§ LORD DEVONPORTMy Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are aware that large and frequent shipments of iron-ore and other metals are arriving at Dutch ports; whether precautions are taken by His Majesty's Government to prevent these from reaching enemy destination; and, if so, what. It is almost superfluous for me to say that the public mind is very much disquieted 1026 by reason of the revelations which have been made through the Press and through other sources as to the quantities of supplies that are going either direct to Germany or are reaching it through neutral adjacent countries. To-day the House of Commons is engaged in a debate on this subject, and judging from what one reads and hears it is exciting the greatest amount of interest throughout the country.
My Question does not cover a very wide area, as it is confined to almost one particular commodity, iron-ore; and if I now refer to a speech that has been quoted repeatedly in the last few months—I mean the speech made by the Prime Minister on March 1 last—it is only because I desire to call attention to a modified interpretation that was accorded to that speech by the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, upon the occasion of the debate which took place in your Lordships' House on December 20 last in connection with the Danish Trade Agreement. The Prime Minister on March 1 said that the measures about to be adopted—that was, the measures which culminated in the celebrated Order in Council of March 11—would be so framed as to prevent commodities of any kind from reaching or leaving Germany." The House has had that quoted many times, and I only quote it again because the modification or interpretation accorded to it by Lord Crewe has an important bearing upon the facts that I am going to place before your Lordships: This is what the noble Marquess said, referring to Mr. Asquith's speech—
It is quite evident that my right hon. friend's declaration as to the use to which the Order in Council was to be put was subject to the accepted principles of International Law, and that what he intended was that within those principles every conceivable effort, should be made to prevent goods that mattered either entering or leaving Germany.Goods that mattered! Then the noble Marquess criticised some of the speakers because in his judgment they seemed to be unaware of the difficulties with which the Government were trammelled in connection with the carrying out of International Law, and he suggested in clear language that those of us who had spoken in the debate—I was one—did not pay any regard to, or scarcely appeared to recognise, the fact that before a cargo could be condemned the ship had to be taken into port and placed before a Prize Court. The noble Marquess went on to say—and I trouble your Lordships with this quotation also because it 1027 has a bearing on the facts to which I am-going to refer—To imagine for a moment that you can get the cargoes dealt with condemned simply because you happen to think it inconvenient that they should reach Germany is one more of the idle dreams of which I have already spoken. It is quite true that absolute contraband, which it is most important to keep out of the enemy country, would always be condemned. But as regards conditional contraband, it is quite well known that unless an enemy destination can be proved it will be allowed to go through.I ask deliberately, Does iron-ore come within that interpretation? Does it come within the category of "goods that matter"? I think there can be only one answer, especially when I show, as I shall, the destination of this iron-ore that is going unhampered and unhindered into Holland. I have here the records of all the arrivals of iron-ore cargoes at Rotterdam since the outbreak of the war. I have them brought down to as recently as the 15th of this month; but I shall only deal with them to the end of December. It is a tremendous list. It shows the ships that arrive day by day, where they come from, and the quantity of iron-ore cargoes that they carry. I do not think I overstate what this list contains when I say that it shows an unbroken stream of arrivals of this cargo, which I shall show presently is allowed to pass through Holland into Germany without interference and without inquiry or protest on the part of our Government.This iron-ore mainly comes from Sweden, some of it comes from Norway, and a very small portion from Spain. I wish that every member of your Lordships' House could have in front of him a copy of the list I have here. You would then be able to grasp more fully the significance of the information than you will, I fear, from my utterances. From the commencement of the war to December, 1915, a period of seventeen months, 300 of these cargoes of iron-ore arrived at Rotterdam, and they consisted as regards weight of 1,500,000 tons. I wonder whether it has occurred to any noble Lord to inquire what has been the effect of the much-vaunted Order in Council of March, 1915, which set forth in its preamble, if I may use that term, that it was brought into being" to prevent goods of any kind either entering or leaving Germany." One would naturally conclude that, however remiss we might have been up to the date of the issue of the Order in Council, its operative effect at all events would have been to diminish the arrivals of these cargoes at Rotterdam. That has 1028 not been the effect. I am sorry to say that the number of ships and the bulk weight of the cargoes arriving at Rotterdam since the Order in Council was promulgated have increased and not diminished. From the commencement of the war to the end of March—and I throw in on that side the benefit of the whole month of March, although the Order in Council came into force on March 11—the cargoes from August to March inclusive numbered 128, an average of 16 per month; and from April to December 166, an average of 18.4 per month.
The most serious thing of all to consider is what has been the destination of these cargoes; what has become of them. There is no concealment about the matter. It is public knowledge. Everybody in Holland knows. Every captain of a ship that sails from London to Rotterdam knows exactly what becomes of these cargoes. Indeed, it would be impossible to conceal their destination for the reason that there are no facilities whatever in Holland for dealing with iron-ore and converting it into pig-iron. I am told that there is not a single blast furnace or coke oven in the whole of Holland. I know that there are no coals in Holland in sufficient supply and sufficiently cheap in price to render them possible to be used for the purpose of making coke. Again there is in Holland no limestone, an essential concomitant in the process of converting iron-ore into pig-iron. Well, what becomes of this iron-ore? It is no secret that all these cargoes are transhipped into barges, those large barges with which many of your Lordships are familiar which have a carrying capacity of anything from 1,000 to 2,000 tons; and the iron-ore proceeds up the Rhine to a point of destination at a town called Ruhrort. There the River Ruhr has its confluence with the Rhine, and the Ruhr runs straight away to Essen, where the great works of Messrs. Krupp are situated. But I have ascertained that the ore does not go to Essen, because Messrs. Krupp have in a suburb of this town of Ruhrort their great blast furnaces, and there they convert the ore into pig-iron, and then it is sent on to Essen by water or by rail. It finally reaches Messrs. Krupp, and we know what becomes of it there. It is turned into deadly weapons against which our brave fellows have to fight.
The main source of the supply of this iron-ore is, as I have said, Sweden, and there are three ports from which it 1029 is exported, Oxelosund, Narvik, and Lulea. The mines there are the property of and controlled by the Swedish Government, which has connected them up with railways. It seems an astounding thing to me that His Majesty's Government can sit by and quietly acquiesce in these large shipments of ore from Sweden from mines that are virtually the property of the Swedish Government. I mentioned that although the main quantity of this ore came from Sweden some was contributed by Norway. The place of shipment in Norway is a little port called Kirkenaes, and the mines are in that neighbourhood. It is somewhat ironical, I think your Lordships will agree, that these very mines are owned or financially controlled by the Hamburg-Amerika Shipping Company. So there we have Herr Ballin, of whom we have heard so much and whom I had the pleasure of meeting some years ago, shipping ore from his own mines to Germany without let or interference on the part of the British Government.
What is the explanation? It is naturally to be expected that there will be an explanation given by the Government of this trade being allowed. I have heard of only two explanations, both of which are of Foreign Office origin. In the first place, I believe the Foreign Office say that there are grave difficulties from the naval point of view in intercepting cargoes of iron-ore shipped to Holland from Sweden. The other explanation is very remarkable. It is to the effect that the Government are not aware, or so far are not convinced, that these cargoes which go to Rotterdam are going from there to Germany. I think I have faithfully indicated the two explanations that proceed from the Foreign Office in regard to this matter.
I refer in my Question to Rotterdam alone, but I am going to take the liberty, with your Lordships' permission, to expand the area of information, because I think it behoves me to tell the whole story and not merely a part of it. I therefore pass from Rotterdam to the Baltic and North Sea ports owned by Germany, and I will show in a moment that, however great have been the imports of iron-ore to Rotterdam, they fall into insignificance when compared with the enormous imports of iron-ore which have been going direct into German ports in the Baltic and in the North Sea. The whole of the iron-ore which is going to the German Baltic ports and to the North Sea 1030 German ports comes from these self-same mines; it is conveyed from these mines direct to German ports. The Baltic ports to which the iron-ore is conveyed are chiefly Lubeck, Stettin, Dantzig, and Swinemunde; and in the North Sea the ores have been going into Emden, Altona, Nordenharn, Harburg, Elbehavn, Brake, Bremen, Hamburg, and half-a-dozen minor ports with the names of which I will not trouble the House. We know from the geographical situation that the conditions have been difficult for our Navy in the Baltic. One has only to look at the map to realise that it has been difficult there for the Navy to operate and control goods going to the enemy. But for some months—we have this on the information of a member of the Government—our submarines have been active there, and, according to Mr. Runciman's statement about ten days ago in the House of Commons, they have been successful. Mr. Runciman stated that by means of our submarines we had succeeded in almost stopping the supply of ore which went from Sweden to the Baltic and German North Sea ports, and that at all events we had so diminished those supplies that the German iron works had been short of the main necessities for some months past.
I will give your Lordships a record of every ship that has entered a German port carrying Ore cargoes during the eight months from May 1 to December 31 last. Here are the figures. The total number of cargoes in these eight months amounted to 557, and the contents of the shipments amounted to some 2,089,000 tons. These figures apply exclusively to cargoes which have gone direct to German ports, either Baltic ports or North Sea ports. I desire to be perfectly fair to the Government and to Mr. Runciman's statement that the submarine warfare has had some effect. It has I will take the whole of the eight months, and give in round figures the imports to these German ports. In May the imports of ore were 109,000 tons; in June, 280,000 tons; in July, 431,000 tons; in August, 523,000 tons; in September, 480,000 tons. Here I suppose our submarine activity began to be felt. In October the imports fell to 75,000 tons; they went up in November to 95,000 tons, and in December they fell to 92,000 tons. That is all to the good; and if it be true—and I take it from these figures it is true—that within the last few months the Government have succeeded in stopping to a considerable 1031 extent the supply of ore which went from Sweden to the Baltic ports and to the North Sea German ports, with the effect, Mr. Runciman points out, that the German ironworks have been short of the main necessities for some months, I put this question: Do we get the full advantage to which we are entitled from that if the Government continue to allow this selfsame Swedish ore to go into Rotterdam without let or hindrance, when they must know perfectly well that the destination of that, ore is Germany? That is a most important consideration. It is a case, if I may quote an old tag, of "sparing at the spigot and wasting at the bung."
What are the Germans doing when they get an opportunity? The Germans are active in the Baltic as far as they can safely be. The other day I read in the Cologne Gazette that they seized a Norwegian ship which was going to the Gulf of Finland, to a Finnish port, which is Russian. That ship was seized by the Germans, taken to Swinemunde in the Baltic, and declared a good prize, with the result, I take it, that not only was the cargo confiscated but probably the ship too. That is how the Germans treat iron-ore.
In conclusion, I think I am entitled to refer to the White Paper with which we have been furnished in the last few days in pursuance of the promise given by Lord Lansdowne at the time we had the debate on the Danish Agreement that the Government would circulate a statement of the measures adopted to intercept the seaborne commerce of Germany. In this White Paper, which I imagine most of your Lordships have seen, these measures are summarised in conclusions under Headings 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. I will take the opportunity of quoting No. 2—
All shipments to neutral countries adjacent to Germany are carefully scrutinised with a view to the detection of concealed enemy destination. Wherever there is reasonable ground for suspecting such destination the goods are placed in the Prize Court, and doubtful consignments are detained until satisfactory guarantees are produced.I assert that this is a most misleading document and not in accordance with fact, and to circulate it as a real statement of actualities is, I will put it moderately, most unfair. How can it be said for a single moment that all shipments to neutral countries adjacent to Germany are carefully scrutinised with a view to the detection of 1032 concealed enemy destination when this iron-ore is flowing into Rotterdam clay by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, without the slightest interference on the part of the Government? How can that statement be accepted without challenge?I feel that it is going to be a most critical matter for the Government as to how they deal with the question of blockade. The country has been very tolerant to the Government; it has been long-enduring on some matters. It has had information kept from it, and it has not complained. Things have not gone too well, and again we have not complained. We are hoping for the best. But there is not a man in the country who does not feel certain in his own mind that, sooner or later, owing to the power of the British Fleet, we shall win the war. In my estimation that is the sheet anchor of the situation. And what will be said if we find that the Government, although they have the power to utilise this great and terrible instrument, put it on one side and do not work it to its full effective force? That will bring about a serious situation, and I feel that the more we ventilate information showing a tendency this way the more likely we are to get the Government to recognise its full responsibilities.
§ THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE)My Lords, I have no wish to complain of the speech of the noble Lord, but in order to make my position perfectly clear I would like to read his Question as it stands on the Paper. It run—
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are aware that large and frequent shipments of iron-ore and other metals are arriving at Dutch ports; whether precautions are taken by His Majesty's Government to prevent these from reaching enemy destination; and, if so, what.
I must say, in defence of the answer which I am about to give, that it is hardly possible with a reply prepared to the Question on the Paper to follow the noble Lord in the various excursions which he has taken into the whole policy of blockade. I shall therefore confine my reply to the immediate and specific Question as it appears on the Paper. But I must say that the figures with which I have been provided from official quarters are not capable of comparison with the figures which have been 1033 given by the noble Lord. I do, not know from where he has collected his figures or on what authority they are given, but the divergence between his figures and those which I am going to give is so great that it is quite impossible to reconcile them. I can only suggest to the noble Lord that we should meet and then possibly we may be able to arrive at a reason for the divergence. From the information which has been placed in my hands, the average quantity of iron-ore imported annually into Holland during the three years 1911–13 was approximately 5,500,000 tons, nearly the whole of which used to go into Germany. The figure with which I am provided for the year 1915 is 650,000 tons. These are the official, and I understand the latest, figures.
§ LORD DEVONPORTThe noble Duke is not comparing like with like. My figures are from August, 1914, to the end of last year—that is seventeen months. To make the comparison of full validity it will be necessary for the noble Duke to give the figures for the full identical period.
§ THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIREHad the Question been put down in that form, I should have been glad to furnish the information for that period, but I have answered the Question as it appears on the Paper. If when the new session opens the noble Lord wishes to return to the charge, perhaps we shall be able to agree upon a common form of Question to be placed on the Paper, and I will then endeavour to furnish him with the information on the lines he required. I may, however, say that His Majesty's Government are fully alive to and fully aware of the importance of this question. In so far as vessels carrying iron-ore are in neutral waters they cannot, under the rules of International Law, be stopped by our cruisers. Elsewhere every possible precaution is taken. I trust I may appeal to your Lordships' indulgence that I should not be asked the nature of those precautions. For obvious reasons it is essential that they should be kept as secret as possible. I can only repeat that every possible precaution is taken to stop this traffic.
§ LORD JOICEYMy Lords, the question which has been raised by Lord Devonport is, in my judgment, a very serious one, and I quite agree with him that there is considerable disquiet throughout the country on this question of blockade. I think the figures which the noble Lord gave ought to 1034 be carefully examined by the Foreign Office or by the Board of Trade, and we ought to be made aware as to where the figures err. The noble Lord stated, and my own information confirms him, that in Holland there are no blast furnaces and no coke ovens. Therefore all the iron-ore which passes through Rotterdam must of necessity go into Germany. It is not only on this question of iron-ore that the country is anxious, but with regard to all imports into Germany through neutral countries. I recognise the necessity of considering the feelings of neutral countries, but I believe that neutral countries are surprised that we have not taken stronger action in this matter. No doubt a great number of merchants are making large fortunes by passing goods into Germany, and I am informed, so far as Holland is concerned, that many of these people are German merchants who have gone there for the purpose; and I am told that the general population are surprised that we should give these people the opportunity of continuing supplies to our enemy. When we consider the difficulties we have to contend with and the huge Armies we have to maintain, surely it is the duty of the Government to take much stronger action in this matter than they are taking. With the neutral countries it is a question of making money, but with us it is a question of our very existence, and I hope that the Government as a whole will awaken to the serious position in which we stand in regard to this matter. I am not satisfied with the reply which has been given by the noble Duke, and I do not think that the country will be satisfied. We ought to have more definite information on this question, and I am glad that my noble friend has raised it to-day. I feel sure his action will be approved by the country, and I hope it will be the means of leading the Government to look at this question of blockade much more seriously than they appear to have done up to the present time.
§ LORD NUNBURNHOLMEMy Lords, I had the pleasure of speaking on this question in July of last year, and I then took the opportunity of calling the attention of His Majesty's Government to the enormous increase in the trade between Sweden and the German ports in the Baltic since the commencement of the war. It is true that some of our submarines have been at work in that direction since. On the other hand, we know that in the winter 1035 time there are considerable difficulties which prevent them from being successful in that particular ocean. But may I say once more that there is a very strong public feeling that we ought to stop at nothing to strangle the trade of Germany, not only the trade of ore into Germany, but the enormous quantity of exports that Germany has undoubtedly sent to Scandinavian ports. As the noble Lord who has just spoken said, these neutral countries are making a tremendous lot of money out of this trade, and they will fight all they can to keep this going. But are we to consider the question of money when we have so much at stake? I will give an instance in regard to the food question. Within the last two months a German submarine stopped a ship coming from Sweden to the port of Hull, and took her into Hamburg to examine the cargo. The agents of the ship in Hull had a conversation with the captain the next time he came home, and asked him as to the condition of things in Hamburg. The captain said that the port of Hamburg, the docks and all that locality, looked very much the same as English docks do on a Sunday, when there is not much work going on. But he said that if you go up into the town of Hamburg you find life going on the same as usual. People are enjoying themselves, the cafés are open, and there is the usual German life. He was asked as to the price of food, for he had had to buy food for his crew in Hamburg, and he definitely stated that meat and other commodities were no more expensive there than they were in the port of Hull. That undoubtedly shows that in spite of the efforts of the Committee of the Government who are looking into this question we have not half strangled the trade of Germany, and there is still a great deal to be done in that direction. I hope that His Majesty's Government will stop at nothing, even if it means offending to a certain extent friends in neutral countries.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, a specific Question was put on the Paper by the noble Lord who commenced this discussion, and it has been answered by my noble friend the noble Duke. Since then we have had one or two speeches the effect of which is obviously to widen very largely the scope of the discussion. I rather deprecate allowing the limited Question put by Lord Devonport to be made the occasion of a general debate 1036 upon the precautionary Measures which we take in order to prevent supplies from reaching the enemy. We have had advice from the noble Lord who spoke just now from the Back Bench (Lord Nunburnholme). He tells us that in his opinion we ought to stop at nothing in order to strangle this trade. That is a splendid sentiment, and, regarded as an abstract proposition, I am not at all sure that I do not entirely agree with him. But your difficulties begin when you have to discover the means of applying these bold and far-reaching sentiments. There is no doubt that many supplies do reach the enemy through neutral countries. There is no doubt that a great deal of money is made in neutral countries by the encouragement of this very lucrative traffic. But I venture to enter my humble protest against the suggestion that the Departments concerned—I think the Departments mentioned were the Foreign Office, the War Office, and the Admiralty—require what one noble Lord called "waking up" in order to make them realise the gravity of this question. I will not say anything more, and for this reason. On this very evening the Foreign Secretary will make, or perhaps has made, an important statement in regard to our general policy, and until that statement has been considered by noble Lords and examined with the attention which it deserves I hope they will hesitate to come to the conclusion, which has apparently been arrived at on quite insufficient information by some of the noble Lords who have spoken, that His Majesty's Government have failed to realise the immense importance of this question.