ASSASSINATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC. (Hansard, 10 May 1932)

§ Mr. BALDWIN

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty to convey to His Majesty the expression of the deep sorrow and indignation with which this House has learned the assassination of the President of the French Republic, and to pray His Majesty that he will be graciously pleased to express on the part of this House their abhorrence of the crime and their sympathy with the French Government and the People of France. For a few moments I would ask the House to turn aside from controversy and pass this Motion nemine contradicente. Three times within the span covered by the lifetime of the right hon. Gentleman who will follow me has this Motion been put to the House to express the sympathy of the nation to a sister nation in the hour of her sorrow. Sixty-seven years ago Sir George Grey and Mr. Disraeli voiced such a message to the United States of America on the death of Abraham Lincoln; 38 years ago Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Balfour spoke in your name to France on the death of President Carnot; and to-day those who are here follow in their steps to convey the same message to a grief-stricken people. A great sorrow more than a great joy vibrates rapidly through all the heart strings of the world, and, although there must of necessity be formality in the method of dignified expression by an ancient Parliament such as this, and although there must be formality in the words, yet far more lies behind them; whatever be the form of expression, that which it expresses comes from the depths of our hearts.

The President of the French Republic was struck down at a moment when his services were most needed. At the time of a general election the constitution itself is, as it were, in suspense, and at no other time is the need so felt for the hand of a tried and experienced helmsman to steer the ship through the turbulent tides. The French people faced this shock with the traditional courage of their race and indicated once more the strength of the Constitution of that great republic. Their President himself was of a type to appeal to our people. He rose from a humble home to the highest position in the State by sheer force of character. It is now 44 years since he 1730 was first elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies, becoming a member only a year or two before the "Father" of this House first became a Member of it. He became Minister of Finance, and towards the end of last century Governor of Indo-China, adding one more distinguished name and a record of distinguished service to a service where there are so many great names and records—the French Colonial Service. It is a quarter of a century since he was first nominated for the Presidency. Before the War he was a senator and became chairman of that august body, and only last year, in his 75th year, he was elected President of the Republic.

One would have thought that even an insensate assassin might have spared such a man. In his temper, his moderation, and his wisdom he was typical of the race whose achievements are interwoven with the political and intellectual progress of Western Europe throughout the ages. Only next Monday our Prince of Wales was to have unveiled that memorial, in what are now the pleasant fields of the Somme, to 73,000 of our sons whose bodies found no resting place. The President of the Republic was to have accompanied him. That was not to be, and on this Thursday, with all the pomp and circumstance befitting the occasion, his body will be borne through the streets of Paris to its last resting place. The people of France will be the mourners, and we, silently and in spirit, will share their every emotion. Only the four sons, who in the ordinary course of nature should be paying their last pious duty to their father, will not be there. But, removed from sight on the far shores of that river through whose bitter waters we must all pass in our turn alone, radiant they await him, and there is not a heart here that is not turning to-day to the mother and the widow before whom we all bow our heads.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

On the last occasion on which a Motion of this kind was before the House, the late Lord Balfour, then Mr. Arthur Balfour, said that he would under ordinary circumstances have been quite willing to leave the matter just where Sir William Harcourt had left it, I feel in the same position this afternoon, but, as Mr. Balfour said, it is necessary that, on behalf of those who sit here and the people whom we more or less repre- 1731 sent outside, we should join publicly in expressing our deepest abhorrence of the terrible crime which has robbed France of her beloved President. We all of us, I think, feel that death at any time is a great leveller. Death also unites men and women in a way that perhaps nothing else does, and it has been said that to suffer together is the cement of human friendship. Last week, when the news was flashed across, there could have been no one in any part of the world with any human feeling at all but whose heart must have gone out to the French people and to the wife and family of President Doumer. I think that to be struck down in the senseless, brutal, stupid manner that the President was, is something before which all of us must, in a way, stand appalled, and to-day, speaking here, I would like to say to the wife and mother who suffered so much during the War, those words of Tennyson's which, at least, have brought comfort to me in much less troublous days: God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but, when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone. The wife and mother will, for the rest of her days, have the abiding thought, and be able to live over again in memory what must have been, with a family like theirs, the very happy days which they spent together. I believe that the ordinary common people of our country will be thinking of her in that spirit, and they will be wanting her to realise that, in a tiny way, they are sharing her grief. I do believe what the right hon. Gentleman said, that across that bourne from which none of us returns, somehow, somewhere, the souls of the departed meet again, and to that extent, I think, all the friends of the late President may be comforted.