FOREIGN OFFICE.

HC Deb 21 June 1938 vol 337 cc919-1045

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £71,143, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939, for the salaries and expenses of the Department of His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs."—[Note.—£35,000 has been voted on account.]

3.55 p.m.

Mr. Noel-Baker

I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.

We asked for this Debate in order to raise the question of the aggressions now going on in various parts of the world in violation of the Covenant and the Kellogg Pact, the question of the new illegal and barbarous methods by which these aggressions are being conducted, and the question of the relation of these events to the maintenance of the rule of law by which alone, as the Prime Minister once said, we can hope for a stable epoch of peace. There are three aggressions now in progress, in Abyssinia, China and Spain. Of Abyssinia I propose to say nothing, save that Italian sovereignty was never less established than it is to-day and that the recognition of that sovereignty, if it were granted, would be a dishonour and a crime.

I must say a little more of China. The Japanese assault on China a year ago was a Covenant-breaking aggression quite as flagrant as that on Abyssinia. No one doubts that that is true. World opinion has never been more unanimous than it is on the side of China. The unhappy Japanese people have still very many friends; the Japanese militarists have none. They have conducted their aggression by methods which are worthy of Attila the Hun. I will not dwell on the fearful massacres of non-combatants and of prisoners, of which some hon. Members have had ocular proof, nor on the sufferings of refugees, who have been driven literally by millions from their homes by the Japanese, nor on the treatment of the women and the civil population, nor on the suffering of the Chinese wounded who, for want of transport and Red Cross material, often have to be carried for days on end on the backs of coolies before their wounds can even be dressed. To all this horror there has been added the systematic and merciless bombardment of the civil population from the air. The Mayor of Canton the other day sent a telegram to the mayors of all the great towns of Europe and America giving a description of the bombardments which day by day have been launched against his town. Some British journalists have translated his general picture into more vivid pictures still. I read only one: Everywhere there are poignant scenes. Here a little girl tearing desperately with tiny hands at masonry under which her mother was killed; there boys giving a drink to their mothers also trapped; children searching in vain for parents; parents searching for their children; mangled bodies everywhere. It is stories like that which have frightened and sickened the conscience of the world. What is more frightening still is that these methods are being adopted as a deliberate military policy to win the war. That has been done in Spain. When Barcelona was bombarded on 16th, 17th and 18th March the Insurgent aircraft dropped bombs saying that they would bomb the population every three hours until they surrendered—"Give in, or you will be destroyed." The "Times" of 8th June reported an official Japanese spokesman as saying that they were going on with the air bombardment in order to show the Chinese the futility of resistance and to end hostilities as speedily as possible. But what is most frightening of all is that world opinion is becoming accustomed to these matters and that governments are doing nothing to bring them to an end. We have never believed that it is possible to humanise war. The only way to humanise war is to abolish it. The only way to prevent atrocities from the air is to abolish air warfare and national air forces altogether.

When Lord Baldwin was urging that policy on the country six years ago propagandists here who were opposing him and who were subsidised by certain vested interests used to tell us that the bombing plane—here I am quoting—was humane and effective and that it was a dove of peace in comparison with an ordinary army clearing up an area of country. They used to say that a little logical international law would abolish all the real objections to air bombardment. Those same voices are now those which tell us that it is futile to fly to stop or control air bombardment of a civil population and that there is nothing in international law which condemns what is being done. Sometimes they whisper to us that pernicious doctrine, "New weapons make new laws." They were wrong both times; they are wrong in principle, they are wrong in application; and there is no doubt in the world that bombardment of the civil population is a violation of international law. In 1923 there was a conference of government theorists at The Hague. The British representative was Sir Cecil Hurst, now the President of the Permanent Court of International Justice. They drew up a code of rules for air warfare, in which they did not make new law, in which they applied law which they all recognised to exist. They said: Aerial bombardment of the civil population is prohibited. They went on to say, in an Article to which I draw special attention, because it relates to the point on which I wish to speak at greater length about the bombing of ships in Spain: The bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighbourhood of the operations of land forces is prohibited. That is to say, where there was not a land battle. They added: In cases where the objectives specified are so situated that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civil population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment. These rules have not been ratified by governments, it is true, but there is no international lawyer in the world who has not said that they constitute the valid, binding law of air warfare at the present time. I could quote opinion after opinion—I have a volume of them here—from the leading British authorities, who urge that point. The doctrine that "New weapons make new laws" was put forward by the Germans for the submarines in the last War. It is an utterly pernicious doctrine. Our Government have always resisted and rejected it, and we say that, faced with the present situation, it is the duty of Great Britain to-day to uphold international law and to take effective action to do so—action which will safeguard vital British interests, which will help to bring these aggressions to an end by the withdrawal of the invading forces, and which will promote the most vital of all British interests, namely, the re-valorisation of international law and the restoration of the sanctity of the Cove-man t and Kellogg Pact.

We believe that such action is urgently required. We believe it is urgently required for China, to which I shall now refer. We believe it would have succeeded over China a year ago. Events have proved that Japan is not strong enough to challenge the world, that the Japanese people detest the war, detest even this limited adventure on which they are now engaged, and we believe that if we had done no more than impose the boycott on Japanese exports which we imposed on Signor Mussolini, by that measure alone we could have dried up the resources with which the Japanese are buying the oil and minerals without which their campaign could not be continued. We believe still more that firm action is needed to-day.

We ought to treat this Japanese aggression as a Covenant-breaking war. We ought openly to help China in her magnificent resistance. We wish that the Government would now propose to the League an embargo on Japanese imports. But, if they will not do that, we wish that at least they would give to China, as I believe they have considered giving, a guaranteed Government loan. They are going to give a Government loan to Turkey, and for the first time in 20 years it is to be a loan for the purchase of arms. They are going to give that loan, if they get the sanction of this House, in order to serve British interests. But it is a gamble in power politics. Such gambles have, gone wrong before; the money has been lost and the arms have been used against the nation which gave them. But if arms for Turkey will promote British interests, a Government loan for China will do so ten times more. We earnestly hope that our Government will take a lead in carrying such a loan through.

I pass now to another important aspect of the present cataclysmic disregard of international law, an aspect of supreme importance to this country both in peace and war, of supreme material importance and of supreme symbolical importance, because the action of the Government might well determine the future course of international affairs. I am referring, of course, to the recent bombing of British ships in Spanish waters. I want to begin with a very brief summary of the facts. Half the merchant shipping of the world still flies the British flag. For many years a great part of the seaborne trade of Spain has been carried in British ships, to our great advantage. During the last 12 months 140 British ships have been engaged in that trade. In the Government ports on the East Coast of Spain since the beginning of the civil war there has been almost continued interference with British ships. The second episode was in August, 1936, when a Spanish Government cruiser, "Miguel Cervantes," saw outside a port a British vessel which it believed to be engaged on un-neutral service on the Rebel side. The British Government took action and checked that interference, and I believe that since then no attempts have been made by the Spanish Government in any way to interfere with British ships.

The same cannot be said for General Franco. The Committee will remember all too well the lamentable episode of Bilbao and Santander and Gijon a year ago. They will remember the capture of 10 British ships and their detention for a period of months. Hon. Members may perhaps have forgotten that the Government could only tell us that five of those 10 were quite certainly captured in territorial waters, leaving us not unjustifiably to infer that the other five were captured on the high seas. While this was going on in the north of Spain we had the pre-Nyon piracy in the south. On 30th October the first sinking of a British ship by an aeroplane was reported. At the end of 1937 two ships had been sunk, three had been badly damaged—all these on the high seas—and six, so the Government said, by action taken by the Salamanca authorities. In addition, another vessel had been injured by a mine, another had been slightly damaged and 21 ships had been attacked without damage being done.

That was the record for 1937. General Franco and his allies naturally drew the conclusion that everything was permitted, and the attacks quickened. On 31st January the steamship "Endymion" was sunk by a torpedo and 10 lives were lost. On 4th February the "Alcira" shared this fate, this time bombed on the high seas by two aircraft. From now on the attacks became more numerous on the high seas, in ports and on ships in territorial waters, a mile or two miles or more off the shore. The Government told us that by 28th March four ships had been sunk, 10 captured and detained, 12 seriously damaged, and that there had been on British ships 20 other attacks which had missed their mark. In the 12 weeks which have passed since the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs gave us that information, these numbers have been more than doubled. From 25th April to 21st June, that is to-day, five British merchantmen, a British dredger and a British schooner have been sunk. From 25th April to 21st June, 16 others have been seriously damaged and more have been slightly damaged, including seven in the last week. One has been attacked on the high seas without success. In addition, the British port of Gandia has been attacked, though it was exclusively British property, used only for British trade, a port at which British destroyers and cruisers were in the habit of calling and where everything was marked with British colours which, according to the "Times," could be seen for miles. One morning the port was attacked, the wharves were wrecked, a schooner and a dredger were sunk and 120 yards of warehouses were destroyed.

Let me turn to another aspect of these attacks. Most of them have been made without adequate warning to the ships' crews. In consequence there have been 21 people killed on British ships and over 31 have been wounded. In addition, two non-intervention officers have been killed, and in the last attack the aircraft not only bombed these vessels, but came down and machine-gunned their crews on the decks. That many of these attacks have been deliberately made is evident. You cannot hit a ship from an aeroplane unless you fly pretty low; and, if you fly low, you cannot fail to see Union Jacks displayed all over a ship. In fact there is ample evidence that these aircraft did come very low. The "Aleira" was sunk by an aeroplane which circled three times round her at a height of 100 feet. The "Brisbane" was sunk by a plane which came so low that it nearly hit the mast. The "Maryad" was set on fire in Alicante. On the day before she had been warned by an angry Franco agent in a Franco port that this was to be her last voyage. In another case the ship was reconnoitred with a searchlight on the night before, and at dawn an aeroplane came down and sank her. The "Greatend," says the "Times" was "singled out as a target no fewer than four times in three weeks." The harbour at Gandia was attacked, and the schooner and dredger sunk, by aeroplanes from 300 feet—about the height as the "Times" said, of the cliffs of Dover. The Under-Secretary told us on 3rd June that he was sure that five of these attacks had been deliberate. I know one firm whose Masters have told them of at least a dozen attacks which have been deliberately made on that firm's ships alone, and the owners collectively say that more than 40 of these attacks on ships can be proved to have been deliberate. The "Times" Diplomatic Correspondent supported that view when he said that the attacking machines have come so low that their target could hardly be accidental"; and in another review of the facts he said that the whole campaign was "deliberate and systematic."

May I summarise these facts? Of 140 vessels engaged in the Spanish trade in the last 12 months, 10 have been sunk, together with two smaller units; 10 have been captured and detained; 28 have been damaged more or less seriously, some of them being almost total losses; and a larger number have been slightly damaged. The number actually hit cannot be less than 50, and, in addition, a large number have been attacked without success. Nearly 60 people have been killed and wounded. Everyone of these attacks has been carried out by Franco's forces, and there is overwhelming proof that a great number of them were deliberately made.

Reviewing these facts, the diplomatic correspondent of the "Times" said, on 9th June, that it was evident that Franco and his foreign allies had a fixed determination to use bombers "as means of smashing their way to victory." I ask the Committee: What does it mean, if Franco and his German and Italian allies are to be allowed to smash their way to victory against the Spanish people by bombing British ships? It means that, having failed to win in the field, having failed to establish a blockade at sea, having no belligerent right even to try to establish a blockade at sea, they are trying to effect a blockade and to cut off all trade with the outside world by the use of bombing aircraft. And the vital question for us is this. Are we to admit the validity of a blockade by bombing aircraft? Are we to accept the methods by which it is at present being established?

I know that some hon. Members think with great sincerity that British ships ought to stay out of these waters altogether; that the owners send them and the masters take them because of the high profits to be made; that many of them are British in name only; that they exploit the protection of the British flag and that it is contrary to our national interest that these ships should go there. They argue, these hon. Members, that if the ships insist on going there, they should be left to their fate. And many people outside the House believe—I hope no one here believes it—that these ships are engaged in carrying contraband and war material to the Spanish Government forces.

May I examine that view as fairly as I can? To begin with, these ships have not only the right to fly the British flag, but we have been told by the Government themselves that it is a great advantage to us that they should do so. In fact only 27 of them have acquired British nationality since the civil war began, leaving 113 which were British before that date. And suppose that the number were much greater than 27. The Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade told us on 3rd June that these ships took our flag because our law allowed them to do so, and that that law worked to our advantage. He said the whole of our history had shown the enormous advantage to this country of having a large mercantile navy which in time of trouble and national emergency could be requisitioned under our control, rather than under the control of some other country. He went on to say that he hoped no change would be made in the policy which had been ours for centuries, and under which our mercantile navy had grown to its present proportions. He virtually dismissed the suggestion that the crews of the ships were not British. In the second place, this trade is of mani- fest advantage to our country. The Government of Spain have taken £2,250,000 worth of British exports in the last six months and £2,000,000 worth of Australian wheat. Do these things mean nothing to us at a time of falling trade?

Next, I say it is a gross libel on British seamen and their captains to suggest that they are moved by greed for money. General Franco is not only trying to blockade Government ports by the use of aircraft. He is trying to do it by corrupting the masters and crews of neutral ships as well. May I read to the Committee a human document? This is a letter from the master of a British ship. I omit names, but I have a photostat of the original, which I will give to the Prime Minister when I have finished. When this captain was at a port at one end of the Mediterranean he was approached by a diplomat belonging to Franco's organisation, who proposed to him that he should put his ship at their disposal for capture. The captain goes on to say: He offered me 13s. per ton for the cargo, to be paid into any bank I might name. This man knew all the Nyon routes; guessed closely our average speed and pointed out a position six miles south of (a certain island) and guaranteed to have a vessel there to order me into port. All I had to do was to telegraph the day and time of sailing to (a certain address in Rome) and everything would be attended to. This man, he further says, gave me the impression of being an ex-naval officer. He had a good knowledge of navigation and was a well-educated man. The captain concludes: I have never yet committed barratry, and I do not intend to start now. I think that disposes of the theory that these are moved by greed of gold. If British crews were after easy money they could get it by taking Franco's bribes to give up their trade; but they have refused to do so. And I think the same is true of the owners. They may have high profits; but they are taking tremendous risks. They lost £330,000 worth of ships in a single week. Many of them have gone out of the business, not because they wanted to, but because they were faced with ruin if they continued. It is no less ludicrous to suggest that these vessels are doing a trade in contraband. The "Times" Diplomatic Correspondent told us the other day that they were "supervised" and "controlled" at every point; and the case of the "Stancroft" at Gibraltar has proved beyond a peradventure that no such trade in contraband is going on. It was shown in that case that only 0.3 per cent. of the cargo was even suspect and even that was released by the Court. It was also shown that a good deal of the evidence adduced for the prosecution was very suspect in its source. What is the trade in which these ships are engaged? I will read part of the telegram from the Under-Secretary for Agriculture in the Spanish Government to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition: I manifest you by my honour that English steamer Thorpehaven attacked with bombs in the night of 7th and 8th transported 5,900 tons of corn which this Ministry has to distribute between the rationed civil Spanish people. In fact, there was no need for the Under-Secretary to make his adventure with the English language; it is obvious that these ships are engaged in taking food and other vital supplies to the Spanish people. Hon. Members who have raised this point are ardent supporters of non-intervention, but what is the meaning of non-intervention? Why are there observers on these ships? Because they control what is done; their very presence is a guarantee that there is no contraband; it is a guarantee that these ships are engaged in a trade of which Parliament has deliberately approved.

Thus the real issue is narrowed down to the question: Are these attacks legitimate in international law? I am not going to weary the Committee by a long argument about it. It is plain beyond all doubt that this trade is legitimate; that we ought not to recognise General Franco's blockade; and that the methods which he is using constitute a dangerous attack upon British rights which involve a vital British national interest. I do not propose to dilate upon the true character of the war in Spain—a war of aggression, in which we ought to be supporting the Spanish Government against the invaders, under the Covenant of the League. I set that altogether aside for the present purpose. I accept the Government's hypothesis and consider only the old rules of international law. The Diplomatic Correspondent of the "Times," who evidently consulted high authority before he wrote, said, on 10th Tune, that: deliberate attacks on merchant ships break every canon of international law, and he said further that International law, as well as every humanitarian principle, has often been broken by the airmen serving General Franco. Naval law has been of great importance in British history. We have always insisted that merchantmen may only be sunk in most exceptional circumstances, and then only when provision has been made for the safety of the passengers and crews. We protested violently—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) will be able to tell us all about it—when Germany tried to blockade this country by a submarine campaign conducted in violation of the established rules. The United States came into the War to uphold those rules. At Washington, in 1922, we drafted a convention which, in 1930, we turned into definite binding rules, declaring and confirming the law by which we stood between 1914 and 1918. At Nyon those rules were applied to aircraft, and it was specifically laid down that if aircraft broke them, then the protecting warships should fire on those aircraft.

Some people, including, I believe, hon. Members of this Committee, have argued that these rules may be all very well, but that they cease to operate in territorial waters. Why? The rules are rules for submarines applied to aircraft. There is no limit in the case of submarines to the high seas. The rules do not cease to operate when ships are in territorial waters. Why should they cease to operate for aircraft? It is, indeed, quite plain that to attack ships in territorial waters by aircraft and to sink them without making provision for the crews, is to commit a war crime. Any other view makes absolute nonsense of the wholes international law of contraband and blockade, by which we, as a country have always stood. This law is really vital to our national interests. The bombing in Spain is what the "Times" diplomatic correspondent has called it, "pre-Nyon piracy." And, finally, I have a question and answer which I could read to the House, but it would take too long, because it occupies a whole page, in which the Admiralty themselves accept that view, for I drafted my question in such a way as to ask whether the bombing of ports distant from the battle front where neutral ships might be lying was legal. The Admiralty replied saying after a review of the facts, that they have "ample ground for insisting that these incidents shall cease," and they went on to say that it was plain that the aircraft were dropping their bombs in such a manner as to cause indiscriminate damage, and that that must not be done if British lives and property were there.

What does all this mean? It means that if the Government now accept the air bombardment of Barcelona, Valencia, and Alicante, without effective action to prevent it, they will be allowing three new practices, all contrary to international law and all very dangerous to Great Britain if another war should come. The three new practices are these: the direct bombardment of the civil population, the indiscriminate bombardment of commercial ports which are not blockaded and which are distant from the battle front, and, thirdly, and perhaps most important, the direct attack on neutral ships engaged in non-contraband trade. I hope hon. Members will remember how much we depended on neutral ships in the last Great War.

When the "Times" Diplomatic Correspondent called this "pre-Nyon piracy," he went on to say that it "required pre-Nyon methods of countering it." The Prime Minister tells us there is nothing he can do except to protest and enter claims. It seems to us that he approaches the problem in the spirit of Colonel Blimp in last Saturday's "Topical Budget": Gad, Sir, it is high time we warned Franco that if he sinks another 100 British ships, we shall retire from the Mediterranean altogether. I want, if I may without impertinence, to ask the Prime Minister a question. What would he have said if these attacks had been made by Spanish Government aircraft, piloted by pilots from the Soviet Union? I mentioned earlier an occasion on which a Spanish Government cruiser stopped a British ship, which had the good old English name of "Jebel Ferjon." I have the most serious reasons for thinking that that ship was carrying munitions to Franco's troops at Melilla. When this happened the "Daily Telegraph" carried a despatch from Sir Percival Phillips, in which he stated that when this news reached Gibraltar the battle cruiser "Repulse" started at once to hoot her siren to call in her officers, who were at lunch all over the Rock; within an hour she was at sea, her decks cleared, and with her crew at gun stations she steamed at full speed to the spot. Sir Percival went on to say: The cruiser His Majesty's Ship 'Codrington' also left this morning. I am informed that her commander has been given instructions to fire, if he is obstructed. It was not quite like that at Bilbao and Santander. It was not quite like that this spring. After the "Stanwell" had been attacked by bombs which were dropped from so low that two of them were successfully aimed through her open hatches, and three British seamen were killed, after that had happened, the Prime Minister said in this House: If we find that it is a deliberate attack, the authorities responsible will be informed, and full compensation will be claimed. It is true that the late Foreign Secretary brought a new spirit and a new method to the protection of British rights at Nyon; and it is true that in the early days of February after the "Endymion" and the "Alcira" had been sunk, he publicly announced that protests and claims would no longer he enough, and he issued a Note in which he said, speaking of aircraft: His Majesty's Government reserve themselves the right henceforth, without any further notice, to take such retaliatory action in the event of any recurrence of these attacks as may be required and appropriate to the particular case. The late Foreign Secretary left his office; and the Prime Minister has gone back to the system of claims and protests, in the spirit of Colonel Blimp. I am bound to say that, for the present purpose, I should prefer the spirit of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the matter of the Metro-Vickers engineers. The House will remember how the Chancellor of the Exchequer painted a grim picture of the dangers which threatened those two engineers. In retrospect the perils do not seem so grave, in comparison with the deaths of 21 sailors and the wounding of many more; but faced with the threat to two of our competitors, the Chancellor said this: I ask myself this question, and I ask it with great anxiety and put it to the Members in all parts of the House: What would you have the British Government do when they have this information about fellow subjects of their own who are in this peril? Would you have them do nothing? Would you have them conduct polite inquiries without taking any other steps? Then, having spoken of certain action that he proposed, he went on to say: I know of no way in which I can bring home to these deluded inhabitants of Soviet Russia what is going on."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 5th April, 1933; col. 1783, Vol. 276.] I suggest to the Government that they might find some way of bringing home to the deluded inhabitants of Franco's Spain what the British people here are thinking. On that occasion they withdrew our Ambassador from Moscow, and they put an embargo on Russian trade. They can do the same to-day. They can withdraw Sir Robert Hodgson, and they can give the Duke of Alba his passports; and I believe that General Franco sets so high a price on our quasi-recognition that that step alone would very likely be enough to stop the attacks. They can also put an embargo on trade with Franco's Spain, and they can try to get other genuinely non-intervening Powers to do the same. They will tell us, of course, that it would damage other British economic interests. Our trade with Russia in 1931 was £7,000,000, and in 1932 it was £9,000,000; that is to say, £9,000,000 worth of British exports went from this country to Russia in the year before the embargo was put on, yet the Government were ready to risk a permanent diversion of that trade from this country. Well, Sir, I am not arguing now that they were not right, but I do say that, if they were right then, they ought to do the same to-day in regard to Franco's Spain.

There is another action which the Government can take. Everybody knows that these attacks are being conducted by Italian aircraft. The Prime Minister has no more faithful supporter in the Press than "Scrutator" of the "Sunday Times," and "Scrutator" said on Sunday last: It is not pleasant to think that the aero-planes that sank the British ships may well have been supplied by Powers whose neutrality was never more than a fiction which is assumed or dropped at convenience. There never was a clearer case of legal wrong done to a great naval Power on the element where it is most sensitive to injury. I have a copy of the "Frankfurter Zeitung," of 11th June, and it says—I will not trouble the Committee with the German—that the pilots and the aircraft which are sinking our vessels are Italian; and the Germans ought to know. In the three months since the Prime Minister signed his agreement with Italy the Spanish Government have captured 46 Franco aviators, and of the 46, 31 were Italians, 13 were Germans, and two were Spanish. There is no doubt about the figures, and hon. Members can visit the aviators if they want to do so. Let the Prime Minister say to Signor Mussolini, who is so impatient to bring his Treaty into force, "This Treaty will never be brought into force unless these attacks are stopped, and stopped to-day," and I guarantee that the attacks will stop and that his Treaty will have brought about the only appeasement which it is ever likely to produce. There is another measure which the Government can take. General Franco has funds in this country, which the Government could impound to pay our owners a little compensation for the ships which have been lost. We impounded £60,000,000 worth of Russian gold, and I believe it is still impounded, awaiting the time when claims and debts will be settled. There is a precedent on which the Government can act.

There is another measure. General Franco has a commercial fleet of about 100 vessels, or rather more. They fly his flag. I am not sure that they were on the Spanish register before the civil war, and I am not sure that they have all got Spanish crews, but they supply General Franco with many things he needs. Well, we could detain those vessels at Gibraltar, exactly as General Franco detained our 10 vessels in his ports a year ago. Some of my naval and military friends suggest more active measures. They say that destroyers could be posted off the ports and that when attacks were made on British ships they could open fire on the aeroplanes that made them.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain)

Suppose the aircraft had gone?

Mr. Noel-Baker

The aircraft have to come very low. I have also had it suggested to me by naval officers—the Government could examine it on technical grounds—that we could post an aircraft carrier beyond the three-mile limit and that when a raid was on it could keep a patrol in the air. The Prime Minister may have seen a letter in the "Sunday Times" of last Sunday, by Admiral Usborne, who, I believe, has generally been in favour of General Franco, in which he said that it would be quite easy to stop these attacks. All that we should have to do would be to tell the Burgos Government that for every British ship deliberately attacked from the air a Spanish nationalist warship would be taken or sunk, and attacks would cease immediately, because General Franco would never risk them.

I suggest one last measure. You can take anti-aircraft guns off the nonintervention list, and if you call that intervention, you can take them off the list for both sides. Let the Spaniards get the guns, and if you do not want to protect the Union Jack, they will do it for you. These are all things that the Government can do. They are certain to be effective, and it is fantastic to call them intervention. But the Government do not want to do them; and I ask the question, Why? If I may encroach further on the patience of the Committee, I should like to read one or two extracts from the Rome correspondent of the "Times." On 18th May the Rome correspondent said: Signor Mussolini, it is believed, has no intention of concluding an agreement with Paris that does not include a settlement of the Spanish problem, and will accept no settlement that does not recognise General Franco as master of the whole of Spain. The Prime Minister wanted the Anglo Italian Treaty so much, that it is as plain as day that he accepted the condition which the French refused. The next message is again from Rome, on 6th June, when British opinion was greatly agitated about the bombing of our ships: Generally speaking the Italian view"— and in a totalitarian country there is no view but the Government view— is that General Franco has a good deal the better of his opponents in the air, thanks largely to the efficiency of the Italian pilots and machines which he has at his disposal. Any proposal which would tend to place restrictions on air bombing, however justifiable its object, is apt to be regarded with suspicion. The next message is two days later and is again from Rome: The Italian Government are anxious to see the war in Spain ended as quickly as possible and think that the Nationalist superiority in the air will help to this end. Any restrictions placed on bombing would therefore be deplored. The next message is on 13th June from Rome, the day before the Prime Minister's statement last Tuesday: Italian political observers … have now come, with considerable relief, to the conclusion that the British Government are not going to move in the matter. At first it was feared that the British Government would find means of putting pressure on General Franco to restrict the use of his air force in such a way as would lessen his chances of winning the war rapidly; but Mr. Chamberlain's decision not to give up his holiday, and Sir Thomas Inskip's remarks yesterday, are held to suggest that the Cabinet has not been able to devise any practical means of restraining General Franco without abandoning the principle of non-intervention. They were quite right, because next day the Prime Minister told us that nothing would be done. We have seen the joy with which his announcement was received in Berlin and Rome; and since he made his pronouncement seven ships have been bombed in seven days. I ask the Government whether it is to bring a speedy end to the Spanish war by the victory of General Franco that we are allowing British ships to be bombed? If so, there never was a more lamentable mistake in British history. The Spanish war will never be ended by the victory of the invader. It will only end when the invaders have first been withdrawn; and the only hope of securing the general withdrawal of foreign troops is to stand firm for international law. If there is any new ray of hope on the horizon, any hope that this ghastly holocaust can be ended, it will be strengthened if you show that you now mean to stand for British rights under international law.

Here we have an unparalleled example of an attack upon those rights. The vital interests of Great Britain, as a neutral and as a belligerent, are at stake. If we continue only to retreat before the aggressor the world will say, as it is saying now, that there is no surrender to blackmail which you will not make. Stand firm and the horizon may clear more quickly than you think. If we look back over the years during which retreats before aggression have brought us ever nearer to war, three events stand out like beacon lights against the black clouds of gathering storm. They are Morocco in December, 1936; Nyon in August, 1937; and Czechoslovakia in May, 1938. If we now save the British ships, as we so easily can, perhaps the historians will say that it was to-day that we took the turning which led us at last to the road which brought us peace founded on the rule of law.

4.50 p.m.

The Prime Minister

The hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) began his observations by making some general remarks upon the horrors of modern war as brought about by the practice of bombing from the air. With those general observations I do not think anybody in the Committee will disagree. Indeed, if it were not that China is so far away and the scenes which are taking place there are so remote from our everyday consciousness, I think the sentiments of pity, honor and indignation which would be aroused by a full appreciation of those events might drive this people to courses which perhaps they have never yet contemplated. We have to face the fact that the inventions of scientific men which led up to the practical development of means of flying in the air have introduced into warfare new methods, new scope and new horrors which have, in fact, materially changed its character and have incidentally brought into the open a whole series of new problems which were never present to the minds of our ancestors.

The hon. Member spoke about international law, and he quite truly said that it was entirely wrong to lay down that new weapons make new laws. I agree, but I must make this qualification, that new weapons may introduce new conditions which require if not a recasting, at any rate an elaboration, of existing laws, because the old laws must provide for circumstances which they did not have to provide for under the old conditions. The fact is that there is at present no international code of law with respect to aerial warfare which is the subject of general agreement. There are certain rules of international law which have been established for sea and land warfare. The principles which underlie those rules are applicable to aerial warfare and are not only admitted but insisted upon by this Government. They do not entirely meet the case which we have to meet to-day.

The hon. Gentleman skated very lightly over difficulties, which are in themselves very formidable and for which no complete solution has yet been found. I was asked a question a little time ago on this subject, whether the Government were taking any steps to concert with other countries some international understanding on the rules of aerial warfare. Some impatience was displayed on the benches opposite because we had not yet taken such a step, but I explained then, and I repeat it now, that it is no use throwing out a general invitation to other people to come and talk about it unless we can put before them something concrete and practical which can form the subject of discussion.

Mr. A. Bevan

Why not put it before them?

The Prime Minister

That is what I am going on to say. The British Government are engaged upon a careful survey of the position with a view to trying to formulate a practical scheme which we can put before other countries for their acceptance or modification as the case may be.

Mr. Bevan

Cannot you hurry up?

The Prime Minister

The hon. Member is very clever, and I have no doubt he could think of these things much quicker than we can. The party opposite has not yet produced anything of a practical character.

Mr. Noel-Baker

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman would want to be understood as implying that we were overthrowing the rules drawn up in 1923 by the conference of which I spoke.

The Prime Minister

I am not suggesting throwing over anything. What I am saying is that we have not anything yet which is sufficiently concrete and which deals in a sufficiently practical manner with the various difficulties, some of which I was proposing to explain. I think we may say that there are, at any rate, three rules of international law or three principles of international law which are as applicable to warfare from the air as they are to war at sea or on land. In the first place, it is against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks upon civilian populations. That is undoubtedly a violation of international law. In the second place, targets which are aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be capable of identification. In the third place, reasonable care must be taken in attacking those military objectives so that by carelessness a civilian population in the neighbourhood is not bombed.

These are three general rules which we can all accept and which we do accept, but it is obvious that when you come to put them into practice they give rise to considerable difficulties. Let me say at once that we cannot too strongly condemn any declaration on the part of anybody, wherever it may be made and on whatever side it may be made, that it should be part of a deliberate policy to try and win a war by demoralising the civilian population through a process of bombing from the air. That is absolutely contrary to international law, and I would add that, in my opinion, if any such policy is followed, it is a mistaken policy from the point of view of those who adopt it, for I do not believe that deliberate attacks upon the civilian population will ever win a war for those who adopt them. The difficulty arises when one of the forces engaged in aerial warfare, being accused of deliberate bombing of civilians, deny that they were bombing civilians or that it was deliberate, and allege that they were in pursuit of military objectives. Again, what is a military objective? Surely these are not matters which can be passed over as if they were of no importance. Suppose a church is used as the headquarters of a division. Is that a military objective or is it not?

Mr. S. O. Davies

It depends upon what side it is on.

The Prime Minister

That shows the attitude of mind with which hon. Members opposite approach this question. If we are to have international agreement we must not approach it from the point of view of whether our sympathies are on one side or another; we have to adopt a rather more detached spirit than that. We must try to lay down rules which will be accepted by all sides and will be carried out in practice. I say that reasonable care must be taken, in attacking military objectives, not to go outside those objectives, but it is extremely difficult in practice to determine whether in fact the dropping of bombs which have killed civilians in the neighbourhood of military objectives is the result of want of care or not. Suppose a man makes a bad shot, which is not at all unlikely when machines are going at over 300 miles an hour and when, as I am informed, in taking aim you have to release the bomb miles away from its objective—it seems to me that it is extremely difficult to lay down exactly the point at which reasonable care turns into unreasonable want of care.

Difficulties of this kind are great enough to baffle us in finding any easy solution, and I do not think we shall serve any useful purpose by shutting our eyes to that fact and attempting to lay down rules which do not provide for the difficulties which certainly arise in practice. In making any proposition of the kind we have, first of all, to satisfy ourselves that we have obtained some practical solution of the question, but when we have done that our difficulties are not at an end, because we still have to obtain the agreement of others, and anybody who recollects what enormous difficulty there was in obtaining international agreement when the provisions for disarmament were discussed at Geneva will realise that we are by no means out of the wood when we ourselves think we have found what seems to be a satisfactory code of rules.

Agreement upon matters of this kind depends very largely not only upon the reasonableness of the proposition that is put forward but upon the general international atmosphere which prevails at the time, and it is therefore one of the objects of His Majesty's Government so to improve that general international atmosphere that we may have a better chance of obtaining agreement as to the way in which aerial warfare should be regulated. As I have said, the sort of difficulties which I have indicated make it extremely difficult to prove to the general satisfaction what has happened in a particular case, but I am bound to say that in the opinion of the British Government far too many instances have occurred, both in China and in Spain, where these general rules have been plainly disregarded and where there has been a deliberate attack upon civilians.

I come now to the question to which the hon. Member devoted a good part of his speech, namely, the situation in regard to the attacks upon British ships in Spanish ports. The hon. Member asked me what I would have done, or what would have been my attitude, if the attacks had been made by Spanish Government aeroplanes upon ships carrying aid to General Franco. I could not help wondering what would have been the attitude of the Labour party in those circumstances. I am thinking how they would have dwelt on the portentous profits which were being made by the people who owned those ships. Would they not have said that people who take these risks must look after themselves? [Interruption.] Yes, that is what we say about people who take these risks. I am not saying anything new. I am repeating what I have already said. As regards attacks upon ships in territorial waters, after a careful and exhaustive examination of all possible methods of giving them aid, the British Government have come to the conclusion that it would be impossible to do so short of intervening in the war, and thereby cutting across the whole policy which they have been following since the beginning. The hon. Member made what I thought to be a very unfair comparison between what he alleged to be the action of the British Government or British warships in the case of an attack by a Spanish Government ship and their inaction in cases of attack on ships carrying aid to the Spanish Government. I am sure that the hon. Member was trying to be fair, but I do think that that particular contrast was an astonishing instance of how his judgment is warped by his sympathies in this matter. There is an important difference between the two cases. In the one case the attack was on the high seas and in the other case the attacks were in territorial waters That makes all the difference.

Mr. Noel-Baker

A great number of the attacks by General Franco's forces have been on the high seas, at least half, and a great many have been unsuccessful attacks.

The Prime Minister

We are talking about policy now. A particular attack may take place and there may be no British ship within reach at the moment to punish the aggressor. We cannot help that. We cannot have a British ship in every square mile of the Mediterranean. If the hon. Member was attributing to us—and I do not think his words could have meant anything unless he did mean it—a deliberate difference in policy according to whether the ship to be attacked was carrying aid to one side or the other—

Mr. Attlee

Does the right hon. Gentleman apply these highly moral principles about profiteering to the ship that was taking aid to General Franco? If not, why not?

The Prime Minister

We must have one question at a time. I did not assume to myself any high moral principles. I was merely imagining what the Labour party would have said. It was they who assumed these high moral principles that there should be no profiteering. What I was dealing with was the difference between ships on the high seas and ships in port. I say again that the hon. Member was unfair and unjust—and incorrect—when he suggested that since my right hon. Friend the late Foreign Secretary resigned we had changed the policy which had been adopted by my right hon. Friend. That is not true at all. We still maintain the policy which he laid down for action on the high seas in the event of attacks on British ships, but, as I say, we cannot undertake in every single case of attack that there shall be British warships within reach. Always, if they are in reach, due protection is given.

Mr. McGovern

What is your Navy for? Only to be reviewed by the King?

The Prime Minister

I listened with some care to hear what the hon. Member had to propose as a practical method of preventing these attacks upon British ships in port. It is not a nice thing to hear of British ships being attacked in port. As far as I know there is no foundation for any suggestion that these ships have been carrying arms or munitions. They have, of course, been carrying food, coal, oil and other stores which are of value in carrying on the war, and no doubt that is the reason why they are being attacked. We do not admit the right of General Franco or anybody else to attack these ships. What we say is that we do not believe any practical means of preventing it, without adopting a policy which would be completely at variance with that which we believe to be in the true interests of this country, has been found.

The hon. Member made one or two definite suggestions. The first was that we should withdraw our agent. That seems to me the first process in the withdrawal from the Mediterranean at which the hon. Member sneered so effectively. What good is it going to do to withdraw our agent? The hon. Member seems to think that we have only to take Sir Robert Hodgson away and immediately General Franco will give up what he supposes, at any rate, to be one of his most effective weapons for carrying on this war. I do not think that is an effective suggestion. The second suggestion was that we were to cut off trade. It is questionable whether the cutting-off of trade would bring General Franco to pay more attention to our protests than he has done hitherto, for I have never known a war stopped for want of financial resources, and the effect of a stoppage of trade, even if it were shared in by other countries, is extremely doubtful. The hon. Member is confident that everybody else will come in with us, but I do not share his confidence, and, as I say, I am very doubtful whether a stoppage of trade would bring about the consequence which the hon. Member anticipates; but I am quite certain that a very considerable amount of damage would be done to other kinds of British trade.

Then there were various suggestions which were made by his military and naval friends. This is the problem which you have to meet—I put it to the House the other day; you have here aeroplanes which drop their bombs long before they come within sight of the objective at which they are aimed, and you cannot tell whether those aeroplanes are going to make an attack upon a ship or not until they have actually made the attack, when they are flying at 200 or 300 miles an hour. The fact is that the only possible way of intervening effectively by antiaircraft gunfire, is to fire at every aeroplane that appears as soon as you get news of its presence. That becomes at once an act of intervention; at any rate, we are not going to change our policy to please Members of the party opposite. The hon. Member thinks that we can impound the balance belonging to General Franco in this country and he says that we impounded £60,000,000 belonging to the Soviet Government. I wonder what his authority is for that statement. I was for some time at the Treasury and I had a good many transactions concerning Russian affairs, but I recollect no impounding of £60,000,000 of Russian money.

Mr. Noel-Baker

If I remember rightly, in 1915 or 1916 £60,000,000 worth of Russian gold was sent here, and was retained by us after the Soviets came in as a guarantee that claims for debts would be settled. I understand that still to be the situation.

The Prime Minister

I think that the hon. Member is mistaken in saying that we have impounded £60,000,000 of Russian money and that we hold that here now. I am afraid that is far from being true. In any case, I do not think that he can imagine that we have our hands on a sufficient amount of money belonging to General Franco to be able to use that as a lever to prevent his bombing our ships.

We have left General Franco in no doubt about our views on this subject. I need not recite now the number of times that we have protested, first against the bombing of open towns and villages, and later against the bombing of British ships, especially where, as it seemed to us, the bombing of those ships was deliberate. There is nothing easier than for hon. Members opposite to bring up all sorts of suggestions and say that you have only to adopt this or that and the whole thing would stop. If they were on this side of the House instead of on that—[An HON. MEMBER: "Franco would be done for."]—and had our responsibility instead of as at present having no responsibility at all, I doubt whether they would be so lighthearted in suggesting measures the efficacy of which is doubtful, and certainly might run the risk of involving us all in a general European war. I am afraid that while war continues we must expect a succession of these incidents and of the horrors against which we have protested. The one satisfactory solution of the Spanish question would be a termination of the war. That would put an end to all these difficulties at once.

Mr. David Grenfell

The right hon. Gentleman should clear up a doubt which exists in the minds of Members of the Committee. Does he wish the Committee to believe that there is a single case of attack upon a British ship in which there was not a deliberate aim by those who took part in it to destroy that ship, and does he wish the Committee to believe that he has dismissed all those doubts by his passing reference to an aeroplane travelling at 300 miles an hour, and that happens to throw a bomb which happens to hit a British ship?

The Prime Minister

The hon. Member does me less than justice. I have said distinctly more than once that there were a number of cases in which it appears to us plain that the attack on the British ship was a deliberate attack. [An HON. MEMBER: "What are you going to do about it?"] Only yesterday we sent a note protesting against it, and reserving our subsequent claim for compensation. It does not seem to me to matter very much, from the point of view of principle, whether the attack is deliberate or accidental in all cases or only in some cases. There should be no cases. I cannot say that we have proof in every case that the attack was deliberate, and it is possible that in some cases it was not; but it still remains that in many cases it was deliberate. As I have pointed out, we do not admit the right of General Franco to bomb our ships, whether deliberately or by accident, and if we do not take stronger measures than protests at this present time it is because, having the responsibility that we have—[Interruption.]—and believing that our policy of non-intervention is of greater importance than—[An HON. MEMBER: "The lives of British sailors.] "The lives of British sailors," says an hon. Member, but if we began to engage in war it is quite certain that the lives of British sailors would not be saved.

Mr. Stephen

Inconsistent. Scrap your rearmament programme.

The Prime Minister

We have to think of all British citizens. When the hon. Member interrupted me I was just saying that in our view there was only one satisfactory solution of our difficulties and that would be the termination of the war, but whether that would be possible by any action that we could take, I do not know. Hon. Members opposite are familiar with the situation when, in the course of an industrial strike, attempts are made to bring about a cessation of the dispute by mediation on the part of a third party. They know how difficult it is to find a moment when both sides are willing to listen to reason from someone else, particularly if a particular side thinks it is within sight of victory. It is unwilling to listen to any idea of compromise. The same sort of difficulty arises in a situation like that with which we are confronted to-day. All we can say is that we shall, from time to time, try to take soundings with a view to seeing whether there are any favourable prospects of success and that, when that time comes, we shall be only too glad to offer our services, either alone or in conjunction with others, to bring this lamentable conflict to an end.

5.25 p.m.

Sir Archibald Sinclair

I am sure that other hon. Members will share my feeling of disappointment that the last passage of the Prime Minister's speech was so short. The newspapers have been full lately of the demand which Signor Mussolini is making upon the Government that the Anglo-Italian Agreement should be brought into immediate effect and of the proposals that the Government, in return, are supposed to be making for peace in Spain. I certainly hoped that if that was the policy of the Government and that if the Government were doing anything to bring that about, the Prime Minister would have given us some clear indication of his intentions. Let me, therefore, ask the Under-Secretary whether he will be good enough in his reply to answer these questions: Has Signor Mussolini asked us to bring the Anglo-Italian Agreement into operation, in advance of a general settlement in Spain, and, if he has done so, what has been the Government's reply? The right hon. Gentleman said that as for peace, all he could say was that "We shall from time to time take soundings and see if we can get anybody else to help us to bring peace about in Spain." That was a very disappointing announcement, after all the paragraphs of apparently inspired authority which we have seen in the newspapers during the past two or three weeks.

If there is any question of bringing the Anglo-Italian Agreement into operation and of trying to define what the Prime Minister has hitherto always refused to define, in spite of our cross-examination, "What is a settlement in Spain?" I would say that it cannot be regarded as a settlement if a substantial proportion, or even the whole, of the Italian infantry is moved out of Spain, while Italian airmen, staff officers, tanks and guns remain; and also their aeroplanes, to bomb peaceful shipping, and women and children in Barcelona, or in quiet little towns like Granollers. That would not be regarded in this country as a settlement but as a betrayal of the Spanish people who are fighting for their freedom against German and Italian aggression. Meanwhile, we also read in the newspapers of pressure on France to close her frontiers and we see that the French Government have, in response to repeated requests by the British Government, consented to do so. My hon. Friends and I think that that is unjustifiable, except on two conditions, both of which must be fulfilled. First of all, there must be complete control of all the ports in Spain, so as to make certain that no war material goes into the ports of General Franco any more than into the ports of Government Spain; secondly, there must be a truce to the fighting in Spain. We believe that if that truce could once be declared, it would be very difficult to start the fighting again.

We have to consider not only the Italian, but also the German position in Spain. Railways, mines and other industries are falling rapidly under the control of the Germans at the present time. In Bilbao before the civil war there was hardly a German living in the town, yet when Herr Hitler held his recent plebiscite on the Austrian Anschluss he sent a ship to Bilbao, and 500 families recorded their votes there. In the general staff and in the Government departments there are Germans. They do not wear uniform in the streets, but they are doing vitally important and almost indispensable work for General Franco and his forces. Officers are exchanged; General Franco's officers are being trained in Germany, and German officers are coming to help General Franco's staff in Spain. The relations between the National Socialist party in Spain and the Falangist party, which is the largest and most vigorous of those parties which are supporting General Franco's administration, are drawing ever closer. The Government say that never in history have the Spanish people submitted to the domination of an alien race, but the German propagandists in Spain are promising to revive the glories of the Empire of Philip II, and he was not a Spaniard, but a Hapsburg. Aerodromes are being constructed near the frontiers of France, and within easy striking distance of the munition industries of the south-west of France. On the borders of Spain, on the German frontier, the Italian frontier, the Balearic Islands, on the flank of the French communications with North Africa, France is being encircled.

If we want to understand Herr Hitler's policy, we must begin by studying its most complete and authoritative exposition, "Mein Kampf." Let me quote from the French translation of that book. On page 699 I find these words: The mortal enemy, the pitiless enemy of the German people is, and remains, France"; and on the following page: If we pass in review the allies which Europe can offer us, there are only two States, England and Italy. We know that, after the sanctions period, Signor Mussolini formed a close alliance with Herr Hitler, which is called the Rome-Berlin axis, where Germany was given what amounts to a free hand in Central Europe, with Italian support, while Italy was to have German support for her Mediterranean ambitions. As events have turned out, the plan has so far worked better for Herr Hitler than for Signor Mussolini, but it would be dangerously premature to suppose that it has been abandoned. If Signor Mussolini had really wished to establish peace and order in the Mediterranean, and to put the brake upon Herr Hitler in Central Europe, would he not have attached importance to carrying with him, not only Great Britain, but also France? On the other hand, if the policy of the Anglo-Italian Agreement was entered upon by Signor Mussolini with the full cognisance and approval of Herr Hitler, was it not because it was intended to drive a wedge between France and Britain?

Therefore, it was most unfortunate that France was not associated with us from the beginning in these negotiations. I would like to ask the Under-Secretary of State, were the French Government not willing to be associated with us in these negotiations? Did they not want to be associated? Did they ask to be associated with us; and, if so, what was the reply of His Majesty's Government? As things have turned out, we seem to have left France to negotiate alone with Signor Mussolini, and, by so doing, to have exposed her to diplomatic rebuffs and public insults at his hands. Now from day to day we read in the newspapers of British pressure on France to do this in Prague, or that in Moscow or Madrid, or to close the Spanish frontier, or to modify some other policy which the French believe to be in their own interests and in the common interests of our two countries. The Government, and their supporters in this House and in the Press, gave the country to understand that their new Italian policy was going to put pressure on the Rome-Berlin axis in favour of peace and order. The pressure so far seems to be all on the Paris-London axis, and to be in the direction of allowing the Fascist Powers to control the destinies of the free people of Spain.

So far does our compliance with, not to say subservience to, the wishes of the dictatorship Powers go, that the Government, which through the mouth of the ex-Foreign Secretary made in February a strong and determined protest against promiscuous air bombardment, and promised to take the lead in devising measures to suppress that practice, is still merely engaged, as the Prime Minister has just told us, in clearing its own mind. The Prime Minister says it is no use throwing out general invitations to other people to join you in this enterprise unless you have something specific and concrete to propose; so the Prime Minister is making a survey in order to devise a practical scheme. He told us the three rules of international law which now govern air bombardment, and he described to us the difficulties in their application. Was there a single Member here who heard anything new in that statement of the Prime Minister?

Every one of those difficulties in the application of the present rules has been discussed in this House and in international conferences year after year for many years past. Were they not all surveyed at the time of the Disarmament Conference? Every one of these factors in the situation is perfectly well known to the Government, and must have been known to the Government when the ex-Secretary of State made his statement to this House on behalf of the Government in February last. We ought not to be fobbed off by these statements that the case is so new, the material is so novel, there are so many new aspects to be considered, that the Government need time to survey the position and devise their scheme. The whole of the material was available in February, when the ex-Secretary of State made that statement in the House, and the Government ought to have got far past the stage of surveying the difficulties.

The Prime Minister said that we must not pass over the difficulties in applying these rules of international law which govern air bombardment; but the Prime Minister and the Government are passing over cases in which these difficulties do not arise at all—cases in which the aeroplanes have been seen by reliable witnesses to have come down low, within a few hundred feet, and to have deliberately bombed and machine gunned peaceful merchant ships. The air of unreality which invests the Government's handling of this problem is heightened by the fact that its conception of impartiality compels it to address its admonitions on the barbarity of using air bombardment as a weapon of terrorism to both parties in the civil war, and restrains it from giving any credit to the Spanish Government for refraining from this horrible practice. The Government's interpretation of the obligations of non-intervention prevents it either from helping the victims to protect themselves against these outrages, which it condemns, or from following up its unheeded protests to the guilty party by any effective measures of restraint. Neutrality between the parties in a civil war, yes; but neutrality between the bomber and his innocent victims, when the bombers are all on one side and the innocent victims all on the other side, is neutrality between right and wrong.

Hon. Members opposite are gravely preoccupied about the menace of Bolshevist propaganda in Spain. The success of the Spanish Government, deprived as it was at the outbreak of the civil war, by the defection of its most responsible officers in the Army and in the police, of the means of maintaining order—its ultimate success in restraining licence and restoring the essential guarantees of individual liverty proves that these fears, although not altogether unfounded, as I have said before in these Debates, were exaggerated. But let us make no mistake about this, that the feebleness of the Government's policy in the face of the aggressive dictatorships, its connivance at flagrant breaches of the Non-Intervention Agreement by Germany and Italy in Spain, its refusal to fulfil the obligations of the League of Nations Resolution, to which it was a party, to give help to China in its struggle against the Japanese aggressors, in enhancing among the peoples of the world, not only the prestige of the Fascist dictators, but also, among the masses of the peoples in the world, the prestige of Russia.

The people of China, exposed to indescribable suffering and massacre at the hands of the Japanese aggressors, looked to the democracies for help, and we, instead of giving them a loan, sent them well-phrased resolutions; but the Russians sent them aeroplanes. The Spanish people, in their agony, turned to us for help, and the Prime Minister sent protests to Saragossa; but the Russians sent anti-aircraft guns to Barcelona, which keep the raiders at such a height that the lives of the people are saved. Protests do no good; they are contemptuously rejected. An hon. Member near me says that the Russians sent aeroplanes, too. I tell him frankly that, seeing how flagrantly the Non-Intervention Agreements are being broken by Germany and Italy, I am glad that the legitimate Government of Spain, which is represented here at the Court of St. James's by its official Ambassador, is enabled to get some material—nothing like as much as the insurgent forces are receiving from their friends, but some material—to enable it to defend itself. The protests of the Government to General Franco do no good; they are contemptuously rejected. They irritate the insurgents and their allies, and their futility mocks the suffering of the Spanish people. Yet the Prime Minister, who is such a realist, thinks he is earning the eternal gratitude and friendship of the Spanish people. The truth is that, however much we may dislike and distrust the Bolshevist dictatorship, it is idle to ignore the effect of the Prime Minister's policy in enabling the Russians to prove themselves the only effective champions of the victims of aggression and frightfulness in China and in Spain.

Nor will this Government even defend our own shipping. I would repeat a question which was put to the Prime Minister, and which he did not answer, by the right hon. Gentleman who made that masterly opening speech from the Front Opposition Bench. Is it the policy of the Government to encourage or to discourage shipping from entering the British register? Surely, when we are spending £2,000,000,000 on armaments, we ought to encourage the greatest possible number of ships to enter the British register, and thus to become available for our purposes in time of war. It is even suggested that there is something illegitimate in British shipping companies maintaining our export trade with Spain in present conditions. In my view, we ought to be proud that such cowardly arguments find no acceptance from masters and crews of British ships, who, in the face of hardship, danger, and disparagement from the Government to which they are entitled to look for protection, are maintaining our export trade with that part of Spain which is still controlled by the legitimate and constitutional government.

Does His Majesty's Government still regard attacks on peaceful merchant shipping from the air as contrary to international law? The Prime Minister said that British ships must go there at their own risk. Does that mean that the Prime Minister is prepared to acquiesce in the establishment by General Franco of an air blockade of Spanish ports by bombing peaceful shipping? He has told us that he was sending protests, that he would send another note—I think he had even sent a note yesterday. But apart from the notes, for which no doubt General Franco has a convenient receptacle, the whole of the Prime Minister's speech was an invitation to General Franco to maintain and intensify his air bombing. The ships which take these risks, he said, must look after themselves. He said it was impossible to protect them without departure from non-intervention, but if non-intervention involves us in passively submitting to attacks on our shipping, it is time that the policy was radically revised. The Prime Minister's only reply to the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) when he said, what would the Government do? was, what would the Labour party have done? But does the Prime Minister really think he is justified in refusing protection to British ships which are now being attacked by pirates from the air in Spanish waters, merely because he thinks that in different circumstances a Labour Government would refuse such protection? That, surely, was the feeblest argument which could be used in support of such a policy.

The Prime Minister said there has been no change of policy since the ex-Foreign Secretary resigned. The change is that the Prime Minister has tied himself to Italy by the Anglo-Italian Agreement, and it is untrue to say that the Government is impartial, in any sense of the word, as between the two sides in Spain. They are longing for the early victory of General Franco, so that the agreement may come into force. One question in particular I would address to the Under-Secretary of State, and I would ask him for an answer at the end of the Debate. Has the death of the British non-intervention observer in the ship "Brisbane" been reported to the Non-Intervention Committee, and if so what steps has that august body taken to assert its authority and protect its servants in the execution of their duties?

We are also told that the grant of belligerent rights to General Franco would solve the problem. It would not. It would make this bombing neither legitimate nor, from General Franco's point of view, unnecessary. The Republican fleet has recently beaten General Franco's fleet in a naval action and whereas at this time last year General Franco's fleet was supposed to have command of the sea, the Republican Fleet is now definitely the stronger. Therefore, unless General Franco is prepared to abandon his illegal and criminal effort to impose on Republican Spain a blockade from the air, there is no reason to suppose that, even if belligerent rights were granted to him, he would stop these deliberate attacks on peaceful ships. When we say give the Spanish people anti-aircraft guns to defend themselves and their women and children and our ships against massacre from the air, the Government say, "That would mean war." When Germany sends aeroplanes it does not mean war, when Italy sends troops it does not mean war, when Russia sends anti-aircraft guns and, as my hon. and gallant Friend reminds me, aeroplanes to Spain, it does not mean war. Why is it only British anti-aircraft guns that would provoke a war?

At least one step could be taken without the slightest risk of provoking a war. The Prime Minister could ask Signor Mussolini, if he values British friendship, to join him in representations to General Franco that the bombing of British ships must stop. Here is a step which could not possibly mean war. Will the Government adopt it? Why have they not done so already? But if we are to pay the Prime Minister the compliment of imitating his realism we must recognise that the Italian Government are deeply implicated. I do not know the exact number of General Franco's aeroplanes, but I have received many estimates, all of them running into hundreds. Scores of them are manned by Italian pilots. Nearly all of these Italian aeroplanes are under the command of Italian officers, and are supplied and equipped and maintained by the Italian Government. Some are engaged in the deliberate bombing and machine-gunning of British ships. If we had sent hundreds of aeroplanes to help the Spanish Government, if these aeroplanes, manned by British pilots, were sinking Italian ships carrying munitions of war to General Franco—imagine, if you can, that they were sinking Italian ships carrying peaceful merchandise and killing Italian sailors and non-intervention observers, protected, if that is the right word, by the flag of the Non-Intervention Committee—does any one doubt for one moment that Signor Mussolini would forthwith denounce the Anglo-Italian Agreement? How can it be consistent with British interests and honour, to maintain it in such circumstances? There is only one reason why the Government have sunk so low as meekly to suffer such insults and such injuries from Signor Mussolini and his airmen, and that is that the Prime Minister's political fortunes are bound up with the Anglo-Italian Agreement. If it had to be torn up, the ex-Foreign Secretary would be proved right and the Prime Minister wrong. Signor Mussolini knows that his airmen can bomb our ships and machine-gun our sailors with impunity because so long as the Prime Minister is in control of British policy the Government's hands are tied by that agreement. Signor Mussolini should be warned that the next time a British ship is bombed or machine-gunned by Italian aeroplanes the agreement will be torn up.

Now in conclusion, I wish to refer to the short Debate which took place on the Adjournment last night. My hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) referred to an article which appeared in the "Montreal Daily Star," which stated, on high British authority, that the additional undisclosed difference between the ex-Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister to which the ex-Foreign Secretary referred in his resignation speech in this House was on a question of policy in regard to the United States of America. Now this is obviously a matter of great public interest in which Members of all parties and people outside the House of Commons do take, and are entitled to take, an interest. It was raised by my hon. Friend in a speech of studious moderation and restraint, and there can he no possible doubt that he was amply entitled to raise it. If the Prime Minister had replied in equally courteous terms, if he had said that he did not judge it to be in the public interest to give any further explanation at this stage of the differences between himself and the ex-Foreign Secretary, I have no doubt my hon. Friend would not have pressed the point. Instead, the Prime Minister chose to make an unprovoked, and I venture to say undignified, attack on my hon. Friend. It has often seemed to me that one of the Prime Minister's weaknesses, if I may say so to him with great respect, in handling foreign affairs is that he does not seem able to foresee the effect of his words and actions. The main effect of his speech last night was to ensure that the fullest publicity should be given to my hon. Friend's speech, and the attention of political observers, not only in this country but in every country in the world, was directed to the interview which has appeared in American and Canadian papers.

Challenged by my hon. Friend last night, the Prime Minister did not deny that he had given the interview—and let me say to him quite frankly that the story which is in circulation, and if it is untrue the sooner it is denied the better, is that this interview was given by him on or about 10th May to 12 or 14 American and Canadian journalists. I am not so much concerned about the differences between the Prime Minister and the ex-Foreign Secretary about the United States, because, although that is of immense importance, I am prepared to leave it to the Prime Minister and the ex-Foreign Secretary to decide at what moment a disclosure would be in the public interest; but I am much concerned at the contents of the remainder of the interview. I hold in my hand a sheet of the "Montreal Daily Star," and there is on the front page a signed article by a gentleman of the name of Mr. Joseph Driscoll, dated "London, May 14th." He said: This correspondent is now privileged to shed what can truly be called official light on the real British attitude towards Czechoslovakia, Spain and Abyssinia.… And he goes on— Perhaps the most dangerous spot in the world is Czechoslovakia. What do the British in authority think about it? He proceeds: These British think there is little danger of immediate war in Europe. To the query, will France and Russia fight for the Czechs? they answer, "How can they fight?"… Nothing seems clearer than that the British do not expect to fight for Czechoslovakia and do not anticipate that France or Russia will either. That being so, then the Czechs must accede to the German demands, if reasonable. If that was so—and thank heaven it is not—what would it matter if the demands were reasonable or not? The Czechs would have to submit anyway. But in truth I think that, from the point of view of peace, no more dangerous statement of British policy could go out than that. I have recently been in contact with some French public men. I have been enormously impressed by the determination of France to fulfil her obligations to Czechoslovakia. While I was in France M. Flandin made a speech which has since become somewhat notorious, and in a signed article in the "Populaire" on Monday of last week M. Leon Blum, who, of course, is no longer in the Government, replied to that speech with a statement clear, firm and reasonable and leaving absolutely no doubt that every Frenchman, and at any rate he was speaking for the organised working classes of France, was determined that French obligations to Czechoslovakia in the hour of danger should be fulfilled.

The French are convinced that nothing but the firmness shown then did save peace. It was saved first by the firm, wise, conciliatory policy of democratic Czechoslovakia; it was saved secondly by the firmness of France; and the Prime Minister certainly played his part. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, let us be quite clear how he played it. He played it by instructing the German Ambassador, if the inspired reports in the newspapers can be believed, to draw the attention of the German Government to the importance which His Majesty's Government attached to the fulfilment of our obligations to France if she was engaged in defending Czechoslovakia from unprovoked attack. However well it was wrapped up and however diplomatic the language, it meant that the Prime Minister had thrown the sword of Britain into the balance of power, and that action was decisive for the maintenance of peace, and any retreat from that position such as is indicated in this article would imperil the foundations of peace.

In this article it is stated that a very high British authority had authorised this statement. I have told the Prime Minister and the Committee the story which has reached me and I have given the Prime Minister an opportunity of denying it, if it is not true.

Mr. Mabane

rose—

Sir A. Sinclair

I am not going to give way. I am perfectly entitled to make my full explanation, and I ask the hon. Member not to interrupt. I am in possession of the Floor and I am entitled to make my explanation. The first point is that the interview was given on high authority. The second point is that I have told the Committee frankly and given the Prime Minister an opportunity of denying it, if it is not true, that the belief, which is apparently widely entertained, is that this is the report of an interview given on or about the 10th May to 12 or 14 American and Canadian journalists by the Prime Minister. The third point is that when my hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton challenged the Prime Minister last night and asked whether this interview was given by him, the Prime Minister did not deny it. I think that, having regard to the material which is in this interview, it is in the high interests of this country and of world peace that these statements should be denied, and, therefore, I think that I am performing a public service by giving the Prime Minister an opportunity of denying them.

Mr. Mabane

Is there any point in the article which states that the interview was given by the Prime Minister?

Sir A. Sinclair

If I could have quoted that I should not have given these three reasons.

Mr. Mabane

Then why make the suggestion?

Sir A. Sinclair

The Prime Minister is here. Let him answer for himself.

The Prime Minister

I must protest against any assumption on the part of the right hon. Gentleman that because I do not deny that I gave the interview, that therefore I am admitting it. I made it perfectly clear last night, and I repeat it again now, that if I were at once to begin admitting or denying any gossip which may go round about as to the authenticity of any alleged interview at any time, when I refuse to give an assertion one way or another, that would be taken as evidence against me. I say that I will not either admit or deny the truth of the stories to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred.

Mr. Mander

May I put this question?

The Chairman

I think that I must point out to the Committee that I did not interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, as, speaking generally, I do not think he was out of order, but we are getting now very close to the question of the Debate of the Prime Minister's personal conduct in connection with an interview, a matter which is perfectly proper to raise on the appropriate occasion. The Prime Minister's salary is not included in the present Vote, and therefore the Prime Minister's conduct in a matter of this sort, apart from the definite question of Foreign Office policy, is not a matter which can now be debated.

Sir A. Sinclair

I shall certainly confine myself, as you have been good enough to say that I have already done, to the issues of policy, and shall not allow myself to be drawn off the track. This article goes on to say: Having signed the Italians on the dotted line Britain would now like to contact the Germans. I acquit the Prime Minister of any suggestion that he used that phrase. This brings up the question of a Four Power Pact but the British prefer to label it something else"— I have no doubt they do— because a Four Power Pact might signify to some a dictators' committee to dictate to the rest of Europe…It is admitted that Britain would like to swing Germany and Italy into a working agreement with Britain and France to keep the peace of Europe. Soviet Russia is excluded on the ground that it does not work well in harness, with the proviso that some day Russia, if she behaves, may also be admitted to membership. That I consider to be a very grave statement of policy. I have constantly protested against the cold and hostile references which the Prime Minister makes to Russia. We ought to encourage Russia to take her share in the maintenance of international order and peace. I am sorry that the Prime Minister does not deny that he has made this statement. I feel sure that it would be in the interests of the country and of world peace if he would do so. In fact the information which reaches me is so specific and is in such detail, that, unless he does deny it, I really must assume that he did say it.

The Chairman

I must remind the right hon. Gentleman of what I have already said.

Sir A. Sinclair

I should not think of challenging your Ruling, but the Prime Minister has undertaken to answer for foreign policy in this House, and I venture to submit to you, with great respect, that I am entitled to argue that the Prime Minister should make his statements on foreign policy not to parties of American journalists but to the representatives of the people in this House.

Viscountess Astor

Oh!

The Chairman

The right hon. Gentleman is assuming the truth of a supposition which I do not think the Committee can debate here.

Mr. Mander

Would it be in order to put this point to the Prime Minister in order to clear the question up whether it is not a fact that this interview took place on 10th May at a luncheon given for the purpose by the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor).

Viscountess Astor

I would like to say that there is not a word of truth in it.

The Chairman

The Question to De debated on this Vote should be the Foreign Office.

Sir A. Sinclair

I will content myself by saying that it is a great pity that the Prime Minister does not repudiate this interview. My only object in raising this matter was to get it thoroughly cleared up. I very much regret that the Prime Minister cannot give a frank denial of it. I hoped that he would be able to give what I am anxious to get, namely, a repudiation of the policy. A policy such as is outlined in this interview would, in my opinion, be a dangerous policy. It would be dangerous to peace, dangerous to freedom and democracy and fatal to any hope of national unity in these critical times. If it has been adopted as the policy of His Majesty's Government, Parliament and the country ought to be told. I believe that the peace of the world cannot be established on the basis of a policy of this kind. I believe that it will be disastrous to try to exclude Russia from Europe, and that the peace of the world can only be established by agreements based on the principles of international good faith and third-party agreement.

6.11 p.m.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby

Why is it that, when almost the whole of the world is praising the policy that has been pursued and is being pursued by the Prime Minister of this country, practically the only people who endeavour to impede the work of the Government and the Prime Minister are hon. Members who sit opposite? They talk perpetually of peace. It seems to me that they seek to gain party advantage by pretending that the Government are not just as anxious for peace as they profess themselves to be. Peace, in my opinion, is not a party question at all, and I would remind the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) that the voice of this country would have more weight in the councils of the world if it was the voice of all of us in this House, united behind the Prime Minister in an honest and earnest attempt to find a solution of the difficulties with which the world is faced to-day. I was present last night when the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander), on the Adjournment, raised the question which has been referred to by the right hon. Baronet. It would be out of order for me to refer to the subject of the speeches that were then made, but I do not think that there is anybody here, upon whatever side of the Committee he may sit, who does not believe that one of the most important things to seek, if world peace is to be assured, is friendship and co-operation between the United States of America and the British Empire.

I would ask Members of this House whether a speech such as that to which we have just listened, full of innuendo and mischief making—[Interruption]—deliberately full of innuendo, designed to make mischief, is going to help to achieve the peace which the right hon. Baronet prates so much about. If we are to find a solution of the world's difficulties, it is essential that we should find some agreement between ourselves and the United States of America. It should be the endeavour of every soul in this Committee to avoid either by the spoken word or the written word saying or writing anything which would make that agreement less easy to fulfil and to achieve.

I listened with interest, as I am sure did every Member of the Committee, to the speech of the hon. Member who opened this Debate from the Opposition. He will acquit me, I am sure, of any desire to say anything that might be rude, but his speech seemed to me to be far more a collection of quotations from the speeches and writings of other people, which he used with great skill and effect, than the expression of his own opinion upon the matters which we are now trying to discuss. Of late years there seems to have arisen throughout the world a sort of feeling that ultimately war must be inevitable. I do not believe that war is inevitable, but I am sure that, unless statesmen and politicians throughout the world adopt rather a different attitude, they may well find that war becomes inevitable. We may differ from the forms of Government obtaining in other countries, but we are not more likely to find a solution of the differences between ourselves and those countries if we refuse to discuss those differences with the only people in those countries who are able to speak for their own people.

You can do two things with dictators, just as you can with any other human being with whom you are brought into contact in your private life; you can fight them or you can be friends. If you desire to pursue the former course, no discussion is necessary, but if you desire to be friends, you must sit down and discuss the differences and difficulties which separate you. The days of hermits have gone. It is impossible for individuals or countries to divorce themselves from what is happening to other countries and to other individuals. If world peace is to be assured we must make a beginning somewhere. I think it is agreed, however much we may differ as regards methods, that it is vital for the peace of Europe that some agreement should be found between this country and the people of Italy as a first step towards International understanding. The Italians are just as anxious to resume good relations with us as we are to resume good relations with them.

It is not the slightest good trying ceaselessly to turn up what has happened in the past. We must deal with matters as they exist to-day, not as we think they ought to exist, nor as they existed in the past. Since the conversations were initiated by the Prime Minister with the Italian Government, that Government have honestly tried to fulfil their undertakings. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Hon. Members opposite may take a different view. Whether we like it or not, Abyssinia is now part of the Italian Empire. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] So far as we can make out no action we could take could alter the fact that Abyssinia is part of the Italian Empire. In the name of peace and common sense, why not admit the fact?

Mr. Stephen

Because it is not true.

Sir A. Southby

The hon. Member says that it is not true. I should like to hear arguments from him to prove what he says. Just because Anglo-Italian friendship is essential, there are many people to-day in this country and elsewhere who are doing everything in their power to impede that friendship. It is true, and everybody knows it, that as soon as some measure of agreement was reached between ourselves and the Italians there was a flood of munitions and men from France into Government Spain. Feeling on the Spanish war runs very high in France and Italy, and the only result of such action must be, and was designed, to irritate the Italian Government.

Sir A. Sinclair

The hon. and gallant Member accused me of stirring up feeling. Does he think it very helpful to accuse France of designing a policy deliberately to irritate Italy?

Sir A. Southby

I did not interrupt the right hon. Member while he was speaking and he might show the same courtesy to me. If he had waited with a little patience to hear the rest of the sentence he would have saved himself that interruption. I therefore welcome the statement which I have seen that there is hope that the frontiers will be closed between France and Spain and that the flow of munitions, from whatever country to either side in Spain, can be brought to an end. I take no sides in the Spanish war; it is a matter for the Spanish people. There is, to-day, in Italy a feeling of great uneasiness, following upon the events which took place recently in Austria. The Italian people are naturally friendly to us and they have seen what has happened by reason of German action in Austria. I would remind the Committee that one of Rudyard Kipling's characters once said that it was not ties of sentiment which bound nations together, but ties of common funk. There is real feeling in this country and in Italy that the sooner we get back to good relations the better it will be not only for our two countries but for the rest of the world.

Almost throughout the world the Prime Minister has been praised for the action he has taken and for the policy he is pursuing. The right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland mentioned M. Flandin. I will read an extract from a speech of M. Flandin, in which he said that: Under the direction of Mr. Chamberlain, in whom the qualities of a great statesman manifest themselves more clearly every day, the decisive action of British diplomacy has enabled us to avoid the worst. I promised to be brief and I intend to keep that promise, but I should like to make a passing reference to the question which has occupied a good deal of our attention this afternoon, that is the bombing of our ships in Spanish waters. I have said before in this House, and I am still of the same opinion, that we would have been wiser to have granted belligerent rights to both sides in Spain. If that had been done, there are certain perfectly well understood and well established rules of international warfare which could have been put into operation. All that I am concerned with is to keep this country out of the quarrel in Spain and to bring that quarrel to a close as speedily as possible. The aerial weapon is a horrible one, and I wish it could be abolished. I think the whole Committee listened with great attention to what was said by the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) when he spoke of the horrors attendent upon the use of the aerial weapon. Because it is so horrible I believe that all the countries of the world will have to get together and abolish it. It is impossible to discriminate between what are called legitimate military objectives and the destruction of the civil population, and I welcome what was said by the Prime Minister when he said that the Government are examining the question with a view to formulating some workable scheme which might be put before the nations of the world.

The limitations of the aerial weapons have been disclosed in the wars in China and Spain. Docks, railways, government offices, the seats of government, etc., are legitimate targets. As in this country so in Spain, those targets are often surrounded by the houses of the innocent civilian population. We should not be too hasty in accusing either side in Spain of deliberately bombing the civilian population. I do not believe it is their desire in many cases deliberately to bomb the civilian population. Unfortunately in attempts to bomb what are universally accepted as legitimate targets, the civilian population have suffered because of the impossibility of registering accurate shooting with bombs. This House would be a perfectly legitimate target for enemy aircraft in war time. Further up the river, a short distance away, are two large power stations, which would be perfectly legitimate targets, but across the river is a large hospital which would not be a legitimate target. I do not think that any hon. Member would deny that an aeroplane flying at 300 miles an hour, 20,000 feet up, would find it impossible to distinguish between those three targets, and that if it aimed at this House, the hospital might probably be hit. That is what is going on in Spain.

I do not deny that there have been instances—the fact is admitted—of deliberate attacks upon shipping in Spanish ports. In many cases those ships have been lying in docks and those docks are perfectly legitimate targets. Therefore, those ships are liable to be hit. It is impossible to find means of protecting them when they are lying alongside something which the whole world admits is a legitimate target for attack. When ships visit harbours which are the scene of a terrible struggle such as that going on in many harbours in Spain, those ships do it at their own risk. I am against any interference with British ships going about their legitimate business upon the high seas, but I realise the almost insurmountable difficulty of finding a means of pro- tecting those ships and ensuring their safety in the harbours of the belligerents. Something might be done on the lines of having safety zones in harbours into which the ships could go, which could be agreed upon by both belligerents.

I am not suggesting that the ships are carrying contraband; if they do so, they do it at their own risk and they must take what comes to them, but I would remind the Committee that ships doing even legitimate trade with Spain are making vast profits. There is no doubt about that. Many of those ships have only been British for a very short time. They came under the British flag for protection. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh. I do not know why.

Mr. Bevan

The hon. and gallant Member has just said that we cannot protect them.

Sir A. Southby

The hon. Member interrupts so often in this House that the only speeches he listens to are his own. I have stated that when a ship goes alongside a dock which is a legitimate target of attack, it is almost impossible to find means of protecting that ship. I have also said that something might be done on the lines of having safety zones. Many of the ships trading with Spain are British ships which have been engaged in perfectly legitimate trading with Spain for years, but many of them are not.

Miss Rathbone

Does the hon. and gallant Member recollect that the hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James), whose pro-Franco sympathies are well known, stated that 27 ships out of 140 engaged in this Spanish trade had become British since the war? That is one less than one-fifth.

Sir A. Southby

I do not dispute the hon. Lady's arithmetic. I said that many are not British ships. We have most of us received a letter to-day, signed by some shipowners, on the subject of the bombing of British ships. I take at random one of those companies. In 1933 the gentleman who signs for that particular company was employed by another firm. About 1934 he purchased a steamer. Then he did certain chartering for voyages to Spain, and after that he appears to have bought several old ships. All those ships were paid for, I think perfectly rightly, in cash, out of the proceeds of very profitable trade done with Spain. I give that as an instance to show that there is a trade which has grown up during the troubles in Spain which is exceedingly profitable, and we have to bear that in mind when we are discussing the whole question of the protection of our ships in Spanish waters.

There may be, and no doubt there are, hon. Members on the other side who differ profoundly from the Prime Minister. Immense burdens lie upon my right hon. Friend's shoulders. Before it is too late may I ask hon. Members opposite whether something cannot be done to make the support of the Prime Minister and the foreign policy of this country something which is very real and above Party? I believe the country is behind the Prime Minister and that the rest of the world thinks that the country is behind him. If the rest of the world once gets the idea that this country is divided, and if intemperate speeches or writings make it appear that there is a really serious rift in this country, that there is dissatisfaction with the policy of the Prime Minister or with his conduct of his office, then I think we shall bring a world war immeasurably nearer than it is at the present time. If there are those on this side of the Committee who feel that they differ in any degree from the policy which the Prime Minister has endoavoured to cam, out, I would say to them, as I would say to every person in the country, at a time when the foreign outlook is exceedingly grave: "If you are not prepared to row the boat, don't rock it."

6.30 p.m.

Colonel Wedgwood

I cannot congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby) on his come back. The really serious part of his speech, the supposition that he faithfully reflects the general body of opinion of the naval officers at the present time, even that will not strike terror into the hearts of the Labour opposition in this country. The real question we all have to face, including the hon. and gallant Member is: Is war to be avoided at all costs and, if so, how best? There is something worse than war, and that way leads to more certain war. The hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker), in his speech to-day, put forward views which in any other period of our history would have met with the unanimous support of this House. He gave us a tale of what has happened to British ships in the last six months and to British seamen and trade. He put forward four alternatives to the policy of scuttle, whereby the British Government might stop this insolent treatment. Every one of the proposals he made was practicable, and every one would have done more to banish the fear of war from the world than this perpetual policy of running away.

I wish I could make the Committee see what is going on in its proper historical perspective. I believe that our conduct during the last six months, since the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was changed, is one of the worst blots on English history. Let me give the Committee an illustration. In Queen Elizabeth's reign the Netherlands were fighting as desperately against Alva and the Spaniards as the Spanish people are now fighting against the same hidalgos. The struggle went on for years with the bulk of British opinion strongly favouring the Netherlands, not solely for their religious convictions, but also because it was desirable to keep the Netherlands free from the all-embracing empire of Spain. All that time Queen Elizabeth, exactly like the present Conservative Government, refused to assist William of Orange and the Dutch. When at last, after William of Orange had been murdered, and public opinion in England got too strong on the matter, Queen Elizabeth permitted Sir Philip Sidney to take over an expedition of Englishmen to Holland to help the democratic side in fighting against Philip of Spain, and very nobly they carried out their job. In that case at least, at the worst time, we helped neither side. We did not help the Spaniards against the Dutch, and we did not help until nearly too late the Dutch against the Spaniards.

In that war, in exactly the same way as to-day, towns were wiped out, every man, woman and child was put to the sword in Naarden. In Haarlem, after a six months' starvation, they murdered nearly all the better class, and Leyden, but for a famous storm at sea, would have suffered a similar fate. Exactly the same thing has happened in Badajos, in Barcelona and in Bilbao—a merciless liquidation of all people who dared to fight for liberty against the tyrants of Spain. At any rate, we did not help the Spaniards. Now we are actually engaged in holding down the victim of oppression while the victim is being kicked by the bullies. A more dastardly piece of history I cannot imagine. We are refusing to allow anti-aircraft guns, which might save these people some of the destruction, to be sent to the Spanish people in order to save their towns, their property and their children. With a depth of hypocrisy we have never touched before we are pretending that we are impartial, pretending that we are avoiding intervention, and all the time submitting to our new friends, the Roman Government. The great new Roman Empire, is intervening busily while we come to an agreement that their intervention shall continue, and that ours shall never take place.

It has become worse in the last few days, because we have seen the British Government, knowing that the German and Italian intervention is going on, knowing that these butcheries are being committed by people who have pledged themselves not to intervene in the war, not only refusing to intervene ourselves and refusing to allow anti-aircraft guns and munitions to go into Spain, but actually bringing pressure to bear on the French, who have a more decent record in this war than we have, to close the frontiers; so that the last chance of these poor devils in Barcelona is taken away. In the years to come, when generations of the future look back on the history of this country during the last four years, since we betrayed Abyssinia, destroyed the League, and helped in the strangling of the last flicker of democracy in Spain, they will write this period down as the most damning in British history. We are responsible, this House is responsible, as long as this hypocrisy goes on.

Let me give one other illustration. During the reign of Oliver Cromwell in this country, whom the Nazis desire to claim as the ideal dictator, who passed the first Reform Act of this House and had three or four Parliaments to his credit, he heard that there was persecution of the Vandois by the Duke of Savoy. Oliver Cromwell did not advocate a policy of non-intervention. He told the Duke of Savoy that unless he stopped murdering the Protestants in the Vandois, that Great Britain would interfere. Did that bring about war? No, it brought about an immediate cessation of the persecution, and brought such respect for Great Britain on the Continent that there was no more fear of war as long as Cromwell ruled. That is an example of what I desire to urge, that the only hope of peace is that the nations of Europe shall respect the one nation which has no wish for war, and whose whole policy is the maintenance of peace. If England is not respected by Italy, Germany or Franco, if we lose the respect, which means a reasonable, decent fear, of the people who are war-makers, who believe in the use of force as against law to shape the fortunes of humanity—if we lose their respect, we lose that peace for which we and the democratic nations stand. Every time we follow the advice of a miserable naval officer of this degenerate age—it is not the spirit of Nelson we have heard to-day—

Sir A. Southby

I have no objection to the right hon. and gallant Member referring to me as a "miserable naval officer of this degenerate age," but I very much resent his using that term about naval officers who are now serving in the Fleet.

Colonel Wedgwood

I was talking of the naval officer we have heard to-day, and I do not withdraw one word I have said. The sort of speech and policy advocated by the hon. and gallant Member does this country much injury here and abroad, and I hope it will not do him any good in saving his seat when he goes to the country.

6.42 p.m.

Sir Malcolm Barclay-Harvey

We have listened to a most remarkable speech from the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood). As I listened to his description of what is happening in Spain I thought he was putting forward, not insincerely, a completely perverted point of view. I cannot agree for a moment with the right hon. and gallant Member that we are holding down the lamb which is being slaughtered. One of the things which has undoubtedly proved a strong bulwark of peace in Europe during the last two years has been the policy of non-intervention-which has been pursued by His Majesty's Government. The right hon. and gallant Member also referred to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby) and said that he thought it did more harm than anything else in Europe. It seems to me that my hon. and gallant Friend's remarks are in accord with views of the enormous majority, judging by the Press reports, of the people of the world, who take exactly the opposite point of view from that of the right hon. and gallant Member and hon. Members opposite, and I am certain that my hon. and gallant Friend when he goes back to his constituency, as we shall all have to do in the not very remote future, will find that his remarks to-day will bear good fruit. Like other Members, I propose to be brief, because I have given an undertaking that I will not speak very long. I am sorry the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair is not in his place, because I want to enter my protest against his treatment of the Prime Minister this afternoon.

Mr. Bevan

I rise with great deference, but I want to put a point of Order. The hon. Member is the second hon. Member who has informed the Committee that he has given an undertaking not to speak long. That is an astonishing thing to hear when we are in Committee, and I want to know to whom the undertaking has been given, and why it has been extracted. We are in Committee, and if I approached the Chair and asked for my name to be put down I should be informed that names are not taken in Committee as they are in the House, and if any undertaking has been asked for, I think it is a complete violation of the Rules of the House. If it has been done, I want to know to whom the undertaking has been given.

The Deputy-Chairman (Captain Bourne)

It is quite obvious that no undertaking can be expected from any hon. Member. At the same time, in this Debate there are a great many hon. Members who wish to speak, and the Chair has requested hon. Members fortunate enough to catch the eye to condense their remarks into the shortest, possible time so that as many hon. Members as possible can take part in the Debate.

Mr. Bevan

Further to that point of Order. I understand that no undertaking could be given except to the Chair. Do I understand that hon. Members now being called have seen the Chair and put down their names? If so, must other hon. Members who wish to speak resort to the same means?

The Deputy-Chairman

I think the hon. Member is under a misapprehension. It is very common for hon. Members on all sides to intimate to the Chair that they desire to speak. That does not mean that only those hon. Members will be called by the Chair.

Mr. Maxton

Further to the point of Order. Do I understand that there is now some practice by which those who give promises to be brief will be called and that those who wish to remain free as the way in which they address the Committee are to be barred? If there has been an understanding, at what stage in the Debate did it begin to become operative?

The Deputy-Chairman

No, the hon. Member certainly misunderstood me. Various hon. Members have intimated to the Chair their desire to be called, and they have been asked to confine their remarks to as short a time as is convenient for making their points. It is the desire of the Chair, in a Debate such as this, to call hon. Members representing all sections of opinion. Certainly it must not be understood that because any hon. Member has come to the Chair with such an intimation, there is an undertaking on the part of the Chair to call him, or that if other hon. Members rise whom the Chair considers it more desirable to call at that moment, they will not be called.

Sir M. Barclay-Harvey

In view of that point of Order and what you have said, Captain Bourne, I may say that my use of the word "undertaking" was perhaps not wise. Of course, no bargain of any sort was struck, and I merely said that I would be brief because I know that there are many other hon. Members who wish to speak. Reverting to the speech made by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness and Sutherland, who I am sorry is not here at the moment, I think that the right hon. Baronet's treatment of the Prime Minister this afternoon undoubtedly was not what one would expect from an hon. Member.

Mr. McGovern

Why?

Sir M. Barclay-Harvey

It was worthy only of the right hon. Baronet. He absolutely refused to accept the Prime Minister's reasons for not being able either to confirm or deny certain statements which were made, and earlier in his speceh he made a personal attack on the Prime Minister when he said that the purpose of the whole of my right hon. Friend's conduct in regard to Spain was to ensure his own political future and to see that the agreement with Italy went through. That was a very unworthy suggestion for the right hon. Gentleman to make.

Mr. E. J. Williams

Not at all; it is perfectly true.

Mr. Maxton

Did the hon. Member tell the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) that he was going to make this personal attack on him?

Sir M. Barclay-Harvey

Unfortunately, I was unable to hear the interruption of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). [Interruption.] Anything which the hon. Member says is always unfortunate if anybody listens.

With regard to Spain, I do not think there is any hon. Member who does not view aerial warfare as a whole with the utmost distaste, or who does not agree that, if it were possible, the best means of dealing with it would be to stop it. As that is not possible, I am very glad that the Prime Minister and the Government are doing their best at least to get some satisfactory basis on which the horrors of modern warfare may be alleviated. I welcome that statement very much. As to what is happening in Spain at the present time, I am astonished by the attitude adopted by the Opposition parties this afternoon. They have constantly urged the course of action for which the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) asked in his speech. On the one hand, the hon. Member was glad that we are selling £3,000,000 worth of materials to Republican Spain, and, on the other hand, he advocated the cutting off of trade with General Franco. Surely, if it is desirable that we should sell goods to Spain, it is desirable that we should sell goods to both sides.

Mr. Noel-Baker

The difference between the two cases is that General Franco is now making illegal attacks on British rights.

Sir M. Barclay-Harvey

I do not think that even if we did what the hon. Member wants, it would make the slightest difference in the matter of Franco's attacks.

Mr. Noel-Baker

Why was it done over the engineers?

Sir M. Barclay-Harvey

Because the circumstances were entirely different. The point of view which was put forward very ably by the hon. Member for Derby was that this trade is entirely legitimate. The hon. Member quoted figures showing how many ships were employed in it, and said that 27 of them had recently come under the British flag. With regard to the policy of permitting any ships to come under the British flag, if they are going to remain British ships and give service to us in any future trouble, of course, that is a wise policy for us to pursue, but if they come under our flag only when they think that they have something to gain by so doing, and leave it immediately afterwards, having in the meantime caused us a very considerable amount of inconvenience, then we should consider very carefully whether it is worth retaining that policy or not.

As to the trade which is being conducted by other British ships with those ports, hon. Members have said that it is purely altruistic, and that it is not merely for the sake of filthy lucre that they run the risks. I will give to the Committee an instance of some of the profits that are being made by those ships. The current rate for coal to Algiers or Oran from this country is 7s. 6d. per ton, but if it goes to Barcelona or Tarragona, it is £1 6s. per ton. I have it on very good authority that by a special arrangement with the trade unions, the seamen, quite properly, are given a bonus for going to those dangerous ports. The suggestion has been made that these profits should be classed as war profits. That would be a very good thing from everybody's point of view, and I think that it would largely stop the trade. To my mind, this trade is one of the worst possible forms of war profiteering.

Mr. G. Strauss

Is not all shipping done for the purpose of making as much profit as possible?

Sir M. Barclay-Harvey

What surprises me is that hon. Members opposite in this matter are supporting the war profiteers. Many hon. Members opposite decry profiteering by British manufacturers who are making arms for the British people, but now they are supporting war profiteers because they happen to be helping the side in Spain which hon. Members support. The whole matter seems to me to come to this, that these people are carrying on this trade for the purely selfish motive of making large profits. I do not complain about people making profits, but when these people claim that they must have all the protection we can give, I think we have to consider whether this is a reasonable ground for involving our country in a European war. Having listened to some of the bellicose speeches made by hon. Members opposite, I believe that this is not a reasonable ground for involving this country in a European war. Nobody deplores more than I do the fact that there have been these attacks on our shipping, which certainly are resented very bitterly, and if we can find any method short of war which will enable us to stop them, by all means let us carry it out; but do not let us allow a thing of this sort to involve the British Empire and the British people in the horrors of a European war.

6.55 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Henderson

The hon. Member for Kincardine (Sir M. Barclay-Harvey) made an astonishing case for the point of view which he and his friends hold. He seemed to take exception to the fact that a number of shipowners whose ships are plying between the ports of this country and the ports of Spain are animated by purely selfish motives and by the desire to make profits. I wonder where our own country would have been during the Great War if we had taken exception to the flow of neutral shipping, which brought munitions and food stuffs to this country, on grounds that they were animated merely by a desire to make large profits and by purely selfish motives, and that our idealistic English mentality would not permit supplies to be received because of that. It is astonishing that hon. Members of the Conservative party should make such a charge against those who are carrying on their legitimate occupations.

What is the position? There is a so-called civil war taking place in Spain. There has been no recognition of a state of belligerency. That means that, as far as the rules of international law are concerned, there is only one legitimate Government in Spain, and that any ship, whether it be a British ship or the ship of any other country, is entitled to enter any of the ports of Spain for the purpose of its lawful occasion, trading. It is, I believe, without precedent in the history of this country that the Prime Minister should state that those ships carry on their lawful trade in those ports at their own risk. There are many cases on record in the books which deal with international law which clearly prove that in the past the British Government, as well as the Governments of other countries, have always insisted that where fighting was taking place, following a revolution in a country, the revolutionaries had no right to interfere with the lawful trading activities of the nationals of another country. There is a case which is almost analogous to the position in Spain at the present time. A revolution broke out in Brazil in 1893, and the insurgent leaders were supported by a number of Brazilian warships in the inner harbour of Rio de Janeiro. They intimated to the Government forces which were defending the forts of the city and the port that they were going to bombard those forts and the city as well. I find that the commanders of the German, English, French, Portuguese, American and Italian naval forces communicated to the admiral in charge of the insurgent ships the following decision: First, they do not recognise the right of the insurgent forces to interfere in any way with commercial operations in the bay, operations which should be allowed to be accomplished everywhere, except in the actual lines of fire of the batteries of the land fortifications. In consequence, they have decided to protect merchandise not only on board their countries' vessels, but also on lighters, barges and other means of maritime transport. I find that on 1st December, 1893, the commander of the United States naval forces gave notice of his intention to protect all American ships proceeding to or discharging in the clocks, and caused an insurgent vessel which had fired at the boat of an American ship to abstain from further acts of molestation by giving evidence of his purpose to return the fire and sink her if she persisted. That is only one example of the prevailing point of view with regard to interference with the lawful commercial operations of foreign shipping in any port where civil strife is taking place. Now for the first time the British Prime Minister says to the Mercantile Marine, "You will enter any of these ports at your own risk and the British Forces will no longer protect you." The Prime Minister said, "Look at the difficult position that we are in. You have an aeroplane flying about 300 miles an hour. How can you decide whether it is going to attack a part of a port or a British ship? "The same difficulty applies with regard to the supplementary agreement made to the Nyon arrangement. There it is provided that British naval ships shall fire at any aeroplane which attacks a British ship on the high seas. If it is impossible to tell whether an aeroplane is going to bomb a ship until it is too late to resist, the same criticism will apply to the Nyon Agreement, and therefore that agreement must be worthless. But, of course, that is not the position at all. Any British warship can resist an attack on a merchant ship whether on the high seas or in a Spanish port. Therefore, provided there is the will on the part of the Government to take drastic action to defend merchant ships in Spanish ports, they are entitled to do so. Then the Prime Minister said that would be cutting across our policy of non-intervention. But the same argument would apply in the case of the Nyon arrangements. I hope the public will not be misled by the Prime Minister's argument.

I was somewhat disappointed by the rather colourless reference to bombing, especially of civilian populations. When this matter was discussed during the tenure of office of the late Foreign Secretary we were told that a survey was being made. Nearly three months later the Prime Minister repeats that a survey is being made on this question of the bombing of the civil population. How long is it going to take, and when can we expect it to be completed and expect some action on the part of the Government? The question has become one of vital importance to the welfare of civilisation. According to the announcement of Japanese Imperial headquarters, during May alone there took place 1,800 air raids on Chinese towns. Between 28th May and 11th June Canton was bombed 12 times in 14 days. It is estimated that 3,000 civilians were killed and 5,500 wounded. On two days, 6th and 7th June more than 1,000 houses were destroyed. My hon. Friend who initiated the Debate referred to the telegram from the Mayor of Canton drawing attention to the terrible sufferings of the civilian population. In Spain there have been constant air attacks upon Barcelona, more than 1,000 casualties in three days, at Alicante, 378 men, women and children killed, apart from wounded, and 500 casualties at Granollers, a comparatively small town. The British Minister at Barcelona has reported that there were no military objectives there. It is only too apparent that the Spanish insurgent authorities are carrying on an indiscriminate attack on the civilian populations of the parts of Spain that are opposed to them.

Captain McEwen

The report, I think, was not that there were no military objectives, but only small ones.

Mr. Henderson

I think in his reply to me yesterday the Under-Secretary said that, according to the report of the British Minister, there were no military objectives in the centre of the town but that there was a factory on the outskirts and that all the bombing had been directed against the centre of the town. It is more evidence that the Spanish insurgents are carrying on this indiscriminate attack upon the civilian population. Is it not possible to do something to stop this slaughter? Both the Prime Minister and Mr. Cordell Hull, the United States Secretary of State, recently made speeches agreeing to co-operate with other nations in humanising, by common agreement, the rules and practices of modern warfare. Is it not possible to do something more than merely make speeches? Is it not possible to bring about, either through a conference or through diplomatic negotiations, some kind of agreement between the nations which will prohibit the bombing of civilian populations once and for all? Pious wishes will not get us very far. I hope the Under-Secretary will go a little further than the Prime Minister, and will give us some indication as to when this survey is likely to be finished, and that as soon as it is finished the Government intend to make contact with the United State and other Governments in order to attempt to end once and for all this terrible method of modern warfare. I do not altogether agree with some of my hon. Friends who take the view that it is not possible to humanise warfare. Not so many years ago it was the custom to massacre all prisoners of war, but that practice came to an end.

I should also like to draw attention to the proposed Evion Conference next month and to ask whether the delegation from this country is to be under the control of the Foreign Office or of some other Department. Perhaps we might be told who are to compose the delegation? The question of Jewish and political refugees has become an international question to-day, and it is time the matter was recognised as such. I hope the Government are going to that conference with the intention of doing everything they can to ease the terrible plight of these unfortunate Jewish refugees. I believe the treatment of the Jews in Germany and Austria has sent a feeling of horror throughout civilisation. It is about as inhuman as it could be. It seems to me that the Germans are animated by a kind of sadism run mad. I hope the Government will seek to persuade the Evion Conference to make friendly approaches to the Governments concerned to modify this policy of persecution, impoverishment and racial discrimination. If that fails, something will have to been done to deal with the position. Whatever one may say about the rights of a particular country to do what it likes within its own borders, I believe that the oppression that the Jews are suffering to-day is the concern of every man and woman who has any regard for the decencies of life. I hope the Government will realise that they may have to face up to a very difficult problem. According to a recent decree in Berlin, at least 25,000 Jews will have to leave each year, and another 25,000 from Austria, and unless some alternative home is to be found one can only imagine the terrible position in which these unfortunate people will find themselves. The problem of the Jews is very largely the result of the appalling economic conditions in Central Europe and I believe that if the Government, in co-operation with other Governments, will make some attempt to improve those conditions, the present anxieties of the 5,000,000 of Jewish population in Central Europe and the Balkans will be considerably lessened.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Pickthorn

Most of the speakers on the other side to whom I desired to reply have left the Chamber and I shall not, therefore, go at any great length into the arguments which they have used. I would only remark that the passion for freedom of discussion which animates Members of the Liberal Opposition seems seldom to extend very much further than the delivery of their own views, and they do not show a great willingness to remain to hear the views of others. I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), who is now in his place, if I appeared to include him in that remark and I wish to make a reference to something which he said. We have had during this afternoon some very bad history and some very bad law. It was, if I recollect rightly, the much maligned Star Chamber which first held when somebody tried to use in evidence a saying of Sir Richard Spark, clerk, "who was not sworn," about what he had heard from another, "who was not brought afore us," that that was not evidence: and it was, I think, that good Tory judge, "Bloody" Jeffreys, who established what is, among, the most important of our fundamental liberties, namely, that what the soldier said is not evidence. But apparently it appears to be considered on the other side of the Committee that what an Opposition Liberal reads between the lines of what a trans-Atlantic journalist hints that some unavowed person told him had been said by somebody else, is the most irrefutable of all arguments.

I intervene, however, not so much to deal with the law of evidence as to say a few words about international law. I do not pose as an expert upon it. We have heard two experts upon it to-day and I wish to suggest that there are more dubieties in the points on which they expressed themselves pretty positively, than they admitted. I wish first of all to be slightly autobiographical and to defend myself against any charge of bias. There are, I know, some people on the other side of the Committee who want General Franco to lose in the present war in Spain. I believe there are a few people on this side who want General Franco to win. I do not believe that anybody even on the other side really believes that the principal object of His Majesty's Government is that General Franco should win. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] For me, I do not care a hoot which side wins. I wish there had never been a war and I wish it could be stopped without either side winning. I have no prejudices either way, and I am perfectly prepared to believe that, as far as the interests of this country are concerned it might be better if General Franco were to lose.

If I may say so without arrogance, I have one qualification to speak on this subject which probably no other hon. Member who has spoken possesses. I spent the first years of my life and coniderable portions of my later years on tramp ships and I know something about tramp skippers and sailors, and nobody who knows anything about me would suggest that I have insufficient sympathy with them. There is no other class of men with whom I have greater sympathy—least of all tramp owners.

Mr. McGovern

Do you know the language?

Mr. Pickthorn

Yes, I know that too. Nobody shares more than I do the natural feeling that we would like it to be established that any British ship can go anywhere it likes, whenever it likes, and that if any foreigner becomes tiresome, that foreigner should be blown to blazes. That is a natural British reaction and I have sometimes been tempted to suppose that there was less of that normal, healthy, primary British reaction among hon. Members on the other side than was desirable. But I do think that it is a reaction which must be controlled by a certain amount of reflection and even, if the effort be not excessive, by a certain amount of inquiry. Otherwise, we do no service to the sailors who go to sea in tramps, the men who are the founders of the greatness of this country, and through whom our greatest service to the world has been rendered, because the open use of the seas for carriage is the great contribution which we have made to the universe. But, as I say, we do no service to those people by pretending or assuming that the law in this matter is clearer than it is. It is extremely unclear. If I could speak for long enough I believe I could persuade hon. Members how unclear it is. I cannot in the few minutes at my disposal go into all the arguments, but I hope to persuade hon. Members at any rate that this matter is not as easy as has been suggested by the experts opposite.

So far, in the speeches from the benches opposite, His Majesty's Government are being asked to do something in the way of putting forcible coercion upon what is really a foreign Government, whether it is fully recognised as such or not. Any Private Member ought to be extremely slow to make that suggestion. The answer, so far, from this side has, in the main, been to the effect that there are immense practical difficulties, and up to a point that is a very good answer. But a point may come at which His Majesty's Government may tell this Committee and the rest of the world that they think there is something here which makes it essential that forcible coercion should be applied and no Government should ever do such a thing without being prepared to see forcible coercion turned into war. We have had a recent lesson upon that point. If the Government ever did go as far as that, I think we would have to consider not merely whatever practical difficulties there might be in the way of putting pressure upon these foreigners—Franco or whoever it might be—but also the fact that one must not do such a thing unless one is certain that one's own legal case is a good one. I think it likely that our legal case would be a good one, but I am sure that neither this country nor the foreigners will be persuaded that it is good, unless hon. Gentlemen opposite admit the difficulties and then face the difficulties when they have admitted them.

The hon. Member who opened the Debate for the Opposition and also the hon. Member for Kingswinford (Mr. A. Henderson) seemed to me not to face the legal difficulties in the way of treating the Franco Government in the way in which they wish it to be treated. They did not face the fact that the difficulty which Franco is in arises very largely from the fact that he has never been recognised as a belligerent and has therefore not been able to exercise blockade rights. There is strong authority in this country and even stronger authority among American jurists for the view that in this respect General Franco has been less than fairly treated. I do not say that that view is correct. But I do say that until you know yourself and get into the minds of the British public the answer to that theory held by English and American jurists, you are not entitled to go any further.

Again, there is the argument about the flag covering the ship. I hold fully the view that it is good policy on our part to allow our rules for registration under the British flag to be as easy as they are, and without a great deal of persuasion I would not wish to see that principle abandoned. But we must not forget that, here too, difficulties are involved. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) will remember that at the beginning of the last War we announced that though we had not ratified the Declaration of London we would accept it upon this point. But we soon found that the thing was impracticable, and our courts and the French courts had to announce, I think in October 1915, that they would no longer be bound by registration, that they would no longer be bound by the flag, that they would have to go through to the realities and that if they found that the actual practical control was not in British hands or in neutral hands, they would not treat a ship as a British ship or a neutral ship as the case might be. I do not suggest for a moment that the present case is on all fours with that case, but unless we know exactly the reason why we cannot at all allow France now the line we took then, it is intellectually lazy and morally rather ignoble for us to press any further than we are already doing for coercive action.

Again there is the question of what is contraband, on which I think speakers on the othere side have been much too positive. I do not know what is or is not contraband in this case. An hon. Member opposite described this as a "so-called civil war." I do not know what else he would call it.

Mr. Henderson

It may have started as a civil war, but as a result of intervention on the part of Germans and Italians, it is now a mixture of a civil war and a war of aggression by Germany and Italy.

Mr. Pickthorn

If it is a mixture of a civil war and a war of aggression by those two countries, an international war, it is all the more difficult to see how what is or what is not contraband can be established by the decree of a quasi-neutral Power, which is what we are. I suggest that that gives the whole case away. I am not prepared, as I say, to declare what is or what is not contraband, but I am prepared to say that the case put from the other side to the effect that what the British Government declare to be contraband or not to be contraband decides the question, cannot be accepted. That cock will not fight. I was speaking this morn- ing to a man who is, I suppose, one of the two or three greatest international lawyers in this country, and the last man who could possibly be suspected of any sympathy with Franco or Mussolini or Hitler, and he had no doubt that the great majority of these ships are carrying what we certainly would regard as contraband if we were at war. Again, I do not say that there is no answer to that, and if there were time I could give answers, more or less conclusive, to a large number of these points. It is like many another legal question—there is a great deal of weight on both sides. But as long as those who press for coercive action do not honestly admit these legal difficulties and dubieties and persuade us of the answers to them, they are estopped from trying to force us into coercive action which might easily become violence and might then quickly become war.

There is another point of the same kind. Speakers from the other side have made no distinction between what is inside the three-mile limit and what is outside it. In fact the hon. Member for Kingswinford seemed to go rather out of his way to avoid any such distinction. Incidentally, if I may deal with it in parenthesis, I think his Rio de Janeiro analogy was a poor one. There is no sort of analogy. I do not think there has ever before been an insurrection which has continued for 2½ years and in which the insurrectionists have gained more than half the country and half the population, and which has continued to be treated as an insurrection.

Mr. Henderson

Is it not a fact that in the case of Rio de Janeiro the commanders of the various naval units concerned warned the insurgent commander that in the event of interference with their nationals, or the property of their nationals, they would interfere with the insurgents, although they were themselves within the three-mile limit?

Mr. Pickthorn

I am grateful to the hon. Member for reminding me of an even more conclusive answer to his argument than I had intended to give. It is that upon that occasion the commanders of all the foreign warships which had anything to do with the matter were unanimous as to what they wanted to do. In the present case we are a very long way from that position, and that seems to blow the hon. Member's analogy out of the water. I was, however, dealing with the difference between what is outside and what is inside the three-mile limit. Once a ship is tied up there is very good reason for holding that it is no longer to be treated only and wholly as a ship. Here I think the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) was rather less than fair—I am sure unintentionally—in his quotation from the Hague Agreement of 1923. He stopped short at a point where the Hague Agreement holds—I am not giving the exact words—that anything which is used for purposes of lines of communication or as a centre of transport, may properly be treated as a military objective, and cannot be demilitarised merely by putting a few civilians into it. Therefore it becomes extraordinarily difficult to say whether any port in a country which is the scene of civil war is or is not a military objective. It is even possible to argue that a ship when it is in port and tied up to the bollards is not a ship in every sense of the term. All this talk about blockade is largely beside the point, because from first to last there is no blockade in this. A foreign ship tied up at a quay in a foreign port may be argued to be a piece of fixed alien property, and I think there is not any doubt that fixed alien property has no more right to protection where military operations are going on than has a piece of the property of the inhabitants of the country.

Mr. Bevan

We are not at school.

Mr. Pickthorn

The hon. Member who interrupts has been speaking most of the afternoon, and I have done my best to follow the sense of his interruptions, but I have not altogether succeeded on this occasion as on others. I am quite prepared to believe that it may be necessary now, or the next day, or in 10 days' time, or 100, for the Government to use coercive powers against some foreign Government in order to maintain the traditional British right to use the seas of the world; but I suggest that nobody ought to press for such action unless he is clear in his own mnid, first of all, how he proposes to overcome the practical difficulties, and, secondly, how he intends to convince the great mass of his countrymen, and foreigners, that on all legal points we have an absolutely good case. I have heard so far no attempt to meet those difficulties from the other side of the Committee.

7.32 p.m.

Mr. Maxton

I am provoked into intervening in this Debate by the speech of the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn), to which we have just listened.

Mr. Pickthorn

Then it did some good, at any rate.

Mr. Maxton

I thought when I listened to the speech of the Prime Minister that I had listened to the worst speech I had ever heard from any British statesman, and I thought we had reached absolute rock bottom, but the back benchers who have spoken for the Government since seem to have made things even worse. I am particularly interested in the hon. Member for Cambridge University being so anxious that we should make sure of the legality of our conduct in defending British citizens and British ships before we take any steps at all. He said that we must be quite sure that we are on perfectly legal ground, because if we are not on legal ground, that great legalist General Franco would be considerably annoyed.

Mr. Pickthorn

I did not refer to General Franco in that connection.

Mr. Maxton

Then which of the great exponents of international justice is he concerned with? He denies that it is General Franco. Is it his ally Signor Mussolini, or is it Herr Hitler?

Mr. Pickthorn

Mainly the inhabitants of this country.

Mr. Maxton

Do I understand that the hon. Member who represents Cambridge University thinks that there is a big body of opinion in this country that would have to be persuaded that it is the duty of His Majesty's Government to try and preserve their rights and their proper avocations? I do not believe there is such a majority in this country. I think the majority of the people of this country have been tremendously resentful in these recent weeks. I know that in the seaports, in Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Cardiff, Swansea, the common folk there think it is simply damnable that British seamen can be done to death, that the British Navy cannot move, that the British Government cannot move, that no steps can be taken along either diplomatic or trade lines.

Remember this, that the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker), in opening the Debate to-day, made suggestions that were first diplomatic, secondly commercial, thirdly financial, and only fourthly was the question of military or naval power put forward as a possible step to be taken; and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, with apparently the support of his back benchers, stands up in this Committee and rejects every possible step. He does not put forward any possible alternative step, but simply says that, in the face of the threats and the acts of this rebel traitor General, who two years ago was an underground plotter in the cafes of Europe, His Majesty's Government are completely powerless to take any step of any description whatever. That is the position we are in to-night, as stated by the Prime Minister, and the hon. Member for Cambridge University, with great knowledge, with great experience, a recognised authority on international affairs, comes into this Committee and puts the prestige of his university and of his own knowledge behind this attitude of incapacity on the part of the Conservative Government of 1938 to defend British citizens and the British flag against the attacks of a rebel General.

7.38 p.m.

Mr. Sandys

Frankly, I was disappointed by the attitude adopted, on this question of the protection of British shipping in Spanish waters, by the Prime Minister this afternoon. I could not help thinking, as I was listening to my right hon. Friend's speech, how that speech would react upon General Franco. It was not so much what my right hon. Friend said as the language and, shall I say, the spirit in which he approached this problem. I am sorry to have to say it, but I cannot help thinking that the result of my right hon. Friend's speech will be the intensification of these attacks upon British ships, and that that speech will cost British lives. In reply to a supplementary question of mine last Tuesday, the Prime Minister asked me whether I had any practical proposal to put forward as to how we could deal with this question, and, if so, he promised to give it careful consideration.

Before I say anything about what I would suggest myself on this question, I would like to deal very briefly with two points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn). First of all, he said there was some doubt about the legal position. I cannot see that there is any doubt at all that these attacks are completely unjustifiable from a legal point of view. I recognise that there may be many difficulties in the way of stopping the attacks, but how the legal position can be called in doubt I really fail to understand. I would draw the Committee's attention to the attitude adopted by the British Government on this question at The Hague Conference in 1923. They then stated what they considered to be the position of aircraft in war. The British statement concluded with the following passage: Belligerent aircraft are not under any circumstances exempt from the universal rules of war, and if an aircraft cannot capture a merchant vessel in conformity with these rules, the existing law of nations requires it to desist from attack. That is the position. I could elaborate it at length, but I do not wish to take up the time of the Committee in doing so. As regards this question of belligerent rights, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University seemed to suggest that General Franco had been unfairly treated, in that belligerent rights had not been accorded to him, and that if they had been accorded, the legal position would have been different from what it is to-day. As one of the few Members of this House who have consistently, from the very beginning, pressed for the according of belligerent rights, I must point out that my hon. Friend is not correct. I maintain that, even if belligerent rights had been accorded, even if these ships had actually been carrying munitions of war and in fact, even if they had been flying, not a neutral flag, but the Spanish Republican flag, these deliberate attacks upon merchant vessels by aircraft without warning, wherever they might have taken place, would still have been entirely contrary to, and in direct violation of, established international law.

Mr. Emmott

Does the hon. Member suggest that even if they had been flying the Spanish Republican flag, that would have been so?

Mr. Sandys

Certainly.

Mr. Emmott

My hon. Friend's suggestion is that attacks on ships carrying the Spanish Republican flag, if belligerency rights had been recognised, would have been illegal. Surely he cannot say that.

Mr. Sandys

I repeat it. Even if these ships had been flying the Spanish Republican flag, and belligerent rights had been accorded, the ordinary rights of the sea have got to be afforded to merchant vessels to whatever nationality they may belong, including belligerents. If my hon. Friend looks up this matter, I think he will see that there is no doubt about this aspect of the problem at all. As to what we can do to stop these attacks and what action we can take, I was disappointed by the answer which the Prime Minister gave to me the other day in reply to a supplementary question of mine, in which he said: I have said that I do not think any action which we can take is practicable to stop these attacks."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th June, 1938; col. 45, Vol. 337.] That does, I think, sum up the attitude which His Majesty's Government are taking on this question. If the Prime Minister means that nothing that we can do can entirely prevent these attacks, I agree with him. Certainly there is nothing that we can do which would altogether prevent the possibility of a recurrence of these attacks, in the same way that nothing which the police can do can prevent the possibility of crime. But if, on the other hand, my right hon. Friend means that there is nothing which we can do which would effectively deter General Franco from repeating these attacks, then I cannot agree with him.

The Prime Minister last Tuesday re-referred to a proposal for the establishment of a neutral port, which had been put forward by the Burgos authorities. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend that that proposal is not a practical one. The offer was conditional upon our consenting to restrict the commodities in which we would be permitted to trade. Because Parliament has voluntarily restricted trade with Spain and has forbidden certain articles to be exported to that country, that does not mean that we can be dictated to by either party in Spain as to what cargoes our ships shall or shall not carry. But the main objection to this proposal is a strategic one. The result of the adoption of this proposal would be that almost all commerce would be concentrated towards this one neutralised port. I have no doubt that General Franco would faithfully observe his undertaking not to bomb the ships. But what would happen once the cargo had been unloaded? It would be an easy matter for him to concentrate his aircraft on the approaches to this one port and to make the whole trade with the port perfectly valueless to the Spanish Government. Very soon, in fact, our trade with Republican Spain would be brought to an end altogether.

What action can we ourselves take to deal with these attacks? Surely we cannot accept the view that there is no action which we can take which will deter further outrages of this kind? There are two methods of stopping these attacks. The first is the indirect method, that of reprisals; the second is the direct method, that of active protection. I am not in the first instance advocating the use of reprisals, but I think that we must nevertheless reserve to ourselves the right to resort to reprisals if everything else should fail. Let us, however be quite clear what reprisals are. Reprisals are not in any way inconsistent with neutrality or with a policy of non-intervention. I cannot accept the view expressed by the Prime Minister and by another hon. Member that if we were to take retaliatory action of any kind it would amount to a resort to war, that we should be engaging in hostilities and that it would constitute a departure from the policy of nonintervention. That is not the fact. Reprisals are punitive action taken by a country in peacetime in order to obtain the redress of a wrong or the prevention of its repetition without having recourse to war. The very purpose of reprisals is to avoid having to resort to war.

Another thing which seems to have been overlooked is the fact that reprisals have already been resorted to in the Spanish civil war, in particular by the Germans. I will quote one typical instance, the "Palos" case. On 27th December, 1936, the German ship "Palos" was stopped by a Spanish Republican cruiser and was taken into Bilbao. On 30th December, at the demand of the German Government, the ship was released, but part of the cargo, consisting of war material, and one Spanish subject who was on board were detained by the Spanish Govern- ment. The German Government claimed that as belligerent rights had not been accorded, the war material and the passenger should have been released also. When the Spanish Government refused a German warship seized two Republican merchant vessels. That is a clear and typical example of reprisals with the purpose of redressing a wrong.

I am not, however, advocating that we should resort to reprisals, at any rate at this stage. I prefer the direct method of protection. What can be done in the way of active protection? No one seriously suggests that we should set up British anti-aircraft guns in Spanish ports. That would be entirely inconsistent with our policy of non-intervention. What is more, it is entirely unnecessary. A year ago our ships were being sunk all over the Mediterranean. Now, as the result of the Nyon patrols, these attacks have been stopped up to the three-mile limit. Again, I would like to take up the hon. Member for Cambridge University on the question of the three-mile limit. The three-mile limit has practically no application to the rules of war, and has no significance in regard to the present problem. Its chief purpose is in peacetime to decide how far the law of a country extends, mainly for the enforcement of Customs regulations, and for the arrest of criminals. It does not affect belligerent rights, which if accorded apply equally to the high seas. Why not, therefore, extend the protection which has been so successful under the Nyon Agreement right up to the moment when a ship enters a harbour? That would not be inconsistent in any way with the policy of non-intervention. No action would be taken by our warships unless some illegal attack were made on British ships. Unless such attacks were made there would be no interference whatever.

There is only one category of ships that we cannot protect, and that is the ships which are alongside the quay. There is no adequate protection for them short of sending our warships right into the harbour. I recognise that a ship alongside a quay tied up to the docks is from a height indistinguishable from the shore. If I were the Prime Minister or the President of the Board of Trade I would tell British ships to remain in those harbours as short a time as possible, and only as long as is necessary for loading and unloading If they have to wait for another cargo they should come out of the harbour and enjoy the protection of British warships outside. If a ship is bombed by a high-flying bomber while it is alongside, there is, I think, no action we can legitimately or reasonably take. On the other hand, if, as in recent cases, there is clear evidence that ships have been deliberately sought out and that aeroplanes have flown around and have fired machine guns at the crew, that is a different matter. If there is reliable evidence that ships have been deliberately bombed, we should then, in my opinion, demand immediate compensation from the offending authorities. If that compensation is refused, we should then in the last resort adopt a policy of reprisals. By reprisals I mean that we should seize goods, money or securities in this country belonging to the offending party, or, alternatively, if that does not meet the case, then we should instruct a British warship to arrest a merchant vessel belonging to the party concerned.

That is what I propose, and I ask my right hon. Friend to give these suggestions, which are offered in all humility, careful and sympathetic consideration. Whether my right hon. Friend can see his way to accept this or not, I submit to him that effective action of one kind or another must be taken. For two years we have persistently withheld belligerent rights from the combatants in Spain: that is to say, we have refused to let them even so much as search our ships. Are we now going to let them sink them? Can we, as the greatest maritime power in the world, afford to abdicate in the face of violence our legitimate rights as neutrals? Can we in these humiliating circumstances afford to acquiesce in deliberate, unprovoked and, from every point of view, unjustifiable attacks on peaceful merchant shipping? I submit to the Government and to the Committee that we have here a solemn duty, not only to ourselves, but to all other seafaring peoples, to do everything that is within our power to resist violence and to uphold the law of nations. It is, moreover, a duty which we cannot honourably ignore.

7.57 p.m.

Mr. W. Roberts

Without going into the question of belligerent rights, I would like to add to what the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Sandys) has said, that if, as the hon. Member for Cambridge Uni- versity (Mr. Pickthorn) suggests, there was no basis for our objection to having our ships bombed in ports, on what ground does the British Government protest? If, in fact, the Burgos authorities have got a perfect and complete answer, why have they not made it? In fact, the hon. Member for Cambridge University is, as so often happens in these cases, more a belligerent on General Franco's side than even General Franco himself, and provides more specious arguments than even those which Franco's lawyers are able to find. I want to study the position of British shipping companies. I support what the hon. Member for Norwood said in his last sentence, when he pointed out that it has always been in the past our role to defend neutral shipping. The bombing of ships has affected us most, but that is because to a large extent neutral shipping has been driven out of trade with the Spanish Government by such practices as seizing ships, detaining them illegally, seizing cargoes and other methods against which the British Government have not provided the neutrals with protection.

To some extent the old-established British firms trading with Spain have also been driven out by a species of blackmail. I would like to give an example of what happened recently to one old-established firm. The owner had a ship sunk off Valencia. He was thereupon sent for by the representative of General Franco in this country and informed, not that General Franco had any regrets for sinking his ship, but that, as it appeared that he dared to trade with the Spanish Government, he should not have the right for the rest of his merchant fleet to call in the Canaries or Teneriffe. That is an extraordinary situation. Are the British Government reduced to allowing to remain in this country the representative of a Government which is "illegally and deliberately," to quote the words of Ministers, bombing our British ships who has the effrontery to inform the owners that they shall not dare to call in any Nationalist ports, ports which are of great importance to the British Merchant Navy?

We are being driven out of the trade with General Franco. The President of the Board of Trade, in answer to a question of mine to-day, gave me some remarkable figures. In the month of May, 1935, before the war began, 240 British ships called in ports which are now under Nationalist control. During this May, 185 British ships called at the same Nationalist ports, a very considerable reduction. On the other hand, before the war began, only 73 German ships called in those ports, and in this month there were 121. We hear a great deal of talk from the opposite benches about a few German motor cars which are imported into this country. A trade which was worth some £16,000,000 to us is taken by the method of bombing our ships out of it and blackmailing them into avoiding that trade, and the British Government do nothing whatsoever about it.

The position of British traders has been very difficult in Nationalist Spain, and the propaganda which General Franco and his friends in this House and elsewhere have made recently on his behalf has not made it easier. In the first quarter of this year I understand that the trade in coal was worth £300,000 with Nationalist Spain, but the trade with General Franco was worth one-tenth of that figure, and yet our trade with the whole of Spain in coal used to be worth several million pounds. Our shipping losses in bombed ships in two or three weeks recently amounted to very nearly £500,000. We are told of the enormous profits which are being made in the Spanish trade, but somebody has to bear those losses. Underwriters are not there just to meet losses out of the goodness of their hearts. If our losses in shipping have amounted to some £500,000, in a few weeks, they are borne by the shipping industry.

Captain Arthur Evans

May I ask the hon. Member this simple question; does he know that the premiums which are quoted by Lloyd's to the owners of ships are in relation to the risk they run?

Mr. Roberts

Yes, I have always understood that that was the basis on which Lloyd's did quote. The increase in insurance rates, which have gone up fourfold, comes out of the freights. An hon. Member has pointed out that the rates for coal have gone up to a high figure and that is what accounts for it. It is not that the owners are making vast profits, but that they are paying four times the amount of insurance, which in any case means far more upon the value of the cargo than upon the value of the hull, and in addition wages have gone up. When Conservatives stand up and say that British sailors must not be defended from illegal bombing because the owners of the ships may or may not be making profits, I wonder why they did not take the opportunity of reminding us of that during the Great War.

Propaganda has been pretty effective, and the deliberate impression has been created that these ships are engaged in a sort of illicit trade. It has been suggested that they are on time-charter. I have taken the trouble to find out how many ships are on time-charter to the Spanish Government. I may not have got them all, but my inquiries from the best authorities whom I could consult show that just over 200 ships are employed in trade with the Spanish Government and a little more than 10 per cent. of them are on time-charter. Some of the oldest established firms have lost ships in the last few weeks. I am not an authority on international law, and I quote from a paper which is not usually considered to have Left tendencies not so much because of what it says as because this quotation will show the striking change which came over the semi-official Press of the Government lately. On 11th June the "Times" remarked: Clearly international law as well as every humanitarian principle has often been broken by the airmen serving General Franco. Up to that date the "Times" and other sections of the Conservative Press had given the impression that the British Government were really going to do something. Of course that impression had been given before, and as far back as 7th February Sir Robert Hodgson went so far as to point out to the insurgent authorities that they could not rely upon British patience very much longer. He said: Their patience is not inexhaustible and they have come to the conclusion that the time has come to let it be known once and for all that they cannot continue to deal with these cases solely by protests and claims for compensation which have failed to check attacks or to secure any material satisfaction for the damage clone. It should, therefore, be made known to General Franco that His Majesty's Government reserve to them selves the right henceforth, without any farther notice, to take such retaliatory action in the event of any recurrence of those attacks as may be required by and appropriate to the particular case. I quote that from one of Sir Robert Hodgson's notes to suggest that the way the British Government have suggested on more than one occasion that the limit had really been reached, and that at last we were going to put down our foot, has only left the prestige of Great Britain lower than it was before. We say that our patience is exhausted, but what happens? The Prime Minister returns from his fishing holiday, and we find that the British Government have absolutely unlimited patience to put up with any amount of further bombing of ships.

I would suggest on this question of belligerent rights that General Franco has been exceedingly fortunate. He has taken powers far in excess of anything which he would have obtained had he been granted belligerent rights, and in addition to that he has all the advantages which he has derived from the Non-Intervention policy. He is actually carrying out a blockade—an illegal blockade—which he might not have had the right to do in a certain way had he been granted belligerent rights. Further, we are blockading large stretches of the French frontier now, and by our action preventing the importation of arms which, had belligerent rights been granted, we should have had a perfect right to import, if we could, to either side. General Franco, therefore, has advantages which have been overwhelming, arising from Non-Intervention control plus the rights he has taken which are greater than would have been his if he had been granted belligerent rights.

We are told that this has been done in order that the Anglo-Italian Agreement may come into force. An hon. Member opposite said that he judged that public opinion not only in this country but in Europe was behind the British Government's policy. I would refer only to the fact that out of 13 countries on the Council of the League of Nations nine refused to record a vote of confidence in the policy on Non-Intervention this April, which did not suggest that the public opinion of the smaller countries of Europe, of South America and the rest of the world was very much behind this policy of Non-Intervention, which they, at any rate, have come to believe is a farce. After all, the South Americans have had recently an example of a revolution stirred up with Fascist money and propaganda.

But the Italian Agreement is dependent now upon a settlement in Spain. Though we are not told what the settlement is, we understand that the agreement was made only on the understanding that General Franco was going to win by the middle of April. I have sometimes had a feeling about the British Foreign Office that the one thing they really wanted to know about Spain was who was going to win. In early April they thought they had found the answer for certain, and that it was General Franco. Unfortunately, opinion about that seems to have changed. He does not appear to be likely to win for another six or nine months at the earliest. The most charitable explanation that I can find for the policy of assisting General Franco to win quickly is that it springs from the defeatism of the Tory party. I say the most charitable explanation is that they think and hope he is going to win, but some of us do not think he will necessarily win, in spite of all the assistance that the closing of the frontier and non-intervention may give him.

We might consider for a moment what happened after the previous agreement was signed with Italy, about a year ago. The ex-Foreign Minister admits now that large forces of Italian troops were landed in Spain almost simultaneously with the signing of that agreement. I would like to draw the attention of the Committee not merely to the number of ships which have now been sunk but to the dates on which they were sunk. In February, there were two attacks and one British ship was sunk. In March there were two attacks, neither of which sank the ship concerned; but although there had been no attack from the early part of March, on 15th April, when the Anglo-Italian Agreement was signed, the first attack occurred and in the 10 days thereafter five attacks were made. In May there were six attacks, and in June, up to a few days ago, there were nine attacks. In fact, just as after the Italian Agreement—the Gentleman's Agreement—of last year, Mussolini took the opportunity of raising his price by sending reinforcements immediately to the forces that were already there, an act which the ex-Foreign Minister has suggested was a violation of the spirit of the agreement, so, immediately following the signing of the present agreement, intensified attack on British ships has taken place.

It seems as though we, in pressing forward for a ratification of this Anglo-Italian Agreement, are to be humbled as far as Mussolini possibly can, because it is suggested that these attacks are being carried out not by Italian but by German bombers. Some very semi-official rumours have been going about, and they seem to have been coming from very official quarters. Some people prefer to believe a rumour rather than a fact, and a rumour is very often more effective for that purpose. These rumours have been given a certain amount of official credence, but when we come to this House and ask whether any correct information is available we are informed that there is no information. The only effective and successful action that has been taken in connection with Spain has been the Nyon Agreement.

I do not believe that the present policy of the Government will lead to peace in Spain, either by mediation or in any other way. The only possibility of effective mediation is to give some kind of equality of conditions between the two Governments. What have you done now? You have closed the French frontier. You have persuaded the French to close that frontier in accordance with the British plan of November, under which it was to be closed only after the commissions went out, or just before. You have done it without closing the Portuguese frontier, which is of great advantage to General Franco. You have allowed him to establish an effective and illegitimate blockade, and yet you ask him to accept mediation when you have given him that great advantage. Another point is that the Italian armies in Spain are back in the line there from which they were withdrawn in the middle of April. Yet you expect us, and me, to believe that mediation can be effective when you have given General Franco every advantage in your power to win a speedy victory. The present policy of the British Government is designed to get a quick victory for Franco. If it were designed for mediation and for the establishment of peace, some of us might be prepared to accept it. We understand that you have secured agreement in the Non-Intervention Committee, and I would like to ask one specific question: When is it anticipated that that agreement, if the Press this evening is to be believed, will come into force? Is my estimate a reasonable one that the earliest time at which volunteers could be withdrawn is about three months from to-day?

There are a good many historical parallels no doubt, for the present situation. I came across one from 24th June, 1738, just 200 years ago. At that time an administration had been in power in this House for a considerable time and had considerable respect in the country. On 24th June an Address was carried, not in this House but in another place, dealing with the molestation of British ships by Spanish Government forces. That Address was carried against the Government and that was the beginning of the end of their administration, and they had been in power for a very much longer time than the National Government. Robert Walpole's downfall resulted from the widespread dissatisfaction with the handling by the Government of that Spanish problem. I would like to quote these words from one of Carteret's speeches: No search' is the cry that runs from the sailor to the merchant and from the merchant to the Parliament; and from the Parliament it ought to reach the Throne. I suggest that "no bombing" is also a cry that runs from the sailor to the merchant, and from the merchant to the Parliament, and that we also hope that it will reach the Throne.

8.22 p.m.

Captain A. Evans

I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman's argument, or that of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Sandys), who presented a careful examination of the international law aspect of these unfortunate circumstances and this lamentable situation. I am not an international lawyer, and I, therefore, do not consider myself competent to express a view on this very delicate and intricate subject. I must confess that I was surprised to learn from my hon. Friend that there was no necessity, in the present situation, to have regard to territorial waters outside Spain, in other words, the three-mile limit, and that British ships were entitled to the protection of the British Navy up to and including the shores of the territory of Spain, whether under the jurisdiction of the Spanish Government or of General Franco. I was always under the impression that strict regard, whether in peace or war, had to be paid to territorial waters, because they were regarded as part of the territory of the country which they surrounded. As I say, I am not competent to express an opinion, but no doubt my hon. Friend is competent to do so.

After having listened to the speeches during the whole of the afternoon, I notice that certain facts have emerged and are reasonably clear. In the first place, it is well for us to remember that the Prime Minister announced in this House that all adequate steps would be taken, and indeed had been taken, to protect the Red Ensign and British ships on the high seas, outside territorial waters. No one will challenge the action of the British Navy in giving practical effect to the decision of the Government, but I am surprised that during the speeches of Members of both Oppositions no mention has been made of the fact that from time to time His Majesty's Government have thought fit to issue a warning, and indeed to appeal, to the British Mercantile Marine not to enter this trade and run unnecessary risk. In spite of different views which have been expressed with regard to that appeal, I think it is the unanimous view in the House that, even if it is disregarded and our ships are bombed while in Spanish ports by enemy forces opposed to the Spanish Government, that is, to say the least, a matter for regret, and for my part I am thoroughly convinced that, if it were possible for His Majesty's Government in general, and the Prime Minister in particular, to satisfy themselves that they had means at their disposal to bring about an immediate cessation of these activities on the part of certain people in Spain, that would be done at the earliest possible moment. But what is the practical issue which is before the House to-night? We have to consider what can be done to bring about this desirable state of affairs without at the same time involving this country, first of all in intervention, and subsequently in war. Listening to the speeches, I have not heard any practical suggestion from anybody as to how those ends can be achieved.

I give place to none in my admiration of that adventurous and courageous spirit which has made the Mercantile Marine of Great Britain what it is to-day. We know that in the old days the Elizabethan buccaneers sailed the high seas in search of profit of all kinds, and gladly ran the risks of death in search of that profit, being quite prepared to share all those risks in the same way as they were prepared to share all the profits. If they failed in their quest and got into trouble with the Spanish forces of the day, they knew that they would be disowned by the Government of this country, and we know that a number of interviews took place between Queen Elizabeth and James I and the Spanish Ambassadors of those days on the very debatable question whether those buccaneers had been commissioned by the Government of Great Britain or not. But the courageous Cardiffians, for instance, of to-day, who face these risks, are not quite in the same category. They are prepared to share the profits, but in the pursuit of those profits they do not shoulder the whole burden of the risk. They undertake a risk which inevitably must be shared, not only by the men on the ships, but by the men and women of the whole nation. The question is whether these men are entitled at this particular time to run those risks. The hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) had in mind, I think, a circular issued by the Committee of British Shipowners Trading to Spain, which has been sent to all Members of the House. In paragraph 2 of that circular they use these words: Profits in this trade"— that is to say, in the trade with Spain— have in recent months certainly not been abnormal. I draw attention to the fact that they only refer to recent months. But, after all, that is not an authoritative body, or, indeed, an authoritative statement. I would like to draw the attention of the Committee to the "Journal of Commerce and Shipping Telegraph" of to-day—

The Temporary Chairman (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew)

This is rather far from the Foreign Office Vote.

Captain Evans

I submit, with great respect, that the hon. Gentleman who spoke on behalf of the Opposition referred to this particular point, and I was only endeavouring to show that the shipping interests which are engaged in this trade are engaged in it for abnormally high profits, and engage in it at their own risk. In view of the fact that a certain section of the British shipping industry is de- manding protection from His Majesty's Government, I venture to think I should be in order in quoting from the official document of that industry which desires to make representations on this point. I would like to draw attention to these words: In the meantime it is to be doubted whether the discussion in Parliament will be influenced by the unsigned statement issued by the Committee of British Shipowners Trading to Spain. A clear clarion call on this subject, if issued by the Chamber of Shipping and signed by the leading British shipowners, especially those whose ships are regularly engaged in trade with Spanish ports, would undoubtedly demand and receive the serious consideration of those who are responsible for the foreign policy of this country during the present troublesome time. Earlier they used these words—

The Temporary-Chairman

I really cannot allow this on the Foreign Office Vote.

Captain Evans

In view of your Ruling, to which I gladly bow, I will leave the point. Perhaps I might be permitted to say that I think it is generally acknowledged that these men who are anxious to obtain the protection of the British Navy run certain risks of their own accord, but if the inevitable happens, and those risks result, as they may do in some cases, in death, what is it that the Opposition parties immediately do? They call on my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, as representing the Foreign Office, to give an explanation of how these attacks came to be made. We admit, of course, that as a result of these risks many brave men of the British Mercantile Marine have lost their lives. Many of my own constituents have unfortunately lost their lives. But if the demand of the Opposition which has been made across the Floor of this Chamber to-day, both by the Socialist party and by the Liberal party, were put into operation, it would not be a question of 20 Mercantile Marine seamen losing their lives, but in all probability the horrors of war would be visited on the whole nation. [HON. MEMBERS: "War with whom?"] It is quite clear, from the speeches to which I have listened, that what is really in the minds of hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition benches is that, if the Government were persuaded to take action which might lead to a break of relations between General Franco and ourselves, then the Anglo-Italian Agreement woud be at an end, and I do not think they have disguised from the House, or, indeed, from the country, that that is their real object. We on this side, who have the greatest admiration for the policy of the Prime Minister at the present time in his endeavours to retain peace in Europe, do not wish to see the Anglo-Italian Agreement come to an end before it has been put into operation.

Mr. Vyvyan Adams

Does my hon. and gallant Friend think that the desire for firm action is limited to His Majesty's Opposition?

Captain Evans

Certainly not, but I think it is generally agreed in all parts of the House that that firm action must take a course which would not lead to war, but to peace.

Hon. Members

"War with whom?"

Mr. Adams

Does my hon. and gallant Friend not recognise that firm action four weeks ago about Czechoslovakia produced peace, and not war?

Captain Evans

That is a matter of opinion, and I do not want to be drawn off this particular subject by the question of Czechoslovakia at this time. I should be happy to do so at some other time. What is the practical aspect of this case? We are concerned with one aspect of international law which, if I understood aright my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister this afternoon, does not indeed exist. It has been the earnest endeavour of the Government for some time past to form a code of international law as it affects aerial warfare, and the Prime Minister told us this afternoon that in fact that code does not exist. One of the first things we can do is to continue those endeavours to bring the civilised nations of the world together in order to get an agreed interpretation on that matter. Let His Majesty's Government pursue the policy they are pursuing to-day, of saying frankly to a certain section of the Mercantile Marine, "We will use all the forces of the British Navy to protect you legitimately outside territorial waters, and we earnestly appeal to you not to engage in this particular trade for one reason, and one reason only, that there are certain circumstances in the world of which you are just as well aware as we are; His Majesty's Government have the responsibility of dealing with that situation, and we do not want any act by any section in this country to embarrass the Government in their desire to bring about a peaceful end to the dispute." If we are only realists, and realise that any policy of intervention will involve us in war—[HON. MEMBERS: "With whom?"]—and concentrate upon a policy of renewed effort to bring about a truce in Spain, by those means alone can the world be brought back to sanity.

8.39 p.m.

Mr. Bevan

I was wondering what had led the hon. and gallant Member to make the speech he has just delivered, but I can no longer wonder, because it has been suggested to me—and I am sure the hon. and gallant Member will correct me if I am wrong—that he proposes to leave Cardiff, South, which he now represents, and that his name now appears on the list of candidates at the Conservative Central Office for a safer constituency.

Captain Evans

I do not know if the hon. Members suggests that I am afraid to fight Cardiff, South, again, but I think he will agree that that is an unjust charge, when he remembers that on different occasions I have unseated three Members of his own party in that constituency.

Mr. Bevan

I would be the last to make any unjust suggestion. I was merely pointing out the singular association in the fact that the hon. and gallant Member has decided to leave Cardiff, South, that he makes a speech which must be unpalatable to his constituents, and that he makes it when his name is on the list of candidates at the Conservative Central Office for safer seats. So what we have heard is not so much a contribution to the Debate as a supplication to the Prime Minister. That would not deter me from expressing a great deal of sympathy with one or two sentiments which fell from the hon. and gallant Member's lips. He referred to the fact that people who had ventured outside their own frontiers to other parts of the world in order to make large profits, and took risks in doing so, did not in the past expect the Government to protect them. He referred to the fact that members of the British Mercantile Marine—owners of these ships—are making large profits in the Spanish trade, and that they ought to be prepared to take the risks, too, and not expect us to share those risks. There is a great deal in what he says. It has been a contention of Members on this side, over and over again, that we ought not to be involved in war protecting Englishmen when they go into all parts of the world where they have no business to be, getting large profits.

If his view represents that of the Conservative party, that we are not to be involved in any risks for Englishmen in other parts of the world where our writ does not carry—if that is to be laid down as part of the Conservative policy as a general principle—there will not be much disagreement on these benches. But the hon. and gallant Member confines that principle to when it involves sending food supplies to the Spanish people and the Spanish Government, because we have been told by the Prime Minister that we are not in any circumstances to be involved in the risks of war in order to defend British seamen in the Mediterranean. But we run the risk of war if anybody dares to put a finger on the Sudan cotton fields. We sent a most belligerent note to the Mexican Government defending British oil interests, and only a few days ago a British police officer lost his life in Trinidad defending residents against the outraged natives of Trinidad. So I understand that the hon. and gallant Member does not extend this principle to cover Englishmen wherever they are in other parts of the world, but it is to be applied only to the Spanish war.

Captain Evans

I thought it must be clear to the hon. Gentleman, as indeed it is clear to the Committee, that Spain to-day is the real danger spot. If only we can settle affairs in Spain, the prospects of peace are much more rosy in the world than otherwise.

Mr. Bevan

I understand we are to defend British citizens abroad only if the man attacking them is smaller than ourselves. If it is a couple of helpless negroes, down with them; but if it is the Duke of Alba, back him up. I never heard a more disgraceful suggestion. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman's principles had been applied in the past, Clive, instead of being honoured and his descendants enjoying large estates, would have been clapped into prison, because if anybody was after loot Clive was. The British Empire has been built up very largely in that way, and now, as a matter of fact, we are having to keep the sons of the successful buccaneers of the past, because we have declared that where Englishmen are, there the British flag protects them. It is remarkable to compare the state of mind of Conservative Members of the House to-day with what it was at the time of the trial of the Vickers' engineers.

The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn)—I am sorry that he is not here—says that in this matter we could see the principles of international jurisprudence clearly only if we restrained our natural indignation. I must admit that comparing the atmosphere this afternoon with what it was then, we have not only been guilty of restraint but of sheepish docility, because on that occasion the back benches opposite prevented the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) from speaking for ten minutes. We had from the Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time, and from the President of the Board of Trade, the most provocative speeches about the conduct of the Soviet Union. The suggestion has been thrown out this afternoon that we should not protect British seamen because their employers are making enormous profits, but there was no suggestion made at that time that because Messrs. Vickers were making exorbitant profits out of Russia action should not be taken. The fact of the matter is that hon. Members opposite are really driven to great extremes in finding some means of defending the policy which they have now taken up.

The suggestion also has been thrown out that there are some complications concerning international law. If there is one thing that bores me it is to hear debates about international law. Everybody knows that there is no such animal, and that as long as you have no international organism you cannot have international law. If international law is the basis of our policy with regard to Spain, then under what has been called international law the Spanish Government should have been able to buy arms all the time. There is no question of international jurisprudence. It is international humbug. It is simply a question of people who find the realities of the situation too difficult entering into abstract generalisations in the hope of being able to escape more easily. International law, if there be such, cannot arise because no belligerent rights have been granted to Franco. He is not known to the law, and you cannot have relations between one who is known to the law and one who is not. A great many of the speeches have been entirely beside the point in trying to establish the legal claims of this side or the other. They have been wholly irrelevant to the discussion.

We have to ask ourselves not how, but why it is that the British Government are not protecting British seamen in Spanish Government ports when going about their lawful occasions. The Prime Minister said that we cannot protect them, so that we can leave out the question of profits at once. They do not arise. Suggestions have been made from this side, and from that side of the Committee, as to what protection can be given. I and my hon. Friends are not suggesting that there are no difficulties in the way, but I should have thought that the first thing that you would do with a man who was doing something to you that you did not want him to do was to let him know that you did not like his doing it. You would at least break off friendly relations with him. You would not seek his company on every occasion. We could see the realities of this situation more clearly if we substituted the name of Italy for the name of Franco. We are speaking about Franco, and consequently have got into all sorts of absurdities. The man at fault is Mussolini. We want the bombing of English ships stopped and Mussolini is the man who is bombing them. Can anybody deny that? The Prime Minister did not deny the authentic statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) this afternoon. There has not been a single denial, so that therefore we assume that these facts are correct and that men, women and children and British ships are being bombed by Italian aeroplanes, manned by Italian pilots, with Italian shells or bombs. We know that there are emplacements in the Balearic Islands. This bombing could not be effected were it not for the fact that Mussolini favours it. We are now dealing with Italy.

We are to assume that the Prime Minister is anxious to stop bombing. I should have thought that the first thing he would do would be to accept the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) and ask Mussolini, giving him the benefit of the doubt and allowing him to have an alibi to save his face, to send a note to his pal General Franco. Why does not the British Prime Minister do that? In the second place, he might even ask Mussolini himself, if he wanted to be so bold, to stop the bombing. Why does he not do it? Because, we are told, it is injudicious to send such notes to Italy because she is not the legal authority, although she is the actual authority, and it would affect the relations between Italy and this country. Therefore, we are driven to the conclusion that one of the conditions of relations with Italy is that Italy must be allowed to murder British seamen whenever she likes.

We are informed that one of the reasons why we take no steps to protect our seamen is because we should be involved in war. In war with whom? There are only two nations with whom we could be involved in war. And so it is the assumption of the Conservative party and the British Government that one of the conditions for peace with Italy is that Italy shall be allowed to murder British seamen. Let us admit that the British Prime Minister is in some difficulty about what to do. He is in this difficulty that his friend Mussolini is exploiting him. Suppose for a moment that it is difficult to frame a set of proposals which would protect British ships and seamen adequately without involving yourselves in war or international provocation, who is exploiting the Prime Minister's difficulties? It is his pal Mussolini. Here is the man with whom we are going to establish a treaty. He knows that his friend the British Prime Minister is in trouble, and he takes advantage of it in order to get his own way with the British Government.

Why was there this continued outrage against the British Mercantile Marine? It is almost inexplicable. One of the reasons was in order to bring pressure to bear upon the British Government to influence the French Government to close the Pyrenees. That object, we are told by to-day's Press, has been accomplished and the Spanish Government is now being prevented from having any help which it might have been receiving across the French-Spanish frontier. Therefore, the bombings have secured their first objec- tive. The second objective was to try and bring about an effective blockade of Spanish Government ports, a subject to which the hon. and gallant Member for South Cardiff (Captain A. Evans) has made his contribution, and to which the Prime Minister made his contribution this afternoon. In effect, the Prime Minister says to the British Mercantile Marine: "I am not going to protect you. If you go to Spanish ports you do so at your own risk. I have already informed the bombers that I cannot stop them. They are, therefore, entitled to go on with their bombing." That means an effective blockade of the Spanish Government ports, either because ships are afraid to go there or because the rates of insurance are too great to make it possible. Therefore, the two objectives have been accomplished, with the assistance of the British Government.

We on this side do not accept the statement that there are any risks of war involved in protecting British seamen in Spanish ports. We believe that the refusal of the British Government to do it, is not because they desire to maintain the doctrine of non-intervention, unimpaired, but because there is on the Government side of the House a deep sympathy for Franco, a deep desire for him to win, which they have up to now concealed from the country by manoeuvres in this House and by manoeuvres in our foreign policy. We are now witnessing no other than a piece of naked class policy by the other side. They are anxious to bring about the victory of their friends. They say that they will take no risks at this moment in order to protect British seamen. I hope that we shall remember that fact when they ask us to take risks in order to protect their friends.

The Prime Minister has told us the condition under which he will go to war. It is a very dangerous thing to say to the British people. When they realise that Englishmen are being bombed and killed in Spanish ports, and that the Government are making no effort to prevent it; when they realise that those British seamen cannot look to the British Parliament for any help, it may create in the minds of the British people what is called American psychology, which means that whenever an American is killed in any part of the world, they ask what was he doing there. The time may come when the Government may call the spirits from the sea but they will not come out. They will not work up the indignation of the British people about some atrocity against an Englishman in some other part of the world, because they will have numbed the British people into insensibility by their short-sighted policy.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Lloyd George

I should not have intervened at this late hour had I not considered that the position which has been created by the attitude of the Government, and more particularly by the speech of the Prime Minister, is an extraordinarily grave one. In my judgment, it involves a complete reversal of the attitude and the policy of the British Government as it has been declared by successive Governments and successive Prime Ministers for generations. I am glad that the Prime Minister is now present, because I should like to begin with his speech. Quite frankly, I thought it was a distressing speech, a very deplorable speech, coming from the Prime Minister in his great position, and wielding the power which he does. It was a very pitiable declaration. During the Whole of the time I have been in this House I have seen many Prime Ministers, representing several parties, and I do not know any Prime Minister in any party who would have made that speech. Frankly, I do not know of any House that I have seen which would have tolerated it.

Let us deal with the facts. They are facts that are accepted. I do not think the Prime Minister challenged the facts as they were stated in the very powerful and very fair statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker). What are they? A number of British ships, plying a perfectly legitimate trade, a trade which has been sanctioned by the Government, with a country with which we are on friendly terms—their Ambassador is still here and we recognise their Government—have been attacked, bombed, torpedoed, sunk, and about 30 British seamen have lost their lives. They were plying a trade recognised by the Government as being perfectly legitimate. In the northern ports of Spain the Germans are conducting their business. I am not talking now about their carrying munitions, which they do. They are carrying on a perfectly legitimate trade in the purchase of materials and the export of their goods. British ships are conducting the same trade on the east coast of Spain. They have done it for centuries. They were doing it at the beginning of the war and they have continued to do it during the war. They are not carrying any contraband. The Government have set forth the kind of commodities which are legitimate for the plying of trade with Spanish ports. The British ships are carrying wheat, coal, etc. The London Chamber of Shipping has gone into the matter very closely. I should say that the vast majority of the members of that chamber are Conservative, and from what I hear are on the whole inclined to sympathise with Franco, but they examined the cargoes carried by these ships and came to the conclusion that there was nothing which contravened the regulations of the British Government.

These ships have been attacked, some of them destroyed, some of them on the high seas, and some in ports, and nothing is to be done. The Prime Minister elaborated the theory that they were attacked by aeroplanes flying at a speed of 300 miles an hour and that as the bombs had to be let loose long before they got to their objective you could not assume that the attack was made upon British property and British lives. That is a very disingenuous argument, and I am surprised that the Prime Minister of this country should use it in the face of the facts. He knows perfectly well from the information he has received, some of it elicited and announced in this House by his own Ministers, that the attack was deliberate upon one particular ship. There was first reconnoitring to see where the ship was, and then came the attack in daylight, a quite deliberate attack with a clear definite purpose, on that British ship which was conveying goods to Spain which the Government themselves said was a perfectly legitimate cargo. The aeroplanes came down within 100 feet, they have come down within 300 feet in other cases. It is not a case of bombs being let loose half a mile or a quarter of a mile from the objective, but of the aeroplane hovering over the objective which it had already designated and dropping its bombs with the cruel purpose of destroying that ship and those on board. They have even come down and used machine guns, not for destroying the ship but for destroying the seamen. It is not very straightforward to tell the House of Commons and through the House of Commons the country that it was something in the nature of an accident.

The Prime Minister

The right hon. Gentleman will allow me to correct him. He has accused me of not being straightforward, and of asserting that on account of the speed at which aeroplanes fly and the distance at which bombs have to be loosed you cannot tell whether the attack was made on the ship or on something else. That was not my argument. My argument was in this case that it was not possible to say whether an attack was meant on the ship until the attack was made. The question was whether it was possible to defend a ship by anti-aircraft fire, and I said that we could not defend a ship by anti-aircraft fire unless we were prepared to fire at all aeroplanes.

Mr. Lloyd George

If that is the case the Prime Minister admits that the attacks made upon these ships in ports were deliberate.

The Prime Minister

I said so.

Mr. Lloyd George

That makes it all the more serious, and there is absolutely no excuse of any sort or kind. If the Prime Minister is conscious, knows, that these attacks were deliberately made upon British ships with a view to destroying them and with a view to killing British seamen, there is no excuse at all for not taking strong action. It is quite true that you cannot protect every British citizen who goes recklessly into the zone of action and may happen to be hit by a shell. Nobody pretends that you should immediately take action, that you should have reprisals because someone is killed in those circumstances. I agree. The man is taking his own risk if he does that. But that is not the case here. These are ships chartered to go there, and are going there purposely. As a matter of fact the Italians ascertained that it was a British ship, knowing perfectly well that it was not carrying contraband because there was an observer on board and because they have the guarantee of the British Government that no ship will leave our ports with contraband for Spain. In spite of that it is given no protection of any sort or kind. The Prime Minister says in effect that he protested; that he has sent a series of protests. Has he followed his protests up by any action? The Germans did, and the Italians would have done it if similar outrages had been committed on their ships plying an innocent trade.

The Government are behaving like a bevy of maiden aunts who have fallen among buccaneers. They just say "Talk nicely to the gentlemen, don't ruffle them," and, above all, "You must not ask impertinent questions about them whatever you do." In fact anybody who does is treated with a sort of vixenish tartness. The Prime Minister says, "Leave it to us, dearie." This is really not the way in which to treat vital interests. Our shipping is the greatest in the world and we are naturally proud of it. It is not merely our interest to protect it; it is our glory. We have always done so until to-day, and for the first time when 30 British ships are attacked, several of them sunk and British sailors killed deliberately by bombers from countries with whom we have been shaking hands, all we do is to utter a futile word of protest, not to the owners of the bombing machines and their pilots, but to Franco.

What more does the right hon. Gentleman say? He says "Well, if we were to do anything to protect our flag, what could we do?" In the first place, we know exactly where these aeroplanes came from. They came from the Italian camp in the Balearic Islands. We know where they are, and we could bomb those aerodromes until they stopped it. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Oh, but that is war." War with whom? Is it war with Franco? He would not make war. Is it war with Mussolini? Mussolini could not make war without accepting the responsibility for sending aeroplanes to sink British ships. Is he prepared to do that? I do not be-live it; and if he did, well, we should have to stand up to him at last.

What is the excuse which the right hon. Gentleman has given for this? He says that, after all, it is only ships that are in port. What difference does that make? A ship starts from here to go to its destination. It starts with an honest cargo. It is to deliver that cargo with the consent of the British Government, because the rules have been laid down by the British Government and all these shipowners conform to them. The Chamber of Shipping of London has said so. But some of these ships have been attacked on the high seas. Why was not some action taken about that, because the Admiralty undertook protection for them? The extraordinary answer was given that there was no British man-of-war on the spot. There was plenty of evidence about the attack, there was abundant testimony as to who had done it; but there was no British man-of-war on the spot. A murder is committed—let the murderer off because the police did not happen to be there. Evidence does not matter; it is only if it so happens that a policeman is on the spot at the moment that you prosecute; if not, you do nothing. What an amazing doctrine.

I am not going to recall Palmerston and say what he would have done. I will not recall Disraeli and say what he would have done; but I know that if Gladstone, Henry Campbell-Bannerman or Asquith had behaved as the right hon. Gentleman has done and delivered the speech which he did in defence of it to-day—I apologise to their memories for that supposition for argumentative purposes—every man on that side of the Committee would have stood up and howled at him. There has been an argument as to what the Government would have done if the position had been reversed, if there had been in Spain an elected government composed of the great aristocrats of Spain, the great financiers of Spain, the great capitalists of Spain, and the rich hierarchy in Spain. Supposing they had been elected, and there had been a Socialist insurrection against them, what would have happened then? The right hon. Gentleman says, "Ah, what would you have done on that side?" I am not responsible for my hon. and right hon. Friends and I do not know what line they would have taken, but I am entitled to say this, that I was against interfering with the Soviets in their own country. I thought it was a bad policy. But if the Soviets had sunk British ships and attacked British vessels on the high seas, I am not the only one among millions in this country who do not belong to the party here, who would have protested with all their hearts and voted against any Government that tolerated it for an hour.

But the right hon. Gentleman is content with futile protests. I was hoping that he would say that something would be done. As far as I am concerned, I should have taken very strong action if I had been in the position of the right hon. Gentleman. First of all, I would have seen that those aerodromes were bombed until they stopped sending bombing aeroplanes to destroy our ships and drown and mutilate our sailors. A suggestion was made by Vice-Admiral Usborne that a Franco ship should be destroyed in retaliation.…

Mr. Crossley

That was not Vice-Admiral Usborne's conclusion.

Mr. Lloyd George

Vice-Admiral Usborne threw out several tentative suggestions. That was one out of many that he made.

Mr. Crossley

That was not Vice-Admiral Usborne's conclusion, as the right hon. Gentleman will see if he reads the conclusions of that letter in the "Sunday Times," which I read very carefully.

Mr. Lloyd George

I read it carefully not merely once but two or three times. I assure the Committee that Vice-Admiral Usborne threw out several tentative suggestions. The one which I have mentioned was among them, and I entirely agree with it. That the hon. Gentleman will allow me to say. It is perfectly legitimate to do that if our ships are being attacked. What does the right hon. Gentleman do? He does nothing. The fact of the matter is that from the moment the right hon. Gentleman rejected the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman the late Foreign Secretary, a wise and far-seeing suggestion that we should first of all clear up the situation with Mussolini before coming to any pact, he was hopelessly entangled. Any sensible man would have known that it was a dangerous thing to come to terms with a man who is committed to the conquest of Spain for his own avowed purpose and policy of establishing a Fascist regime by force of arms. It was a fatal thing to do without clearing up the situation beforehand. That was the very sagacious advice which the right hon. Gentleman the late Foreign Secretary gave to the Prime Minister.

What has been the result? The result of his not accepting that good counsel has been that he has placed himself in a position where his own personal reputation is in conflict with the interests of the British Empire. He is now involved in making that Anglo-Italian Pact a success. He is driven from one position to another in doing so and with a stubbornness which, as I once reminded him, is one of his most notable characteristics, he sticks to it, although it is quite clear that he took the wrong course. He is now involved in a position where he cannot even protect vital British interests without endangering an agreement upon the success of which his personal repute depends. I cannot conceive a worse position for any statesman, especially an obstinate one, to put himself into. Since the right hon. Gentleman first of all differed from him, and since his resignation, no one can deny that things have got worse. I think within a few days after the Pact was signed, Austria was invaded. The situation in Eastern Europe has become more and more tense. The one thing that saved Czechoslovakia from the fate of Austria was the fact that they did not follow the example of the right hon. Gentleman and make merely futile protests, but mobilised their Army. In the third place, since the right hon. Gentleman's resignation, more and more British ships have been attacked, openly, with impunity, deliberately, in broad daylight. They have been encouraged by these fatuous protests which the Prime Minister is content to make.

See what he has done in the last few days. Non-intervention involves fair administration, but he cannot treat both parties alike. As a matter of fact, the rebels had something like seven to one in aeroplanes and far greater odds in heavy artillery. They had organised divisions of the Italian Army invading the country. There was nothing of that kind on the other side. During that interval the disparity between the forces was met up to a certain point, and the victory which seemed to be imminent for the insurgent forces was suddenly checked. Now I see in a paper which supports the right hon. Gentleman that France has closed her frontiers at Mr. Chamberlain's request. Was there any request to Portugal to close her wider frontier, through which overwhelming munitions and material of war have been poured in to the insurgent forces? Has he seen that nothing is coming in through Cadiz and the Northern Ports? No. The whole of his intervention has been to give the Government forces no opportunity to defend themselves against their deadly foes who are destroying their cities and killing their civilians, men, women and children.

I am sorry for the position that France has been put into, France with her noble tradition of always going to the help of nations fighting for liberty, for right and for independence. The French people have made great sacrifices for that. No country in Europe has made greater. On the other hand, you have the opposition there of all the organised forces of society, of business and of the hierarchy. We have had the spectacle of one French Government after another alternating between the impulse of a fretful conscience and the beating of a faint heart; and the decisive word in each case came from the British Government. We intervened to prevent the sending of material to help the Basques, who had not a single anti-aircraft gun to defend their towns. We have intervened again and the Prime Minister has put himself in a position where the only thing that will redeem his reputation for foresight in entering headlong, against the best advice, into this Italian agreement is, I will not say a Franco victory, because it would not be a Franco victory, but a German and Italian victory.

I am quite conscious that we are divided in our sympathies. There are very good friends of mine who have taken the Franco side from the start, though I do not know that they are quite as zealous about it now as they were. There are also a great many friends of mine who have taken the other side. But, apart altogether from these sympathies, there are deep British interests involved in this struggle and the Prime Minister is completely ignoring them in his calculations. Even if you withdrew every volunteer and every gun on the other side, Franco could not win without the German and Italian aeroplanes, the great organised forces of Italy and the still more potent intelligence of the Germans.

What is the position now? First of all, the Germans have fortified the Northern ports. They have built aerodromes overlooking the Bay of Biscay, our high road to the Southern Atlantic and to the Mediterranean and vital to France. They have planted heavy artillery on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar and the harbour of Gibraltar will be under the fire of those guns. There are Italian aerodromes in the Balearic Islands, on the sea route between France and her African Empire, and on our communications with Southern France. The Germans have a lien on the valuable mineral resources of Spain. Formerly they were largely in our hands. They have captured the shipping and other trades for most of the ports—for all the ports except the Republican ports—and they are destroying our ships there so that our trade in those ports should go as well. Yet the Prime Minister says, "Well I cannot interfere; I can only write letters and notes."

They are doing another thing that is much more vital in the contingencies of the future. The Germans and Italians are establishing a government in the most strategic peninsula on the high seas of the world—Spain. Every great soldier has realised that, from Hannibal and Caesar to Napoleon. Wellington and Castlereagh knew it. It is one of the most vital strategic peninsulas in the world. It will have a government established by them—a government that cannot exist without their support. Mussolini says, "I am not going to annex Spain; I am not going to keep any of the territory of Spain." Why should he? You will have three Fascist countries—the most formidable triple alliance in the world. There will be three Fascist countries, and the Fascist government in Spain will depend for its very life on the support of the other two.

Have you ever calculated what that would mean if there were a war? The right hon. Gentleman says there must not be a war. We will all say that. But why are you spending £2,000,000,000 upon rearmament unless you think that war may come and you want to be ready for it? Against whom are you building your aeroplanes and your ships and your forces? Not against France; not against Russia; and, as far as I can see, not against Japan. Against whom are you building? Well, everybody knows that, just as in the time before 1914 when we had the great competition in dreadnoughts, you are building against the menace of regenerated militarism in Central Europe. They, of course, are preparing too. They are establishing themselves in this vital position and they have captured it without the loss of as many men as they lost in a single day's skirmish in the Great War.

What a Government! In an Empire with interests in every corner of the globe it is essential to us that we should have free access to other parts of the world and that we should not be kept under the same kind of peril as we were subjected to before by the submarine. It is a peril which has been doubled, trebled, aye, made a hundredfold more terrible, as these bombing aeroplanes prove. Yet we have allowed this to go on and the only answer is a speech like that which we heard to-day. What a declaration! The right hon. Gentleman says he wants peace and that he is working for all-round peace. That is not an original idea. Everybody has said that, and meant it. The only thing that is original is the way in which he has set about doing it. That a statesman who is at the head of affairs in this country should say that he is working for peace as his objective—that is a noble ideal. That he should persevere in it against every obstacle, makes it all the more commendable. But if, in pursuit of that high aim, he takes a wrong course and sticks to that in spite of every warning of fact—that is not statesmanship, it is sheer dunderheadedness.

9.42 p.m.

Brigadier-General Sir Henry Croft

In the very enthusiastic speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) there was one thing of which I think the whole Committee will approve and that was his tribute to France. It is well that one who has borne such a great part in the government of this country should have made some amends for the prolonged attacks he has made upon France for a period lasting 10 years. We were also, I am sure, interested to hear that had my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) still been Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs there would have been no trouble in Austria and further, in that case, something different might have occurred in Czechoslovakia. I venture to submit that to-clay there is a glimmering of hope in the Press of the world that we are approaching a more peaceful state of affairs and I cannot believe that some of the speeches which have been delivered to-day, creating new hostilities where at least there were some tendencies in the direction of better understanding will help forward the peace of the world.

I do not want to follow the right hon. Gentleman who quoted many witnesses including Vice-Admiral Osborne. I would point out, however, that Vice-Admiral Osborne's article recounted certain things which the British Navy could have done but stated, conclusively, that none of those expedients would be advisable. The right hon. Gentleman has given us one policy and has advocated the pursuit of that policy. He has said definitely that His Majesty's Government ought to bomb the Balearics. That is his definite contribution to the peace of the world.

Mr. Lloyd George

I did not say "Bomb the Balearics." I said, "Bomb the aerodromes from which these bombers came."

Sir H. Croft

The right hon. Gentleman would advocate that our country should send our Air Force on a bombing expedition against the Italian aerodromes in the Balearics. I must point out that that has been done frequently, and that many civilians have been killed and wounded in precisely similar bombing attacks on the Balearics, on Palma and Majorca in particular, as he is now advocating. I think no one in this Committee approved of the ruthlessness of the German riposte when one of their ships was threatened and her sailors were injured. Immediately there was a bombardment of the most ruthless character, and now we know that the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs approves of that kind of policy. With the whole world at this moment in such a volcanic condition, I cannot help thinking that his speech is the worst service that has ever been paid to the cause of peace. But let the country note.—[Interruption.]—No one has done more to condemn the Communist rule of the other side in Spain than has the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. McGovern

The hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) says that I have condemned the Communist rule in Spain. I have all along stood for the Spanish Government, and I have condemned, not only Russia, but any other Power dominating the internal affairs of Spain.

Sir H Croft

I must make one other reference to the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, who said, in reference to the intervention of the Germans in Spain, which we may all deplore, "Why have you allowed it to go on?" May I ask once more how that action could have been stopped without our intervention on the other side? The whole tendency of his speech was that this country should abandon its role of attempting to take as far as possible a neutral attitude, and definitely take sides. I do not believe that that is the desire of the people of this country.

Now I want to refer to the whole atmosphere of this question. It is very easy for us to get incensed when we see things happening, but it was during the Premiership of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs that this country altered its decisions with regard to air warfare, and I would remind him, so strange is the turn of the wheel, that when he was Prime Minister it was the King of Spain who appealed to this country and asked this Government whether he could not intervene in order to try and humanise war between ourselves and Germany at that time. The right hon. Gentleman's War Cabinet, I think it was, received that proposal with great courtesy and expressed the view that they hoped that the point of view might be put before the German people and that something might arise out of it. Then the right hon. Gentleman's own Committee declared this: The day may not be far off when aerial operations, with their devastation of enemy lines and destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale, may become the principal operations of war, to which the older forces, of military and naval operations, may become secondary and subordinate. That was admitted at that time by the right hon. Gentleman's own Committee.

Mr. Lloyd George

What Committee?

Sir H. Croft

A Committee dealing with air warfare. It was reported, if the right hon. Gentleman wants the reference, in the second report of the Prime Minister's Committee on Air Organisation and Home Defence against Air Raids, dated 17th August, 1917, Appendix II—"The War in the Air." Secondly, he was one of those who stood loyally beside Field-Marshal Foch at that time, and Field-Marshal Foch, when the right hon. Gentleman was contemplating raiding communications, ports, and dockyards in Germany, said this: The bombing air service can, however, in quiet periods act on the morale of the enemy people or against enemy industrial, establishments, which is its secondary function. Then we had a list of the objects of such counter warfare: To carry war into Germany by attacking her industry (munition works), commerce economic crises), population (demoralisation). Did the right hon. Gentleman dissent from that policy? I am asking this only in order that we may not be charged with being guilty of hypocrisy. I ask him further if he himself was not the prime mover for an independent Air Force which was to carry out this same kind of function which General Franco, rightly or wrongly, is carrying on in Spain at the present time. Am I not right in saying that the object of this force was to carry the war into Germany by attacking her industry, commerce and population? I would give one more quotation, to show to the Committee what was in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman then. His own Minister of Munitions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) said: Our air defences should consistently be directed at striking at bases and communications, upon whose structure the fighting power of his armies and his fleets of the sea and of the air depend. Any injury which comes to the civil population from this process of attack must be regarded as incidental and inevitable. Why have I mentioned these facts? It is because these are exactly the main criticisms which have been made from these benches to-day against those who are engaged in civil war.

Duchess of Atholl

Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman not realise that Germany was not a neutral but a belligerent?

Mr. Lloyd George

This is a very important point. Let me point out to the hon. and gallant Gentleman what was happening at that time. The first attack upon the civilian population by air bombers came from Germany. They attacked London and killed hundreds of people, women and children among others, and we allowed it to go on for a very long time before attempting anything in the nature of reprisals. In the meantime they had declared the indiscriminate sinking of merchant ships. They sank thousands of our sailors and several million tons of our shipping, and these things that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has mentioned were in the nature of reprisals, but you cannot say that anything done by British ships to Franco justifies his actions.

Sir H. Croft

I accept every word that the right hon. Gentleman has said. He is absolutely right, but I do not think that that exonerates him from the fact that when he had seen these terrible things happening against our country, he thought he would go to any extreme to bring the war to an end, to stop the tragedy which was then going on. I want to say one more word with regard to what would happen supposing the calamity of a civil war ever occurred in this country, which God forbid. Not many centuries ago a fellow Welshman of the right hon. Gentleman's, an ancestor of mine, resisted the King in this country for several years, leading the Welsh people successfully, against the duly constituted democratic Government of Great Britain. I am ashamed to think that it went on for so long and was comparatively successful. But supposing you had again such a ghastly state of affairs as a civil war in this country, with Wales, let us say, in the position of Catalonia, and supposing you had 140 Spanish ships absolutely sustaining the life of Wales in that civil war against England, does the right hon. Gentleman seriously suggest that with all that great flotilla of ships entering into Cardiff, Milford Haven, Pembroke, day after day, in the view of England alone keeping that war going, we would not endeavour to inflict any injury that we could upon such ships coming into the territorial waters of this country?

When the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington was Foreign Secretary, he and his colleagues—it is no good saying there is a change of policy in this respect—from the very first, in the attacks on Santander, Bilbao, and Gijon, all along that coast, definitely stated that if British ships entered those ports, they did so at their own risk. His Majesty's Government have never failed to warn British shipowners. Everyone congratulates British seamen on running blockades and buccaneering and other dangerous pursuits of that kind. We have always been proud of our seamen. Let us remem- ber that this is not the Prime Minister's policy. It has been the policy of this country all through the war. We have told shipowners and their captains that if they enter these ports they do so at their own risk. It may be deplorable, but that must happen if you do not admit that there is a war going on and claim that there is only one Government in Spain. If that is true, then you ought to call for redress from the Government which has not succeeded in maintaining peace in that country.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. Grenfell

When the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) was referring to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and to the actions of his family in the gallant little country of Wales, I did not know whether I should feel flattered or not, but I must confess that I feel sorry that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has fallen so badly from grace. We have always been known as a valiant and loyal people, and I am distressed beyond measure to hear an Englishman speak as if the lives of fellow-Englishmen did not matter. If anything came out of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's speech it was that there were all manner of technicalities which would excuse him from taking responsibility for the lives of his fellow-countrymen. I do not know, where to apportion the responsibility, but it is sad to reflect upon this lack of a common racial pride and mutual responsibility upon which this country's greatness has been largely built. When I say that, I speak as a Welshman who has a dual loyalty in these matters. My pride as a Britisher is not built on the kind of sentiment that is often expressed in this House. It has not been built on the kind of arrogant militaristic sentiment which is expressed from time to time, but on the kind of political accommodation which we manage to maintain in this country where different races are able to live together and where mutual recognition and liberty have been firmly established for some time.

It is that which gives me racial pride, and it is that which is involved in the question with which we are concerned to-day. We have heard echoes of the Great War, the war that was to end all war. It was the war to establish peace and security for the peoples of the world. I am sure that everybody is disappointed to find that we have now two major wars taking place, one in far off China, a war on a large scale, and one in Spain nearer to our door, and not so far away as the Prime Minister seemed to imply in certain remarks he made. It is not a civil war. It is a war of foreign countries on Spanish soil with large-scale transport of troops from overseas and a new technique of invasion from the air. It is no doubt a war of aggression by outside Powers. That is implied in the term "pact of non-intervention" about which we have listened so much in this House and for which so much credit has been claimed. The object of the non-intervention pact was to restrict intervention. Intervention having taken place with the knowledge of His Majesty's Government, of the French Government, and of people in Europe and throughout the world, it was deemed necessary to introduce a kind of political expedient. This pact of non-intervention became necessary because two large and powerful States were intervening in Spain and sending their troops and war material to destroy the constitutional Government.

Aggression and non-intervention are the two outstanding features of this controversy to-night. From these two conditions spring the dangers to which the Prime Minister has to come, I am afraid, and which he seems to hold in his mind as justification for doing so many things for which we in this House can find no explanation. Aggression is a fact and non-intervention, instead of being a political fact to carry out its ostensible purpose, has become a farce. It has become a subject for laughter, and if it were not such a tragedy it would be the most ridiculous arrangement that the political life of Europe and the world has witnessed. It is, in fact, not doing anything to prevent intervention. The Germans are in charge of the Spanish rebels. They are directing operations. No one has any doubt on that point. Berlin gives orders to Burgos and Rome sends aeroplanes and cannon fodder. It is done openly with an arrogance that surprises the world in view of the fact that these people have signed their names, with 27 signatories, not to intervene in Spain. The Italian Press claim victories and even publish casualty lists, while Signor Mussolini grants decorations to Italian war heroes in Spain.

This pretence of non-intervention has been paraded in this House and the farce has been perpetrated by the frequent meetings of the Non-Intervention Committee itself. All the while this greatest of all international crimes goes on. The Prime Minister will say that it is not our intention that it should turn out in this way. Our intentions were good when we joined M. Blum and the French Government, but people have gone to queer places by following good intentions. While we can claim to follow the path of good intentions ourselves, other nations have not followed that path. They have never deviated from their original purpose. Far from having desisted from intervention, it has grown apace and has been increasing. Aeroplanes go by hundreds where before the pact of nonintervention they went singly. If nonintervention had prevented the war from spreading there would have been no war now, but it really was not designed to prevent war from going on in Spain.

Whatever the Prime Minister may claim for himself, not from the beginning have we joined with sincerity and seriousness in the purpose of maintaining the peace of Europe and non-intervention in Spain. I have been convinced from the beginning, and I am to-day more convinced than ever, that there will be no peace in Europe on the basis of the present alignment of forces in Spain. There cannot be any peace in Europe until we have real non-intervention and restore to the Spanish people their full rights of self-government. This war has continued for two years on Spanish soil in order to satisfy the ambitions of dictators. There is no other object. The welfare of the people of Spain did not require foreign troops to be sent into Spain. The people there were solving their constitutional troubles, were growing up politically, were spreading the benefits of political liberty, and it was intervention which put a stop to all that. We have in Spain the hirelings of dictators who desire to extend their sway. Spain is a stepping-stone to still further acquisitions for Fascism, and Parliament will deceive itself if it thinks otherwise, as we have deceived ourselves when, having put questions to Ministers and having received no adequate replies, we have turned away from facing the realities of this very difficult situation.

All the time unparalleled brutality has been witnessed in Spain. I saw something of it when I went to Spain with other Members of this House, and that was a long time ago. It is now more than DS months since I was in Spain, but I saw enough then to convince me that it was not civil war in Spain. I saw the foreign 'planes over Madrid, I saw the brutality of the treatment meted out to the people of Spain, but much as I was moved by the sympathy which instinctively arises in one who witnesses such sights I have never allowed even that feeling to prevent me from trying to cast a fair judgment upon events and developments in Spain from time to time.

I have seen all the weapons of destruction brought to the shores of Spain and landed there. I have a long list in my pocket of war material sent to Spain this year. There has been no halt in the supplies. They have been pouring in constantly. I could give a list of cargoes of men and materials sent to Spain—weapons of destruction on land, at sea and in the air, poured in for the use of those who are seeking to defeat the constitutional Government in Spain, a Government which is just as constitutional as is our own Government. That Government has been attacked by illegal and unscrupulous methods. Our own Government do not seem to have any convictions regarding the rights and wrongs of that struggle.

I have waited for some pronouncement from the Treasury Bench upon the merits of this Spanish struggle, but not a word has come to us. Ministers seek to be excused, and excuse themselves, and find all sorts of explanations for things which we should condemn as utterly wrong if they happened in our country. If our country were attacked by an outside force the Prime Minister would be the first to call upon me to join hands with him to resist the invader; but the Spanish people who have rallied with such wonderful courage and energy to defend their native land have received scant sympathy from Members on the other side of the House. For our Prime Minister the role of Nero has been reserved by the Italian Government. He is expected to provide slow music for the martyrdom of Spain. We joined with 27 nations in a pact of non- intervention. The first effect of that pact was to stop the Spanish Government from buying arms for its own defence. Nonintervention was meant to cripple and shackle those people who were fighting for freedom, to tie their hands and to prevent them from using their limbs in their own defence. By that pact arms were denied to them, but nothing effective was done to stop Italian and German intervention.

The Prime Minister said to-day that he disagreed with those who hold that it is right to attack the civil population in order to win a war, and I was glad to hear him say that much. There is much that he left unsaid, but I welcome that statement because the world is witnessing tremendous events. We are embarking upon a new method of warfare, which is being used in Spain because Spain has no influential friends. We can afford to treat Spain shabbily, and so the weapons of destruction from the air have been employed freely. Republican Spain has no friends in the British Government, and it has been left to a few Members on the Opposition benches who are not always moved by party politics but by humanitarian motives to protest on Spain's behalf in this House. We are witnessing the beginnings of a new system of the destruction of human life on a large scale which we may live to regret if it is allowed to grow until it becomes accepted by nations large and small throughout the world. The Prime Minister has said that he deplores it, but he must know that while the pact of non-intervention prevented the Spanish Government from buying antiaircraft guns it did not prevent German and Italian bombing planes being sent to bomb Madrid and the other cities of Spain and though they have been busy at it for nearly two years nothing has been done by the Non-Intervention Committee.

Now it is the turn of British ships: that is the main subject of discussion to-day. I am glad the issue has been narrowed down. We can apply the touchstone, the test of nationalism to the professions of some hon. Members in this House. They do not mind what is done to Spaniards, because they dislike their politics. Some of those hon. Members have not uttered one word of sympathy for their fellow-countrymen who have been done to death in Spanish ports while following their lawful occasions in the cause of the Spanish people. These people have been murdered at their work. Their ships have been sunk by submarines and by bombs from the air. They have been torpedoed. They have been shelled, although they have not been guilty of the slightest illegality. From the charter which authorised the loading and dispatch of their ships to the last act of delivery there has been no illegality on the part of owners, officers, or crew who served on those vessels, but those people have been shelled day after day, and the shelling goes on at an increasing rate. Indeed, it is the purpose to do so. These people are not bombed by Franco's planes; the Germans and Italians are doing it, taking advantage of our complacency, and of the House of Commons that has been lulled into security by the pact of non-intervention.

These people are doing a thing that they would not have dared to do had the pact of non-intervention not been signed. The German newspaper, the "Angriff," a few days ago printed this: Every merchant ship which enters the ports of Red Spain must be bombed without mercy. That means English ships. There are no other ships. At any rate, the great majority of these ships must be British ships, and this German newspaper says that if they go into the ports of Red Spain they must be bombed without mercy. What is the Government's reply to that? What do they say to the Germans? What do they say to the Italians? These ships are English ships. The Prime Minister told us to-day that they could not be protected. It was dangerous to do so. We did not know the way in which it could be done, because it was risky to attempt to stop it, although these people say that the ships must be bombed without mercy. There is no mercy from any quarter for them; no mercy from that side of the House, and no patriotism to defend these people.

You tell these people not to go. You told them not to go into Bilbao. They were kept outside. Hon. Gentlemen were not anxious only to save the lives of British seamen; they were more anxious to stop supplies from going into Bilbao. Were they not vocal in this House; did they not raise their voices? Their protest was that they wanted to save the lives of British seamen. The Prime Minister says that they would like these vessels not to go into territorial waters. That means that the Prime Minister of this country has said that these British ships and these seamen must give up their livelihood. They must stay at home, and the ships must lie on the flats and go out of commission, even though work is offered. When a livelihood is offered to these seamen the Prime Minister says: "Let them stay at home. If they go into territorial waters we cannot protect them." In fact, these ships are to give up a few million pounds a year and the livelihood of British sailors.

It has been charged by the friends of General Franco in this House that those people are getting too much for their services and are being too well paid. I do not know whether it is regarded as wrong of them to ask for an increased reward for facing a greater risk. The risk is there and everybody knows it, but do Britishers, as a nation, say that any risky occupation must be refused by Englishmen in order that they may retain their respectability? Do we say: "Stop our people going underground, because it is dangerous. Therefore, do not let them go underground, because we cannot give them full protection underground. Let them stay on the surface"? Do we say: "Do not let them go to sea at all because they may be drowned, even if they are not torpedoed by General Franco and his friends "? It seems a ridiculous position.

These people who are told that they must not go to Spanish waters, against whom are they to be warned? From where does the danger come? Is it from Franco? It is not. These people are afraid that they were warned off because Italian and German planes are actively operating off the coast of Spain. British seamen are to be told that unless they choose to stay away the Government cannot give them any protection against planes sent by the Italian and German Governments to destroy them while they are at work. It is an awful plight to which we have come. The Prime Minister said that he was afraid that it might lead to a war. I would ask him: Who would declare war upon us? Suppose we gave protection to these boats and men in Spanish territorial waters and that was deemed objectionable by someone concerned with the military situation in Spain; who is to declare war upon us? Is it General Franco? No, on his life, not General Franco. Is it Italy? Why should Italy declare war upon us for protecting our vessels and our seamen while at work? Is it Germany who is to declare war upon us? Are we to refuse to do our duty by our own people because of a threat of hostilities coming from either Germany or Italy?

It may be said that we Labour men are great fire-eaters in the House of Commons whenever we wish to criticise the Government, but I do not believe in war; I believe it is the most futile and foolish weakness of mankind, a terrible thing. But if we are to be responsible for the safe custody of our people, what is the use of talking about our prestige or anything else if Germany or Italy is likely to declare war upon us and shift their scene of action, having conquered Spain, as they imagine? I think something should be said about the neglect somewhere in the political life of Europe that has allowed these people to acquire so much arrogance and power. Italy and Germany want Franco to win. Whom do the Government want to win? [HON. MEMBERS: "The same."] Do they? I am 10th to believe it. I do not believe that any intelligent body of people cannot see the danger of a Franco victory from our own standpoint, even if no questions of humanitarianism or anything else beyond the interests of this country were involved. I am amazed at the attitude of the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth and hon. Members in other parts of the House to whom I have listened, who appear to have no regard for the consequences of a victory in Spain which would put General Franco in the pocket of Herr Hitler, who would rule over Spain and have full control and command of all the strategic points of advantage which the Spanish peninsula affords.

The battle is going on, and the Government appear to be content, but I feel sure that, if the House of Commons realised all the implications, if the whole truth were known about this business, Members of the House would want to wash their hands of the whole dirty business of collusion with Italians and Germans who are working for the defeat of the liberties of the Spanish people and for the extension of their power and authority over all free peoples everywhere. We have heard to-day about the receding prospect of a Spanish settlement because of the receding prospect of an end to the war. I would like to know what kind of settlement it is to be. Is it to be a Franco victory? Are we to wait until both sides have spent themselves in fighting, starving and suffering the full effects of all the outrages that have been carried on? Is the war to go on until both sides fall from exhaustion, and are we then to have any voice at all in determining the conditions under which the struggle shall be ended; or are Mussolini and Hitler to be left in full control of the situation? Is it now too late to stop this dangerous farce from ending in a most gruesome and disgusting tragedy?

I would like the Prime Minister to consider whether this pact of non-intervention, which has been so repeatedly riddled by brutal violations, should not be denounced. Do the Government shrink from denouncing the pact now? What are the alternatives to a continuation of this farce? Is destruction to go on to the bitter end, with laurels for the dictators and a crown of thorns for the Spanish people? Should not the Government at this stage consider making a demand for a prompt withdrawal of foreign arms from Spain? Possibly it might not necessitate an armistice, but it might require an armistice. It may be too difficult now to withdraw from operations all the foreign war material and the large foreign personnel without a stoppage of the whole hostile operations in Spain. It might be that an armistice would be a necessary prelude to the withdrawal of foreign volunteers. Those who have prevented an armistice from being applied, who have made the seas unsafe for the food ships of Government Spain, have obligations. His Majesty's Government have a full share of those obligations.

I would ask whether His Majesty's Government have thought out in some sequence the steps that might be taken even now to avoid further bloodshed in Spain. It is becoming a horrible thing in contemplation—it is horrible and terrible enough at the present time—to look forward to six or 12 months of mutual extermination, with continual accessions in the quality and volume of war material from foreign countries. The Government have some responsibility. They were part authors of the pact of non-intervention, which has never worked from the beginning. I would like the Government to consider some order of the withdrawal of troops and the question of an armistice, with safeguards and guarantees of mediation. I do not know what is to be the plan: I cannot see it; but something must be done if Spain is to be saved from further disasters. The Spanish people are the victims of the political follies of Europe and ourselves. They are being betrayed in the pact of non-intervention. We should now make good the sufferings and the losses that have been imposed on the people of Spain. The tragedy is being enacted before the unsympathetic eyes of statesmen who profess liberal doctrines. The peace of Europe is further threatened by the illogical consequences of the dishonest policy of non-intervention. We should now make an honest effort at conciliation, in the cause of peace. I use these words as my own. I think there is no shame in ending a nonintervention policy which was never an honest effort, and which has necessitated constant camouflage and deceit. Now we should attempt an honest effort to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of the Spanish people.

10.24 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler)

After listening to the speech of the hon. Gentleman I think many of us will have regretted that many of the previous speakers, instead of tending, as I think we all agree they have done, to widen the area of conflict in this House and the world, did not restrict themselves to the more noble path on which the hon. Gentleman concluded his remarks. He concluded on a note which I shall willingly take up, that the policy of the Government should be to make an effort to save peace. That has been, and will remain, the energetic policy of the Government. If I develop that point I think it will be seen that gradually, by degrees, by stages, we are drawing nearer to agreement in many matters. The whole object of our policy has been to widen the area of agreement. Quite apart from its own inherent merits, the Italian Agreement was made in the interests of appeasement in Europe, and it has been made clear to us, from exchanges of view which have naturally taken place between the two Governments, that it is in the interest of both to bring the Agreement into force as soon as possible.

The Spanish situation has naturally been discussed, and the House will remember that the Spanish problem remains, as far as the Government is concerned, a precondition for the entry into force of that Agreement. There is no doubt that we are surely—and I am sure that the Committee will agree with me—widening the area of international appeasement in considering the various possibilities not only of eliminating the civil war as a cause of international friction but of bringing it to an end itself. His Majesty's Government regard it as of primary importance to register progress where they can, and I am very glad to be able to tell the Committee to-night of the very distinct progress which has been made on the Non-Intervention Committee during the course of its sitting to-day.

The hon. Gentleman asked us in his concluding speech to encourage the prompt withdrawal of foreign arms. That is precisely what we are doing. The agreement that was reached to-day on the main provisions of the British plan, as it was discussed on the Non-Intervention Committee, means that we have got a long way nearer to putting that plan into practice for the reimposition of control and the withdrawal of foreign nationals. It is in this international way and by this international effort, whatever the difficulties may have been, that we wish to proceed. It is not, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) tried to make out, that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has exerted pressure in such a way as to deprive the Spanish Government of munitions. Our object has been to bring in an international plan to make non-intervention more of a reality than it is at the present time, and to work this international plan not in a one-sided way, as the right hon. Gentleman tried to make out, but fairly on all sides. Surely, that is an achievement. It has always surprised me that in the great difficulties of this International Committee we should have been confronted throughout by the opposition of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Portugal?"] The whole question of the reimposition of control naturally includes all frontiers, and to that extent our plan is a very great improvement.

Mr. Lloyd George

This is really rather important. By the intervention of the Government the French frontier has been closed, and I want to know from the hon. Gentleman what has happened with regard to the Portuguese frontier?

Mr. Butler

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will listen to my remarks. I cannot accept his statement as he has made it, but I can say what the Government have achieved. The Government have achieved, under the able chairmanship of Lord Plymouth, during the course of to-day an agreement on the main provisions of the plan, which, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, involves the reimposition of control of the land frontiers and the strengthening of the sea observation scheme. It was made difficult because it had not hitherto been possible to reconcile the views held by the Soviet Government with those of other Governments represented on the sub-committee with regard, first of all, to the categories into which the foreign volunteers should he divided; secondly, to the restoration of the observers on the land frontier; and, thirdly, to the strengthening of the sea observation scheme.

During the past few weeks we have not had an opportunity of acquainting the Committee with the progress that has been made. I am now happy to say that the general progress has culminated in the agreement to-day, which means that there is general agreement on all these subjects. On 2nd June, the representatives of the various Governments concerned, including the Soviet, accepted a proposal put forward by the chairman in regard to the first two points. Those related to the categories into which the foreign volunteers should be divided, and to the restoration of observation on the land frontiers, but this agreement was subject to the condition of the Soviet representative that additional measures acceptable to his Government on the third point, that is, the strengthening of the sea observation scheme, were agreed to by the rest of the committee. The first and second proposals involved, first of all, a division of the volunteers into four classes, those attached to the Navy, the Army and the Air Force, and the civilians. Arrangements, in accordance with which a minimum number of each of these classes will be evacuated in certain set periods, were reached. Secondly, the question to which I have referred, the restoration for a specified period of observers on the land frontiers, was agreed to, simultaneously with the putting into effect of certain agreed measures for strengthening the sea scheme on the date appointed when the counting of volunteers was to begin. That is as far as the committee reached on 2nd June.

Ever since that date the chairman, Lord Plymouth, with a patience and tenacity to which I have already paid tribute, has been investigating the possibility of strengthening the sea observation scheme by discussion with representatives of the various Governments concerned. As a result of further discussion with representatives of the various Governments, he was able to-day to put forward a fresh proposal, which involves a strengthening of the scheme of observers in the ports to be visited by ships. This proposal, which makes it far more difficult, in fact virtually impossible, for a ship to enter a Spanish port without an observer, or without being observed, has been unanimously accepted to-day.

Duchess of Atholl

May we know exactly what the proposal is, because there have been one or two different schemes proposed?

Mr. Butler

If I dealt with the scheme in toto, I should not be able to deal with the points raised by hon. and right hon. Members in the Debate. If the Noble Lady will study the Press communiqué to-morrow she will see the proposal in its general outline. The proposal involves a larger number of observers and a scheme by which an observer who goes in on a ship shall remain in port to observe other ships which may have got through without an observer. The general result of the proposal is that the scheme of observers is much tightened up, and it will be extremely difficult for any boat to get through without being observed.

Mr. Noel-Baker

rose—

The Chairman

The hon. Member has made his speech, and he must realise that the hon. Member who has the Floor of the House is not obliged to give way.

Mr. Butler

They have still to consider several points of lesser importance and they have still to reach a decision on the question of the financial provisions and the contributions of the various Governments to the scheme, but it means that in the near future it will be possible to submit a plan to the two contending parties in Spain, and as soon as the acceptance of these parties is notified to the committee, it will be possible to put the plan into operation. After all the difficulties, delays and disappointments I am glad to be able to report this amount of progress.

The right hon. Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) raised the question of the unfortunate sad death of the British observing officer on board the "Brisbane" and asked whether it had been reported to the Non-Intervention Committee. At this morning's meeting the chairman expressed their deep regret at the death of this officer. [Interruption.] [An HON. MEMBER: "Who killed him?"] This observer was carrying out an international task and I hope I may be permitted also to express my regret at his death. In order to avoid any possible danger of such an occurrence in the future the sub-committee agreed that, subject to the agreement of the main committee, the two Spanish parties should be requested to allow observing officers to land in ports under their control for the purpose of taking refuge against possible air attack.

Having now dealt with the progress of the Non-Intervention Committee and their work in the path of peace, which I should have thought would have been accepted by the party opposite, I come to the question of the bombing of ships. I should like to pay a tribute to the clarity and sincerity of the speech of the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker), who said that we should save ships as we so easily can. Let me examine that statement. If we examine the various remedies proposed by the hon. Member, and even more if we examine the remedies proposed by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, we find that the only easy method of saving these ships is by joining in the war, and this view is borne out by an article in to-day's Journal of Commerce and Shipping Telegraph, in which I think the question is put on behalf of a great number of people in the shipping industry: There appears to be only one 'simple' solution, and that is to declare war on General Franco, but one seriously doubts whether the country would rally round any British Government which commenced hostilities purely in answer to an appeal made on behalf of ship owners who send their ships into ports after being warned that the risks they run are their own and are not the responsibility of the British nation. I should say that this article expresses, as I am sure the House will wish me to do—I have done so on many occasions—our deep regret at the loss of life which has occurred on board ships undertaking this great risk in Spanish ports. When we come to examine the remedies we find the position is, in fact, as stated in that article. Let me start with the heroic remedies proposed by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs who said he would bomb the aerodromes in the Balearic Isles; he would destroy them, and stand up to Mussolini at last. I should like to ask whether in the words of the statement in that article there is any substantial body of opinion in the country who would stand behind the right hon. Gentleman in any such proposal. [Interruption.]

Mr. Gallacher

Listen to the rats squealing.

The Chairman

Order.

Mr. Butler

I can give the right hon. Gentleman an immediate answer to that question, and that is the decision of the electors of Stafford at the by-election. The right hon. Gentleman quoted a distinguished naval authority in support of another proposal, that every time a British ship was bombed we should destroy one of General Franco's ships. I think it important in this connection to read the further suggestions of this distinguished admiral. At the end of his letter, he said: In the light of this consideration it might be unwise to create a new set of precedents which later would react against us. That is exactly the view of His Majesty's Government. He went on, I agree not very warmly, but I am quoting him textually: These considerations make the Government policy of compromise understandable. He continued: If Franco will agree to the proposal to allot a part of the harbours, presumably remote from the docks, to neutral shipping, which shall not be attacked there, the danger to British lives will be greatly reduced. He concluded by saying: It will be interesting to see whether, should either solution be adopted, British shipping will make use of it, or deliberately accept the risk of being bombed by continuing to unload along side the docks. Let us reduce the temper a bit from the heroic, warlike bombing suggestions of the right hon. Gentleman to the more peaceful and normal suggestions of the Government. The writer of that letter, the conclusions of which I have just quoted, says that there is something in this idea of safety zones, and, therefore, I would like to report the small progress that we have made in our energetic examination of this particular matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Sandys), in the course of his very interesting speech, raised a point to which we have from the very beginning attached great importance, and that is that the risk to British ships is very much increased by the great delay to which they have to submit while in these harbours. We have found on inquiry that at present British ships have to wait in these harbours as long as 18 days in some cases before unloading can begin. We have, therefore, made inquiries of the Spanish Government as to whether they could suggest any remedies for this delay, and they have informed us that the various Government Departments concerned are examining the possibilities, which I shall now describe.

They suggest, in the first place, a concentration in the place of dispersal of labour and transport. They suggest the erection of air-raid shelters for the crews and dock labourers close to the ships. They suggest an extension of the hours of work so as to accelerate the unloading of ships while they are in port; and they suggest, finally, the limitation of the size of ships. The local representatives of the shipping companies with whom we have examined these proposals are all in favour of the above suggestions, and we shall therefore pursue them, for what they are worth. We do not claim that they constitute a solution of the problem, but in response to the hon. Member and others who have raised this subject, I would say that we have attached particular importance to this aspect of the question.

We have also been considering the possibilities of getting agreement on one or more free ports in the territory under the control of this Spanish Government. That suggestion was mentioned in the statement made recently by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. At that time, he pointed out the difficulty of not having two ports, one in the Barcelona section and the other in the Valencia section of the country under the control of the Spanish Government. There is no doubt that without two such ports the suggestion loses a lot of its value. We have considered this question, in the first instance, with British shipowners, and we are now in a position, after the discussions which have been going on in the last day or two, to revert to the consideration of this suggestion which, as the Committee will remember, came originally from General Franco. I have not attempted to magnify any success that has been achieved, but it shows that we are making an effort to palliate the difficulties of the situation.

May I revert to some of the semi-heroic remedies which come in between the right hon. Gentlemen and these? The hon. Member for Norwood suggested that we should escort British merchant vessels through territorial waters up to the entrance of the port. We think that suggestion cannot be distinguished from intervention. The entry of a naval vessel into territorial waters must, according to all the rules of common sense, mean intervention. Moreover, the problem has arisen from the bombing of the ports themselves, and by the mere escort of a vessel to the entrance to the port we should not be likely to give protection. We might even give a false sense of security which, above all, we want to avoid. The hon. Member for Derby suggested that an aircraft carrier should steam up and down outside the three-mile limit so that presumably its aircraft, could attack aeroplanes. I do not want to under-estimate the value of such a suggestion, because every suggestion is worth considering, but the only way that these aircraft could be successful is by taking part in the defence of the ports in question. Moreover, as you cannot tell, when you see an approaching aeroplane, whether or not it intends deliberately to attack a ship—you have no means of divining what is in its mind—to be effective you would not only have to take part in the defence of the port but to attack all oncoming aircraft. We maintain that to use aircraft in that manner cannot be distinguished from intervention in the Spanish war.

To sum up what I have been saying, the main issue can be simply stated. There is a war in Spain. Trade in its ports involves great risks. While a strong case can be made out for it being legitimate for British ships to go there on their lawful occasions—

Sir A. Sinclair

Is it not legitimate?

Mr. Butler

It is legitimate—we cannot guarantee the safety of those ships without taking part in the war, and that we are not prepared to do. I have been looking round for some adage in which to sum up the difference between our policy and that of the party opposite and I find it in the writing of Smollett as follows: Well hast thou taught me how the piercing eye Of calm sagacity excels the dint Of headstrong resolution. On the opposite side we have the dint of headstrong resolution and here we have the cairn sagacity.

We have been asked by the hon. Member for Kingswinford (Mr. Henderson) about the decision of the Government on the subject of the conference at Evian. In March the United States Government asked the British Government whether they would be willing to co-operate in setting up a special committee composed of representatives of a number of Governments for the purpose of facilitating emigration from Germany and Austria. We replied in April that we welcomed this proposal and shared the concern which prompted the United States Government to take this initiative. We told them that we desired to co-operate to the fullest extent possible with a view to giving effect to the United States proposal. A meeting was accordingly convoked to deal with refugees from Germany and Austria and will take place at Evian on 6th July. His Majesty's Government will be represented at this meeting which will be attended by representatives of some 30 other Governments.

The hon. Member asked me what sort of delegation we were sending. The delegation will be, as he described it, under the Foreign Office and I hope we shall be able to secure the services of some distinguished person of high rank in the public service to represent us. I am afraid I shall not be able to announce the names of the delegation to-night but it may be possible to do so as early as to-morrow. The Committee realise, judging by the number of letters which I have myself received from hon. Members, the seriousness of this problem of refugees from Germany and Austria at the present time. One of the main difficulties of a conference of this sort is, of course, finance. While we have not yet received from the United States Government, for purposes of publication, the agenda for this conference, we know it is proposed that the financing of emergency immigration should be undertaken by private organisations within the respective countries and no country will be expected or asked to receive a greater number of immigrants than is permitted by its present legislation. Those are the general bases of policy to be discussed at this conference. The United Kingdom representatives will receive in due course full instructions from us and, no doubt, the main object of the conference will be to improve and enlarge the facilities for the admission of immigrants to countries of refuge both here and in other parts of the world.

I think that is the main question on the subject of refugees which was put to me but I know that considerable interest has also been evinced in the House in the present position of Jews in Germany. The latest action in response to the recent decree issued in that country on the subject of Jewish property, is that His Majesty's Government have decided that British interests can best be protected through action designed to secure the narrowest possible application of the decree where they are concerned. With this object in view, His Majesty's Ambassador has been instructed to inform the German Government that His Majesty's Government formally claim the right to extend their diplomatic protection to British subjects who under German law, are regarded as Jews, if they are deprived of their property or their liberty as a result of the decree. I would remind the Committee that, in the first place, the decree only demands registration and that it does not necessarily follow that those who register their property will then be deprived of it, as the decree says, "in the interests of German economy." I have taken special care to inform the Committee of the action on which we have decided in the matter.

To conclude this Debate I think I can safely say that all who interest themselves in foreign policy regard themselves as realists. Hon. Members opposite regard themselves as realists because they say that they will save democracy by intervening in the Spanish War.—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—We say that we are realists because we are determined to keep this country out of war and to save peace. It is impossible to save democracy by taking any risks of going to war,

and the object of our dual policy of international conciliation and national strength, is to save our democracy from War and so to retain it in peace.

Question put, "That a sum, not exceeding £71,043, be granted for the said Service."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 148; Noes, 278.

Division No. 241.]	AYES.	[10.59 p.m.
Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)	Groves, T. E.	Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.
Adams, D. (Consett)	Guest, Dr. L. H. (Islington, N.)	Price, M. P.
Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)	Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)	Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)
Adamson, W. M.	Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)	Richards, R. (Wrexham)
Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'Isbr.)	Hardie, Agnes	Ridley, G.
Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.	Harris, Sir P. A.	Riley, B.
Banfield, J. W.	Hayday, A.	Ritson, J.
Barnes, A. J.	Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)
Batey, J.	Henderson, J. (Ardwick)	Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)
Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.	Henderson, T. (Tradeston)	Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Benson, G.	Hicks, E. G.	Rothschild, J. A. de
Bevan, A.	Hills, A. (Pontefract)	Seely, Sir H. M.
Broad, F. A.	Hopkin, D.	Sexton. T. M.
Bromfield, W.	Jagger, J.	Shinwell, E.
Brown, C. (Mansfield)	Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)	Silkin, L.
Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)	Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)	Silverman, S. S.
Buchanan, G.	John, W.	Simpson, F. B.
Burke, W. A.	Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)
Cape, T.	Jones, A. C. (Shipley)	Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)
Cassells, T.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Smith, E. (Stoke)
Charleton, H. C.	Kelly, W. T.	Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)
Chater, D.	Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.	Smith, T. (Normanton)
Cluse, W. S.	Lathan, G.	Sorensen, R. W.
Cocks, F. S.	Lawson, J. J.	Stephen, C.
Collindridge, F.	Leach, W.	Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-SP'ng)
Cove, W. G.	Lee, F.	Stokes, R. R.
Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford	Leonard, W.	Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)
Daggar, G.	Leslie, J. R.	Summerskill, Dr. Edith
Dalton, H.	Logan, D. G.	Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)	Lunn, W.	Thurtle, E.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)	Macdonald. G. (Ince)	Tinker, J. J.
Day, H.	McEntee, V. La T.	Tomlinson, G.
Debbie, W.	McGovern, J.	Viant, S. P.
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)	Maclean, N.	Walkden, A. G.
Ede, J. C.	MacNeill Weir, L.	Walker, J.
Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)	Mander, G. le M.	Watkins, F. C.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)	Maxton, J.	Watson, W. McL.
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.	Milner, Major J.	Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Frankel, D.	Montague, F.	Welsh, J. C.
Gallacher, W.	Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)	Westwood, J.
Gardner, B. W	Muff, G.	White, H. Graham
George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd (Carn'v'n)	Nathan, Colonel H. L.	Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)
George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)	Naylor, T. E.	Wilkinson, Ellen
Gibson, R. (Greenock)	Noel-Baker, P. J.	Williams, D. (Swansea, E.)
Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)	Oliver, G. H.	Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)
Green, W. H. (Deptford)	Owen, Major G.	Williams, T. (Don Valley)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.	Paling, W.	Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)
Grenfell, D. R.	Parker, J.	Young, Sir R. (Newton)
Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)	Parkinson, J. A.
Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)	Pearson, A.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
		Mr. Mathers and Mr. Anderson.
NOES.
Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.	Balniel, Lord	Boulton, W. W.
Albery, Sir Irving	Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.	Bracken, B.
Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)	Barrie, Sir C. C.	Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W. J. (Armagh)	Baxter, A. Beverley	Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.	Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.	Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)
Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Se'h Univ's)	Beauchamp, Sir B. C.	Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Aske, Sir R. W.	Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)	Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Assheton, R.	Bait, Sir A. L.	Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)
Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)	Bennett, Sir E. N.	Bull, B. B.
Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)	Bernays, R. H.	Bullock, Capt. M.
Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)	Birchall, Sir J. D.	Burghley, Lord
Baillie, Sir A. W. M.	Bird, Sir R. B.	Burton, Col, H. W.
Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)	Boothby, R. J. G.	Butler, R. A.
Campbell, Sir E. T.	Holmes, J. S.	Reed, A. C. (Exeter)
Cartland, J. R. H.	Hopkinson, A.	Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)
Cary, R. A.	Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.	Reid, Sir D. D. (Down).
Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)	Horsbrugh, Florence	Reid, J. S. C. (Hillhead)
Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)	Howitt, Dr. A. B.	Reid, W. Allan (Derby)
Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)	Hunloke, H. P.	Remer, J. R.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)	Hunter, T.	Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)
Channon, H.	Hurd, Sir P. A.	Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)
Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)	Hutchinson, G. C.	Ropner, Colonel L.
Christie, J. A.	Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.	Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)
Clarry, Sir Reginald	James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.	Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)
Clydesdale, Marquess of	Jarvis, Sir J. J.	Rowlands, G.
Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)	Jones, L. (Swansea W.)	Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.
Colman, N. C. D.	Keeling, E. H.	Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.
Cook, Sir T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)	Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)	Russell, Sir Alexander
Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)	Keyes, Admiral of the Float Sir R.	Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)	Lamb, Sir J. Q.	Salmon, Sir I.
Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.	Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.	Salt, E. W.
Cox, H. B. Trevor	Latham, Sir P.	Samuel, M. R. A.
Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page	Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)	Sandeman, Sir N. S.
Crooke, Sir J. S.	Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)	Sanderson, Sir F. B.
Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.	Leech, Sir J. W.	Sandys, E. D.
Croom-Johnson, R. P.	Lees-Jones, J.	Scott, Lord William
Cross, R. H.	Leigh, Sir J.	Selley, H. R.
Crossley, A. C.	Leighton, Major B. E. P.	Shakespeare, G. H.
Cruddas, Col. B.	Levy, T.	Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)
Culverwell, C. T.	Lewis, O.	Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)
Davidson, Viscountess	Liddall, W. S.	Shepperson, Sir E. W.
Dawson, Sir P.	Lindsay, K. M.	Simmonds, O. E.
De la Bère, R.	Lloyd, G. W.	Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.
Denman, Hon. R. D.	Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.	Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)
Denville, Alfred	Loftus, P. C.	Smith, Sir Louis (Hallam)
Dodd, J. S.	Lyons, A. M.	Somervell Rt. Hon. Sir Donald
Dorman-Smith, Major Sir R. H.	Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Dower, Major A. V. G.	MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.	Southby, Commander Sir A. R. J.
Drewe, C.	M'Connell, Sir J.	Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.
Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)	McCorquodale, M. S.	Spens, W. P.
Dugdale, Captain T. L.	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Duggan, H. J.	MacDonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'ld)
Duncan, J. A. L.	Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)	Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.
Dunglass, Lord	McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.	Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N,)
Eastwood, J. F.	McKie, J. H.	Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)
Eckersley, P. T.	Maclay, Hon. J. P.	Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)
Edmondson, Major Sir J.	Maitland, A.	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.	Makins, Brigadier-General Sir Ernest	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.
Ellis, Sir G.	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.	Tasker, Sir R. I.
Elliston, Capt. G S.	Markham, S. F.	Tate, Mavis C.
Emery, J. F.	Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.	Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)
Emmott, C. E. G. C.	Maxwell, Hon. S. A.	Thomson, Sir J. D. W.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.	Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.	Titchfield, Marquess of
Erskine-Hill, A. G.	Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)	Touche, G. C.
Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)	Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)	Train, Sir J.
Findlay, Sir E.	Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)	Tree, A. R. L. F.
Fleminx. E. L.	Mitchell, H. (Brantford and Chiswisk)	Turton, R. H.
Fremantle, Sir F. E.	Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R.	Walker-Smith, Sir J.
Furness, S. N.	Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.	Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan
Fyfe, D. P. M.	Moreing, A. C.	Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.	Morris-Jones, Sir Henry	Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.
Goldie, N. B.	Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)	Warrender, Sir V.
Gower, Sir R. V.	Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)	Waterhouse, Captain C.
Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)	Munro, P.	Watt, Major C. S. Harvie
Grant-Ferris, R.	Nall, Sir J.	Wayland, Sir W. A
Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)	Neven-Spence, Major B. H H.	Wells, Sir Sydney
Gretton, Col. Rt Hon. J.	Nicholson, G. (Farnham)	Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)
Gridley, Sir A. B.	Nicolson, Hon. H. G.	Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.
Grimston, R. V.	O'Connor, Sir Terence J.	Williams, C. (Torquay)
Gritten, W. G. Howard	O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh	Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)
Guest, Lieut.-Colonel H. (Drake)	Palmer, G. E. H.	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Guest, Maj. Hon. O. (C'mb'rw'll, N.W.)	Patrick, C. M.	Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)
Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.	Peake, O.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.
Hannon. Sir P. J. H.	Perkins, W. R. D.	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Harbord, A.	Petherick, M.	Womersley, Sir W. J.
Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)	Pickthorn, K. W. M.	Wood, Hon. C. I. C.
Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)	Pilkington, R.	Wragg, H.
Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.	Ponsonby, Col. C. E.	Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.
Hely-Hutchinson, M. R.	Porritt, R. W.	Young, A. S. L. (Partick)
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.	Procter, Major H. A.
Hepworth, J.	Purbrick, R.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)	Raikes, H. V. A. M.	Captain Hope and Lieut.-Colonel
Higgs, W. F.	Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.	Kerr.
Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.	Rankin, Sir R.

Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned," put, and agreed to.

Original Question again proposed.

Mr. Jagger

rose—

It being after Eleven of the Clock and objection being taken to further Proceeding, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.