§ What about publicity? We considered that question and we came to the unanimous conclusion that to publish those terms before they are discussed with the enemy would be a first-class blunder. I know there have been criticisms, and there has been rather silly talk about secrecy. No Peace Conference ever held has given so much publicity to its proceedings. I am not referring to unauthorised reports. I am referring to official communications. Honestly I would rather have a good Peace than a good Press.
§ May I give one or two reasons why we came to the conclusion not to publish the terms before they are discussed. No peace terms, no measure of any kind ever devised or promulgated—can satisfy everyone. I am not referring to mere political and personal attack, or to worked-up effects. I am thinking of honest criticisms inspired by higher and more sincere motives There are some people who will say, "You have gone too far." There will be others who will say, "You have not gone far enough." There will probably be people in each country who will suggest that the interests of their country have been sacrificed to those of some other country, and if all that can be published who will benefit by it? No one but the enemy. Supposing there were men in this country who thought our peace terms were too severe, there would be speeches and there would be leading articles. Those are the speeches and those are the articles that would be published in Germany, and there would be no proportion in what appeared in Germany. It would appear in Germany as if British public opinion were opposed to our terms, because we have gone too far. It would encourage resistance. Let me put the other side—the effect in 2948 Germany. I want to make peace. Supposing the terms proposed by Bismarck to the French had been published in France before they had been discussed by Jules Favre, what would have happened? The Communists would have been strengthened by the adhesion of men who, for patriotic reasons and in a momentary impulse, without considering the best thing, looking over a period of twenty years or longer, would have supported even anarchy in preference to what they considered harsh terms. France could not have made peace. To publish the terms prematurely before they were discussed, before the enemy had a full opportunity of considering them, would be to raise difficulties in the way of peace, and we mean to take every action that is necessary to prevent publication.
§ But there are two or three things I can say about it. Before the War was over, we stated our peace terms. On behalf of the Government, I made a considered statement—which was considered by every member of the Cabinet and by the Trade Union Conference—of what we conceived to be the terms on which we could make peace with the enemy. That was last year. At that time those terms received the adhesion of every section of opinion in this country. There was no protest from any quarter. A few days afterwards President Wilson proposed his famous "Fourteen Points," which practically embodied the same proposals. I am referred to my speeches before the last election. There are some who suggest that at the last election I and my colleagues were rushed into declarations of which now we are rather ashamed, and wish to get out of. I do not wish to get out of them in the least. These declarations were adopted by, I think, every political leader of every section.
§ I took the trouble to find out what was said by Mr. Asquith with regard to indemnities and the punishment of the Kaiser. I find that Mr. Asquith, immediately afterwards, said he was in favour of exacting from the wrongdoer the uttermost farthing. Speaking at East Fife the day after my Bristol speech, someone asked him: "Would you make the Germans pay for the War?" Mr. Asquith replied: "Yes. I am in agreement on that matter with what the Prime Minister said yesterday." I am not putting that as criticism, but as an answer to the criticism that I committed myself very indiscreetly, under pressure from the electors, 2949 to something from which other statesmen have abstained. On the contrary, I believe if my right hon. Friend (Mr. Adamson) will look at the speeches of some of his associates—I rather think he had a walkover—he will find statements which are very much of the same kind as that. I do not like this sort of high-lined criticisms, which refer to electioneering speeches as though I was the only man who ever made electioneering speeches. There are others. So that those pledges were not the pledges merely of my colleagues and myself, but of every political leader. I tell the House at once that, if on reflection, and if after examination of the problem with the statesmen of other lands—who have not had to fight an election, and therefore could take a calmer and more detached view of these problems—if, after coming in contact with them, I had arrived at the conclusion that I had gone too far, and pledged the Government and the country to something that I could not carry out, I should have come down here and said so, because it would have been folly, even for an electioneering pledge, to imperil the people of Europe. Then the House of Commons, of course, would have been free to take its own action. But, so far from my coming here to ask for reconsideration—to ask release from any pledge or promise which I have given—I am here to say that all the outlines of peace that we have ever given to the public and asked them to make sacrifices to obtain—every pledge we have given with regard to what we pressed for insertion in the peace terms is incorporated in the demands which have been put forward by the Allies. I observe that some of these pledges are published. I am going to issue an invitation to some enterprising newspaper that when the peace terms, the peace demands put forward by the Allies, come to be published, there should be published in parallel columns the pledges and the promises made by the Government.
§ That is all I am going to say about the peace terms—all that I think it would be wise to say. It will be said that we have pressed for these at the last moment, because of the great agitation and of the various communications we have received. I have the greatest respect for all those communications. But, will my hon. Friends believe me, we put forward those terms from the very beginning. We never swerved one iota from them. I told the 2950 House that when I came here some weeks ago. We stand by them, because we think they are just.