiations and attempt the international meeting. The eventual object appears to be to convince the enemy Labour representation that they have been deceived by their own Government and that no intention of crushing or ruining them is cherished on this side; that what we are fighting against is German 'militarism' and the gospel of force which it represents. That is a fair and proper object which has been pursued by President Wilson and others; and not only have the Labour organisations a right to pursue it, too, but they can in some respects do so more effectively than statesmen or Governments. For the moment I make no comment on those two extracts, but leave them to speak for themselves. Since those meetings in February, various meetings have been held in various countries, two quite recently in France. One meeting was that of the French General Confederation of Labour, representing the organised trade unionists of France. That was held on the 18th July. By an overwhelming majority at that conference they put forward the demand that their Government should work toward a peace which would help to create a society of nations, and for compulsory arbitration between nations, no economic war after the War, reparation for damage done but no war indemnity, no annexations and the right of self-determination applied to every country, freedom of the seas and straits, no secret diplomacy, and no secret agreements. As leading up to that, they put forward very strongly the demand that an international conference should be held, and said that if the Governments refused, organised labour would be justified in going to almost any length to insist upon that conference taking place. There has also been a meeting of the National Council of the French Socialist party only the other week. What has hitherto been called the minority section of that party, which stands for the wider international point of view, has now become the majority section of that party. The movement has been steady towards the left. There is no doubt that the demand for a reasonable peace is growing among these workers, and also that there should be, at the earliest possible moment, a meeting of the International. In the meantime this Inter-Allied Memorandum has gone to the enemy countries, the idea being to ascertain from the workers, as distinguished from the Government and the militarists, whether there was a sufficient agreement in regard to essential War aims to make further discussion possible, and, if so, whether a conference could be organised at which at least there could be an informal talk over the whole question in order to see how far they were apart and how close they might come together. This document has led to great discussion in the various countries. It has done a great deal of good. I might quote much in proof of that, but I will only quote from one article which appeared in the German-Austrian Socialist paper, "Arbeiter Zeitung," of 7th July, which says: We have to come in agreement with President Wilson. That is only possible if we are prepared to join the League of Nations, and if we refuse to submit whole peoples to domination, either on the East or the West. This will be the easier as the power of the democracy increases in our countries. President Wilson will agree more readily with a democratic Germany than with German Headquarters, more readily with an Austria composed of a federation of free States, than with an Austria where the majority treats the minority of the people as naughty children. The more we are in agreement with the dominant powers in our countries, the more difficult it will be to reach an agreement with Wilson. The question I want to ask, in regard to all this, is, whether we are prepared to make any advance towards this spirit which is undoubtedly growing in these other countries? We have it largely in our power either to strengthen it or to freeze it over by the kind of speeches which are made here and the kind of writings that appear here. Either we can help that freer movement in all the other countries or we can hold it in check by the kind of declarations that are made. To that I will refer in a moment. What has been the response to this Inter-Allied Memorandum so far as enemy countries are concerned? There are many of the parties, like the Bohemian-Austrian party, the Galician-Austrian party, the South Slav organisation, and the German Minority party, as to which there is hardly any need to ask any question, for those parties all through the War have been definitely up against their Governments. They have been fighting their Government, and have been fighting all the time for a wider measure of a democratic people's peace. The Bulgarian party has signified that it accepts the general outline of the Inter-Allied declaration, with some small reservation about Macedonia, which is trivial and unimportant. But in regard to all the bigger issues and the general principles, it has given a complete endorsement to what has been put forward. With regard to the Hungarian party, they have opposed the War from the start; they are in complete accord with the general principles of the Inter-Allied Memorandum. They ask for access to the sea both for Serbia and for Hungary. There is no doubt that in any future settlement this question of access to the sea is a very vital matter to some of the countries. Even the right of self-determination itself must not be pressed so far that the self-determination of one country should keep another country from access to the sea. These Hungarian Socialists ask that Belgium shall not only be free and independent, but that Belgium shall be reconstructed at Germany's expense, and they ask also that there should be an independent Serbia, and that there should be a great international fund established, out of which reparation may be made to the small countries which have been ravished and despoiled.

In regard to the Austrian Socialist party, they agree to the general principles of the memorandum. They repudiate and condemn Germany's treaties with Russia and Rumania, and believe that they are Imperialist and wrong. They warn the workers of the various countries against looking too much for a Utopia at the end of the War, and against fighting on and on in the hope that to-morrow some wonderful Utopia will come out of the War. They say we ought to make a good start to find a good minimum, to build upon that minimum, and to build upon it after the War comes to an end. Last of all, what is the position in regard to Germany itself? Anyone who reads the extracts from German papers must understand that, so far as the democratic workers of Germany are concerned, the present bureaucratic forms of government in Germany are thoroughly unpopular. There is much hostile criticism in Radical papers like the "Frankfurter Zeitung." I believe it is a fact that at the last election 4,000,000 votes were cast for Socialist candidates in Germany, and the by-elections show that the movement is steadily growing. Majority and Minority German Socialists alike condemn the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest. There is no question but that there is a real cleavage between large masses of democratic opinion in Germany and men like Ludendorff who speak for the militarists. The German Majority Socialists accept as the basis of discussion those neutral proposals put forward at Stockholm and signed by M. Branting. What were they? They included a League of Nations, open diplomacy, internatnonal disarmament, no economic war after the War, and they said that Alsace-Lorraine was a European problem, and that there ought to be a right on the part of the people to decide how they are going to be governed by means of some form of plebiscite. The German Socialists do not accept that, but it is quite clear that they are willing to discuss it.

One of the men who has strongly condemned the German Majority Socialists for their attitude in regard to Alsace-Lorraine has been M. Troelstra, the Dutch Socialist leader. He has been able to bring them to a more reasonable frame of mind. I suppose that was one reason why he was regarded as a pro-German, and was kept out of this country. In point of fact, the great sin which M. Troelstra committed was that he had conversation with German Socialists prior to proposing to come here. What he really desired to do was to be able to put an authoritative statement before this country and before all who cared to hear it, as to what was the real position of the democracies in the other countries. It would have been of service, not only to labour here, but to the Foreign Office to get the opinion of a neutral like M. Troelstra as to what was really happening. Apparently quite a different point of view was taken, for in the ordinary Jingo papers a great furore was raised, and he was refused permission to come here at all. This neutral statement, which the German Majority Socialists have agreed to discuss, includes the independence of Belgium, restoration at the expense of Germany, the independence of the former Russian province of Courland, and autonomy for the whole of Poland There is at present much industrial unrest both in Germany and Austria. There have been repeated strikes in Vienna, Berlin, and all over Hungary, and the position has been very much aggravated by the food trouble. What is the argument which German and, Austrian militarists use against all this in order to keep their people in order? What do they say? First of all, that if they are Imperialist in some of their aims the Allies are also Imperialist, and that there are secret treaties and secret agreements between the Allied nations which will enable them to out up this and that piece of territory at the end of the War. They are constantly telling their people in Germany and Austria that it is the aim of the Allied Governments, and particularly of Great Britain, to retain the German Colonies, and by doing that to cut Germany off from the sources of supply of raw materials. They also say that the Allies are preparing to carry on an economic war after the War specifically against Germany. They also, say to the people, "You are going to starve in any case; you may be starving now, but you will also starve after the War is over, because they are going to do their very best to pursue an economic policy and to cut you off from the sources of supply." In regard to that I would say that various statements of extreme Jingo aims can only have one effect, namely, more and more to unite the people with their rulers, although there is no love lost between the people and their rulers. If it were a matter of destruction they would stand together. In this connection I should like to call attention to something which was said by a German Minority Socialist who has been fighting against German militarism from the outbreak of the War to the present moment. Speaking to certain neutral friends at Stockholm, he said: Say to your English friends that Ludendorf has valuable friends in London, and that the German Government would pay sums of money to keep in existence certain extreme organs of Jingo opinion in the Allied countries. 2.0 P.M.

I would therefore ask whether, if this question can be brought to a point where useful, informal discussions can be reached—not official discussions necessarily—between the peoples, any further difficulties would be raised in regard to the question of passports? The present Prime Minister, as far back as May, 1917, was in favour of this international conference taking place, and if he has changed his mind one would like to know why he has changed it now. There are some people who are in favour of fighting for the sake of fighting. So it is with some savage tribes. I remember hearing a story about one of the Maori tribes in New Zealand. They were waging war, and they had a chance of cutting off the food supplies which were going to the enemy, but they let them pass. Someone expressed amazement to the Chief that he should allow the supplies to go on, and he replied, "Why, you fool, if we cut off their food and their powder, how could the fighting go on?" There is no country which would be so foolish, in regard to the material munitions of War, as not to cut them off if they got the chance, but I am not quite so sure that is happening in regard to the moral munitions of war. I think the extreme opinion in one country is helping to provide the moral munitions of war for the extreme opinion in other countries. A man who knew as much about war as Napoleon did, the greatest military genius the world has ever seen, said that the moral factor as compared with the material factor in respect of war was as two to one.

All this raises difficult and, in some respects, delicate questions, the question, for example, of what our policy is and of whether we are going to appeal to this great democratic movement in other countries and how we are going about it. I understand we have actually got four different Departments dealing with the question of expounding and explaining war aims. We are to appeal to the German and Austrian Socialists to tell them what victory means, that victory does not mean smashing or crushing, but the attainment of certain high aims, which some of them also eagerly desire, and into whose hands do we put this sort of thing? Into the hands of men like Lord Northcliffe and Lord Beaverbrook. We have actually got four different Departments. Lord Beaverbrook runs one show, surrounded by business men, Stock Exchange jobbers and others, who may know all about international finance, but know nothing at all about international diplomacy. We have got Lord Northcliffe taking charge of the campaign in enemy countries; we have the War Aims Committee explaining what we mean and what we stand for; and, last of all, we have the Foreign Office. Some of these Departments apparently act independently of the Foreign Office. On the other hand, I think Lord Beaverbrook is responsible in many respects to the Foreign Office. But, whatever quarrel we may have with the Foreign Office, we certainly prefer the Foreign Secretary to-Lord Beaverbrook as the exponent of British diplomacy, and I think it is time the right hon. Gentleman should take definite charge of this Department, because there are far too many cooks stirring in this tragic hell-broth, and they are not making a very good job of it in my opinion. A great many people are quite convinced that Allied statesmanship, as well as that on the other side, has not been exactly inspired. The "Manchester Guardian" of 27th July said: If there had been unity of statesmanship on our side, as there is now unity of command, and if this statesmanship had been inspired with any sense for world politics, one or more of Germany's Allies would have ceased from troubling, us long before this. But hitherto, whenever a pacific gesture has been seen at Vienna or elsewhere, it has always appeared to be the express object of diplomacy on our side to treat it as an act of aggravated disrespect. If our statesmanship had been bent on consolidating our enemies it could hardly have acted otherwise. Have we even now a clear and concerted policy? I should like to quote a well-known publicist, Mr. H. G. Wells, who has certainly a very wide influence, not only in this country, but in America—probably wider-there than here. He says: At least equally remarkable is the dragging inadaptability of European statecraft. Everywhere the failure of Ministers and statesmen to rise to the urgent definite necessities of the present time is glaringly conspicuous. They seem to be incapable even of thinking how the War may be brought to an end. They seem to be incapable of that plain speaking to the world audience which alone can bring about a peace. They keep on with the tricks and feints of a departed age. Both on the side of the Allies and on the side of the Germans the declarations of public policy remain, childishly vague and disingenuous, childishly 'diplomatic.' They chaffer like happy imbeciles while civilisation bleeds to death. It was perhaps to be expected. Few, if any, men of over five-and-forty completely readjust themselves to changed conditions, how-over novel and challenging the changes may be, and nearly all the leading figures in these affairs are elderly men trained in a tradition of diplomatic ineffectiveness, and now overworked and overstrained to a pitch of complete inelasticity. The peace question will revolve round three main groups of problems: first of all, territorial questions, and not only the question of independence and integrity, but questions of territorial readjustment, financial questions, questions of compensation, restoration, and so on, and at whose expense, and then a number of general questions will at any rate be raised—how far they may be settled no one knows—the question of the self-determination of peoples, economic relations, armaments, and so on. In my opinion, many of these questions are incapable of permanent solution without a really effective and genuine League of Nations. I believe a genuine League of Nations is the link which will hold these various questions together and make the solution of them a possibility. Count Reventlow one of the fire-eaters of Germany, said a League of Nations would represent the defeat of Germany in this War. A League of Nations will represent the defeat of militarism everywhere. It will mean the beginning of new and better things, and it will not only mean the defeat of Prussian militarism, but a genuine League of Nations would also mean the defeat of the "Morning. Posit" and of Mr. Hughes and people like that. I will quote the statement of Viscount Grey. He says: The establishment and maintenance of a League of Nations, such as President Wilson has advocated, is more important and essential to a secure peace than any of the actual terms of peace which may conclude the War. It will transcend them all. The best of them will be worth little unless the future relations of States are to be on a basis that will prevent a recurrence of militarism in any State. If that is going to be done, there must be something very different from the old holy alliances we have had in the past. Those were Leagues of Kings. We want to-day leagues of peoples. I am certain the growth of democracy itself is in the end the only sure hope against war and the only-hope of a permanent and enduring peace. Do our rulers really desire a League of Nations in the best sense? President Wilson undoubtedly does. Viscount Grey does. But, whilst lip service is given to it in many quarters, it takes the form of pouring doubt upon the practicability of it, and, indeed, many of our rulers seem to speak much in the same tone as was adopted by Lord Castlereagh when he wrote to the Emperor Alexander on a similar project under very different conditions over one hundred years ago. Lord Castlereagh said: The problem of a universal alliance for the peace and happiness of the world has always been one of speculation and hope, but it has never yet been reduced to practice. And if an opinion may be hazarded, from its difficulty it never can. Whatever the Emperor Alexander may have said, the reply from Lord Castlereagh on behalf of the British Government was certainly not of a very encouraging character. To-day, whatever differences exist on other questions, the Socialist, Labour, and trade union movements in all the countries are heartily in agreement on this question. We believe the League of Nations is inconsistent with sliding scale peace conditions. We do not shirk the fact that there are difficulties. What is the good of statesmanship if it is not to resolve some of these difficulties! How far, for instance, can the sovereign rights of any nation be modified? How far can we affirm that a nation whilst being free-to live its own life, to make its own laws, to develop completely and unfettered its own internal affairs, shall not have a right to interfere with the liberties of other nations or to ride roughshod over other nations? What form would an international tribunal take? On what basis would nations be represented? How is an international force to be organised if force, police, or otherwise, were necessary? How far could economic pressure be applied to nations? Are the European rulers who render lip service, at any rate, to the principles of President Wilson really tackling these problems and reaching solutions in regard to them? I strongly appeal that in the meantime no step should be taken by the Government that is inconsistent with this idea of a League of Nations. If you have plunges into Protection, and Preference, you seem to me to be getting away from the idea of a League of Nations altogether, and creating difficulties between yourselves and your Allies as well as between yourselves and neutral countries and those which at present are enemy countries.

In so far as there are secret treaties between countries which have Imperialism in them they are utterly inconsistent with the idea of a League of Nations. In so far as we are pursuing in Ireland a policy of drift or a policy of coercion, it will be very difficult indeed for us at any peace conference to stand as the champions and the exponents of a League of Nations guaranteeing liberty and freedom to small peoples. I believe at the next election in Ireland what I regard as the most extreme element there, will have a wide measure of electoral victory and it may lead to very strange developments there. It may ultimately lead to rebellion itself. If that does happen and once more there is a bloodstained story of Ireland, it will not be a good start for a peace conference and for the discussion of these matters. I am certain that a genuine rally to this principle of a League of Nations would shorten the War itself. If other people are convinced that you are genuine on this matter, you would drive a wedge between the autocratic rulers and their peoples. Apart from that, it is also a measure of financial and economic necessity for the alternative is complete bankruptcy itself, and only by this means will you save the nations in the future from increased armaments and Conscription. No military result will in itself protect the world against another war. The knock-out blow, which has been advocated in certain quarters, has now apparently been put aside by men like General Smuts. In his remarkable speech at Glasgow sometime ago he said: If you are not going to fight the War out to a smash-up, then surely it is necessary sometimes to find out how things are going, and what your opponent is thinking, and what advantage you may take of the situation as it is looked at by him. We will not have a peace secured merely by the unaided efforts of armies in this War. That is the opinion of General Smuts. I do not know how far it represents the opinions of the Government, but I am certain of this that if war-to-a-finish ideas were to hold the field the War might drag on to 1920 or 1925, and then what would the result be? There would be increasing unrest in all the countries, including our own country, and increasing danger and disturbance. If there is no League of Nations you may have possibly twenty years hence another war, because no military results will ever guard against that. Country after country has been stricken down. Prussia was stricken down by Napoleon, and Prance was stricken down by Prussia. If another war does come, in, the meantime you will have had a development of devilishly ingenious mechanism. Science will be prostituted to unworthy ends and civilisation might itself be destroyed. Under these circumstances I do say that we ought to have a policy which will draw together the best minds in all countries against the worst minds in all countries, the moderate opinion in all countries against the extreme opinion in all countries. We ought to see clearly that war is a monster to be destroyed for all time. Whether it comes now or afterwards, I am convinced that Kaiserism and autocratic rule in all countries have received their death-blow as a result of this bloodstained struggle. It may be that the full force of that reaction will come when the actual fighting ceases, and I am certain of this, that in that direction the welfare of the people lies and the wellbeing of real democracy and the real hope for the future lie.

Major TRYON

I have listened with the greatest interest to every word that has been said, and I can assure the hon. Member solemnly and seriously that we want peace just as much as he does. If I could in a sentence say what I think we all want, it is that we want at the earliest possible moment a just and lasting peace. When I listened to the proposals that the hon. Member put forward and to the resolutions passed by certain bodies in Germany I was reminded that the road which he is urging this country to travel is a road which has quite recently been trodden by the people of Russia. There were resolutions in the Reichstag about no indemnities and no annexations, and the people of Russia being deceived by them went to treat with the German people, with the result that the people of Russia find that all this German peace talk led not to what the hon. Member described as "liberty, not subjection," but to the exact opposite. It led to subjection, not liberty. We must remember what happened to the people of Russia, who took the advice which the hon. Member for Attercliffe is giving us to-day.

I do not think that the efforts of the small group of pacifists in this House offer us any hope of peace. I measure their activity not as a contribution to peace, for I deny that it is such, but rather by the very great effect that their policy and action may have upon this War. Throughout the whole of the hon. Member's speech there was not one word of encouragement for our troops, not one word of recognition of the danger that this country is suffering from the present War. He speaks as, if the War was to be settled by Resolutions passed in Berlin. I maintain that such speeches not only discourage our men, but do a great deal to discourage the Allies who are fighting with us, while at the same time doing a great deal to encourage the German people who are fighting against us. I protest against this, and I think it is right that protest should be made against the way in which, throughout this Session, hour after hour, our Debates have been taken up by prolonged and poisonous speeches from the pacifist Members. Those speeches do infinite harm to our cause and do harm to the cause of peace, towards which I am sure they are making honest but misguided efforts. I do not refer simply to the speech of the hon. Member, but to the general run of speeches from those benches, and I say that they are a danger to the safety of the State, and that they are ridiculous if they are supposed to represent popular opinion in this country. If the opinions which those hon. Members preach were widely held, surely they would be able to carry their views at by-elections. Where do you see any sign that the views which those hon. Members put before this House are the views of the people of this country? I also wish to protest against the idea that any class, or section of a class, or self-appointed representative to the class should go to negotiate terms in any way with those who are fighting against this country. The whole nation is at war, and the whole nation has a right to agree to terms, and I abject to any section of a class treating with the enemy behind the back of the nation as a whole.

I noticed also that in the hon. Member's speech there was not one suggestion of any kind that the Germans were in any way guilty or that the German Army authorities were guilty. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the vast majority of the people of this country, this War is due to German military aggression. It is a war of conquest by Germany. The-aims of Germany all through her history are well known. We know what Prince Bismarck said of the time he was in office— I advised three wars, the Bohemian, the Danish, and the French, but every time I first made myself clear whether the war, if it were successful, would bring a prize of victory worth the sacrifices which every war requires.… Similarly this War was desired and intended by German leaders. The well-known writer Bernhardi says: Just as in 1870 we marched to the shores of the Atlantic, so this time again we must resolve on an absolute conquest in order to capture the French naval ports and destroy the French naval depots. Why is it that Germany is so interested in the French naval bases? It is because, as another German writer, Treitschke, says: We have reckoned with France and Austria, the reckoning with England has still to come, and it will be the longest and the hardest. It has been. This shows the German mind. What part have the pacifist Members of this House played in regard to the Navy? I see one hon. Member laugh—has he ever-voted for the reduction of the Navy Estimate?

Mr. R. LAMBERT

Yes.

Major TRYON

The hon. Member voted to cut down the Navy just before the War planned by Germany. If there had been more people like him Germany might very well have conquered, and it would have served him right, but fortunately for his constituents there have been those who have maintained the Navy. The Unionist party have taken their share in doing that. The hon. Member is safe because we did not take his advice. I Bay to the whole of that group of Members that we should not be sitting here listening to their advice if we had taken their advice in the past.

Mr. SNOWDEN

Your own Government cut down the Navy Estimate!

Mr. CHANCELLOR

Are you sure that if our advice had been taken there would have been any war?

Major TRYON

I do not agree with the-statement made by the hon. Member. If we had taken their advice about the Navy where should we have been to-day? I have never heard that we should have a Navy beyond all possible means. What we have always advocated is a Navy large enough for the safety of this country and no more, and it is fortunate that we have had it. They also urged the reduction of the Army, and they ridiculed the idea of German aerial development, and of any danger from Zeppelins, aeroplanes, or anything of that sort.

Mr. LAMBERT

When did any of us ever do that?

Major TRYON

The House has listened to speeches throughout the Session from those hon. Members with a patience which I think is marvellous in a country at war, and I suggest to the hon. Member that he should endeavour to exercise the patience which we have freely granted to him.

Mr. LAMBERT

I have not spoken this Session.

Major TRYON

They ridiculed aerial developments. The hon. Member for Leicester, Mr. E. Macdonald—I am thankful to say he is not the only Member for Leicester—said It is people who want titles who are telling us that Germany is going to blow up London with a fleet of airships. That is the way in which the people of this country were deceived by the pacifists. My point is that as these hon. Members have been so wrong in the past, and as they have contributed to letting us in for one war, I think we ought to be very careful before we take their advice, and be sure that it will lead to a just and lasting peace. This nation was unquestionably lulled to sleep by a good many of the dreams in which the hon. Member for Attercliffe has been indulging. I remember the hopes that we had about The Hague and peace. There was to be all round peace. There were to be regulations providing how war was to be carried on, and we thought that by that means some of the worst horrors of war would be avoided. We know that these regulations are not binding in the slightest degree upon Germany. I think that they have let us in for dangers which we thought no nation would indulge in. I think there is a danger to-day in building up hopes, as the hon. Member does, that are not substantial. I remember quite well going over to see the Palace of Peace at The Hague and I am sure hon. Members opposite must have been delighted to feel how sure peace was, in view of the fact that the German Emperor presented a gate to the Palace of Peace. That shows how people's hopes are built on a false basis. The hon. Member resented criticism of the League of Nations. If, as he says the whole future of civilisation depends upon the League of Nations, then let us look at the proposal, examine it, test it. It is essential that criticism should be made of it, but the hon. Member resents criticism of the League of Nations. I think it is necessary, before we abandon the protection of our Fleet to the substitution of international law, and before we indulge in any schemes let us discuss them and examine them.

What is the proposal of the hon. Member with regard to the League of Nations? It is that into this League of Nations there should come now a Germany unbeaten, with her Army marching back feeling that it has defied the world, with the German Fleet still intact and her submarines still under construction. This is to be the member of the new League of Nations. With what confidence can we believe that the League of Nations will enforce the principles of international law if into that League an unbeaten Germany is to come? Why, the very principle which ought to underlie a League of Nations was contested by hon. Members opposite. In 1914 the freedom of Belgium was guaranteed by a number of Great Powers who had undertaken to protect the Belgian people. But when the principle of guaranteeing the little nations came up for testing hon. Members there proposed that we should not carry out the principles, but that we should abandon Belgium, and they had a great poster in one of the newspapers showing how much money we could make by stopping out of the War and selling our goods to the countries engaged in it. Selling our goods and selling our honour! What hope is there for a League of Nations if when it came to the days of 1914 we should do nothing but leave the little nations to their fate?

I feel strongly about this matter. I assure hon. Members that, though we disagree with them, we want peace just as much as they want it. No one knows better than we do the burdens which have to be borne and the sufferings endured by our troops, the long watches of the Navy, and the great burden on the people at home. It is a great burden, and it is not borne the more easily when they know all the time that suggestions are coming that it need not be borne at all—that we can make peace with Germany and enter a League of Nations into which an armed Germany is to enter. We want a just peace and a lasting peace, and I turn from the hon. Members who do not, I believe, represent either the House or the country, to happier subjects—to the way in which those great democratic communities across the seas have proved that we were right by coming to our aid. While those people have been making trouble here, nearly 100 millions, looking on a struggle in another continent, which they had been told had nothing to do with them, brought up as they were in continental isolation—and some had sympathies one one side by birth—have found Germany guilty. I never was one of those who rejoiced over the Declaration of Independence; I have always regretted the great breach which has occurred within our own race. The Pilgrim Fathers left this country to seek liberty in another land and later on they cut themselves off altogether, still in pursuit of liberty. Now they find that we have a liberty as great as theirs and they have found that liberty is not a thing of one continent without regard to what happens elsewhere; they think that this War is a war in which the whole liberty of the world and the whole future of civilisation are at stake. No one knows what is going to happen in the world if these continental contests and wars are to go on, but we hope that with the aid of this great American Republic, with the aid of our gallant Allies whom hon. Members have done little to encourage, we may get, and I think get soon, a lasting and a just peace.

Mr. PONSONBY

The hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down has contributed a speech which I do not think will really help very much in a consideration of the diplomatic aspect of the war problems, because he has confined his remarks almost entirely to a spiteful and acrimonious attack on those of us who sit on this bench. I am not sorry that he has done it, because when the OFFICIAL REPORT is printed his speech will stand next to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe, so that people in the country who read it will be able to judge which of the two hon. Members is taking present events the more seriously. I would like to deal with some of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's charges which he brought against us. To begin with, he pointed to the treaty of Brest-Litovsk as an example of the sort of treaty that we apparently wanted to conclude with Germany. That was a very foolish proposition. Anybody who really examines the treaty of Brest-Litovsk knows perfectly well that it is not a peace treaty at all; it is a war measure. A treaty made by a Power surrounded by formidable adversaries, with one of her flanks still attacked by a great combination of Powers! When that Power makes a separate peace with a nation on one flank that peace is a war measure and not a peace measure at all. I have never been able to understand why our Government cannot treat the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in that way, as it obviously ought to be. The hon. and gallant Member thought it necessary to suggest that that was the sort of treaty we wanted to make with Germany.

Major TRYON

The hon. Member is not right. I did not suggest that that was what they wanted, but I said that they were going on a road which might lead them to it against their own wishes.

Mr. PONSONBY

Even so, I disagree with the hon. and gallant Member, because when peace is concluded in the world throughout, the peace treaties will be on a different basis to treaties concluded in the middle of a war as a separate peace. He complained that my hon. Friend did not cover the whole ground, and did not say anything about the sufferings of our soldiers in France. My hon. Friend, in his speech, took several particular points which he wanted to emphasise and could not cover the whole field. But if the hon. Gentleman suggests that the sufferings of our soldiers and all that they have been through do not appeal to us just as much as to any other hon. Member in the House or any individual in the whole country he is making a very great mistake. Making that sort of charge here against us is merely done in order to create prejudice and dislike of our opinions and personalities. The hon. and gallant Member asks why we do not make a better show in by-elections. Does the hon. and gallant Member know how by-elections are conducted? The War Aims Committee conducts the by-elections now.

Colonel Sir HAMAR GREENWOOD

No.

Mr. PONSONBY

To a large extent. With an atrocity leaflet, an atrocity pamphlet, atrocity literature, atrocity cinematograph, it is difficult for anyone to compete against it.

Sir H. GREENWOOD

Is it not true?

Mr. PONSONBY

I feel that it is appealing to the lowest passions in public opinion to treat by-elections in this way, but no doubt it is very effective. I cannot deal with all the points of the hon. and gallant Member, but he said that we had voted on some occasions against the Navy Estimates in former years, and one of my hon. Friends admitted that he had. I repeatedly did, and spoke against them.

Sir J. BUTCHER

To help the Germans!

Mr. PONSONBY

My reason for doing so was perfectly clear. In the past, on several occasions I did so, as may be found in my speeches, in order to impress the necessity on the Government of bringing about a reduction in armaments by common consent among the nations of Europe, and not to encourage the competition in armaments which brought about this War. It is perfectly clear from speeches I rand other hon. Members made that what we were trying to check was that international competition in armaments, and I think we were perfectly justified in doing so. If our advice had been listened to there would have been a different course of events to what we have seen. If there had been a reduction of armaments throughout the world and the jealousies and frictions engendered by the armaments disposed of you would not have bad this War.

Sir J. BUTCHER

You would let down France.

Mr. PONSONBY

The hon. Member for York, I am glad to see, has the courage to repeat his incessantly insulting remarks when we are present; he usually does it when we are not here. But I do not want to be distracted from addressing my remarks to a representative of the Foreign Office who, I am glad, has done us the honour of being present here to-day, because I think it is very important, with a long Recess before us, that we should consider the diplomatic side of the War, the military side having been considered yesterday. The truth is that the military machine has gained so great a momentum that it seems almost beyond human power to stop it. I think there is a growing conviction in this country that international problems are not going to be solved by national massacre and that the burden of responsibility which we are placing on the Army is altogether too heavy. My hon. Friend who initiated this Debate gave a very interesting survey of the opinion of the leaders of Labour throughout Europe, and he showed how the opinion of democracy ought to be attended to and was articulate so far as was possible in many ways. But I think he forgets that Governments are, in the long run, much more frightened of democracy than they are of militarism, and if this War really were to end in the great ideal of the establishment of real democracy throughout Europe and the abolition of autocracies and aristocracies and bureaucracies, I do not know that the Governments of Europe would regard that ideal with any favour at all. When we have this long Recess before us with Parliament not sitting it is well to point out that there are some who are apt to believe that it is very important that peace when it comes—and in spite of what some hon. Members here and people outside desire, peace is going to come one of these days—should rest on the people's approval and not be like the peace treaties of the past which have only been pauses in hostilities. Some people are inclined to think that peace must be initiated by private conversations and by secret negotiations behind the scenes, and that you cannot come into the light of day, but that you must feel your way. I am very suspicious of that method for this reason. I am very much afraid that peace concluded in that way would, after all, be only a governmental, diplomatic bargain, and would not really rest upon the sound foundation of the people's approval. As the Secretary to the Treasury the other day remarked in this House, public opinion to-day has a far greater weight in the moulding of Governments and policies in the various countries than it has ever had before. That public opinion ought to be taken into account. We ought to take advantage of it in this country and not mislead it, damp it down or suppress it. We ought to take advantage of public opinion in enemy countries in so far as it is moderate and in the direction we desire.

Our great diplomatic failure has been our failure to divide opinion in Germany. The effect of the utterances of our chief Ministers has so often been to solidify and unify all shades of German opinion together. We have given them the very excuse they wanted, when they have thought the Socialists restive and likely to split, in order to allow them to unify the people and damp down all desire for a reasonable settlement and have recourse once more to military force, and only to military force. The Prime Minister in his speech yesterday said that peace was impossible so long as the people who made the War are still there prosecuting the same sinister aims. He said that you cannot, have peace as long as they are predominant in the Conference of our chief enemy. But who has made them predominant? Who has placed them in such a secure position as they are supposed to be in to-day? I venture to say that no one has contributed towards it more than the Prime Minister himself by his utterances. It is the knock-out-blow speech in all its variations which is repeated times without number. That always has the effect of making the German junkers, militarists and imperialists say to the Socialists, "Look at what is intended. Our destruction is what the enemy wants. We must close our ranks and go forward together." And it is the Prime Minister more than anyone else who has succeeded in welding the German forces together and putting the militarists in power. It is perfectly clear that a military victory has now become our predominant aim. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am glad that I express it correctly—and that therefore a lasting settlement is not an object which we care for so much. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] The desire for military victory overshadows everything else, and yet military victory by itself achieves nothing unless the reason and heart and mind of the people and of the Governments are applied to the solution of the matters in dispute. If I were to say the first aim we desire, I should not say military victory; I should say the freeing and the absolute independence and sovereignty of Belgium. But according to hon. Members the chief aim is military victory.

Let me take this case of Belgium. On the 12th of July Count Hertling said We have no intention of keeping Belgium in any form whatever. That was a great advance on what had ever been said previously by former Chancellors or by Count Hertling himself. The right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary shortly afterwards, in reply to this speech on 21st July, instead of emphasising the advance which had been made and asking for further assurances in order that conversations might be begun, dismissed the assurance of Count Hertling, and laid a great deal of emphasis on the fact that he referred to Belgium as the pawn for future negotiations. The right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary scored a dialectical point, a debating point, over the German Chancellor, though I may here say incidentally that the word "pawn" as used by the German Chancellor in his speech was not the same word as used by the German Chancellor when he was quoting President Wilson's use of the word "pawn," when President Wilson said that peoples and provinces should not be bartered about as if they were chattels or pawns in the game of the balance of power. The word used by the German Chancellor in referring to President Wilson's speech was stein, denoting a pawn, a piece on the board. When referring to Belgium it was not that word which he used, but it was the word pfand, which means a pledge. I quite admit that that word also is one that we should not approve of, but I am only saying incidentally that in the making of a dialectical score off Count Hertling the Foreign Secretary was guilty of an inaccuracy. But it is quite clear that while we say that Belgium should be restored without any sort of stipulation, and the Germans desire to retain Belgium, so that in any negotiations they may use Belgium as a quid pro quo, there is a difference between us. How is that difference to be got over? Is it to be got over by always shutting down further conversations? Is it to be got over by throwing in the teeth of German statesmen everything they say, or is it to be got over by asking for further assurances from the German Chancellor, asking what he means, opening out an avenue for conversation which may lead to some sort of fruitful advance between the two countries? After all, on our part, so far as Belgium is concerned, an assurance will be necessary from this country that we mean to allow Belgium complete independence, economic independence.

Mr. McCURDY

Why?

Mr. PONSONBY

So long as the Paris Resolutions stand and the economic war to take place against Germany after the War is decided on, that will mean that Belgium is economically dependent upon ourselves and France, and, so long as that is the case, we cannot say that Belgium is to have complete sovereignty.

Captain LLOYD

Who decided upon economic war?

Mr. PONSONBY

I am sure that I hope it is not decided upon, but if the Paris Resolutions do stand—

Captain LLOYD

I do not doubt the hon. Member's sincerity, but I think he is quite mistaken about the Paris Resolutions. The Paris Resolutions merely mean a course of policy by which we shall pursue an alliance in economic matters, in order that we may recoup ourselves for the War against our enemies. That seems to be reasonable in defence of our interests.

Mr. PONSONBY

I do not dispute the hon. Member's version of the Paris Resolutions. My point is simply this, that if the Paris Resolutions stand, as they do now, it will necessitate, after the military War is over, Belgium being to a certain extent economically dependent on us and France. That was my point. I do not want to enter into a discussion about the Paris Resolutions. But, with regard to Belgium, I wish that recrimination between statesmen would cease and some means should be found by which they could meet in common. My hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe pointed out that there is very often a disposition on the part of the Government to say one thing at one time and another thing at another time, so that there are divided opinions and contradictory declarations. For instance, though the knock-out-blow policy and its variations are very popular, they are not, I am glad to say, universal. We have the Minister for Labour saying at some music-hall on the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of war that the Allies would make peace when the German was defeated beyond all possibility of revival; and we have the Minister of Munitions saying that the preliminary to the cessation of hostilities is that Germany must be decisively beaten in the field by the Armies of the Allies. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] And hon. Members approve of that. Then on the other hand we have General Smuts saying in a sentence that is well worth quoting once more— I do not think that an out and out victory is possible any more for any group of nations in this War, because it will mean an interminable campaign. It will mean that decimated nations will be called upon to wage war for many years to come and what will the result be? The result may be that the civilisation that you are out to save and safeguard may be jeopardised itself. And on the moderate side also we have the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary who said that His Majesty's Government are not going to shut their ears to anything that may be called a satisfactory suggestion, and the Leader of the House also said that the Government will always be ready to consider satisfactory proposals of peace. So if the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary could only get the upper hand and somehow prevent the knock-out-blow note from being quite so loud it would be a very great advantage from the point of view of international policy.

3.0 P.M.

We have a League of Nations advocated on the one side and an economic war advocated on the other. They are a complete contradiction in terms, because there can be no League of Nations with an economic war. We have a declaration that we are entirely disinterested and have no desire of annexation, and on the other side we have the secret agreements and secret treaties which show a desire to partition various parts of the world between ourselves and our Allies. We have the declaration that self-determination is the basic principle for the future of the various peoples of the world, and on the other side we have the refusal to give Home Rule to Ireland. We have these differences of opinion, and then we have the Prime Minister who from time to time really surprises me. He surprised the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary yesterday and a great many other Members of this House when he declared in the opening remarks of his speech that we had made a compact with France. There he let the cat out of the bag. Certainly I have always argued that our understanding with France did amount to a compact and did amount anyhow to an obligation of honour, but the right hon. Gentleman was correct in calling it a compact, and he was also correct in calling it an obligation of honour, I am not concerned about that particular statement, and what I want to discuss is the declaration, now repeated twice over, which occurred in the music-hall message to the nation on 4th August. In this message the passage occurs: Six months ago the rulers of Germany deliberately rejected the just and reasonable settlement proposed by the Allies. What does that mean? It is a repetition of the statement made in the Prime Minister's speech in Edinburgh on 24th May, and I have already pointed out the error of what he said. The Prime Minister on that day said: The Government of this country and President Wilson, at the beginning of the year, made simultaneous announcements with regard to the Peace aims of the Allies which were so temperate, so moderate, and so restricted in their character that even the most pronounced pacifists could not challenge them. How were those declarations received by Germany? The first reply that either the British Government or President Wilson received was the most violent offensive ever launched against the British Army, and they launched it with the avowed determination to annihilate it. His music-hall message is really a condensed form of that statement. What are the facts? The right hon. Gentleman referred to the speech he made on 5th January to the Trade Union Congress, and to a speech of President Wilson on 8th January, in which he elaborated a peace programme in fourteen clauses. This was followed on 23rd and 24th January by the speeches of Count Czernin and Count Hertling, who dealt with the President's proposals, several of which were accepted and none rejected. On 4th February the Allies replied by the Versailles Declaration, and on 11th February President Wilson, in spite of the Versailles Declaration, in the course of a speech, said it was not possible for the Government to go any further, and he enunciated his four cardinal principles. On 25th February Count Hertling dealt with these four principles, and gave unconditional assent to the first three, and assent in principle to the fourth. He accepted with reservation the principles of President Wilson, but required that they should also be definitely recognised by all States and all nations. On 19th March the declaration of the Conference was issued, saying that they were going to continue fighting, and it was in consequence of that the German offensive of 21st March began. These are the facts, and in making his general declaration to the nation it is worth while that the Prime Minister should try to be accurate. The music-hall atmosphere pervades so much in this War, and especially in the speeches of the Prime Minister, and I wish that we could get away from the blatancy and vulgarity which so often surrounds the War. We are at the present moment in a strong position, if only some advance can be made, and I feel that there is a great deal to be said for what Lord Lansdowne stated only a few days ago in a letter which he wrote. Lord Lansdowne foreshadowed in the coming months there would be opportunities for negotiations, or, if not negotiations, anyhow beginning with conversations. Lord Lansdowne said: There are abundant indications that such occasions may present themselves in the near future. Let us be prepared to meet them, and in a reasonable spirit. Let us at any rate give our adversaries a chance of showing whether their overtures are sincere or not. Let us, if we can, clear our minds as to the question of preliminary conditions as distinguished from war aims, and do not let us make believe that we have defined the former when we have in reality done nothing of the kind. Prolongation of the War in these days must mean a great deal more than the prolongation by a few months of war in times past. The casualties are now so extensive that the prolongation of war now means the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, and all these lives represent the vital energy and latent capacity of the real wealth of the nation, and I do not believe that the sacrifice of valuable lives can be justified in any way simply for triumph, for which hon. Members look just now, through military victory. Those who want to go on until the Hun is beaten to his knees perhaps will have their way, but the National Debt will be piled up higher and higher, cemeteries will extend, and the procession of maimed and wounded men will wander back here, their lives wrecked for ever. I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary, if I may appeal to him, not to misunderstand the attitude we have taken up on these Benches. I am not ashamed that I have on every occasion possible intervened in the Debate on this point, and pressed forward this particular aspect of the great war problem, which is supported by a growing public opinion in the country. I say to the Foreign Secretary that I desire just as much as he does an honourable peace and a just peace, and I desire the attainments of the objects for which we entered this War just as much as he does; I desire just as much as he does the destruction of militarism in Germany and the world over; but I ask, in all reason, after having attempted by force of arms to effect those objects, during four years in which civilisation has been brought to the verge of ruin, whether it is not worth while to follow another road, and by deliberation, by reason, by conference, and by negotiation, to secure what the sword by itself can never give us.

Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON

As one who during the whole course of the War has never taken part in any one of these Debates on peace policy, except indirectly on the recent occasion of the Debate on the League of Nations, I may venture to trespass upon the patience of the House with a few observations on a matter which deeply concerns us all. I have listened with some disappointment to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling Burghs in replying to the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton (Captain Tryon). My hon. and gallant Friend made two points, one of which was strong and valid, and the other of which was not so strong and only partially valid. My hon. and gallant Friend referred to the League of Nations, and I think the argument which he used greatly weakened the position of hon. Members below the Gangway as advocates of the League of Nations. They have spoiled their advocacy by the attitude they took up in regard to our duty to Belgium in the beginning of the War. Our pledge was given, with other nations, including Germany, in regard to Belgium, and it was pointed out by my hon. and gallant Friend that this was something in the nature of an undertaking by a League of Nations. The hon. and gallant Member for Brighton put the argument to my hon. Friends below the. Gangway, who, at the beginning of this War, proposed that we should leave Belgium to her fate, that they have thereby shown how very little is their faith in the League of Nations, or for our faith in its operations after the War. I think that is a very strong argument, and I feel greatly concerned that my hon. Friend below the Gangway did not answer it.

Mr. SNOWDEN

We did not enter the War for Belgium; we declared war before Belgium was attacked.

Mr. ROBERTSON

That is a perfectly irrelevant interruption. When the War was begun notice was given of Germany's determination in regard to Belgium, and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn makes things worse when he resorts to what is a very worthless quibble. I do not accuse the hon. Member for Stirling of that, but what I am going to charge him with is that he has given no answer to a very telling argument against him. My hon. Friends should explain their position on this point of our duty to protect Belgium, and their failure to reply on that point does not give one any ground for faith in the future efficacy of the League of Nations, after the War, to protect any nation. I say, as an earnest advocate of the League of Nations, that it was the duty of the hon. Member for Stirling to meet the argument of the hon. and gallant Member—a very strong and damaging argument. I wish to refer to another point alluded to by the hon. Member for Brighton, though it was not so strong nor so valid as the first. He referred to my hon. Friends below the Gangway as having voted against the Navy Estimates immediately before the War That is a point which is quite fairly made, but I would point out that it would be unjust to say that all who had criticised Navy Estimates were in some degree guilty of precipitating the War by trying to weaken our position.

I think the hon. Member for Stirling Burghs could have put the case at this point more strongly than he did. He could have argued that the position of a number of those who used to speak on Navy Estimates and deprecate their extension was that their object was to-promote the peace of the world by securing some agreement for a restriction of armaments. That, I think, is quite a justifiable plea. I can recollect the present Attorney-General moving a Resolution a number of years before the War—I had the honour of seconding him—and the object of the Motion was to make an end of capture of commerce at sea during war. I am sure his object was, as mine was, by carrying a Motion of that kind, to make possible an agreement between this country and Germany for the restriction of naval armaments. There is an historical point of importance in that connection that ought to be brought out to-day. The then Government did move so far on the lines of securing agreement with Germany for the restriction of naval armaments that at least twice, and I think three times over, it indicated to the German Government that it was prepared to go the length of agreeing to abolish capture of commerce at sea in naval war if that agreement could be made the basis of a restriction of naval armaments. That was the very goal for which a number of us had been heading. We thought we were in sight of our goal We thought that when the British Government indicated its willingness to abandon that very old and greatly valued power, the capture of commerce at sea during war, if only the German Government would make that agreement the basis of an agreement for the restriction of armaments, we thought we were in sight of success in our great crusade.

But what was the result? Certainly twice, and, I think thrice, the German Government announced in reply that on no condition would it consider the restriction of naval armaments. These are historical facts which it is important to bring forward, because they had been falsified by a German of such good standing as Professor Brentano, of Munich, who took some steps, I believe himself in a state of misunderstanding, to misinform American opinion on that subject. It is of the highest importance that all who pursue peace aims in this country should remember that the German Government refused to consider any proposals for the restriction of naval armaments, and I can say for myself, and I fancy a number of my Friends can say for themselves, that when once they realised that every effort which we made was met in that fashion by the German Government, we saw that we could draw only one inference, namely, that the German Government was not bent on the peace of the world, and that it was not to be trusted. And what I can further say for myself I fancy many of my hon. Friends can say for themselves, that from that moment we never discussed or criticised the Navy Estimates at all. I think the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton unintentionally misstated the case when he said that hon. Members below the Gangway had voted for cutting down the Navy. My recollection of those old Debates simply is that they voted against an extension of the Navy Estimates. He might hold that that was equally aground for reproach to them, but he ought to make his case accurate and fair also. There may have been Motions for cutting down the Navy, but I think the Debates used to be mainly upon questions of extensions of Navy Estimates. I want my hon. and gallant Friend to realise that, perhaps, he was overstating his case.

I will deal now with what I regard as the main line of the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling Burghs First of all, he criticises British diplomacy or British Governments all through the War for having failed in what he says should have been their great object—the dividing of opinion in Germany. He seemed seriously to believe that if only we had pursued a certain skilled propaganda—a rather Machiavellian line of propaganda I think it would be—or a certain line of public declaration, we should have so split German opinion that we should have won the War long ago. It is not, perhaps, a very dignified aim to put before a nation at war, to try and make their enemies, quarrel among themselves. I do not say it is a thing you should not do, because the Germans have taught us that all methods can be used in war.

Mr. SNOWDEN

What about our foreign propaganda?

Mr. ROBERTSON

That is one thing, but this business of dividing German opinion is another. I have taken part in propaganda myself to the extent of replying to the German propaganda, but I never for an instant thought that anything I could do would divide opinion in Germany to the extent of breaking up the German defences. And I seriously urge upon my hon. Friend that he should try and take an objective view of his position in this matter, because his position is really absurd to the last depth of absurdity. It was at no moment any more possible to win this War by dividing German opinion in Germany than it was possible for Germans to win this War by dividing British opinion in this country. It was far less possible. For one thing, I challenge all pacifists of any school to dispute this, that at all times the German peace movement has been the weakest peace movement in Europe. Germany never have made a treaty of arbitration. I could cite in my support the verdict of one of my friends whose opinion on that head would far outweigh the opinion of the hon. Member for Blackburn, the opinion of a man who had worked in connection with the whole peace movement for many years, who knew it all, who worked for it wholes heartedly, who knew it in Germany, in France, in Russia, and in all countries. His considered verdict was that the German peace movement was the weakest movement in Europe, and, so far as my own knowledge goes, that is absolutely true. I can state on my own behalf this. I was one of those who took part in. the inter-Parliamentary Conference at Berlin, I think in 1909, and I then came into contact with some of the German pacifists. I wrote later, a preface to an English version of a book by a German professor, on the question of the capture of commerce at sea in time of war, and I hoped that that would do something to carry forward opinion on the lines desired by the Attorney-General and myself. I made special appeals to Germans, who I thought would have some influence in these matters, to try and use that influence on their Government to bring about the agreement that we wanted, and what answer did I get? "It is no use our saying anything in Germany. If we say anything we do more harm than good. We must not speak out, we must hold our tongues." I challenge any pacifist here to deny that that was the characteristic note of pacifism in Germany in those days. There is this element of fact behind the position taken up by my hon. Friend, that in Germany, as in any other nation, there have been two currents of opinion. There never was an absolutely united nation in this world unless it might be a barbarous tribe of savages. But in any country where opinion in the modern sense has been developed at all, there is always a difference of opinion on all points; and there is a body of opinion in Germany—and for some of it I have the highest respect-which is strongly opposed to this War. I dare say it might be said for this particular group of German publicists that they have made the bravest fight made by any pacifists during the War. The courage of the man who wrote the book "J'Accuse," and of men like Liebnecht, who stood up against the whole mass of their nation, in pleading against the War which they held to be iniquitous, is a thing to be remembered. It is comforting in the general interests of human nature. But the peace movement as a whole in Germany, anything in the shape of an organised resistance to the War in Germany is, I should say, not one-tenth as strong as was what used to be called the pro-Boer movement in this country. That is an analogy that my hon. Friends should consider if they want really to get a practical view of the case. I was in that pro-Boer movement in this country at that time, and some of my hon. Friends who now call themselves pacifists were not. They were able to find that our Boer War was perfectly justified and that this War is not—a very extraordinary attitude of mind to my thinking. But the point is this, that the pro-Boer movement so called the movement of resistance to the Boer War in this country was, I should say, twenty times stronger than the movement of resistance to the War in Germany to-day. That being so, we have only to ask, What was the comparatively strong anti-War movement in the case of the South African War in this country able to do? What could it do to stop the War? It never could do anything-although there were newspapers speaking out for it and public meetings held for it, and a great deal of propaganda going on in its support, and powerful propaganda too. If that movement in England could not do anything to cheek the Boer War, what rational ground has my hon. Friend for supposing that the little movement in Germany could have been so manipulated by anything that this Government here did as to enable us so to divide German opinion as to split up German power? The position is absurd to the last degree, and the declaration is that of men who have never understood the nature of the forces at work in this War. To come now to the final issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling Burghs deprecated what he described as a tendency on the part of some statesmen to think that any peace negotiations must first be set agoing by roundabout means. I do not clearly recollect his words, but I think he did not like the idea of roundabout methods of raising the question. He did use the term "feelers," and he did not-like peace being approached in that way.

Mr. PONSONBY

Being settled.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I do not think my hon. Friend can have meant anything so meaningless as that. No peace could be settled by feelers. I decline to suspect my hon. Friend of using so utterly meaningless an expression as that. My hon. Friend, if he meant anything at all, meant that he did not like that peace should even be approached in that way.

Mr. PONSONBY

indicated dissent.

Mr. ROBERTSON

If he did not mean that, he meant nothing at all. If all that he meant to say was that he did not want peace settled by feelers, I need not argue the question. It is a lamentable thing that he should be reduced to wasting the time of the House in that way. My hon. Friend assured us that he has the strongest desire for an honourable peace. There is common ground there. The Whole House wants an honourable peace, but the Whole House also wants a lasting peace. That is one of the questions between my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton and my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling Burghs. The point put by my hon. and gallant Friend—and here I think his position is absolutely unassailable—was this, that unless you get a peace that involves the overthrow of German militarism you get no peace worth having. I take it to be the same thing that was meant by the much-discussed phrase about a knock-out blow. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling Burghs demurred strongly to that phrase, once used, I believe, by the Prime Minister. One might dispute the taste of such an expression, but that point need hardly detain us. The meaning of the expression was, "until Germany is put in such a position that you can dictate disarmament to her." "The knock-out blow" does not mean, as my hon. Friend seems to think, the annihilation of a nation. I have no technical knowledge in these matters, but there is no dispute that it is a term in pugilism which means reducing one's opponent to a condition that he cannot return to the attack, and then he has lost the battle. The knock-out, blow did not mean that the Germans were to be destroyed, but that the German fighting force was to be brought to the point at which it had to sue for peace, and the reason it must be brought to this point is that, unless this War ends in the dictation of disarmament to Germany, the future is going to be worse than the past. Of course, I mean disarmament all round, as my right hon. Friend (Mr. H. Samuel) reminds me. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn seems to suppose that I mean the disarmament of Germany without the disarmament of the rest of the world, and he thought my right hon. Friend thought that.

Mr. SNOWDEN

Certainly!

Mr. ROBERTSON

No; my right hon. Friend thought my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn might draw a perversive inference. Only a few days ago, from this box, I was strongly urging that disarmament all round must be the sequel of the War. If my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn will carry his recollection back a few days he will find that that was the case. We cannot have disarmament all round unless we first secure the disarmament of Germany, and the peace that has been urged by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling Burghs, the kind of peace that is being urged by Lord Lansdowne, gives us merely the status quo ante bellum, with all the Powers in possession of their old armaments, with Germany able to rebuild her military system—nay, to continue her military system—and, therefore, with the obligation of Conscription hung round the neck of every nation in Europe It is precisely because I have been a pacifist all my life, because I consider that in this War the whole interests of civilisation are at stake, because I am satisfied that if the War does not end in a disarmament peace, the hope for civilisation is very small indeed—it is precisely for that that I denounce the whole policy of my hon. Friend below the Gangway. The policy he recommends promises nothing whatever. The policy that Lord Lansdowne recommends promises nothing whatever. They ask for peace by negotiation, as if peace were ever got in any other way. Peace is always by negotiation, at whatever stage of the War it is undertaken. The question is shall we get by any negotiation with Germany a disarmament agreement until Germany feels her military power is broken? And surely, if we survey the position taken up by Germany, her repeated feelers in regard to peace terms; if we take a pronouncement such as the book by Baron Freytag von Loringhoven—if we consider these things, can there be the slightest doubt that Germany will never agree to disarmament until she feels she must?

I do not suggest that this can only be brought about by Napoleonic conquest. I quite agree with General Smuts—I do not think he used the expression, but it describes the idea—that a Napoleonic conquest of Germany would undoubtedly mean the War protracted for years. I am not so bloodthirsty as to desire that even so guilty a nation as Germany should be made to suffer even a modicum of the horrors she has inflicted. I am not so bloodthirsty as to consider that a necessary preliminary for peace, but it seems to me, on the face of the case, perfectly possible that if the Allies maintain the War as they are doing they may, at a certain stage, get the consent of Germany to a disarmament peace without having Achieved a Napoleonic conquest of Germany. There are great possibilities in the way of an aeroplane offensive that remain to be developed, but it is hardly our business to discuss that to-day. The question is whether the line of policy urged by the hon. Member for Stirling Burghs would give this nation a peace worth having. If the hon. Member's advice were taken by us to-day we should probably find Germany very willing to discuss terms of peace, willing to haggle about the terms in which they would clear out of Belgium, willing to haggle about the kind of compensation they would make for the wrong they have done, and determined to haggle over Russia. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling Burghs said that the treaty of Brest-Litovsk is only a war measure, the meaning of which seemed to be that you must not be too severe on it. Of course, he admits it is monstrous, but he argues that war measures of that kind are not to be regarded as serious treaties. I do not think he took the same attitude towards the secret treaties of the Allies. They were war measures. We entered into them as war measures, and they would probably never have been entered into, except as war measures; but he never modified his condemnation on that score. It is only in regard to an abominable treaty made by Germany that my hon. Friend finds these extenuating circumstances, and objects to our getting angry because she tries to trample Russia underfoot. However that may be, I admit I believe that Germany would be willing to enter into interminable negotiations on all these points at the present moment But does he believe that Germany would be willing to agree to disarmament all round?

Mr. SNOWDEN

Will the British Government?

Mr. ROBERTSON

I will leave the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary to say, but that is no answer to me from my hon. Friends below the Gangway. They are addressing oracular allocutions to this House. For the moment it is an argument between us and them. My hon. Friend has been lecturing me and my fellow citizens for years, and now I ask him to listen to me, and I decline to let him ride off by asking what the British Government will do. I challenge him to face the fact that the civilisation he professes to believe in, that the future of democracy he professes to champion, are involved in the kind of peace we shall get from Germany; and that the kind of peace by negotiation that will enable Germany to withdraw with her military system intact, and to rebuild it, as her military authorities declare they are going to do, holds out to civilisation a new and far greater menace, because we know an undefeated Germany, rebuilding her military machine, will do it with far deadlier determination than ever before, to attain all she has failed to attain now. I challenge my hon. Friend to realise that any peace such as he has urged would strangle the very cause he professes to have at heart.

This is an issue of the most vital importance. In all the Debates on the subject in this House during the War I have never heard a single one of my hon. Friends who are ranked as pacifists face that question of the absolute necessity of disarmament. Lord Lansdowne never seems to recognise that there is any such issue involved. I think the nation in its heart recognises it. At all events, it is all involved in the declaration of war aims made by the then Prime Minister when the War began. To that war aim I subscribed in its fullest sense. A great many people seemed to subscribe at the time and afterwards not to understand what it meant. I say it meant the destruction of German militarism or the overthrow of German militarism—I am not quite sure of the exact phrase—but that phrase meant all it said, and all attempts to whittle it away, as my hon. Friends have been trying to do this afternoon, are attempts really subversive of the safety of this nation. The whole drift of my hon. Friend's argument was to the effect that we are not to be too anxious for victory. He seemed to be afraid we should get a victory over Germany. He says that the desire for victory swallows up everything else. I admit it does, and if it does not in his case it is because he does not realise the mortal danger this nation will be in if such a victory is not achieved as will secure disarmament at the end of this War.

I am willing, for the purpose of this Debate, to call myself a pacifist, as I have been all my life. It is for the attainment of perpetual peace that I am for fighting now. My hon. Friends below the Gangway would throw away every hope of peace, and leave this nation saddled with a thing I have resisted all my life, namely, Conscription, and Conscription hung round the nation's neck precisely at the time when it needs to be free for all the purposes of reconstruction. A future after this War with military burdens laid on all the nations of Europe will be a future even more dreadful than the War itself, and as dreadful in a moral as in a material sense, for the state of mind to which nations will be reduced—a state of desperate determination to destroy each other—will be the most awful picture conceivable. Every device of science for the destruction of life on the largest possible scale will be the order of the day. There will be no question, then, about Hague Conventions as to the bombing of hospitals or the destroying of non-combatants. Those methods of war which Germany has forced on the world will be the recognised methods of war if a war follows on this as the result of a state of things created by a non-conclusive peace. If my hon. Friends will take these things into account they will perhaps realise that the repeated allocutions they have bestowed upon us have failed to impress us because they do not convince us for one moment that my hon. Friends understand the case.

Mr. R. LAMBERT

We have listened with very great interest to the speech which the right hon. Gentleman has just delivered, in which he has told us that the only hope for the peace of the world in the future is that we should be in a position to dictate disarmament to Germany, and, he added, afterwards to the world. I am afraid that I am not very convinced that, even if we were in a position to dictate disarmament to Germany, or to the world, that would necessarily lead to a permanent and lasting peace. I remember that Napoleon dictated disarmament to Prussia, and I remember, also, that seven years afterwards Prussia entered Paris in triumph. I do not believe that if we are to rely on a peace by which disarmament is dictated to Europe that peace can be, or will be, lasting. I could not help noticing the difference between the two speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyneside (Mr. J. M. Robertson) and the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton. The hon. and gallant Member appears to think that those of us on this bench who have spoken—so far as I am concerned, as I have very rarely had the opportunity of addressing the House, I do not suppose I come in that category—but he seems to think that we who speak from this bench always make poisonous speeches, and that the result of our speeches is extremely harmful to the cause of the Allies. On the other hand, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyneside holds the view that our speeches have not the slightest effect, and that, therefore, they can do neither good nor harm. There seems to be some slight discrepancy between the two. I think really hon. Members misunderstand the motives which actuate us in speaking as we do from these benches.

We are called pacifists. Speaking for myself, I do not resent, nor do I object, to be called a pacifist—one who is striving for peace—but if to be that is meant that I, or any of my Friends, are desirous that this country should engage in a peace at any price, that we should make an abject surrender, or throw away any hope—if there be hope—for the future, then I say that that utterly, from first to last, misrepresents our attitude, and other hon. Members who have, as I have, near and dear relatives fighting in the trenches, are just as anxious as anyone that a really lasting peace should be obtained as a result of the War, and that the world should be spared in the future the horrible curse which has come upon us in the last four years. But what we think, and the reason why we are so convinced that the attitude taken up by so many hon. Members of this House is erroneous, is this: that if you are going to get a permanent peace in the world you must look at the causes of war and tackle those causes before you can hope to achieve that result. The real cause of war, as I believe, is an economic one. If you make an examination of practically all the wars of modern times you will find that economic considerations lie at the very root of the outbreak of war. Take the wars that we fought against the Spaniards and Dutch in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were fought purely in order to prevent the commercial exclusion of our ships from the Spanish and the Dutch colonies. They were fought for trade purposes.

When you come to consider even the wars of Frederick the Great you will find that economics were really at the basis of the whole matter. You will find that Prussia of those days, broken up into small and insignificant States, with gaps between, unable to feed their population properly, struggling each hard against its neighbour, was forced to expand, and in those days it was, an economic question which forced the Silesian War, with the after result of the Seven Years' War. If you go further, and examine the revolutionary wars in France, you will, I believe, even there find that it was an economic cause which lay at the bottom of the whole thing. There was no other! That was surely the great trouble which was caused by the French Revolution, the upsetting of the old system, and the doing away with the great land monopoly—the fear in the other nations of Europe that their own subjects would copy the example which the French had set them. Come down to 1802. We find the Peace of Amiens broken and the war with Napoleon again entered upon. There, again, the breaking out of the war was due to economic causes. It was mainly, or almost mainly, due to the quarrel which we had with France. France at this time refused to enter into a commercial treaty with this country.

Passing on, take next the Crimean War of 1852. There we had the quarrel between France and Russia as to which should be the protector of the Holy Places in Palestine. You had Russia desirous of obtaining Constantinople, in the hope that when the Turk, who was then confidently expected to die, did die, she would obtain the predominant commercial influence of the East. The result of all these economic quarrels and troubles was the great Crimean War, which most of us now recognise to have been a gigantic blunder from first to last. Pass on to 1859, the year when we nearly—very nearly—had a serious outbreak with France which was the direct consequence of the economic policy of Napoleon the Third. That threatened outbreak was only averted by the sagacity of Cobden and the Cobden treaty with France. Let us proceed and take some of our own wars. Take the China War of 1856. Everybody knows that the Chinese wars were economic wars waged largely on account of the opium. When you come down to wars, even like the Danish-Prussian War of 1864, here again, I think, nobody will deny that, though many other causes entered into the matter, you had the economic cause of the quarrel. You find there the Danes blockading the German coast, the affair resulting in the Treaty of Malmo. This caused such a lasting feeling of anger amongst the Prussian people that they were stirred up and ready to be persuaded by their Governments that any war against the Danes would be justified. I do not, of course, deny that in that war, as in most of Germany's or Prussia's wars, there have been large aggressive causes. Take the Austro-Prussian War of 1866: Here again the quarrel was as to which of the two countries, the King or the Emperor, should obtain commercial supremacy in Europe.

The Franco-Prussian War also had a commercial foundation, inasmuch as one of the causes was the natural fear that the Prussian King of Spain might altogether alter the commercial balance of power. So you go on. If you take the Zulu War: if you take the first Boer War—a commercial war if ever there was a commercial war, due in my judgment, very largely, to the discovery of the diamond fields in 1869–70—if you go on to the China-Japanese War in 1894, which was fought in order to decide which of the two-countries should dominate Korea: if you take the second Boer War—the great Boer War of 1899–1903—will anybody at this time say that financial and commercial considerations were not largely at the bottom of that war? If you take the Russo-Japanese War of 1903–4 there again Russian aggression in Manchuria was the main contributory cause. I am not saying that these wars were entirely caused by economic considerations. My point is simply this, that one of the most fertile causes of war, and the cause which above all other causes has contributed more than any other to warfare among mankind is to be found in the economic resolutions, the trade barriers, the tariffs, the customhouses, concessions, syndicates, chartered companies—all this kind of thing, which has separated nation from nation, and which has raised up obstacles to peace. Until you have overcome these obstacles, and removed these causes of war, you can never hope to have a lasting peace in the world.

Far be it from me to say—I do not say it for a moment—that this German War has been entirely, or mainly, due to commercial causes. But I will say this: That the commercial differences, the commercial rivalries which have set nation against nation, the differences as to whether Russia or Austria should dominate in the Balkans, the differences between Austria and Serbia, over the import of pigs—and I remember that when I was in the Balkans in the "Nineties," whenever there was a little trouble between Austria and Serbia, we used to hear it described as an outbreak of diplomatic swine fever—all these things undoubtedly help and contribute to the outbreak of war. I venture to say that that aspect of the case will have to be dealt with, and dealt with drastically, if peace is to be secured. The position really may be put in this way: Suppose a man has a house by the side of a railway; he stores in that house an immense amount of combustible matter and explosives; a railway train passes along and a spark from the engine gets into the powder and there is a vast explosion. It is true that the explosion is caused by the spark from the engine; but if the powder had not been there no spark would have been able to have any effect. I therefore feel that this economic question, this difficult economic question, is the real crux of the whole matter. I am convinced that no League of Nations—of which everybody approves—the other day we had a most interesting Debate, and I do not think there was a single speech, although some were critical, which was definitely opposed to the idea of the League of Nations—but no League of Nations stands a dog's chance in this world unless you can do something to get rid of economic causes of war.

Suppose you crush Germany so far as to be able to make her disgorge—I use the word advisedly because it is the word which some hon. Members prefer to hear—disgorge Alsace-Lorraine, do you think you are going to secure a permanent peace in that way? Do you realise that Germany's total output of iron ore is 28,000,000 metric tons per year, of which 21,000,000 metric tons comes from Lorraine, and that if you take away Lorraine from Germany you will leave Germany with something like 7,000,000 metric tons, which is not sufficient.

Mr. ROBERTSON

May I point out that not very long ago the hon. Gentleman urged upon this House that Alsace-Lorraine was an unimportant place, because of its smallness, and was not worth making a fuss about?

4.0 P.M.

Mr. LAMBERT

The right hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. I do not know whether he was present and heard what I said; on the contrary, the whole point of my speech then was to urge the importance of this question, of Alsace-Lorraine. If he will read my speech again, I think he will see that I am right in saying that. What I was pointing out was that it is impossible for Germany to contemplate with equanimity and willingness a proposal to deprive her of her great sources of iron. If you do succeed in taking Alsace-Lorraine from Germany and in restoring it to France, the result will be merely that you breed a spirit of revenge and a determination to get back what Germany thinks is so essential for her needs, and which she will believe has been unjustly taken from her. There is one way and only one way in which we can hope to achieve a permanent peace, and that is if we should approach as nearly as we can and work towards the adoption of universal Free Trade as near as we can get it. I believe that is the real anchor of peace for the future, and it is because I am so certain that unless something in that way can be done that I dread very much the Imperial Preference with which we have been threatened, and I dislike very much, the Paris Resolutions, which I am glad to hear, on the authority of an hon. Member of this House, are not worth the paper they are written upon, because they are not going to have effect.

I think every economic barrier you have set up is so much more a cause of war for the future, and every economic barrier you can break down is so much a guarantee against war for the future. I really think it is rather hard lines on some of us who are taking a perfectly reasonable-view with regard to this question of war—and some of us have done our best in recruiting—to say that we are not quite in agreement about Belgium. Speaking for myself and for my colleagues, I do not think there is one of us who would favour a peace which did not mean the absolute independence and freedom of Belgium, and I do not think there is one of us who would view such a peace with equanimity or even consent to it. Certainly I would not. I may remind hon. Members that even so recently as yesterday we were told by the Prime Minister that There are people in every country who regard, any effort to make peace as in itself dishonourable and treasonable to their country. That attitude must be steadfastly discouraged. I only wish that the Prime Minister had followed out that excellent precept a little more energetically in the past. It is rather difficult in face of the insults that are thrown at us to be moderate, and I think it is rather hard that we should be insulted and have these accusations thrown at us when we try to put forward our views reasonably and with moderation. I have no time to pursue the matter any further, but I do most earnestly urge the Government to lose no opportunity of trying, if they can, to get into touch with the German Government, and even to ascertain whether it is true that the German Government is so unreasonable, as I do not deny they have given good reason for making us think they are.

There are only three ways in which this War can be brought to an end. In the first place, you may crush Germany, but that would not mean a permanent peace. Secondly, you may have a peace by exhaustion, when all are so exhausted, as to be unable to continue the struggle, but that is a peace which will not be lasting. Thirdly, you can have a peace by negotiation—I do not like the expression—but before all parties are exhausted when neither side has a lasting sense of grievance and when there is some hope, as a result of the War, that you may be able to get a lasting peace. Do not think for a moment that I or any of my hon. Friends underrate or attempt to minimise the abominations that have been committed in this War by some of our enemies. I do not want to minimise for a moment such atrocities as the sinking of hospital ships and many other things. I think they are abominable and ought to be spoken against and recriminated strongly, but for all that this War has to come to an end some time, and we should not forget that we have got to live with the German people in the future. They have to be inhabitants of Europe. We must remember, however, that we cannot hope to overthrow German militarism by force, and we must leave it to the German people to do that. When the German people understand what German militarism is—I think many of them do now—I believe that they will of themselves overthrow it.

Let me conclude by reading the following extract from an old letter written in 1853 to my own grandfather, which expresses, I think, as clearly as any words that I can use, my own feelings, and what I believe to be the feelings of every hon. Member in this House, with regard to peace: There is no greater delusion than in the supposition that war is favourable to the growth of freedom, or those sterner virtues which you seem to think are in danger of being extinguished by our long peace. If there is one secular notion which more strongly than another attaches me to peace, it is because I believe it to be favourable to the freedom, elevation and progress of the great mass of the people for whom I feel the greatest sympathy because they are the greatest number. Those words were written in 1853 to my own grandfather by Richard Cobden, and I repeat them now, because they seem to me to embody what we all feel that this War is one of the most horrible atrocities that has ever visited this earth, that it should be brought to an end at the earliest possible moment, and we ought not to stand upon our dignity or hold aloof from any approaches that may be made by the Germans or anybody else to avail ourselves of the first opportunity that comes to endeavour to put a final end to what, I hope, will be the last war that will ever curse humanity.

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Balfour)

The Debate was initiated by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Anderson), and I think it is perhaps right that the Session should not conclude without some discussion not merely upon the progress of the War, such as was given by the Prime Minister yesterday in his masterly survey of the situation, but by some observations, if there are any to be made, on the subject of peace. I therefore came down to the House hoping to be illuminated upon this great theme by the wisdom of hon. Gentlemen sitting on the bench opposite, who devote so much attention to the subject of negotiations with Germany. I listened with great attention to the Member for Sheffield, and I confess I did not receive from his speech all the illumination for which I had hoped. That may partly be due, and very likely is entirely due, to the fact that I have far passed that age after which the Member for Sheffield explained to us no statesman can be expected to understand new ideas. He adorned his speech with a large number of extracts, but no extract seemed to be more worthy of attention than the one he made from the writings of Mr. Wells, who laid down the proposition to which the hon. Member for Sheffield assented—that Europe was unhappily governed by old men instead of young men.

I think there may be very great force in that observation, but perhaps the hon. Member will forgive me for saying that though, happily for himself, he has not reached the magic age of forty-five, and is still in that period of comparative youth when new ideas can be assimilated and produced, I am sorry he sat down without giving, so far as I can make out, one single new idea on the subject of the European situation. I listened with the deepest attention to all he said. I recognised all the familiar commonplaces of the subject, and I think I also recognise some quotations from my own speeches, but, so far as suggesting any new ideas and new methods of judging the situation, new estimates of the German war aims and of our own war aims, nothing whatever fell from the hon. Gentleman's lips that added in the smallest degree to the knowledge already possessed by the House. The hon. Member who has just sat down began by giving us an essay upon universal history as shown in its wars. I began to think I might be illuminated by some novel ray of light upon this dark and difficult subject, and he laid it down that all wars were economic wars.

Mr. LAMBERT

In modern times!

Mr. BALFOUR

Broadly speaking, he laid it down that the basis of all wars was trade. I had myself thought that the personal ambition of rulers like Frederick the Great or Napoleon may have had something to do with war. I remember that the word "religion" has been whispered as one of the causes that produced war, and that territorial and racial feelings were one of the most fertile sources of internecine conflict between neighbouring nationalities. The hon. Gentleman says all war reduces itself to a war for commercial purposes, and therefore he argues, with great logical force, that the proper way to stop all wans—I do not think he meant that the proper way to stop all war was to stop all commerce, which would, perhaps, be the most logical conclusion—was to have Free Trade between all nations, and he-thought that would bring all wars to an end. He gave as an illustration—a very singular illustration I thought it—the question of the coalfields of Alsace.

Mr. LAMBERT

The iron mines of Lorraine.

Mr. BALFOUR

Oh; yes! The hon. Member pointed out with perfect truth that a great deal of the supply of iron Germany has at present is derived from the provinces which she wrested from France in 1871, and he told us, "If you gave these back to France, you would perpetuate the sources of war, and the idea of a general European peace would for ever be dissipated." What has that to-do with Free Trade? The iron mines must belong, presumably, to somebody. If they belong to one nation, and a neighbouring nation desires to have them, and if that is to be recognised as a cause of war, how does the hon. Gentleman's talk about Free Trade get over that difficulty?

Mr. LAMBERT

I think the right hon. Gentleman misunderstands me. What I meant to imply was that if we had no trade barriers, the difficulties as to whom the different territories belonged would be very much diminished.

Mr. BALFOUR

As to whom the iron mines of Alsace belong, how does the question of trade barriers deal with them? I shall be very glad to know from hon. Gentlemen on that bench—preferably from those under forty-five years of age—how is this universal panacea for the abolition of war—which is not the League of Nations, but universal Free Trader—how is it going to deal with the question of the iron mines in Lorraine? The real fact of the matter, as pointed out in the most powerful speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyneside (Mr. J. M. Robertson), and in the able speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (Captain Tryon)—the real question is how does all this talk about bringing your ideas home to the democracy of Germany, and getting peace by inducing the German Majority Socialists to change their opinions—I presume that is what it comes to—how does it really brush aside the true obstacles to any peace?

The true obstacle to any legitimate peace is what has been concisely described as "German militarism." German militarism is based not on the ambition of a few soldiers; it is based, unfortunately, on the fact that German writers and professors—men of theory, men of action, those engaged in commerce, those engaged in historical speculation—are all united in the view that the true policy of any nation which wishes to be great is a policy of universal domination. That is the difficulty. You may call it—I think it is a very good phrase—militarism. It precisely expresses the instrument by which that policy is carried out. But the difficulty is that this gross and immoral heresy has spread its roots right through the most educated classes in Germany, and until those roots are eradicated, there is very small hope that Germany will willingly become a peaceful member of a peaceful society of nations. How is that eradication to be produced? The evil originally came into being by the facile successes which Germany has attained in war, and the only way to eradicate is to show that war does not always lead to facile success, or to success at all.

If you can once make it clear to German minds that in modern civilisation the moral view of a majority of nations is sufficient to coerce recalcitrant members of the human society, then, and not until then, will there be some prospect of that peace which the hon. Gentleman, as well as everyone on this side of the House, so earnestly desires. The German theory and the German practice in this matter harmonise much more closely than, I am sorry to say, human theory and human practice usually do. There is absolute congruity between what they preach and what they practise, and we need not trouble to ask whether the abominable doctrines which I have just mentioned are the crotchets of a few independent thinkers, or whether they really represent the views of the German people, for the answer is obvious. First read your Treitschke and Bernhardi, and then go and see how the German Government, when it gets the chance, carries out the doctrines which have been preached from university chairs, professed by patriotic associations, and disseminated by all the machinery of internal propaganda which has been going on in Germany for twenty-five years and more.

We have an opportunity of knowing exactly what it is that the German Government wish to do, and what the German people are ready to approve, because we can see them at work. Of Belgium I will say nothing now except to remind the House that never yet, even when the way in which the War was going gave the greatest impulse to the pacifist element in Germany, never even at that moment could a German statesman bring himself to say plainly, clearly, definitely, and without ambiguity, "We took Belgium without excuse; we mean to give it back without condition, and, so far as in us lies, to restore it as it was before it fell into the hands of the spoiler." Never once have they thus spoken. But they have talked round the subject. They have introduced qualifications. They have invented history. They have spread calumnies about Belgian policy. They have made mendacious statements about British intrigues with Belgium. But never yet have they clearly stated the only policy which even the extremest pacifist on that bench is resolved that they shall carry out before the War is brought to an end.

There is an even more striking example of German methods of carrying out German theories to be found on the Eastern frontier of Germany. Her action in the East is an even more instructive subject of study than her action in the West, and it will repay the closest study. Consider her present position from the North of Finland right down to the Black Sea! She has gained it by the collapse of Russia. She has used it according to her own ideas. How has she used it? You have here displayed an admirable illustration of the way in which she pursues a single aim in different manner accordingly as the situation happens to direct her policy. The pose which she most affects is that of a liberator; and I may incidentally observe that, next to being enslaved by Germany, there is no worse fate than that of being liberated by her. Finland, for example, is now being told that she owes her freedom to Germany! But Germany is plundering her, garrisoning her, choosing her form of government, and endeavouring to force her into the War!

So it is further south. There you find a whole group of nationalities—Esthonians, Letts, Lithuanians, Poles, and Ukrainians. Go through the whole list, and you will find Germany proclaiming herself anxious that they shall be free from Russian domination. She pursues her one end steadily, remorselessly, without wavering, without pity; she endeavours by every means in her power, by force, by treaty, by treaty extorted by force to bring these peoples under German economic and military domination, so that they shall be merely her handmaids in matters of commerce, and supply her with troops in times of war. That is the policy. It takes different forms, but it is universal. It goes throughout the whole of that great area which I have described on Germany's Eastern frontier, and so determined is she to keep these nations under her heel, that having it absolutely in her power to rearrange the map of this part of Europe as she pleases, she has been careful not to arrange it according to national or ethnic limitations.

Mr. KILBRIDE

She only imitates yourself in that.

Mr. BALFOUR

I have not had to arrange these places. She does this, so anxious has she been always to be the Power to whom the Government of the particular country must look for its preservation, because without German support the fabric she creates must fall to pieces. I do not believe it is possible to exaggerate the cynical audacity with which she has pursued, and is pursuing, this measure. She does not want to absorb these countries into the German State, because if she absorbs them as German States, she will have to give them German institutions, and they will have representation, for what it is worth, in the German Reichstag, and they would have their place in the German Empire. She wants them to be united under a personal tie to the Prussian monarchy, coerced therefore whenever occasion requires by Prussian soldiers, with no voice in the Prussian Parliament, and no power of directing Prussian policy. That is what she deliberately aims at, and I cannot conceive any peace being tolerated, any peace being assented to, by the Powers of the Entente which leaves that stale of things unremedied. If it were unremedied, future wars would be an absolute certainty, and Germany's power of waging those wars would be, as she herself openly admits, enormously increased. Towards these provinces she professes, as I have said, to act the part of the liberator, a liberator who insists upon forced contributions—for instance, of corn from the Ukraine—and who at this moment is endeavouring to compel the Ukraine, I fear, to contribute to her armies as she is endeavouring to make Poland contribute to her armies.

If you go to Roumania, you see her methods written in even larger characters, in even more unmistakable characters. She has not merely forced Roumania to give immense contributions, indirectly perhaps, but not the less effectually to her war expenditure, but she has got control of all Roumania's industries, all Roumania's railways, all Roumania's dockyards. She holds Roumania at this moment not merely in the sense of military domination, but she holds her in economic domination, absolute and complete, a domination which shows no mercy, which will destroy the independence of the Roumanian people if it be allowed to stand for generations, and which demonstrates, if anything be required to demonstrate, that when a German talks of peace, he means, and he means only, a domination compared with which some of the worst dominations of the world seem to me to be merciful, because they are less successful, less effective, carried out with less systematic method, and with less absolute indifference to the feelings of the subject population. I do not believe anyone can study these treaties which Germany has made, or is in the act of making, without understanding, and perhaps understanding for the first time, what German domination means, and what a German peace for the world really signifies.

In the course of this War Germany has overrun fair districts both on the East and on the West. We also have had our measure of territorial conquest. We have occupied the southern part of Palestine, we have occupied large portions of Mesopotamia, and we have taken German Colonies. If you want to know the difference between British methods and German methods, consider the fate of these districts, compare the fate of the districts we have occupied with the fate of the districts occupied by the Germans. Wherever we have gone in the course of the War, security has been assured, trade has grown, wealth has increased almost before your eyes. Mesopotamia, at this moment I believe, is growing more corn than she has grown for centuries. Palestine—that part of it at any rate in British occupation—is more prosperous than it has ever been, and, if you come to the German Colonies, I do not think that anybody who has really studied German methods of colonisation will be surprised to know that the improvement is great there also.

Turn your eyes from Palestine and Mesopotamia, and look at Poland and Belgium. Germany is not content with the inevitable sufferings which are produced by an army of occupation, or by an army passing through any territory. Those sufferings need not be great if the army be disciplined. They may be almost insignificant. German soldiers, wherever they have been, have produced a desert, and left a desert. They have stripped of their machinery and of every means of production all the great Belgian towns. From the great manufacturing towns of Poland the machinery has again been taken, and Germany, according to some of those who write on her behalf, has done it in order that Lodz may never again be a competitor with German manufacturers. Poland, Belgium, the Ukraine, all these districts where the Germans have been, show even from the very beginning of the German occupation what a German peace means. It means that Germany is to flourish, and that everybody else is to serve the ends and purposes of Germany. It means that, and it means nothing less. Some of their officials in Roumania, when the Roumanians bitterly complained of the way in which they were treated by the framers of the Roumanian Peace Treaty, said, "Why do you complain? We are treating you as friends. You should see the treaty which we mean to impose upon France and England when the proper time comes." I have no doubt that sentiment, however bad it may be in point of prophecy, absolutely and accurately represents the mentality of the man who spoke that phrase and the mentality of the people who sent him to carry out his work.

Mr. SNOWDEN

Who was it?

Mr. BALFOUR

I do not remember his name. He was one of the German officials engaged in carrying out the work in Roumania. Does what I say sound like a paradox?

Mr. KING

Was he a man of any special authority, leading in the negotiations?

Mr. BALFOUR

I am not aware that he was of any great authority. The whole point is that he spoke as his people think, and as the actions of his people wherever they have been during this War show that they think. I hope that comes home to the hon. Gentleman, and that he grasps the point of my argument.

Mr. KING

Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that I did not deny for a moment what he said? I only thought that it would have much greater weight if it were some person of authority—as, for instance, the man who was negotiating the treaty.

Mr. BALFOUR

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his assistance, and I am sorry that for the moment I mistook his generous purpose. The real difficulty in the way of peace is not what hon. Gentlemen sitting on that bench suppose. They think, in their innocence, that all that is required is to bring two or three trade union leaders together from Germany and the Allied countries, and something satisfactory would be settled. We are most anxious—the Government are most anxious, as I have said, as the Prime Minister has said, and as I think others of my colleagues have said—of course, to take any opportunity of arriving at an honourable, a safe, and durable peace; but negotiation is perfectly useless unless the negotiators are approaching one another before the negotiations take place. If the differences which divide them are obviously much greater than can be got over by conversation and friendly discussion and argument, then discussion and friendly argument are in vain. I do not think that there is anybody who seriously denies that. I believe that to be common ground among hon. Gentlemen and those who differ most from them, although I do not think that the pacifist party in this House fully realise the gravity of a principle which I believe in theory they would be ready to accept. I do not at this moment, study as I will, see either in the actions of the German Government—some of which I have endeavoured to describe to the House, or in the statements of German politicians which are available—or in the writings of German publicists which meet with the greatest favour in their country, the slightest sign or symptom that they have as yet come sufficiently close to us to make discussion likely to be fruitful. If they give any sign that I am wrong, well and good. As I have said before, anything they wish to say we shall be glad to consider.

They say a great deal to their own people in their own newspapers, and they do a great deal of the kind that I have described to the House From those at present we must judge them. Judged by that standard, the abyss that separates the Associated Powers on the one side and the Central Powers on the other is profound. It is almost immeasurable. It is so deep as hardly to be plumbed, and so wide as hardly to be bridged. The hon. Gentlemen whose whole business is to show that negotiation ought to be easy have had the opportunity in countless Debates of showing that Germany is closer to us than I fear she is. They have never shown it. They have never given any argument, which indicates it at all, and I cannot conceive under these circumstances what they expect to gain by Debates of this character. Do they wish, for instance, to hand back to Germany, as Germany is now, the African colonies? Do they wish it? They know quite well what it means. They know that it means, in the first place, giving Germany submarine bases on all the great trade routes of the world, and putting, therefore, the world's commerce at Germany's disposal. They know, in the second place, that it means the tyrannical government of the native Africans, of which the House knows much, and which, when a Blue Book which is being prepared on one aspect of this question be published it will know more. It means, in the first place, that Germany will deliberately set to work and create a great black army in Central Africa, which will make the peaceable development—

Mr. SNOWDEN

As France has done already.

Mr. BALFOUR

Certainly, France has done it; but has France menaced the peace of all her neighbours? That is the whole point. The hon. Gentleman never has discovered yet that nations have a soul, that nations have a character, that the German soul, and the German character, as Germany is now, are going to use those powers—they make very little secret of it—for the purpose not merely of defence, but of aggression. It is not the abstract wickedness of having a disciplined army of black men to which I object. That maybe necessary or unnecessary. If unnecessary, it ought not to be done. If it is necessary, by all means do it. What I object to is giving back to Germany at the end of the War an instrument so powerful for universal evil as a great colonial empire would, Germany being as she is at present, undoubtedly put into her bands. No greater instrument for disturbing the peace of the world or increasing the miseries of humanity could be conceived, in my opinion, than giving Germany a great Central African dominion, to be used as Germany would know how to use it—for offence within the continent of Africa and, offence, perhaps even more perilous, to all the great arteries of trade that join civilised nations together.

Then do the hon. Gentlemen think that Germany is ready to abandon her Russian policy? Germany's Russian policy has been the most astute and, at first sight, the most successful—indeed, the only really successful—thing she has done during the War, and she is proportionately proud of it. But what does it mean for a very large fraction of the human race? Does this House contemplate with equanimity this row of States—subordinate States under German domination—feeding German trade though starved themselves, sup plying Germany with armies in quarrels with which they have no concern, stretching from the Baltic right down to the Black Sea? Further, do they contemplate with equanimity one of the inevitable results of that, which is that Russia will be cut off from all commerce—I do not mean commerce in the common sense; I mean all direct intercourse with her Western neighbours—and that the task of the self-rehabilitation and self-reconstitution, which we all earnestly desire that Russia should carry through—do they contemplate with equanimity that that task would become almost impossible? Germany rejoices at Russian disintegration. Germany rejoices that Russia is going to be little more than the hinterland of her own dominating influence. I think it a calamity to mankind. Unless Germany's methods change and Germany's heart changes, or unless a victory, a complete victory, on the part of the Associated Powers convinces everybody in Germany that whether they will it or no, their policy is a failure—unless one of those two things happen, I fail utterly to see how this great rehabilitation of Russia is ever to take place.

The hon. Gentlemen opposite, who I believe quite sincerely and earnestly desire the peaceful progress of the human race, seem to me to be quite incapable of appreciating the magnitude of the obstacle which Germany presents to the realisation of their own ideals. They desire peace, as we all desire peace, but they desire peace on terms which would not merely—as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyneside (Mr. J. M. Robertson) and my hon. and gallant Friend behind me (Major Tryon) have said so powerfully earlier in the Debate—make a future war practically inevitable, but they desire it on terms which would leave an immense fraction of civilised mankind absolutely under the German heel, absolutely incapable, therefore, of carrying out their own development in their own fashion and in their own way, and which would put back the whole progress of civilisation, which, as I represent it to myself, consists in the growing friendly intercourse between nation and nation, of such a kind that, while each influences the other, each may nevertheless, in conformity with its own character, its own history, its own national aspirations, give to the common task that work which they are best fitted to carry out. That ideal will never and cannot be carried out so long as your treaties of Brest-Litovsk remain untouched. If you contemplate giving back to Germany her possessions in Africa, or if you mean to give back to Turkey the Arab districts which are now happily relieved from Turkish rule, these ideals cannot be carried out. It is because I do not for a moment think that German negotiators are prepared to take that view or anything like that view—

Mr. D. MASON

How do you know?

Mr. BALFOUR

Because I am gifted with some common sense, and have read some of the documents and observed some of the actions upon which we must form a judgment on this subject. For that reason, I venture to say that the policy of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite, animated as they are, I firmly believe, by patriotism and honourable motives—I am quite ready to believe that—but whatever their motives, I also believe that they are doing the very worst service they possibly can to the cause they have at heart by taking the course, in this House and out of it, to which we have now become unhappily too familiar.

Mr. DILLON

This House is now asked to adjourn—

Mr. SNOWDEN

On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask you a question on a point of procedure? Is it usual in this House when a speech has been made attacking what has been said from a certain part of the House that no opportunity should be given for replying to it?

Mr. SPEAKER

The Debate on this matter has been equally divided. There have been three speakers from the hon. Member's bench and three opposed to them. The three speakers who spoke from the hon. Member's bench have occupied 115 minutes, while the three speakers from other benches have occupied about eighty minutes, so that on that point I thought the Debate had been very fairly divided. When I was first asked about it, I said that I thought about three hours to three and a half hours would be a suitable time to occupy. We have just reached the three and a half hours. There are no fewer than five other subjects all waiting for discussion. Hon. Members have been waiting here patiently with a view to raising those questions, and I think the time has now come when the House is anxious to hear the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon).

Mr. SNOWDEN

I did not wish to imply that I had any doubt about the fairness with which you have allocated the time. Of course, we understood there were a great many other subjects which hon. Members desired to raise, and this question is to be limited to a certain time, but we understood also that one speech would be permitted in reply to the Foreign Secretary, and that was the reason I raised the point.