§ The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald)I beg to move, "That this House doth now adjourn."
I do this in order that I may have an opportunity of reporting to the House upon the visit I recently made to the United States and Canada. Any statement that can be made regarding that visit can add little to what has already appeared in the Press, but by reporting to this House and thanking my hosts from this place I perform an official duty which is required at the close of my journey. What success the visit had was largely owing to the hearty support given to it by all parties and sections in this country, and by all the great organs of public opinion. I went out not as a Party leader but as a national representative. I must take this opportunity of thanking President Hoover and his Cabinet, and both the Senate and the House of Representatives, for the welcome they gave me, and the honours they paid to me as the representative of this country. They showed the best kind of friendship by the candour with which they exchanged views and the straightforwardness with which they raised and discussed questions of delicacy; though some of the matters I had to deal with might easily have been presented to the public so as to rouse old prejudices, from beginning to end I found nothing but thoughtful fairness and a desire to co-operate in placing facts and issues justly before the country.
No Ambassador could receive a warmer welcome; no Government or people could open their doors, their minds and their hearts wider to a guest. I did my best as I crossed their boundary to express my thanks to them, but I feel that it is here in the House of Commons, in your presence and with you joining in, that my final grateful adieux should be waved to them. I took with me a staff limited with great severity by the soundest Treasury traditions. Frequently I had to regret this regard for public economy, for at times my colleagues were grossly overworked. By their devotion to the work on hand they contributed much to its success, and it is due to them that I should from this place acknowledge the debt which the nation owes to them.
886 I went with no draft agreements either in my mind or in my pocket. I went to try by personal contact and by direct address to establish a new relationship between the two peoples, a relationship based upon mutual understanding not only of common objects to be pursued but of natural differences to be respected. I must leave the result to fructify in policy and action as time goes on. The genial breeze which blew me across the Atlantic was created by the conversations I had had during the summer with the American Ambassador, who personifies in such a delightful way the downright desire of his Government for peace and goodwill. These conversations had already removed every fear that at an international conference the unabridged differences between the United States and ourselves would doom such a conference to failure. I reviewed these conversations with the President, and studied with him ways and means of filling in the narrow gaps still remaining in a programme of building which would at the same time recognise parity in strength and variety in the use of tonnage. Both of us recognise, however, that the agreement we were seeking was not merely one between ourselves but one which would have to be set into a wider co-operation, and that final settlements would have to depend upon the Five Powers Conference, invitations to which, we learned during our deliberations, had been accepted by all the Powers concerned.
These Powers will very properly have a good deal to say from their own point of view upon the naval problems which we were discussing. We decided to urge that preliminary, and more or less informal, conversations between and with these Powers should be entered upon so that when the Conference meets the difficulties which lie at any rate on the fringe of our task may have been overcome. The success of that Conference which will meet here in January is our next task and meanwhile I can say nothing which will put difficulties in its way. Above and beyond the definite subject of a naval agreement was a desire to make it clear to everybody that in our mutual relations the Paris Pact of Peace was a reality and so in the joint statement issued by us a declaration is made for the first time officially by the represent- 887 tives of the two nations speaking together. Both of us put our signatures to this:
Both our governments resolve to accept the Peace Pact not only as a declaration of good intentions but as a positive obligation to direct national policy in accordance with its pledge.Further, and I quote again—Therefore, in a new and reinforced sense, the two governments not only declare that war between them is unthinkable, but that distrust and suspicions arising from doubts and fears which may have been justified before the Peace Pact must now cease to influence national policy. We approach old historical problems from a new angle and in a new atmosphere. On the assumption that war between us is banished, and that conflicts between our military or naval forces cannot take place, these problems have changed their meaning and character, and their solution, in ways satisfactory to both countries, has become possible.4.0 p.m.The United States pursues with vigilant jealousy its historic policy of keeping free from old world entanglements and is therefore not in the League of Nations. We are in the League, we have contracted obligations to the League; and we shall remain loyal to these obligations. On neither side was any attempt made to change these facts. They were recognised as axioms in all our discussions. They were stated in the Memorandum which we jointly gave to the Press. In the course of our conversations the President raised some of the major historical causes of difference between us, like belligerent rights, so called fortified bases, and so on, which are still active in forming public opinion, and we agreed mutually to examine them in the hope that we might arrive at understandings upon them. Even should one hold the opinion, as I do, that the only satisfactory way to settle legal and other disputes which arise from war conditions is success in the establishment of peace, I believe that nothing but good could come from a frank exchange of views between the Government of the United States and ourselves on these questions. The visit to Canada was marked by the same unstinted demonstrations of welcome and by a hospitality which struck the note of pride and happiness in our family unity. As the representative of 888 the Mother Country and the bearer of a message of God-speed from His Majesty, I was accorded greetings not only by Canadian lips but by Canadian hearts. My memory of Canada is heavily laden with an appreciation of the welcome by the Prime Ministers and Governments of the Dominion and of the two Provinces I was able to visit. The visit gave me an opportunity of discussing with the Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, those matters which had arisen at Washington of special interest for Canada, and to exchange with him views on political and economic subjects of mutual concern. The conversations could only be provisional.
The change of Government in Australia made a final agreement as to the assembling of the Economic Conference impossible, and until the Committee of Experts now sitting upon the legal relationship of the Empire, as affected by the Resolution passed by the last Imperial Conference, has reported we could only agree that the results may be of the most vital interest not only to the Empire but to the whole world, and that whatever is done a unity of allegiance and spirit must be preserved with a development of nationality. Meetings with the Premiers of both Ontario and Quebec were most profitable. I am convinced, as the result of the cordial welcome I received in Canada, that if only time can be found, amidst the labours of the office of the Prime Minister, no greater service could be done to our unity and cooperation with the Dominions than similar visits to, and personal contacts with, people of the other parts of the Commonwealth and their Governments.
§ Commander BELLAIRSWhile congratulating warmly the Prime Minister, may I ask him whether the Conference to which he referred is to be held here in London?
§ The PRIME MINISTERYes, in London.
§ Mr. STANLEY BALDWINIt is my most agreeable task, on behalf of those who sit behind me, to offer our warm and cordial felicitations to the Prime Minister on the statement which he has just read. We followed his course with the keenest interest, and I, not following my usual custom, did read everything that he said in the United States 889 of America. I wish to record any view that throughout the Prime Minister acted as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and not as a Party leader. We all owe him a great debt of gratitude for maintaining that attitude in that country. I might be excused if I offer one or two observations. I have—it is no secret to the right hon. Gentleman—for a. long time felt that our relations with America have suffered in comparison with our relations on the Continent of Europe, from the fact that since the inauguration of the League of Nations statesmen of different countries have been able to meet and discuss matters personally, whereas there has been an almost complete ignorance of the personalities of the statesmen involved on the two sides of the Atlantic. Worse than that, there has always been, and I regret to say it, even amongst some of our public men a profound ignorance of the nature of the constitution, the executive and the administration of the United States of America, which at any time might lead this country, as at times it has led Europe, into difficulties in dealings with America.
So strongly impressed was I with this, that it is now nearly three years ago that I opened the subject very privately with Mr. Houghton, the then Ambassador of the United States, on the subject of the Prime Minister going from this country to America. We both felt that it would be an admirable thing, but we both felt that it would be some time before the time would he ripe and opportune. I say with full conviction of knowledge—I am sure the Prime Minister and the American Government will agree—that the right hon. Gentleman has taken the first moment that has been possible in recent years to make his visit. It could not have been done by any Government until the actual time that he went. I shall not disguise from the House, and the House perhaps will feel that it is not wrong for me to say so, that though I am not greedy of power, there was one thing I always hoped to do, and that was to go to America as Prime Minister to try personally to improve the relationship between that country and this. It looked at one time as though it might be my fate; but it was ordered otherwise. I want to tell the right hon. Gentleman and the whole 890 House that there is no feeling of regret or envy or anything of that kind in my heart. I rejoice that it has been done. I am happy to think that it has fallen to the lot of the right hon. Gentleman to do it, and I hope it will not be the last time that such a visit will be paid by the Prime Minister of this country to America.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI should like to join with the Leader of the Opposition in extending my felicitations and congratulations to the Prime Minister upon his very triumphant tour in America. It was an unquestionable success from every point of view. When the American public are in a welcoming mood there is no public in the world who can do it with greater sincerity, warmth and spontaneity, and there is no doubt that the Prime Minister found them in that mood, and that he justified the mood in which he originally found them by his experience there. It is very gratifying to us that such a welcome should have been given to the Prime Minister of this country by the greatest English-speaking community in the world except our own. One is glad to acknowledge that it was not merely to the Prime Minister of Great Britain that this enthusiastic reception was accorded, but that it was also the appeal that the personality of the Prime Minister himself made to that great democratic people. There was, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, an unmistakable coolness, to use no stronger phrase, which had crept into the attitude of these two great peoples towards each other. This is not the time to examine the causes; one is anxious to avoid anything which could suggest controversial matters. But undoubtedly there it was, and that was a very serious impediment in the cause of understanding, because pacts and covenants depend not upon paper, but upon the spirit in which they are operating, and unless there is real good will between nations and amongst nations, then all the pacts for the abolition of war will be mere scraps of paper.
From that point of view I think the. Prime Minister has rendered a real service to the cause of world peace by clearing the atmosphere and by introducing a. more genial element into the relations of the two countries. I say that all the more gladly, and I feel I ought to say it, 891 because I have had very grave doubts, which I expressed in this House, as to the wisdom of a visit to America before the Five Power Conference. Therefore, having made that statement, I am all the more glad to congratulate the Prime Minister upon the real triumph of his visit. I would wish—and I am sure the Prime Minister will not think it a criticism—that he could have given us some account, that he could have told us more of the concrete results of his visit, and of the commitments, if there are any, which he made when he was there. For instance, was any understanding arrived at between this country and America with a view to the Five Power Conference—I do not see why that should interfere with the Five Power Conference—any understanding, so far as the two countries are concerned, with regard to the number of cruisers, with regard to the size of guns, with regard to submarines, and more particularly with regard to what is very vital to this country—a matter that I will not discuss but a matter to which I attach very considerable importance, and that is what is known as the question of the freedom of the seas?
Until we are in a better position in reference to world armaments I think we ought to proceed very cautiously with regard to abandoning any of our rights there. I should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman. It is a very vital matter. [Interruption.] I do not think I have said anything which ought to provoke hon. Gentlemen opposite. I have been studiedly conciliatory throughout my observations, and I am entitled to ask these questions; what is more I mean to do it. It is a very vital matter and I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman. I understand from him that up to the present nothing has been done, except to enter into conversations with the President of the United States which have not committed us to any particular position. The matter is to be further examined?
§ The PRIME MINISTERindicated assent.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGEThen there is nothing more that the Prime Minister can say on that subject, and I do not press it. I am very glad to hear that there is no commitment at the present moment. It is very important. I would 892 also ask whether the right hon. Gentleman has had any discussions with regard to co-operation between the United States and ourselves on the subject of general disarmament. For instance with regard to Lord Robert Cecil's Motion at Geneva. Lastly, I should also like to ask whether there was any examination of the question of debts, a very important matter for this country—whether there was any attempt to give us what I would call more-favoured-nation treatment in respect of debts, or whether that was left outside the ambit altogether of the conversations between the Prime Minister and the United States. I am pressing him only upon these two or three questions before I sit down.
§ Colonel GRETTONI hope the House will allow me to express my congratulations to the Prime Minister upon the personal success of his visit to America. I understand that the Prime Minister is not prepared to discuss in the House on this occasion the business side of his visit, but may I ask if it is the intention of the right hon. Gentleman to make a statement of the Government's position before they enter into the Five-Power Conference. The country is deeply interested in these vital questions, and I have always understood that it is an axiom of the present Government that they would not enter into secret diplomacy. I would also like to ask if it is intended that the report of the Committee referred to by the Prime Minister to inquire into the legal position of the British Empire will be published, because that is a matter of vital interest to all of us.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYI would like to make one observation in regard to the questions which have been put to the Prime Minister by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). Having regard to the part which the right hon. Gentleman has played in international affairs, I think the speech which he has made and the questions he has asked are, in the circumstances, only mischievous. It is well known that the five-Power Conference has been called, and it is obvious that the whole success of that Conference will be jeopardised if the Prime Minister goes into any details.
§ Mr. J. JONESNow that a well-known authority on this subject has spoken we 893 know all about it. There is one thing which hon. Members opposite ought to know, and it is that you cannot make satisfactory international relationships possible until you have entered into negotiations with the people with whom you have had differences. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bass—
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYOn a point of Order. I would like to ask whether it is in order for an hon. Member of this House to refer to another hon. Member other than by his constituency?
§ Mr. SPEAKERIt is certainly not in order.
§ Mr. JONESI have already withdrawn, but you cannot separate Bass from Burton. Hon. Members have been speaking of what is going to happen as if it had actually happened. I understand from what I have read on this question that before any agreements are come to by the five-Power Conference the whole question will be referred to this House for ratification. So far as hon. Members who sit on the Labour Benches are concerned, we want the Prime Minister to understand, that we are all behind him in the efforts which he is making to secure international peace. We know the Prime Minister by his past, and he can live upon his past and look forward to the future. There are others in this House who cannot do that.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYSpeak for yourself.
§ Mr. JONESI can speak of my past, and it is well behind me. We stand behind the Prime Minister in the efforts he is making to secure European and international peace.
Viscountess ASTORMay I congratulate the Prime Minister upon the great success of his visit to America, and I can assure him that all the sober elements of the country are behind him.
§ Mr. SCRYMGEOURI only desire to express my satisfaction in regard to the most important deliverances which have just been signed by the Prime Minister of our own country as well as by the President of the United States of America. I think it will be our earnest prayer, individually and collectively, that those words will not only have their meaning in a verbal sense, but that they 894 will be taken as evidence of a determination on the part of the political parties of this country to see that nothing shall be done to endanger in any way in the future the lives of our fellow countrymen and the sisterhood and childhood of the nation. This is a great day, and we certainly say "God speed" to all who are supporting such a magnificent Christian enterprise.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI hope the House will grant me indulgence for a moment so that the questions which have been put to me may not remain unanswered. First of all, I would like to thank hon. Members for the reception which they have given to my statement. The thing in my mind most of all is how deeply gratified my late host will be when he reads the proceedings in this House to-day. The statement about cruisers was made before we left and I did not think that I needed to repeat it. As regards the question of belligerent rights, no commitments whatever were made beyond a promise that the matter would be considered. I knew that it had been considered already, because I had seen the papers on the subject, and I was fortified in the knowledge that I was pursuing a continuous policy.
As to general disarmament, I certainly did not raise the question as to what support America might give us at the general Disarmament Conference. We are preparing for the five-Power Conference which is naval pure and simple, and, when we have got the five-Power Conference out of the way, then will be the time for the consideration of the question of general disarmament. I believe that the five-Power Conference which is being called for a specific purpose will get this matter successfully concluded. We did not discuss debts. As to the five-Power Conference and the attitude of the Government, all I can say is that everything that is done by way of preparation for that Conference will be done after full consultation with our proper experts, and it would be very improper for me at this moment to say anything further than that. Everything that is being done by way of preparation for that Conference is being done in the usual way, and all the interests concerned are being consulted. I beg to ask leave to withdrawn the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.