§ LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE had the following Notice on the Paper—
§ To call attention to the statement of The Times of March 1, that General Smuts, a member of the War Cabinet, had met Count Albert Mensdorff (formerly Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Great Britain) in Switzerland; and to afford His Majesty's Ministers the opportunity of explaining this episode.
§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTONMy Lords, before the noble Lord puts the Question which stands on the Paper in his name, I feel it to be my duty to ask your Lordships' permission to make a very brief statement as to the circumstances in which this Question is put, and as to what has happened with regard to it. It was only on Saturday morning last that I saw the Question for the first time on the Order Paper of your Lordships' House. I considered the matter very carefully, and I came without hesitation to the conclusion that a Question of this sort might lead to a discussion here which it was exceedingly undesirable should take place.
Your Lordships know—no one knows better—that a Question in this House is a very different thing from a Question in another place. There a Question in definite form is put by an hon. Member; it is put in a formal manner without addition, and to it the Minister responsible for the Department gives such reply as he chooses, or, if he so desires, declines to give any reply at all. Here, under our strange but 454 long-standing procedure, we act in a different way. The Question upon the Paper is not necessarily a Question alone. It is apt more frequently than otherwise to expand into a speech, which may be the precursor of other speeches; and there may arise out of what looks like a simple Question a debate of a prolonged and even exciting character, and the Minister concerned may find himself at the end in a position in which it is almost impossible without incivility to give a curt reply.
My Lords, I was further aware of the fact that the subject alluded in this Question had been mentioned by an hon. Member speaking in debate in another place, and on that occasion the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Balfour, took the same view as I did. He declined to make any reply whatsoever to the subject alluded to in the Question. Accordingly, my Lords, having come to this conclusion, I ventured to write a letter to my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke. In that letter I said that I was a good deal surprised at his having put this Question on the Notice Paper of your Lordships' House without giving me an opportunity, as representing the Foreign Office here, of expressing an opinion as to the propriety of it—all the more so that I happened to know that I was in the House and on this Bench when the noble Lord handed in the Notice of this Question to the Clerks at the Table. I went on in this letter to say that I was sure the noble Lord, from my long experience of him—which will be endorsed by all your Lordships—would not wish to do anything injurious to the public interest; but I said that I thought it would be obvious to him, upon reflection, that to answer such a Question was quite impossible, and that to put it could only do harm.
In these circumstances I expressed the hope that my noble friend would consider the propriety of withdrawing his Question from the Paper; and I added, in conclusion, that if he was unable to take that course—which I did not for a moment believe—I should be reluctantly driven to tell the House that I had asked him to do so, and to decline myself to give any answer to the Question. That, my Lords, is the letter which I wrote to my noble friend on Saturday morning last. I took steps—such steps as were open to me—to place it immediately in his hands, but finding some difficulty in ascertaining his whereabouts (because I know that he is actively engaged in the public service) I left the 455 letter at his club, with instructions that it should be handed to him at the first possible moment. There, I believe, it remained over Sunday, but I have every reason to believe that it was handed to my noble friend in person on Monday-evening.
Three days have elapsed since then. During that time I have received no communication from my noble friend. I have not received even an acknowledgment of my letter, and not until two minutes ago, in the precincts of your Lordships' House, did my noble friend approach me to tell me that he had received my letter and was disposed to take certain action upon it. No doubt there must have been some good reason why my noble friend refrained from extending to me, on a matter of considerable public moment, the courtesy of a reply. He will be able to explain that if he desires to do so. All I wish on the present occasion to say is this, that I earnestly renew to him now at this moment the appeal which I ventured to address to him in my letter on Saturday last, and that I am certain that his regard for the public interest—on which no one counts more confidently than myself—will induce him to give an affirmative reply to my appeal.
§ LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKEMy Lords, if the noble Earl thinks that I have been intentionally guilty of any discourtesy to him in not having answered or acknowledged his letter before, all I can say is that I beg his pardon, because no discourtesy of that kind was intended. I came down to the House this afternoon for the purpose of publicly acknowledging that he had written to me, because I thought it due to this House and to the noble Earl to give some explanation of why I had put the Question upon the Paper. The noble Earl has read me—I do not mean to say this in an offensive way—something like a very friendly lecture with regard to the propriety of asking his permission to place a Question on the Paper. If he says that that was the proper course for me to have taken, I accept what he says.
But, my Lords, I have been placed in this position before by Ministers with regard to Questions that I have tried to put. When I have privately consulted with Ministers before, I have been turned down more than once; and although personal affairs should not interfere in a matter of this kind—in putting a Question upon the 456 Paper—I will be perfectly frank with your Lordships and say that I was prompted by previous experience in the procedure of the House. My experience has been that if you wish to bring forward a matter here the wisest and safest plan was to put the Question on the Paper and see what happened. I put this Question on the Paper, and then I received the letter from the noble Earl, for which I thank him. I also thank him very much for saying that he was sure I had no wish to do anything injurious to the public interest. If your Lordships will allow me to say so, that exactly describes my position. I rather wish that he had not used any threat about what he was going to do to me supposing I persisted in my Question.
If I kept the noble Earl in a state of suspense, the reasons for that I need not go into. I was obliged to take some time to consult with my friends about what would be the proper course, and I have come to the conclusion to withdraw the Question unreservedly, and not attempt to press it either in the House or out of it. No other course is open to me; and I am quite sure that the noble Earl will give me the credit of wishing to do so independently of any pressure he may have placed upon me by saying what he would do supposing I refused to comply with his request. Now, I am not going to say anything about the subject-matter of the Question, because it would not be fair; but I might be allowed, perhaps, to say that in general terms there could not be very much secrecy about it. I was not, in my judgment, attempting to disclose anything which could be of value to the enemy. The incident to which it referred had already taken place some time ago. It was evidently thoroughly talked about on the Continent, and the news that this interview had taken place appeared in The Times, which it is not unfair to describe as one of the official organs of His Majesty's Government. Something had already been stated about it in the House of Commons, and I assure your Lordships, with the greatest sincerity, that I thought it was not improper that some notice should be taken of it in your Lordships' House. His Majesty's Government could then take what course they thought right as to what they would tell your Lordships about the incident itself. As it is judged by the noble Earl to be inimical to the public interest to say anything more about it, I have nothing more to say.