HC Deb 20 May 1938 vol 336 cc774-99

1.20 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Margesson)

I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."

Mr. Wedgwood Benn

Before you put that Motion, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I want to raise a point of Order. This is the last Friday reserved for Private Members, and it is a privilege greatly valued by Private Members. The hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel Baker) and myself have a Motion on the Paper: That, in the opinion of this House, a clear statement is needed of the undertaking arrived at between the Prime Minister and the Italian Ambassador as to the settlement in Spain. We thought there might be time for a Debate on this subject to-day. May I ask whether there is any precedent for the Patronage Secretary coming down to the House of Commons on a Private Members' day and cutting out a proposed Debate by Private Members, thereby depriving them of their Parliamentary privilege?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert)

I cannot answer as to whether there is any precedent, but it is clearly within the power of the Government at any time to move the Adjournment of the House.

Mr. Benn

Then, in point of fact, the privileges which are preserved by this House to Private Members may be, and in this case are being, wilfully infringed by the Government entirely within the Rules of Order?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The right hon. Gentleman must not put that point to me. I am merely stating what is in Order.

1.22 p.m.

Mr. Noel-Baker

I desire, on the Motion for the Adjournment, to raise the question of non-intervention in Spain. I am sorry to bring a note of controversy into the sittings of the House, which, as the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams) has said, has been one of great good will. But there is no doubt that this question has been very largely in the mind of the Government lately, and the House knows that we on this side have been trying by all the means at our disposal to find out what is the policy of the Government with regard to non-intervention and how they propose to secure real non-intervention in Spain at the present time. We have asked question after question. We had a debate last night for the purpose of learning what was the policy of the Government in regard to the issues raised at Geneva. The most important of the issues raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn) was that of the Spanish claim before the Council of the League that non-intervention should be brought to an end. He reminded the House that the Spanish Delegation called for the abandonment of non-intervention and moved a motion to that effect, and that the British Government Delegation opposed it, but only succeeded in obtaining four votes out of 15. That is 11 members of the Council, drawn from three Continents, were not prepared to vote for the view that a continuance of non-intervention can now be justified. I am raising this matter in the hope that we may succeed in getting light on what has become the greatest single factor of unrest in the world at the present time. No-one can deny the continuance of German and Italian aggression in Spain: it is admitted by the leaders of those countries. It constitutes the most important single factor of international unrest.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I must call the hon. Member's attention to the fact that he cannot discuss matters arising out the Motion he has put on the Order Paper.

Mr. Noel-Baker

With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the Motion on the Paper covers a very narrow point; it reads: That, in the opinion of this House, a clear statement is needed of the undertaking arrived at between the Prime Minister and the Italian ambassador as to the settlement in Spain. That relates to the exact meaning of the conversation which took place between the Prime Minister and the Ambassador, as I understand it, on the morning of 21st February, the day on which the late Foreign Secretary resigned. What I am raising is the whole question of non-intervention, of the continued aggression of Italy, of the failure of our Government to support the Spanish claim that that aggression should be recognised and that the policy of non-intervention should now be brought to an end. I submit that that is a very much wider question, indeed a totally different question, and one upon which I am entitled, on the Motion for the Adjournment, to call the attention of the Government, the House and the country to the very important facts of the present situation.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The hon. Member has put his case very clearly, but I am bound to say that I think he is likely to have some difficulty. As I understand this Rule, anything would be out of Order now which would be in Order on the discussion of the Motion on the Order Paper. The Motion clearly says that a clear statement is needed of the undertaking arrived at between the Prime Minister and the Italian ambassador as to the settlement in Spain. If the hon. Member thinks that the words of this Motion would allow any discussion at all except a clear statement of what the undertaking was or was not, there remains little he can discuss now about Spain on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Mr. Noel-Baker

With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I submit that the present situation in Spain is quite a different point from the content of the conversation which took place three months ago. I venture to think that if I make reference to the situation in Spain and to what happened at Geneva last week, I shall not be encroaching upon the grounds embraced by the Motion, and that, therefore, even under your Ruling,

I shall be in Order. What were the facts which were laid before the Council by the Spanish Delegation last week?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman unnecessarily, but I think it would be as well if I put the matter clearly to him. I think I have correctly stated the Rule in the words which I used just now, namely, that anything which would be in Order as a subject for debate on the Motion which is on the Order Paper would be out of Order now on the Motion for the Adjournment. In these circumstances, I think the hon. Member will understand the effect of the Ruling which I have given, and will realise that he must observe that.

Mr. Benn

As I put down the Motion with my hon. Friend, perhaps I may ask your Ruling on this point. The Motion was put on the Paper because when at Question time this week, and again in the Debate last night, we put certain questions to the Chancellor, as acting Foreign Secretary, as to what had passed between the Prime Minister and Count Grandi, we did not get a satisfactory reply. What we wanted to know by this Motion was exactly what undertakings Count Grandi gave last February. Now, that is all the ground which would have been strictly relevant to the Motion, at any rate in the view of myself and my hon. Friend who put the Motion on the Paper. Therefore, I submit that questions outside that, especially questions that have occurred after which could not possibly affect the Motion, would be out of Order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I think the right hon. Gentleman would be indignant— and rightly so— if this Motion were being discussed, and I ruled so narrowly as to what could be discussed. In view of the words of the Motion— that a clear statement is needed of the undertaking arrived at as to the settlement in Spain—I should find it a little bit difficult to say that it was out of Order to discuss a great many matters relating to the state of affairs in Spain which were connected with the possibility of a settlement. I am afraid that the Motion on the Order Paper is not as narrow as the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

Mr. Benn

I observed on that point of Order that it is a question of the undertakings given by Count Grandi. To that extent the Motion is extremely narrow. What your Ruling would have been if the Motion had been reached—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The Motion does not say so. The Motion refers to the undertaking arrived at between—

Mr. Benn

The Prime Minister and the Italian Ambassador.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

It does not say "by" Count Grandi: it says "between" representatives of the two countries.

Mr. Noel-Baker

With great respect, I think that a matter which involves, as we believe, a large-scale violation of the Covenant of the League of Nations within the heart of Europe, which is admitted now, long after 21st February, by the head of the Italian State to be going on, is really a matter which falls outside the Motion on the Paper; but I will endeavour, to the best of my ability, to observe your Ruling as you have put it, and I hope that if I infringe it in the slightest degree you will immediately call me to Order, and I will then turn at once to other matters connected with the Council of the League of Nations last week, to which I also wish to draw attention. Perhaps I can explain why I think the question of non-intervention is outside our Motion if I make some general remarks about the answer which the Chancellor gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton last night. May I start by quoting a speech which the Prime Minister made in the House on 24th March, when he said: The problem before Europe, to which in the opinion of His Majesty's Government it is their most urgent duty to direct their attention, is how best to restore this shaken confidence, how to maintain the rule of law in international affairs, how to seek peaceful solutions to questions that continue to cause anxiety." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th March, 1938; col. 1405, Vol. 333.] It is not very fashionable now-a-days to talk about the League of Nations, or to regard it as an instrument of practical action, but we on these Benches continue to believe that if you want to restore confidence you must restore the rule of law, that if you want to restore the rule of law, you must seek peaceful solutions to questions that continue to cause anxiety, and that that can be done only through the permanent institutions, and upon the basis of the law, of the League of Nations. Last night, the Chancellor of the Exchequer argued that the action of the Government at Geneva and throughout the last six months was inspired by precisely the purpose which the Prime Minister thus defined, and was the policy which was best adapted to that end. He said that at the end of last year there was in the world a situation of great tension, and that the Prime Minister's crime, as he called it, was that he had adopted the course which he believed would relax the tension that then existed.

How did he set about relaxing the tension? He got rid of the late Foreign Secretary. He made his speech of 21st February, which was recognised throughout the world to be a speech of first-rate importance. He opened the negotiations with Italy which were to bring us appeasement. We hoped that tension would in consequence be relaxed; but three weeks later, and, as the world now believes, in direct reply to the speech of 21st February, we saw the rape of Austria. The Government told us next day that it was a very grave event and that our armaments programmed must be increased. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us in his Budget speech that armaments were to be greatly increased and probably for a period of years. The Air Minister has been dismissed because he has not been getting on with the armaments job fast enough. On top of that, we have had Signor Mussolini's speech of 30th March and his speech made at Genoa on Saturday last. I do not think that these events can be said to have relieved tension very greatly. I do not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a very good case for thinking that the use of the Council meeting by the Government last week has promoted those objectives which the Prime Minister defined, namely, restoring confidence, maintaining the rule of international law and securing peaceful solutions of the present disputes.

There were three questions before the Council on each of which I should like to say something. There was, first, this question of Spain, and I take it first, because I think it is the most important question in the world to-day. If we could end the war in Spain and get a real peace there, I am sure everybody agrees we should be much nearer peace throughout the world. But peace on what terms? Peace by victory of the aggressor? Or how? We are extremely uneasy as to whether the Government intend that Signor Mussolini shall be allowed to carry out his threat to conquer Spain. Let no one doubt that that is his threat. My hon. Friend has referred to the speech which Signor Mussolini made at Genoa on Saturday and has mentioned that on the platform from which Signor Mussolini spoke were a number of decorative memorial columns commemorating Italian victories in Spain. One of these victories was at Guadalajara. Well, it was an Italian victory in a certain sense, because the Garibaldi battalion on that occasion was largely instrumental in beating the Blackshirts. Other victories claimed were Santander, Bilbao, Gijon and lastly Tortosa.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

It would not be unreasonable to say that those are reasons why the hon. Member thinks that a clear statement is needed of the undertaking arrived at between the Prime Minister and the Italian Ambassador. I am very unwilling to intervene in the hon. Member's speech but I must ask him to put this question to himself. If we were discussing the Motion on the Paper would he not complain, if I ruled out of Order what he is now saying?

Mr. Noel-Baker

My argument is this—and as far as the facts are concerned I will bring it to an immediate conclusion — that Signor Mussolini has now avowed by speech and in other ways, that he is committing large-scale international aggression against the people at the Government of Spain and in the Council— of the League last week—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I am afraid that the development of the hon. Member's argument only confirms the view which I held at first, namely, that anything connected with the present state of affairs in Spain, in regard to what is known as the Spanish settlement, would come under the Motion on the Order Paper and is therefore Out of Order now on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Mr. Benn

Then we have arrived at this situation. A day is reserved for Private Members; there are three hours available for discussion; certain Private Members have put a Motion on the Order Paper; the Government Chief Whip, moves the Adjournment and by this adjustment of the Rules of Order, defeats the very purpose which Private Members have been seeking to achieve in their own time. May I submit that the Motion on the Paper has obviously been framed in view of the refusal of the Government to give us information about certain conversations; and may I respectfully suggest that to say that the Motion on the Paper is so wide that it prevents any discussion whatever now, on any aspect of the Spanish question, is straining the terms of the Motion?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Possibly the words which I used may have been a little too wide. Some matters, in order on the Motion on the Paper, for, for passing reference only, might be in order now; but that does not include matters which could be fully discussed on the Motion on the Paper. So, I think, the position is quite clear. The hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) would be entitled, I think, to complain if we were discussing the Motion on the Order Paper and if I decided that the matters to which he is referring were out of order on that Motion. I do not think I am accusing myself of any lack of ingenuity when I say that I should have difficulty in finding matters connected with the state of affairs in Spain which I could discuss on the Motion to adjourn which is now before us.

Mr. Thorne

May I ask whether, if the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury had not moved the Adjournment of the House, my hon. Friends would have been entitled to discuss those matters? If that is so, then the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has shut us out.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The hon. Member is now asking me a hypothetical question because the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has moved the Adjournment of the House.

Mr. Thorne

If he had not done so, would my hon. Friends have been entitled to discuss the Motion on the Paper?

Mr. Denville

On a point of Order. Is there a Quorum present?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Is the hon. Member calling my attention to the fact that there is not a Quorum present?

Mr. Benn

For the information and assistance of the Chief Government Whip would you tell him, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, when he is in a position to call a count— which will fail?

Captain Margesson

May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that this is a Private Member's day, and that I am not taking any part.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present, House counted—and 40 Members being present—

Mr. Noel-Baker

I do not wish to continue the controversy on procedure on which you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, have given your Ruling. I only add that it did not occur to me that the question of large-scale aggression in Spain which came before the Council of the League last week, could have been contained within the scope of a Motion such as we put on the Paper. But I end all I am going to say on the subject of Spain, by expressing my regret that His Majesty's Government did not use the opportunity afforded them last week of striking a blow for the maintenance of international law, by recognizing, as so many other members of the Council of the League were apparently ready to recognize, that Non-intervention ought no longer to be continued and that, therefore, there was now an overwhelming case for giving to the Government of Spain its rights under international law to purchase arms. That, we are convinced, is the only way to defeat the aggression which two great countries have committed against a free people, an aggression, which if it succeeded, would, we believe, involve a great menace to the peace of the world.

I pass to other questions which were dealt with by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night, arising out of the meeting of the Council in Geneva last week, to draw attention to certain aspects of what he said which seem to us unsatisfactory in the extreme. While he was speaking about the approval that was given to our proposal concerning Abyssinia, I interrupted him on two occasions, and I suggested by my interruptions that the Council of the League had agreed to no Resolution, that no decision had been made.

That point applies not only to Abyssinia; it applies also to the Anglo-Italian Agreement as a whole.

This Anglo-Italian Agreement is a very important international event. It is the Prime Minister's great act of appease- ment, and if we had taken at their face value what was said by the Chancellor last night and by the Foreign Secretary the night before in another place, we might have thought that this act of appeasement had aroused enthusiasm throughout the world and had been given an enthusiastic reception by the Council of the League.

I have been present on a good many of what I might call congratulatory ceremonial occasions in Geneva, when some Treaty has been made, when some dispute has been settled, when some cause of international difference has been removed, and I have never heard the kind of discussion which the Council had on this occasion. I have never seen anything so half-hearted, so tepid, so frigid, as the reception given to the Anglo-Italian Treaty. I was not present, but I have had a chance to glance at the provisional Minutes which have been made, and if I made my notes correctly, only four members of the Council besides ourselves took part in the discussion. The whole record amounts only to three-and-a-half pages of typewriting in double spacing. One journalist said—-I think it was Mr. Vernon Bartlett—of one of the four speeches, that: it damned the Agreement very effectively with the faintness of its praise. A representative of another country spoke exactly 10 lines, and used such phrases as these: The Government had noted the Agreement with great interest. And: It was not called on to express an opinion on the provisions of the Agreement, but it expressed the hope that the Agreement would lead to the consolidation of peace which we all desire. There were five speeches among the 14 members of the Council. There were nine members who said nothing, and I have never been present on one of these congratulatory ceremonial occasions when every member did not insist on putting in his oar. Five speeches out of 14, five out of the 57 members of the League. Is that approval of the Anglo-Italian Agreement? The Prime Minister gave a pledge to this House on 21st February, as follows: I repeated that we were loyal members of the League, and that if we came to an agreement, we should desire to obtain the approval of the League for it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st February, 1938; col. 62; vol. 332.] I say that there has been no approval of the Anglo-Italian Agreement, and, therefore, on this ground alone, the Government have no right to proceed to bring it into force, whatever they may think with regard to their other conditions about the settlement in Spain, which we may not now discuss.

I pass on to the second point on which approval is required. On the general question I am perfectly certain, from reading this procès verbal, that the Government have not only not obtained approval, but, as was said universally by people in Geneva who were at the meeting, and as I have myself been able to determine in a number of foreign countries, people abroad regard the Agreement as an experiment in power politics, and an experiment which has already failed.

And the worst part of this experiment in power politics is that which relates to Abyssinia, because there we are ceding the recognition of a conquest which is not complete in order to make this piece of paper, which has done nothing, as we think, to advance appeasement in any way. If the Government needed approval for the Anglo-Italian Treaty in general, they needed it a thousand times more for what they propose about Abyssinia. Why? Because they are proposing to recognise a condition of affairs brought about by Covenant-breaking force, because they are proposing to set aside the Covenant of the League, solemnly declared to forbid such recognition by the Council and the Assembly.

It is not for me now to cite the terms of the Resolutions which were adopted in February, 1932, by 12 members of the Council on the Manchurian question, and unanimously by the Assembly a few weeks later, on nth March, 1932. Those Resolutions are well known. They declare that it is incumbent upon members of the League, as a result of the provisions of Article 10, not to recognise changes of territorial status or sovereignty brought about by Covenant-breaking war. That is precisely what we are intending now to do, and since we are intending to do it, the Government said, "Oh, well, we must cover ourselves in some way. We are setting aside a most important, indeed a fundamental, principle of international law, what President Wilson called the heart of the Covenant, Article 10, and, therefore, we must have the approval of the League." They have not got the approval of the League. What happened in Geneva about Abyssinia? Before they went there the Government were extremely reluctant to tell us what procedure they proposed to adopt, what proposals they were going to put forward. But everybody knows that they wanted to have a Resolution of the Council. In my view, if they had got a Resolution of the Council, unanimously adopted, it would still not have been sufficient to set aside Article 10; it could not have wiped out the unanimous Resolution of the Assembly of 1932. But when they got to Geneva, having wanted a Resolution, they found that they could not get it, and so they fell back on the device of having a discussion, a series of isolated and detached declarations by the different members of the Council.

It is true that a majority of the members who spoke supported the attitude of the Government, with more or less enthusiasm— in most cases with less rather than with more— but it is also true that four members of the Council, apart from Abyssinia, which made five, a third of the whole body, were against what we proposed. Therefore, the Government were unable to obtain a Resolution, they were unable to obtain a recommendation, they did not even obtain an agreed declaration by either the whole or a majority of the members of the League. I venture to think that that is not approval by the League of what the Government propose to do. It is certainly not approval in a legal sense, and I submit that it is not approval in any moral sense, but that what has occurred has no moral or political value of any kind. If the Government proceed to actual recognition of the conquest of Abyssinia on the basis of this divided and inconclusive debate, they will quite evidently violate the pledge which the Prime Minister made to the House on 21st February, and, by so doing, they will strike a serious blow at the restoration of confidence and at the maintenance of the rule of law and all our hopes for a peaceful solution throughout the world.

In this Abyssinian matter, the Government are trying to set aside the funda- mental rule of Article 10. They are trying to do it at a time when the conquest of Abyssinia is not only incomplete, but when it might be said that it has hardly begun. On Wednesday my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford (Mr. A. Henderson) and I ventured to lay certain facts on this matter before the House, and I do not think that many Members who heard that discussion will deny that the answer made by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was unsatisfactory in the extreme. He said that the information given by my hon. Friend was Ethiopian in source and out-of-date. I gave him some up-to-date information; I gave British information. I gave him only a very small selection of what I could have produced because he desired to leave the House at a certain hour, and, as we had an agreement, I cut short my remarks.

I gave him the evidence of a Frenchman who had been in Abyssinia in the last few weeks on the side of the Abyssinian Army. I could have given him the evidence of an American journalist who had come out of Addis Ababa only a few weeks ago, and who gave a more alarmist account than that given by the Frenchman on the other side of the battle line. Yesterday morning I had a conversation with an American friend who, in the middle of April, was in Port Said. She had there seen and talked with British officers who had been aboard three Italian hospital ships which were carrying Italian soldiers horribly wounded, so wounded that they could not remain in the front line hospitals in Abyssinia. They were on their way from Abyssinia to Rhodes— not to Italy, because Signor Mussolini does not dare to allow them to go into Italy at the present time. I submit that if the conditions are such that on a single day you find three great hospital ships full of wounded on their way from Abyssinia to a base hospital at a great distance, then, indeed, the conquest is not complete.

It is in these conditions that the Government are proposing to accept the conquest of Abyssinia. They are proposing to do it without any decision of the League of Nations. If they had a decision of the Council it would have been of no value. What is the real character of what they propose? I venture to read some words from a delegate who spoke against what we want, a delegate who, as I think, spoke the will and the mind of the British people of this country and the British peoples of the Commonwealth. I refer to Mr. Jordan of New Zealand. He spoke in opposition to what Lord Halifax laid before the Council citing the resolution of 11th March, 1932, to which I have referred, and said that the New Zealand Government stood by that resolution as unanimously adopted by the Assembly and that they stood by the Covenant. He said: The proceedings in which we are engaged, however they may be disguised, will only be regarded as a stage further in the surrender to aggression. He went on to say that, according to the suggestion which we put before the Council, any nation may remain in the League and at the same time disregard the terms of the Covenant. He closed by saying: The New Zealand Government cannot support any proposal which would involve either directly or by implication approval of a breach of the Covenant. In plain language, that is what His Majesty's Government have proposed to do. Another member of the Council said that while resistance continued in Abyssinia recognition would be equivalent to abetting the aggressor directly and to stabbing the victim in the back by discouraging and demoralising him. What we have done in Geneva is a serious blow at the policy of restoring confidence and the rule of international law and of securing a peaceful solution, to which the Prime Minister said that we must devote our whole attention.

I do not desire to detain the House longer on the proceedings at Geneva except to say this. We have been told many times in recent years that the policy which His Majesty's Government are pursuing is based on reality. We have been told by the Prime Minister that Italy is now a Power with new efficiency, new vigour and, he even said, new vision. Even leaders of the Church in another place have said that we must balance what they call reality against morality. The most important single fact in human government is the moral sense of man, and unless our policy is based upon that moral sense and upon a desire for justice and for the upholding of the law in the Spanish question, in the Abyssinian question and in the China question, then the Government will not be able to have the support of this people in the policy they are pursuing and they will not be able to get the results which they hope that policy will achieve.

I said that the Prime Minister had spoken of Italy as a country with a new vision. It is sometimes urged that we on these Benches to not desire real peace with Italy and Germany. Of course we desire it. Can any man in his senses want the bloodshed and the useless slaughter of Italian and German peasants which is now going on in Spain indefinitely to be continued? We want friendship with Italy, the kind of friendship we used to have. But when we look at Mussolini's record, we remember that for 15 years he has destroyed law and justice in Italy, the very basis of civilisation. We remember that he has so militarized his, people, that children of eight are now marking about the streets in military formations learning military discipline and being taught the use of arms. We remember that on 30th March he made a speech in which he lauded the achievements of his armies in Spain. He said that they had learned how warfare in the air should be conducted and that they must help in the battle line, but that above all the bombing aircraft must demoralise the civil population. When he said that that doctrine of air warfare was based on the practice of the war in Spain, he was avowing responsibility for those ghastly bombardments in southern Spain at which the Prime Minister expressed his horror and disgust. Signor Mussolini ended by saying they were ready in Italy for the next campaign which was soon to come, a short and implacable campaign, which they would conduct to victory.

That is not the language of appeasement. That is not a country with a new vision. That is a Government of despotism without, as we believe, the support of the Italian people, a despotism in power which is devoted not to a new vision, but to the old hideous fallacies of imperialist and military power. It is because we do not believe in retreating before the aggressions of such governments; it is because we are dissatisfied with what the Government did in Geneva last week, and because we hope that in A measurable future there will be a radical change in the foreign policy which the Government pursue, that we have raised these matters to-day.

2.5 p.m

Mr. Hannah

I had no idea of coming into this Debate until I happened to be called out from my ordinary correspondence by a "count," but I am rather glad to say a few words on a matter which, I think, the Opposition have done real service in bringing forward. I should agree with them most enthusiastically if this were a perfect world, or anything like it. I have spent nearly the whole of my life in teaching history, and I do not think anything is more striking in the long story of humanity on this earth than the fact that wisdom has very seldom prevailed, and that morality has had comparatively little influence in the councils of the nations of the world. I hate it, I detest it, I repudiate it, I loathe it, but there it is, and what are we to do? Nobody could possibly dislike more than I do the conquest of Abyssinia, that one ancient African Empire unconquered through the long centuries by the ancient Egyptians, by the Persians, by the Ptolemy's, by the Romans, by the great Arab Empire only just across the Red sea and then, in the 16th century, conquered by the Portuguese.

I have no apology for having been one of those who made a special protest against the Hoar-Laval terms, and while the Emperor was still in Abyssinia, with all the prestige of that ancient dynasty, theoretically, at any rate, descending from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba—it must have taken a man of great imagination and high purpose to evolve that magnificent ideal—while the Emperor was still there I believe there was some real hope. Unfortunately, the Emperor left his country and has been living for some time in a quiet English inland spa. I do not in the least doubt the substantial truth of what many Members of the Opposition have said about Abyssinia being still unconquered, but what I do doubt is this: Behind those who are fighting against the Italians at the present time is there any kind of settled Government, is there any real hope of a settled Government that could take over the affairs of Abyssinia supposing the Italians were withdrawn? The Italian conquest of Abyssinia is, to my mind, a blackguardly adventure. I have no hesitation in saying it, but so was the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, and if anybody would show me a way of refusing to recognise that infamous conquest of the Saxon Kingdom, I would be glad to range myself under his banner. Unfortunately, wrong must after a time be recognised. The government of this world must to a very great extent be a matter of expediency. I dislike that as much as anybody else, but there it stands.

It does seem to me that the case for the Opposition is based upon a fundamental fallacy. They want to divide the nations of the world into good nations and bad nations; as one of them put it last night, liberty-loving and peace-loving nations in opposition to those who have very different ideas. It is perfectly right and proper, perhaps, that that should be the way in which it strikes us, but what impartial arbiter of events since the War could possibly agree? What about the Conference of Versailles promising to disarm if Germany would disarm? Have we kept the promises that we made? Germany was disarmed; the Allies promised to disarm, but they did nothing of the kind. France took advantage of the absolutely unarmed condition of Germany to send her forces into the Ruhr. She made an attempt to detach the Rhineland, against all history, against all right. How can we expect the Germans to look upon those countries as being specially virtuous, while they have done nothing but wrong?

Did the Germans set up Hitler? Did the Italians put Mussolini in his place? Emphatically no. We put them there. We did it by repudiating our solemn promises at Versailles, and we have got to take the consequences. It is absolutely hypocritical, it is utter nonsense, to talk about some nations that want to keep their treaties, and always will, and of other nations that have very different ideas. It seems to me that the policy of the Opposition at the present time very closely resembles that in which I was myself brought up— ideas about the sacredness of property and all that kind of thing. Those nations which have got all they want and therefore have no particular object in breaking any Treaty that they have dictated are now crying aloud to the world against the dishonesty of breaking contracts. I do not for a moment justify anything that has been done from Berlin, from Rome, from Moscow or any other capital of the world, but I do feel that we need most emphatically to look at the world as it is at the present time, and in the truest possible sense to face realities.

The one great danger, as it seems to me, is that of bringing back into this 20th century the evil conditions of the 16th and the 17th centuries when the nations of the world, of Europe at any rate, were arrayed against each other on the score of religion. Beyond anything else we need to prevent the alignment of countries on any platform at all, but particularly to prevent the nations getting together in different groups which are championing different political principles. I have been connected with the League of Nations since before it began, and you cannot blame me for the failure of the League. I was a member of the Faculty of Oberlin College at a time when the President, Henry Churchill King, was particularly anxious to get the United States into the League of Nations and to induce that country to accept the Armenian Mandate in order to preserve the peace of the world. I addressed a good many meetings, in company with professors from Oberlin College, in different part of the United States to try to induce that country to enter the League and to accept the Armenian Mandate. As all know, in common with about a million others I completely failed. America refused to accept the Armenian Mandate, America refused to accept membership of the League, and that, to a very large extent indeed, is the reason why the world at the present time is in such a miserable state that we have largely thrown away the triumphs gained in the War.

I do not think anybody need blame those who feel that the condition of the League at the present time is greatly to be deplored. I do not think the responsibility for that can be laid at the door of one nation more than another; and at any rates it is exceedingly satisfactory from our own point of view that all the political parties who have held control in this House in the days since the Armistice are about equally guilty. After all, practically every single party has been guilty to a very large extent. Labour was in office when Signor Mussolini flouted the League about Corfu.

Mr. Noel-Baker

That is not so. I am sure the hon. Member does not wish to distort the facts.

Mr. Hannah

I think I am right on that point, but I apologise if I am wrong. It certainly does seem to me, if we take the long story from the time of the Armistice to the present day, that no party in this country can claim to have upheld the League consistently, according to the ideals that it was intended to set forth.

Mr. A. V. Alexander

On the contrary we claim just that for the Labour party. If it had not been for the Baldwin Government coming in 1924 and throwing out the Geneva Protocol, the whole of the events would have been changed.

Mr. Hannah

I am very glad that that point has been raised. I do not think there is any doubt whatever that the Protocol went far beyond what this nation would have accepted, making this country responsible for getting into a European war that might have come about in circumstances over which we had no control. That was far beyond anything that this nation could have been made to accept. I am very glad that that point has been brought forward because I feel very strongly indeed about it. That was an election when I myself stood as a Liberal candidate and was soundly defeated. It has to be remembered that we on this side are just as enthusiastic about the League as anyone else. No one has a right to say that because we feel that the League has to be radically modified, we are less enthusiastic about its principles, less keen about its being a real power for peace in the world, than anyone else. I would draw attention to the fact that only a few days ago one of the principal South American Republics, Chile, wanting to get the Covenant of the League revised in accordance with conditions as they are to-day, unfortunately decided to withdraw from the League— most unfortunately and too hastily I think, because we realise that the policy of the Government in trying to recognise, not that we are good and totalitarian States are bad necessarily, but that we have all sinned, and in that way trying to bring the different nations of the world together on a general platform of mutual sacrifices and mutual agreements, may enable us after all, and in spite of the difficulties, to build a new League, to restore all that is right and good and satisfactory, and in that way bring about a better world than anything that has been known In the past.

2.19 p.m.

Miss Rathbone

I shall not follow the last speaker, except to say that it seems to me a dangerous doctrine that a nation may not range itself in opposition to an acknowledged wrong because at a previous stage of its development, under other rulers, when different standards prevailed, that nation itself did an equally great wrong. If we were to adopt that principle it would be impossible either to correct any wrong or to make any progress in the world. It must be admitted that we are right in suggesting that those in control of our foreign policy have some special responsibility, for the present Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary were among those who helped to make the Treaty of Versailles what it was; they were among those who signed the fatal telegram sent by 300 Members of Parliament to the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) urging him to squeeze the last penny out of Germany.

Mr. Hannah

I strongly repudiated that action at the time.

Miss Rathbone

I rose to say something on a different subject. I want to call attention to a subject that concerns the lives and interests not of Spaniards or Abyssinians nor of any other race, but of Englishmen. I refer to the recent attacks upon British seamen and British ships in Spanish ports. I am not raising the question of the Spanish settlement because that would be out of Order, but purely the question of British interests and British lives. Two days ago a question was put to the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. I regret raising the subject when he is not here, but I thought that the Order Paper would have ensured his presence here this afternoon.

Since the beginning of the Spanish war, no fewer than 27 men have been killed and 37 injured by the insurgents or their allies while serving on British ships doing legitimate trade, with observers on board, and three British ships have been sunk, 25 have been damaged during air raids on Spanish Government ports and three otherwise damaged; and in only four of these cases have even verbal protests been addressed to the Franco authorities, those being in cases where the Government felt there was conclusive evidence that the attacks had been quite deliberate. The Under-Secretary further informed the House that the right to obtain compensation in these cases was reserved. But no attempt has been made to set up machinery to assess the damage. That really does indicate a very grave neglect of British interests and British lives.

Look at the position. Within the last week 13 Masters of British ships have sent a telegram protesting against these continuous outrages and asking for immediate action. These men believe that they have conclusive evidence that the bombing was ruthless and deliberate. Yet the Government have done nothing but send verbal protests. They do not take any kind of reprisals; they do not even ask for any kind of damage. What is the result? —At the end of the war the right which the Government say they have reserved may be exercised, but how will they then assess the damage? Where are the witnesses to come from? If the Government meant business is it not clear that they would not defer to a distant date finding out what happened to these ships, who was responsible for the deaths of these men, and, so far as material damage is concerned, assessing the value of it?

Contrast this astonishing indifference to British lives and British property with the firm action taken against the Japanese in similar cases, and the compensation which was then paid. Such compensation as was paid last Wednesday, was paid, not by the British Government or by those responsible, but by the National Maritime Board.

What is the explanation of this situation? Rightly or wrongly, I do not think that the British public and the seamen's organisations can draw any other conclusion than that the Government are indifferent to attacks upon British seamen because they want the war to end quickly with a Franco win. Franco is to be allowed to starve out the Republicans by making it impossible for British trade to be carried on with Spain, and the Government are doing their best to stop that trade. Under the Non-intervention Agree- ment they cannot forbid British ships with observers on board to take food, coal and commodities of that kind into Republican Spain, but they try to terrorist them into dropping the trade. In the case of the Basques last summer the Government did this by tremendously stiff warnings, issued by the Admiralty, against the dangers of entering the North Spanish ports, at a time when there was no real blockade. The Government said that the insurgents contemplated establishing a blockade. In that way they enabled General Franco and at a later stage encouraged him to make that blockade. In the case of this coast of Spain they cannot pretend that there is a blockade, because everybody knows that there is not and that ships are able to enter freely.

What are the Government doing? It is a grave charge to make against them, but what they are doing amounts to nothing less than conniving at deliberate attacks by insurgent and Italian aeroplanes upon British steamers, resulting in injury to and the killing of British seamen, because they think in that way to stop the trade. I am not allowed to discuss this matter as part of the Spanish question; I am doing so as a question of British prestige and humanity and of the duty of the British Government to protect the lives of their nationals.

What effect this policy will have upon British prestige is seen clearly. It is plain that the British Government do not care a snap of the finger for the lives of their nationals when they want to carry favour with either Signor Mussolini or General Franco. They hope when the latter has won the war by these dastardly methods to be able to fix up some sort of arrangement by which they can secure British interests. Will that be good for British prestige? What about British trade? A ship owner associated with a Newcastle firm wrote to the "Manchester Guardian" only yesterday saying that British trade with Spain was extremely important, was a very old trade that had been carried on for generations, was of considerable value and that it was specially valuable just now because of the general collapse in freights. He evidently took the view that the Government were actually conniving at the deliberate destruction of that trade, at a time of unemployment. What will the shipping industry and the seamen's organisation think about that matter? I shall be very much mistaken if, when the facts are really brought home in all the ports of this country and to the shipping industry, the situation will be taken lying down.

What a way to carry out our professions of neutrality at a time when we have at the head of the Foreign Office a man who is a champion of Christianity and a devout member of his own church. Does he really countenance this sort of thing? If we are helping to defeat Republican Spain by interfering with the legitimate action of ship owners belonging to this country and seeking to bring food to starving populations— the most ugly of all ways of bringing hostilities to an end is by starving the civilian population— it is contrary to all our professions of neutrality and of leaving the Spaniards to fight it out among themselves, as well as to the principles that were laid down for a settlement of the Spanish conflict.

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Lady is now getting out of Order on the question of Spain.

Miss Rathbone

I was merely glancing past it. From the point of view of British prestige, British trade, British honour and our reputation for humanity the Government ought not to put us off with reports that they have taken just enough action to still Parliamentary clam our. They should take the kind of action which they took in the case of the Nyon Agreement. It would soon put an end to this dastardly practice of deliberately bombing peaceful merchants engaged upon their legitimate trade and we should hear no more of this method of attempting to bring Republican Spain to its knees.

2.32 p.m.

Mr. Lipson

I do not intend to follow at length the line of argument which has just been pursued by the hon. Lady, but I gather from her remarks that she is concerned about British prestige and humanity. I am glad she told us that that was so, because, although she is an advocate of peace and has declared herself this afternoon a champion of humanity, there was very little peace in her speech and her humanity did not extend very far.

Miss Rathbone

Only to British seamen.

Mr. Lipson

Humanity, I should think, like charity, might very well begin at home. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about British seamen?"] I wonder how much real humanity there is when it is combined with such remarks as that this British Government connive at the death and destruction of British seamen. I regret speeches of that kind and, indeed, much of the sniping at the Government which takes place from the Opposition benches in the name of peace. I am a strong believer in peace and a convinced supporter of the League of Nations, and I regret that hon. Members opposite should try to make a party question out of the League of Nations. They are not serving the ultimate interests of their party by so doing— but that is a matter for themselves to decide. I am certain that they are doing nothing for peace and are certainly injuring the cause of the League of Nations in this country. The League of Nations has support from men and women of all political parties in this country. That is its real strength and its best chance of surviving. I appeal to all Members to hesitate before they try to use the League of Nations for party ends.

With regard to the general effect of their criticism of the Government's policy, it seems to me that they are confining themselves to points of detail, and are not really concentrating on the great question of peace. They are critical of the Government's action in regard to Abyssinia and in regard to Spain, but I would ask them quite frankly this question: Would they advocate that this country should go to war to restore the Emperor of Ethiopia to his throne; would they advocate that we should be prepared to go to war on behalf of the Government of Spain? If they say they are prepared to go to war on those issues, all I can say is that they would be leading a very divided country into a war of that kind, and I think, therefore, that no Government with any sense of responsibility would be likely to pursue such a policy. But if, as is likely, they reply that they do not want to go to war on either of those issues, I would ask them to hesitate before they encourage the pursuit of a policy which at least runs the risk of war, and rather to try to support the Government in their policy of appeasement.

We have heard to-day criticisms of the Italian Agreement, and the suggestion that the better relationships with Italy are beginning to fail. I would ask hon. Members, do they want those good relationships to exist, do they want the Agreement to fail, or do they not? If they are supporters of peace, they must want the Agreement we have made with Italy, or with any other country, to stand, and, therefore, I think it would be very much better if their policy was such as to encourage in this country an atmosphere of good will towards the Italian people, which I believe is the best guarantee of peace from our side, just as I believe that the good will of the Italian people is the best guarantee of peace from their side. There is this merit at least in the Italian Agreement, that it has created among the Italian people a feeling of good will for this country, and I venture to say that that is of greater importance than all the comparatively minor points to which reference has been made by hon. Members opposite. We have to face the facts, whether we like the facts or not. We have to recognise that the position in Abyssinia can only be altered by war or by the threat of war, and that is an eventuality which is unthinkable.

So far as our attitude towards the League is concerned, I believe that our behaviour over the Abyssinian question has been quite correct. We were prepared to go as far as any member of the League when sanctions against Italy were being applied, and the other day, we went to the League to ask for permission to free ourselves on the question of the recognition of the conquest of Abyssinia. I think it would be better to give the Government credit for having gone to the League than to go into comparatively unimportant points about whether a resolution was actually carried, or whether simply the sense of those present was taken. Even those who are critical of the Agreement ought to recognise that the Government have shown respect to the League in going to the League to get its approval on this matter. Other nations, which are often referred to by hon. Members opposite as better champions of the League than this country, did not wait for League permission to recognise the conquest of Abyssinia. In fact, 20 nations have taken the decision into their own hands apart from the League. Therefore, I think it is not fair to the Government of this country to criticise them on this matter.

I would appeal to hon. Members opposite to pay more regard to the vital issues which are involved in discussions of this kind. In this House, in the decisions that we have to take on questions of peace and war, we carry a tremendous responsibility. The hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker), who opened the discussion this afternoon, spoke of three hospital ships with wounded Italian soldiers coming through the Canal, and he suggested apparently, that that was a reason why we should not recognise the conquest of Abyssinia. But anybody who knows the facts will realise that for practical purposes the conquest of Abyssinia has taken place. The guerilla warfare will be continued, no doubt, for some time, as has been the case in similar circumstances in other countries. But surely in the interests of humanity it is better that we ourselves should do nothing which is likely to prolong that loss of life. Certainly, I think the moral that we should draw from what is taking place in Abyssinia and from what is taking place in Spain is that we are anxious to see that our own countrymen are spared the horrors of a modern war. Because I believe that that is the highest and greatest question, and because I believe that we should not dwell on minor points, but rather should concentrate on the big question of general appeasement, I deprecate the attitude of hon. Members' opposite and support the policy of the Government in trying to come to an understanding with those countries with whom we have had differences, and in trying to create generally a better and more peaceful atmosphere in the world.

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