Morgenthau Plan (Hansard, 22 March 1948)

§ 24. Mr. Michael Foot
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will now consider the publication of a White Paper describing the negotiations which led to an agreement, approved by the British Prime Minister in September, 1944, on the Morgenthau scheme for the pastoralisation of Germany; the precise terms of the agreement; and any subsequent negotiations which may have taken place leading to the abrogation of the agreement.

§ Mr. Mayhew
The so-called Morgenthau Plan was considered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) and President Roosevelt during the Quebec Conference in September, 1944. It was then carefully examined by His Majesty's Government, as were a number of other plans for the future of Germany, but was never adopted or agreed to. Except on the one occasion of the Quebec Conference there were no negotiations on the plan between His Majesty's Government and the United States Government, and the plan lapsed. In these circumstances it is not considered 2557 that any useful purpose would be served by publishing a White Paper on the subject.

§ Mr. Foot
Will my hon. Friend direct the attention of the Foreign Secretary to the revelations made by Mr. Cordell Hull in his memoirs, recently published in the United States, which contradict the evidence now given to this House that no agreement was finally reached on this subject; and does he not think that it is high time the whole of this murky matter was examined, and a full statement made to this House by those responsible for signing this infamous document?

§ Mr. Mayhew
I think that is an injustly sinister interpretation to put upon what went on. The truth is that President Roosevelt and the right hon. Gentleman did initial a document at Quebec. Presumably, the right hon. Gentleman's agreement was subject to consideration by his colleagues, and that was as far as that agreement—so called—went at the Quebec Conference. I do not consider such a sinister interpretation should be placed upon it.

§ Mr. Foot
Are we to understand from that statement that the British Government of the time repudiated the signature which the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) affixed to the document?

§ Mr. Speaker
I think that the hon. Gentleman cannot now ask the right hon. Member for Woodford to make a statement, because he is not responsible at the moment. One cannot go back. That is an old ruling of this House.

§ Mr. Mayhew
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, if I said that the agreement was signed, I should have said that it was initialled—[HON. MEMBERS: "You did say it was initialled."] It was an initial on a discussion which took place. Of course, I have no doubt it was taken that any initial of that kind would be subject to agreement by the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues.

§ Mr. Stokes
May I ask how the hon. Gentleman reconciles what he has just said with the generally accepted view in America that the Morgenthau Plan formed the basis for the Potsdam Agreement, and will he take my hon. Friend's advice, and call the attention of his right 2558 hon. Friend to the Cordell Hull revelations, which really will astound him if he reads them carefully?

§ Mr. Mayhew
I can only speak from my own information. I cannot accept responsibility for generally accepted views in other countries.

§ Mr. Blackburn
Has it not been most generously admitted by former Secretary of State Byrnes, that our conduct in this matter was a great deal more farsighted than that of either the United States of America or the Soviet Union?

§ Mr. Foot
In view of the tact that there is a real discrepancy between the statements made by my hon. Friend and the evidence given by Mr. Cordell Hull, does not the Minister think that it would be a good thing that there should be a full publication of all the reports of discussions which went on, and the publication of documents, which have never been presented to this House, even though they have been published in all the newspapers in the United States?

§ Mr. Mayhew
I am not aware of these discrepancies, but perhaps I have not sufficiently studied the source of information to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I do not accept this sinister interpretation. I think the facts I have stated are a straightforward and perfectly plain account of what happened.

§ Mr. Foot
In view of the obscurity of this matter, I wish to give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.