FOREIGN AFFAIRS. (Hansard, 18 December 1936)

§ Mr. MORGAN JONES

I do not think the House will expect any apology from me for raising the grave matter of foreign affairs before we adjourn for the Recess. The situation in many parts of the world is so grave that we cannot separate without devoting some hours to this subject. A more cursory glance at the world situation at this moment fills any observer with a sense of depression. One cannot help comparing the situation to-day with that which existed in 1914. In many respects the two dates present a very sinister parallel to each other, and if in consequence of that fact the observer suffers a sense of depression of spirit who shall blame him? But a spirit of fatalism is a poor guide to us at all times, and surely it is the worst guide in the conduct of foreign affairs. The Foreign Secretary, whatever rebuffs he may experience from time to time, must be something of an incorrigible optimist, and I think optimism is rather to be justified. If we once give up faith, if we abandon hope, then it seems to me that we perish.

At the end of the Great War one shaft of light seemed to pierce the encircling 2818 gloom, a belief that the world had discovered, after much travail, a more excellent way for the solution of international difficulties. In spite of many vissicitudes and disappointments, I submit to the House this morning that that way remains. It is the way of the League. Some may argue in favour of a reformed League and in some respects I should be in accord, but, at any rate, a strengthened League. It. is, in my judgment, the one rampart which may effectively withstand the forces which make for destruction of the world, and if one part of that rampart is surrendered, then it seems to me that the citadel of peace itself is in danger of falling. Therefore, it follows that fidelity to the League becomes, in truth, the foundation of international wisdom, and I think it not inappropriate at this point to ask whether we—meaning by "we" not we alone, but other nations of the world—have been really faithful to the League? It is perhaps unprofitable to bemoan the past, but it is worth remembering that the past, after all, has a good deal to do with the conditions of the present. In proof of that simple proposition, I would invite the House for a minute or two to direct its attention to the Far East which, in my submission, is becoming, if indeed it has not already become, one of the danger points of the world. The Foreign Secretary, in an excellent speech in the country one night this week, used these words: If Europe is to be littered with scraps of paper in 1936 and thereafter, nobody can look ahead with any confidence. I do not wish to recall the past, but I am within the truth when I say that China is littered already with scraps of paper to which we ourselves have attached our signature. Let me cite one or two of them. First, all of us are involved in the Covenant of the League of Nations. All of us are involved in the Kellogg Pact. Nine nations are involved in the Nine-Power Agreement concerning the integrity of China. All those have been torn into bits, and the consequence is that China—and when I speak of China., I mean the old China, from Northern Manchuria right to the South—presents a picture of the most intense misery. Japan has overrun Chinese territory, and the League of 2819 Nations cannot excuse itself. The League appointed a commission to inquire into the matter, and the report of that commission, the Lytton Commission, was heavily charged with an indictment of Japan's acts in Manchuria. Yet nothing has happened, on the contrary, things have grown steadily worse.

The noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) this morning asked a question of the Foreign Secretary in which he called attention to another aspect of the disruption which is now in progress in China, and we entirely agree with the reply given by the Foreign Secretary. It is deplorable that China cannot herself achieve some form of unity among her own people. Apart from that, there is the menacing agreement between Japan and Germany. So far as the public has been taken into the confidence of those two nations, the agreement seems to be a mutual agreement to withstand some offensive ideology, but I cannot believe that that is the whole of the agreement. I think most of us are of the opinion that that is only the facade which hides a much more sinister arrangement which has not yet been made public. I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary whether he has any further information to give us in this connection —possibly he has not. Apropos of this question of China, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) addressed a question to the Foreign Secretary two days ago. It is true that he related his question on that occasion to Abyssinia—