LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

HL Deb 16 November 1927 vol 69 cc62-110

LORD PARMOORhad given Notice to call attention to the position at Geneva and to questions of foreign policy; and to move for Papers. The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion which stands in my name and I understand that it is to be replied to by the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, whom, if I may, I congratulate on his presence in this House. I hope that on the matters I am going to discuss he will have a view which may not be unfavourable. The last time we met was on a League of Nations platform in Chelsea and I recollect his sympathetic attitude on that occasion. The reason why I thought it necessary to bring this matter forward now is that on November 30 what is known as the Preparatory Commission for Disarmament meets again at Geneva and meets under new conditions. It is in reference to those new conditions that I want to ascertain what the opinion of the Government may be. The Commission has been instructed when it meets to make a new start by considering Resolution 5 of the Third Commission of the League Assembly at Geneva. There is one clause of that resolution which it will be necessary to refer to in detail, but not until a later stage. When this Preparatory Commission last met in March very little progress had been made at all. I think that that will be generally recognised. As a matter of fact the differences between the various members of the Commission had been stated in parallel columns, which accentuated those differences rather than showed that any solution whatever had been reached.

Through the recognised channels I have told the noble Lord that the matters I propose to ask about this afternoon under the somewhat wide terms of my Resolution refer to the question of disarmament, which has been for some years now the leading question at the Assembly at Geneva and which in a very special way was discussed this year. In order that there may be no mistake perhaps I may restate to the noble Lord the questions I desire to ask, although I know he has had a summary of them already. The first is: Is the Government prepared to adopt the Optional Clause (Clause 38) of the International Statute of the Court at The Hague. Secondly: Is the Govern- ment prepared to press forward a system of all-inclusive arbitration and to recognise the interdependence of arbitration, security and disarmament, which were the three pillars so often quoted from M Herriot's speech? Lastly there is a third question—though I am not sure that I called the noble Lord's attention to this—which is of less importance at the present time but still of considerable importance. What is the view of the Government on the movement made by M. de Brouekère, the Belgian Delegate, in order to improve and strengthen the machinery of Article 11 of the Covenant? Article 11 is intended to prevent war breaking out whereas Article 16 provides sanctions and punishments supposing war does break out. Everyone who is interested in the future progress of the League would like to develop the principles of Article 11, to prevent war rather than give sanctions after war has begun.

I want to say a general word on what I call the principles of 1924. I will not use the word "Protocol" because I understand it is a word that is not loved by some members of the Government, but I do not care in the least what word is used. I only want some form of expression to show what were the underlying principles in 1924; therefore I think if I use the expression "the principles of 1924" I shall escape prejudice on either side. The noble Viscount whom I see in the House, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, has taken a prominent part in pressing forward the disarmament question. In 1924 and indeed in the earlier Assemblies the general basis which we had to consider was this. How in the place of the international chaos which so greatly conduced to the Great War can we, under the principle of the League of Nations, introduce a new international order founded on law and justice? In other words, how far can we pursue the pathway indicated by all writers and speakers from Grotius downwards, who say that if you want to have international law between nations you must proceed on the same lines as those which established national order among citizens?

The Covenant fundamentally changed International Law as between the constituent States. We must never lose sight of the fact that whereas in 1914 any nation might embark upon aggressive war or upon any war, whether justly or unjustly, since that date very substantial restraints have been imposed, restraints of the greatest value to the future peace of the world. It was found by experience that those restraints did not go far enough to give the sense of security required in order to carry through by agreement a satisfactory scheme of disarmament. So in 1924 what was really attempted and intended was a further amendment of International Law beyond the amendment of it which had already been formulated in the Covenant itself. This is what was called filling up the gap and its effect would have been that in all cases aggressive warfare would have become what was called an international crime; that is to say, an offence not merely as between the nations concerned but against the League community itself. That point was very much emphasised in this House, as some of your Lordships may recollect, by the late Lord Parker, whose juridical and juristic knowledge and experience held a unique place. It was also one of the principles of 1924 that arbitration, security and disarmament must be inseparably connected as the three pillars in the structure of a peace system. I believe (and I shall have to call attention to what passed at the Assembly) that there has been no weakening in that respect and that the principles formulated by Mr. MacDonald and M. Herriot still hold the field. It is only in this way that a definition can be got of "aggressor" in order to deal with the great evil of aggressive war; and as I have stated—this also is an analogy from municipal law—as crimes between individuals become crimes against the State so aggressive war must be regarded as a crime against the whole order of world peace and not merely as an offence between the parties concerned.

I do not wish to develop my view of the underlying ideas and principles of 1924 to a further extent. Indeed, it would take too long and what I have indicated is sufficient for my purpose. It enables me to found the arguments I desire to raise on what passed at the recent Assembly and on the resolutions to which that Assembly came. I fear I might not have the entire assent of the noble Earl opposite when I say that everyone who has been present at, or has carefully read the reports of, the proceedings of the Assembly since 1924, will find not that those principles are moribund—an expression which I notice has been used—but that they are growing in strength and vitality, and that each year there has been a larger and growing support of the principles which I define as the principles of 1924. I was told by one who was present in the Assembly this year that ten or eleven—he seemed not to be quite certain of the number—Foreign Secretaries mounted the platform in succession and urged that the principles of 1924 should be accepted, re-established and made the basis of further progress. Then came what I must call a chilling blast from the Foreign Secretary. I do not doubt his sincerity; no one would doubt it for a moment; but it was a blunt and uncompromising speech and no doubt was intended to be so. There is no secret about it. But isolation in these matters at Geneva does not promote influence in international affairs. On the contrary it lessens the influence which a great country like Great Britain and the British Empire can and should exercise upon all occasions over the proceedings at Geneva. International co-operation, which of course is the essence of the outlook at Geneva, requires sympathy with collective opinion. You must have sympathy with collective opinion in order to promote international co-operation.

I should like to say a word on one point in the Foreign Secretary's speech, which stands in print for everyone to read. It is his reference to the Dominions. He used some very strong terms regarding the effect of the principles of 1924 upon conditions in the Dominions, and I should like to put this view forward against that. I agree that in the Dominions, as in our own country and other countries, there is naturally a difference of opinion upon these points. But in 1924 the Delegations from the Dominions were in hourly and daily consultation with the Delegation from this country and were unanimous in their support of the principles then accepted by the Assembly. I should like to go a little further than that in two directions. An absolutely essential feature of the principles of 1924 was the acceptance of the Optional Clause, Clause 38, of the Statute of the Court of International Justice. That clause, I believe, was largely inserted through the wisdom and wide outlook of the noble Lord, Lord Phillimore. Since that date Canada, I think, has publicly expressed the opinion that it is not unfavourable to the Optional Clause. I regard that as a matter of the greatest importance. It is a first step in the right direction as showing the sincerity of Great Britain and of the British Empire in the desire for peace, and it is a step of the very greatest importance. If, as I have tried to indicate, you are to have an amendment of International Law as the basis of a new international order, it is of the first importance that juridical and legal matters should be under the jurisdiction and power of a court which is recognised to have competent authority. We know that the support of this clause is part of the American scheme, and I would point out that one very important Dominion at any rate, not only does not oppose what was a basic factor of the principles of 1924 but cordially supports it.

When I was at Geneva the representative of Canada was M. Dandurand, a most competent and capable representative, who was President of the Assembly of the year before last. What is he reported to have said? He did not say that Canada was against the idea of arbitration; but, after stating what is quite true, that Canada had suffered a good deal from arbitration—that is to say, had often been found not in the right—he went on to make this statement. He is reported to have said that, after all, the chance of a non-suit in arbitration is an infinitely less national risk than the risk of the recurrence in an aggravated form of such a war as that which broke out in 1914.

I should also like to give an illustration from Australia. I do not doubt that there is a difference of opinion, but to speak as though all public opinion were one way, either in Canada or Australia, cannot for a moment be supported. Professor Naylor, a professor of history at Adelaide University, speaking not long ago, stated most positively that in his opinion the majority of people in Australia were in favour of those principles which I have indicated. He said, moreover, that it was not to be wondered at because the Delegation from Australia, differing in every respect from the Delegation of this country, did not represent one Party but all Parties. Amongst others it had upon it the then Leader of the Labour Party, Mr. Charlton. It was a Delegation representative of Australia at large and not of any particular Party. May I give one further illustration? I was speaking the other day in that centre of ideas for International Law, the hall of All Souls College, Oxford, During the discussion one Australian got up—I do not know his name—and discussed very well his point of view, which was unfavourable to these principles, but immediately, on the other side of the hall, another Australian rose and said that he entirely differed. Not only was he strongly in favour of these principles but a large majority of people in Australia, he said, held the same opinion because their basic desire was peace and not war.

This, I think, brings me to the first question that I want to ask the noble Lord and that is: What is the attitude of the Government on the Optional Clause? When I was at Geneva we had to consider that clause and also the reservations, and a special representative, a most able naval expert, was sent from the Admiralty, who stated that he doubted whether the reservations, as they stood, were sufficient to preserve the belligerent rights in naval warfare as they are now understood in this country. We were able to put in words in Article 4 amounting to a special reservation, showing that the whole question could be reserved and is intended to be reserved. He wanted another amendment later on in Article 11 which brought about the same result. Why should not this clause be adopted with reservations? The noble Lord, Lord Phillimore, is more familiar with this clause than I am. So far as I know there is no limitation to the principle of reservation and any particular matter which this country desired to reserve could be reserved without in any way imperilling the application of the main clause. I earnestly press upon the Government that when this Preparatory Commission meets again at Geneva, when this matter is certain to come forward as one of the main points, the then representatives of the British Government should be able to show not only a sympathetic attitude but a movement in the direction of accepting the obligations—if they are to be called obligations—which in reality are security for peace on both sides.

I want to pass on to the provisions and resolutions actually passed at the Assembly, and in order that I may not be in any way inaccurate I have brought here —I do not know whether the noble Lord has it—the official journal of the League of Nations containing the resolutions and recommendations adopted by the Assembly. I have no doubt the noble Lord knows them, even if he has not the book which I have before me. There were two resolutions, both of which are of vital importance. I do not quite know what the attitude of the Government is, but I understand that Lord Onslow, who then represented the Government, was not unfavourable, and the Foreign Secretary stated in Paris on his way home, if I understood him aright, that these resolutions showed, to him, a tendency in, shall I call it, the right direction—a tendency in the peaceful direction. What is the first of those? The resolution was originally framed by the Poles and is called the Polish Resolution. It is altered somewhat in order to get rid of the word Protocol. To my mind I do not think that matters in the least. It is not on a matter of language but of substance that these resolutions are based.

The first one is: All wars of aggression are, and shall always be, prohibited.

The Government assented to that. And what do they mean? In phraseology the resolution goes the whole distance—"are, and shall always be, prohibited." Are the Government prepared to accept, in order to carry that out, the only way so far explored both to define an aggressor and also to prohibit all aggressive wars, that is, to give a complete all-inclusive alternative? Then, if that alternative is placed on one side, and if in spite of it an aggressor begins war, he properly and naturally becomes subject to the punishment and penalties in the Covenant. The second resolution, which I hope was not only accepted as a matter of phraseology but as a matter of substance, is this— Every pacific means must be employed to settle disputes, of every description, which may arise between States.

I want to ask the noble Lord this. He notes the words "of every description." That would mean filling up what is known as the gap in the Covenant. In assenting to that proposition, in those words, did the Government intend not only to accept what I may call a general proposition, but did they intend to support the only way at present explored in which every dispute of every description can be settled without resort to war? That is a simple question.

I do not want to rake up old controversies, because I think we are coming closer together in many directions upon this point, but there were phrases in the statement made by the present Foreign Secretary in March, 1925, when he unconditionally rejected the Protocol, which appeared to be to many people, certainly to Americans—I have read a great many articles on this matter written by them—not an indication of settling disputes of every description, but on the contrary suggest that force must still remain—I think it was called "brute force," but that does not matter—force must still remain as the deciding factor between nations.

The other thing is what is called Resolution No. 5. I am sure the noble Lord will understand what this resolution is and I hope that he has a copy before him. Resolution No. 5 is of very great importance. It was originally suggested by the Foreign Minister of Holland and after considerable discussion and alteration in the Third Commission, which is the Commission to which questions of this kind are always referred at Geneva, it reappeared and was unanimously adopted by the Assembly. I cannot read it all because it is too long—it occupies a page and a-half—but I will extract out of it the two or three passages which really deal with this question of disarmament. They are extremely important, because they show what was the feeling of the Assembly, and I think the Earl of Onslow said on behalf of the Government that the Government assented to the passing of this resolution. It says: Being convinced that the principal condition of this success—

the success there referred to is the approach towards disarmament— is that every State should be sure of not having to provide unaided for its security by means of its own armaments and should be able to rely also on the organised collective action of the League of Nations … That is the most important point.

Are the Government in favour of giving what is called pool security—that is, the security of the organised collective action of the League of Nations, increasing enormously on the one side the basis of security and diminishing the risk of any separate State upon the other? I do not know how that is to be done except in accordance with the principles of 1924, or unless you make an aggressive war not only an offence between the States but an offence against the community of the League itself. My own belief is that if that was properly carried out the risk of war would be infinitesimal. No one country could really face the organised collective action of the League of Nations. Therefore that is a question which I want to ask the noble Lord. Do the Government support this principle of organised collective action by the League of Nations?

Then it goes on to affirm that such action should aim chiefly at forestalling or arresting any resort to war ….

I want to pause for a moment. This is where M. de Brouckère comes in. That, I think, is a matter of enormous importance. It is with reference to Article 11. I want in a moment to give an illustration of what I mean while I am upon this point. M. de Brouckère, whose efforts in the cause of peace must be recognised by everyone as well as his great knowledge of all these international questions, has more than once expressed the decided view that the efforts of the League should be directed rather to the prevention of war than to the punishment of the aggressor. No one can doubt for one moment that if you can prevent war it is a far greater, more beneficent and more far reaching reform than punishing the aggressor after war has broken out. I will give the illustration I referred to. I do not want to go into it at length, because this would not be the proper occasion. Let us take China.

Many noble Lords here will recollect having heard this before from me. I have always thought that the difficulties of China ought to have been referred to the League of Nations, although the Earl of Balfour has expressed more than once the difficulties arising from the national chaos in China. That is a difficulty which I have always said I believed the machinery of the League could have overcome. There cannot be the smallest doubt that we were entitled to bring this dispute under Article 11 to the notice of the League of Nations at Geneva, but as I understand the answer which has been made—I do not say I agree with it —that answer was that the provisions of that Article are not sufficient to meet the difficulties. M. de Brouckère especially has acknowledged that this Article in such a state of things as this would be sufficient to meet the difficulty. You must recollect that China was a Member both of the Council and of the League in the same sense that we were. If a matter of this kind could have been brought under Article 11 and difficulties had been raised, as they might have been raised—I am not going to underrate those difficulties—I believe myself the facilities of procedure at the League would have been sufficient. If they are not sufficient, let them be increased.

What has gone on, and is going on, is to the loss of everyone. No one denies that. I am not going into all the difficulties, they are many and great, but if a difficulty of this kind could have been avoided and a friendly accommodation made, it would have been of enormous advantage, particularly to Great Britain, and a guarantee of preserving what is of the utmost importance to us in the future—our trade with China. The risk now is that the demoralisation in China may produce a condition of poverty which will make that trade necessarily curtailed, infinitely less important and less flourishing than it should have been. At any rate there is the point which I want to put to the noble Lord opposite. Will the Government, if this is raised at Geneva, be prepared, as one of the roads towards peace, to give their influence and authority to the proposal made by M. de Brouckère to increase the efficiency of Article 11?

There are one or two other clauses which I ought to read, but I am afraid of infringing too much on the patience of the House. They are all in the same direction, all in the direction of asking that the Committee appointed by the Commission should work with the Commission in the direction of disarmament. But this Commission—and this is a further point—has referred to it the very two points which I have mentioned—the linking of arbitration and security with disarmament. That is the really important issue of the whole matter as I have tried to express my view before coming to this stage of my argument—a Commission appointed to consider the interdependence and the natural effect one upon the other of arbitration, security and disarmament What is the attitude of the Government going to be? No one can read the facts and doubt that what is aimed at is what is called all-inclusive arbitration as a basis of security, to be carried out either before or after disarmament. I am not going to discuss the relationship between, the one and the other and I do not want to get into matters of controversy if I can help it. I merely wish to emphasise the question of interdependence and of the Commission specially entrusted with consideration of the interdependence of arbitration, security and disarmament. That is the kernel of the whole matter. Are the Government going to support that? If they do, I say quite frankly that I do not want to find fault with them and that this will be supporting the policy of 1924 which, in my view, is the right policy to adopt in these difficult questions. I will not read any more opinions, which would tire the House, but I think that I have indicated sufficiently what I mean.

In conclusion, there are two considerations that I wish to put before the House. There are two outstanding differences, apart from these resolutions of the Assembly, between the conditions now and those that obtained when the Preparatory Commission last met in March this year. One is brought about by the failure of the Naval Conference. I can hardly say that this matter was fully discussed in the House the other day, but I am certainly not going to raise it again. I want to agree entirely with what has been said by the noble and learned Viscount beside me, and also by the noble Viscount, Lord Grey of Fallodon, whose opinion is of great value in these matters. This is not to be dealt with as an algebraical or mathematical addition of figures. It is of the utmost importance that in every direction perfect good feeling should be encouraged between this country and America, and there could be no greater misfortune than anything in the nature of competition in naval armaments as between this country and America. It is an almost unthinkable evil to do anything that would encourage that idea or in any way weaken the friendliness which we have often been told was aroused in a special manner by the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, between this country and the United States. We have these things widely. The peace of the world is almost assured if America and this country act in friendly co-operation. On the other hand, there are points of contact and points of danger. We do not want to consider them. They will come to nothing if friendliness is preserved and they will loom as difficulties only if friendliness is interfered with.

The other point of difference is provided by Russia. At the next meeting Russia will be represented at the Disarmament Conference. I think that this is a great advance. I think that it is one of the pathetic aspects of modern thought that there seems to be a desire to keep Russia outside the comity of European nations. I am not now going to discuss any question of Russia apart from that. I consider the fears regarding Russia grossly exaggerated. The Slavs of Russia are the most peaceable people in any part of the globe, and certainly in Europe. What I want to emphasise is another view. Cannot this be taken as an opportunity of drawing nearer the industrial intercourse between this country and Russia? Orders to the amount of £27,000,000 are said to have been lost through the Arcos raid. I have a list here that would not be relevant at the present time. When we talk of peace in industry, we must remember that this does not depend so much upon political action as upon constancy of employment. One man in every four in this country is normally concerned in producing manufactured articles for export. Any interference with our export trade is extremely dangerous. I can only say that I am one of those who hope that the time will soon come when the most inviting field, if I may use that expression, the largest field, the field which promises best for the future, will be freely open to the manufacturers and workers of this country and that we shall not allow an opportunity of that, kind to go by default. Those are the questions which I desire to ask the noble Lord opposite. I hope that I have put them courteously and in a way that he can appreciate and understand, and I am sure that he will have all the sympathy of the Opposition when we listen to his first address to this House. I beg to move formally my Motion for Papers.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (LORD CUSHENDUN)

My Lords, I wish to express my gratitude to the noble and learned Lord for the very kind way in which he referred to myself, both at the outset of his speech and in his concluding words. I am glad to know—at least I have been so informed—that it is the habit of your Lordships, as it is in another place, to extend some measure of indulgence to those who address you for the first time. I think there have probably been few that have had that benefit who can have felt more in need of it than I do at this moment. I was gratified to hear the noble and learned Lord refer to the fact that the last time that he and I met was on a League of Nations Union platform, because that gives me an opportunity, which I hope your Lordships will forgive my taking, of making my first words on the subject that has been brought before the House something in the nature of a confession of faith. I am no halfhearted believer in and supporter of the League of Nations. I have not had the opportunity of giving it any very effective support, but that was owing to circumstances and not to lack of will.

I have been convinced, ever since the War, of two things. They are really platitudes, and I can hardly imagine a difference of opinion upon either of them. The first is that any repetition of the War on any considerable scale, or even on any scale at all, would be an absolutely unthinkable disaster for mankind and for the world. The last War was, in all conscience, horrible enough, but when we remember that scientific experts tell us that it would pale into insignificance before the horror of the next I cannot imagine any human being not taking the view, which I am sure all your Lordships do, as to the overwhelming and vital necessity of doing anything that men can reasonably do to make a repetition of that disaster an impossibility for the future. The second point is that I believe, most firmly, that far the best hope of being able to accomplish that end lies in the institution and the working of the League of Nations and its various arms. Therefore, I would like to claim that, so far as the noble and learned Lord and myself are concerned, as regards the principles to which he has been referring, there really is no difference of opinion whatever with regard to the principles and the aim.

No doubt we may not entirely agree, and we do not agree, when it comes to questions, not of principle and aim but, first of all, the extent to which that aim can possibly be realised and, secondly, the means by which a nearer approach to that ideal can be found. There must inevitably be difference of opinion on questions of method and ways and means. I like to make that statement at the outset because, of course, I realise that I stand here as a stranger to your Lordships, and I would like to make quite clear what my faith is with regard to the question of the League. The noble and learned Lord has put certain questions to me as to the intentions of the Government. I confess that I am put in some difficulty by being called upon to answer those questions at this moment. I think those questions, if I may say so, are premature, so far as the intentions of the Government at the forthcoming meeting at Geneva are concerned. No instructions have yet been drafted for the guidance of our representative at Geneva in December. The whole of these questions which the noble and learned Lord has put are under the consideration of the Government, and I am afraid that the most I can do is to give an indication of some of the factors which we have to take into account, and which, after all, are quite as familiar, or more so, to the noble and learned Lord as they are to myself. I must ask him, however, to be content to recognise that in anything I say on the subject I am not in a position to express any absolute decision of the Government upon those points.

The first question which the noble and learned Lord asked me was with regard to the Optional Clause—whether it was the intention of the Government to sign that Clause? I was a little puzzled, I must confess, by the way in which the noble and learned Lord attempted, I thought not very successfully, to link the question of signing the Optional Clause with what he, for the sake of euphony, called the principles of 1924.

LORD PARMOOR

It was a term of the Protocol that the Optional Clause was to be signed.

LORD CUSHENDUN

I agree, but there was a great deal more in the Protocol than that, and there was no very close connection between the Optional Clause and the Protocol of 1924. I do not recognise any very particular principles of 1924, and I am bound to remember that that Protocol, with which I believe the noble and learned Lord was largely concerned, was never countersigned by the head of his own Government, and I have always understood that it was through no oversight at all that the signature of the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary at that time was not attached.

LORD PARMOOR

I think I must correct that. Every step taken was taken with the Foreign Minister, who was also the Prime Minister, in daily communication. Of course, before the matter could be finally considered by the Government at large a General Election took place.

LORD CUSHENDUN

Of course we cannot solve the puzzle. Up to the point at which the noble and learned Lord attached his signature no doubt it was all carried out in communication with the Government. The fact, nevertheless, remains that that instrument was never signed by the British Government of that day—it was never authoritatively signed—and therefore I think it is rather too large a claim to make for it to call it now "the principles of 1924," as if it were accepted and universally recognised as a document which is entitled to that very high place of honour. At any rate I am quite prepared, as the noble and learned Lord has raised that point, before dealing more precisely with the question of the Optional Clause, to say this with regard to the Protocol. He complains very much of the speech made by the Foreign Secretary at Geneva, which he said was a cold blast. He said that there was a growing support for the Protocol but it was all chilled by this cold blast from the Foreign Secretary. I do not quarrel with that language. I think it was a cold blast, and most useful for the purpose.

After all, it was the most natural thing in the world that this Protocol should have growing support. What does it offer? It offers, to a large number of States, who perhaps are not feeling as secure against their neighbours and against the world as they might feel, what they are anxious for more than anything else—namely, the guarantee of the British power, and it involves, as has been pointed out over and over again, and as was pointed out at the time when it was rejected at Geneva, a degree of risk of commitments which I do not believe that any British Government will accept. I certainly think I may say, with a fair amount of confidence, that that terrible risk—as it is if it is analysed—will at all events not be accepted by the present Government of this country.

I want to deal now a little more closely with the Optional Clause, apart altogether from the principles of 1924. The first thing I would point out to your Lordships is that there have been quite a number of authoritative decisions upon this point by His Majesty's Government. By that I do not mean merely the present individuals who hold office, but His Majesty's Government in the large sense have made decisions several times against the signing of that Clause. What is the history of the Clause? When it was first drafted it was in a compulsory form, not in an optional form at all; and I believe I am right in saying that it was very largely owing to the influence of this country, at the time when Mr. Lloyd George's Government was in power, and the Lord Chancellor of the day and both the Law Officers of the Crown strongly-advised against acceptance of that draft, that a change was made, and the Clause was put into its present optional form. Of course, the rejection of a compulsory draft and turning it into an optional one is exactly the same thing in principle and in fact as refusing at the present time to sign the Optional Clause. I do not know whether I am entitled to say it, but I have always understood that the noble and learned Viscount opposite (Lord Haldane) when Lord Chancellor expressed an opinion (I think I have seen it in print) that although some time or other it might be necessary to sign that Clause, at all events in 1924—that sacred year of this sacred principle—it was still premature to sign that document.

In the same year the opinion of our Dominions was made known in a very striking fashion. The noble Lord has said a great deal about the opinion of the Dominions, and I gathered from him that he attached importance to individuals here and there who expressed an opinion upon one side or the other. He discovered an Australian who was in favour of the clause and another Australian who was against it, and one who said that the whole of Australia would really be willing to accept it.

LORD PARMOOR

The majority.

LORD CUSHENDUN

Surely His Majesty's Government cannot act upon information of that sort. If Australia, or even a large body of opinion in Australia, is anxious to see this Clause signed its proper course is to bring that opinion to bear upon their own Government, and the Government of the Commonwealth can always approach His Majesty's Government here in order to show that their opinion has changed. But the matter does not end there. Last year was the year of an Imperial Conference and this matter was carefully considered by the Government here, and it was then considered by a Committee on Inter-Imperial Relations, presided over, I think, by my noble friend Lord Balfour. That Committee reviewed the whole matter from the point of view of Dominion opinion, and it is quite true that there were differences of opinion. That was perplexing, but there were very strong and emphatic opinions from some parts of the Dominions and India against any step being taken, and the language which was put on record was very striking. They said it was agreed that no step should be taken in the direction of signing this Clause without further consultation between the Dominions and the Government here. That is a fact on which I am in a position to give positive information to the noble Lord, because that is an agreement by which, of course, we are bound. It is impossible, as we are situated at present, to take any steps without further consultation with the Dominions. It may be urged that if we in this country saw any great advantage in signing this Clause we could ourselves again approach the Dominions, put arguments before them, and implore them to consent to the signing of this clause. What would be gained, supposing that that course were taken? What new facts have emerged, what new situation has arisen which we could put before the Dominions to slow that there is good reason for altering the decision arrived at before?

The question above all others that I would respectfully press upon your Lordships is this. Supposing we signed the Clause to-morrow, the British Empire as a whole or the seven Governments independently, to what extent would peace be made any more secure than it is at this present moment? That, of course, is the most important question of all. It seems to me that in order to answer that question you have to consider what categories of disputes are not at present covered by any form of arbitration agreement signed by this country. The noble Lord spoke about filling up the gap which is not covered by any obligatory arbitral undertaking. I believe that if your Lordships really analysed the obligations which we have undertaken under Articles 13 and 15 of the Covenant it would appear how very small that gap is. Article 13, with one exception to which I will refer in a moment, not only covers all the ground of the Optional Clause, it covers more ground than the Optional Clause. Any dispute occurring imposes upon us as a signatory of the Covenant the obligation to refer it to arbitration. Of course, I know what the view of the noble Lord is with regard to the exception. The exception is that it is only so to be referred if the party considers that it is suitable for arbitration. No doubt the noble Lord and those who agree with him hold the view that that is so large a gap that every conceivable sort of dispute may be rushed through it. I do not think that anybody is justified in saying that, and if that is argued it appears to me to show a very great lack of faith in the Covenant as it stands, and also in the good administration of that Covenant and the good will of the signatories. Without the will to peace it is no good, but if you have the will to peace I cannot conceive that advantage would be taken of that particular exception in Clause 13 except in extremely exceptional cases.

Then comes in Article 15, because, even supposing that you do attempt to withdraw your dispute from arbitration under Article 13, the other party, or, indeed, any member of the League can then have recourse to Article 15 and bring to bear practically all the machinery of the League. We have lately had an example of this in the dispute over the Iraq frontier. Had we been a signatory to the Optional Clause that dispute would have had to go to the Permanent Court at The Hague.

LORD PARMOOR

No.

LORD CUSHENDUN

The noble and learned Lord dissents, but I venture to suggest—

LORD PARMOOR

That dispute would not in any way have been included in the class of disputes covered by the Optional Clause at all. It was referred to the Council of the League.

LORD CUSHENDUN

It is only with the very greatest diffidence that on anything like a legal question I venture to hold a different opinion from the noble and learned Lord; nevertheless, he has not convinced me that in this statement I was wrong. The dispute arose technically, I should have suggested, in reference to the interpretation of the Treaty of Lauzanne and, therefore, as a matter of fact, I fancy it really would come under the first of the four categories laid down in the Optional Clause as being referable to the Court.

LORD PHILLIMORE

Why?

LORD CUSHENDUN

Nothing very much turns upon it whether I am right or wrong about that particular point. The fact is that by referring that dispute to the Council instead of to the Court, as I think everyone who has closely followed it would agree, a very much more satisfactory sort of tribunal for the dispute was invoked, and surely it stands to reason. Whether that is an exact or proper illustration or not I do not mind, but it is easy to imagine cases where, technically speaking, a dispute might arise either on the interpretation of a Treaty or under one of the other categories in the Article, which in substance was not a judicial dispute at all but a political dispute. Where disputes of that sort arise I think it is far better, and it ought to be possible, to go as we did in that particular case to the Council of the League rather than to the Court.

Returning for a moment to Article 13 and the exception which is admitted under the words that the parties must consider a dispute "suitable for submission to arbitration," that exception corresponds and I suppose is intended to correspond to the saving clause which appears, I think, in almost all our Arbitration Treaties. There is always a saving clause on matters of vital interest, honour and independence of the State. If the Government of this country were to sign the Optional Clause as the noble and learned Lord wishes them to do, what would be the result so far as the gap which is not covered by the arbitration arrangements is concerned? What would happen, and all that would happen, would be that you would abolish that saving clause for the benefit of matters touching the vital interests, honour and independence.

LORD PHILLIMORE

Would the noble Lord state what clause he is referring to in Article 13? I have it before me and I think I might save him trouble. He will not find anything about vital interests in that clause.

LORD CUSHENDUN

Perhaps I have quoted the wrong Article.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

I think the words the noble Lord wants are in the third line of Article 13, quite at the beginning.

LORD CUSHENDUN

"Members of the League agree that whenever any dispute shall arise between them which they recognise as suitable for arbitration …." That is what I was referring to, and I say that there is what some people regard as a big gap opening the way for removing these disputes from arbitration.

LORD PARMOOR

That allows either party at once to withdraw everything from arbitration.

LORD CUSHENDUN

I know, and I have already attempted to deal with that particular point and to show that even if that were done there is the ability to fall back upon Article 15. But the point I am dealing with now is not quite that. What I want to insist upon is that signing the Clause would amount to the abolition of the hitherto accepted saving clause as to vital interests, honour and independence. I gather that the noble and learned Lord is prepared to face that proposition.

LORD PARMOOR

There are only four matters which can be referred to the International Court, and as regards those four matters, yes.

LORD CUSHENDUN

It is clear that within those four matters, on one or some of them, it is conceivable that this saving clause would at present come into operation; but the noble and learned Lord is prepared to take that tremendous risk. As I say, this matter again has not been decided by His Majesty's Government; it was decided in former years, and I am only putting these considerations before your Lordships to show the way in which, I think, the reasons for and against must be considered. I can understand noble Lords or anyone else arguing: "Can you imagine any interest so utterly vital to us as the maintenance of peace?" I agree it is very difficult to imagine any issue between any foreign nation and ourselves which would be really comparable in importance and vital interest with the maintenance of peace. But I cannot imagine any British Government, unless some very exceptional issue arose, withdrawing anything from the arbitration set up by Article 13 on the plea that it was not suitable for arbitration. I doubt very much and I do not believe in practice that there is really any danger of a dispute arising which, under one of these provisions, would not be brought to arbitration.

On the other hand I doubt very much whether public opinion in the country would tolerate the laying down in advance by the Government of this country that under no conceivable circumstances,, foreseen or unforeseen, could any dispute arise which they would not be ready to submit to arbitration. I am not at all Mire if that were done, if such a risk as that were taken, that it would not really defeat the object which we all have in view, because I am not at all sure the result of that in the country would not be, instead of creating public confidence, to give rise to public nervousness. I am not going to trespass much longer on your Lordships' patience, but I would ask you to bear with me while I point out that we are not in these matters in the same position, or anything approaching the same position, as any other country. It is often said that our position is unique and of course it may be very difficult, when we are taking up a particular position in an international Assembly, to get other people at once to accept our view that we are in a unique position, but I cannot imagine any Englishman who understands our interests and our governmental system not seeing that the distinguishing mark of this country, as compared with most others, is the enormous complexity, first of its governmental system and, secondly, of its material interests.

His Majesty the King has not one Government but seven Governments, introducing every sort of complexity into our relations, which are not fully domestic or fully foreign, and it might very well be, with those quite distinct interests as well as common interests, that a danger might be created of not getting the support in the first instance of these different nations and also of a case arising where we would find it very difficult to fulfil what we had undertaken. I do not admit, for a moment, that there is anything either illogical or unreasonable in asking other nations, and encouraging other nations who are under quite different circumstances and quite different interests, to take a step which,, we frankly admit, it is not possible for us to take ourselves—those whose interests are much more simple and more obvious, who are self-contained and self-supporting and who can foresee very much more than we can all the various contingencies which may affect their fortune. It seems to me that it might very well be there are many such nations who would be perfectly safe to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of this Court but who ought not to think on that account that it is absolutely necessary for us to do the same.

The noble and learned Lord asked me a specific question not only with regard to that but certain parts of the Fifth Resolution. First of all, may I say with regard to the declaration concerning wars of aggression that, again speaking subject to revision—I have not definite instructions from the Government—I think the Government would absolutely accept, I am sure they would accept absolutely, those two declarations which, as far as I have been able to make out, really do not go beyond the terms of the Covenant itself. Then, as regards the Belgian proposal, so far as my knowledge goes, the Government welcome the proposal of the Belgian representative. I agree with the noble Lord that it represents an attempt to prevent war rather than to bring into operation sanctions in punishment for war and that, I think, is an infinitely better plan of approach, if we can get it, to peace. I understand that that proposal is not only entirely accepted but welcomed by His Majesty's Government.

I must deal very shortly with the questions the noble Lord put to me under Resolution 5. Speaking for myself and as a member of the Government, though not commissioned to give an opinion, I say that I accept every word that is in that resolution. I do not know, of course, whether I put the same interpretation upon every part of it that the noble Lord does. It may be that he puts a little more into it and therefore takes a little more out of it than I do, but I do not think there would be really any large division between us. I do not see that it goes beyond the obligations which we have most solemly accepted as a signatory to the Covenant of the League.

The noble Lord laid stress upon the sentence "organised collective action of the League" and asked me if we could say that we were convinced that the true condition of its success is that every State should be sure of not having to provide unaided for its security by means of its own armaments. Of course we accept it and we have given the largest possible proof of our accepting that principle by already ourselves giving our guarantee, involving very large risks, in order that two of the chief nations of Europe might feel that they were not called upon to provide unaided for their security. That is exactly what we have done in the Treaty of Locarno. It is exactly the principle which we want to see encouraged among other nations. I should like, finally, to give my own assurance to the noble and learned Lord, whom I again wish to thank for his kindness to me personally, and to the House, that we thoroughly accept his view of the inseparability, if that is not putting it too high, of security and arbitration and disarmament as the means of securing peace, and the only difference between us is that we may not perhaps be able precisely to say to what extent, at what moment, a further step may be taken with regard to any of those three factors.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, I should like, if I may be allowed to do so, before approaching the subject upon which I wish to speak to your Lordships this evening, to express to my noble friend (Lord Cushendun) my warmest congratulations on the speech he has just delivered and to say how little he requires the indulgence of the House for a first effort. If he will not think me discourteous I am not going to deal with the substance of his speech. I merely say that it seems to me a most promising speech, which all of us who have been identified with the League of Nations will welcome very heartily.

In the last few days it has been more than once publicly stated that my resignation was incomprehensible. I trust therefore that your Lordships will forgive me if I take the opportunity of the Motion of my noble friend Lord Parmoor to give certain explanations of that resignation which at the time, on the suggestion of the Prime Minister and others, I withheld. No resignation is an isolated act. It is usually related to a string of events of which it is the culmination. I therefore make no apology for touching briefly on what led up to it. When the League of Nations was formed there was laid upon it the duty to formulate plans for the reduction and limitation of armaments generally. That obligation was repeated in each of the Treaties with the ex-enemy Powers, it was enforced in the preamble to the military clauses of those Treaties, and it was expressly promised to the Germans in the correspondence between them and the Allied and Associated Powers before the signature of the Treaty of Versailles as an inducement to them to sign.

Accordingly, at the first meeting of the League Assembly, a Committee was appointed to advise how this duty was to be carried out. I became a member of this Committee about a year after it was formed, and took part in the prolonged and laborious inquiries which resulted in the drafting of what was called the Treaty of Mutual Assistance. I do not now trouble your Lordships with details of that proposal. It is enough for my purposes to say that when it came to be considered by this House it was rejected by the Labour Government, with the approval and support of my noble friends. Perhaps I may be allowed to add that I had not expected such definite conservative action and I will not disguise from your Lordships that both the form and the substance of the rejection were a profound and bitter disappointment to me. It was also a disappointment in Paris. The proposal had been largely British in origin and it had secured in its initial stages the warm approval of the British Delegation at Geneva in 1922. Its rejection therefore by the British Government created a painful impression.

A few weeks later came the Geneva Protocol unanimously adopted at the Assembly of 1924. It also had been supported by the British Delegation and was a few months later also rejected by a British Government of a different political complexion. There, too, I had the misfortune to differ from the action taken by my colleagues. It is true the Protocol required, as I thought, considerable amendment, but it seemed to me undesirable to reject it lock, stock and barrel. However defective it may have been it was a genuine attempt to solve the problem of disarmament and demanded rather amendment than rejection. It was followed by the French proposal to appoint an International Commission to examine the disarmament question direct. I had myself made a suggestion of this kind which had not found favour, but I am glad to say that when the French Government independently had the same idea it was accepted, though without enthusiasm. The Commission, after elaborate technical inquiries, met last spring to try to put the result of those inquiries into the form of a draft Treaty laying down the principles and methods but not the figures of disarmament. I was asked to attend on behalf of the British Government. In order to prepare for it, a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence had drafted such a Treaty. I was Chairman of that Sub-Committee and I suppose that is the reason why the Prime Minister, in his letter accepting my resignation, said I had practically drafted my own instructions.

That is really not the case. The draft was a compromise between my views and those of the other members of the Committee. When the draft came to the Committee of Imperial Defence itself it was further amended against my opinion. The result was a document so little satisfactory to me that before I left for Geneva I circulated a minute to the Cabinet explaining how little I approved of it. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to read a few sentences from that minute. I said:— The Draft Convention … is a compromise between the views of the Fighting Services and those who believe that an international agreement for the reduction and limitation of armaments is essential for the safety of European civilisation and the existence of the British Empire. It follows that the Draft is not satisfactory to those who like myself hold the latter view. In particular I think it regrettable that it contains no provision limiting the material of land armies, that the limitation of aircraft is confined to shore-based metropolitan forces, that naval and air personnel are not dealt with at all, and that the provisions for international supervision are so insufficient. However, it does represent a step in advance—albeit a very small one. Your Lordships will therefore see that I went to Geneva conscious that in many points my instructions were likely to cause serious difficulties. Exactly what I anticipated occurred, and I was repeatedly put in the position of having to defend in the League Committee propositions which seemed to me indefensible.

It is quite true that in response to urgent telegrams from me I was allowed to make some concessions. But by that time much of the harm had been done. The impression had been produced that the British Government were lukewarm in their desire that the Commission should reach a successful result. Let me give your Lordships an instance of what I mean. The Commission, when considering the methods to be adopted in reducing land forces, had decided that the number of men and of non-commissioned officers should both be limited. When we came to consider the naval limitations I was instructed to resist any limitation of the number of men on the ground that a Navy depended on ships for its strength and not on men. It was pointed out that in point of fact men from ships had constantly been used in land fighting and that therefore, of course, if you did not limit them you left a loophole in your limitation of land forces. I think we were told that the Germans had a naval division in the trenches, and that unless there was a limit such a practice might easily be extended. Moreover, since Parliament is always told the number of men in the Navy there did not seem any possible objection to similar information being given in an international scheme. After considerable correspondence I was informed that I might agree to the principle of a limitation in the Navy, but that that must not apply to warrant officers. For that strange decision I was given no reason. It had the effect of inducing the French to withdraw their agreement to limit non-commissioned officers on land—a very serious change.

This was one of several instances of what I must respectfully call departmental obstruction. But I will not weary your Lordships with details of the others. Indeed, I am bound to say that the representatives of the Admiralty scarcely concealed their indifference, if not their hostility, to the whole proceedings. I do not say for a moment that that was the attitude of the Cabinet as a whole, but I do say that I was unable to convince them of the importance of taking a stronger line with their technical advisers and of showing in matters of this kind that we were not going to allow minor technical difficulties to imperil the success of the Commission. In the result, instead of reaching an agreed Draft, there were many points on which we could do no better than record our differences. So strongly did I feel that incidents of the kind I have described were doing a great deal of harm in the course of the negotiation that I asked to be allowed a free hand to decide all such minor matters for myself. That request was refused. All these matters will come up again to be considered at the forthcoming meetings of the Commission, when the country will have the great advantage of being represented by my noble friend Lord Cushendun. He has my best wishes and my hopes that the Cabinet, having seen the result of too great deference to expert advice, will give him greater support than they felt able to give to me.

I returned from Geneva exhausted and discouraged. I felt that although the meeting had not been a complete failure the advance had been quite incommensurate with the importance of the object in view. Above all I felt that there was a fundamental difference between my views and those of the Cabinet as a whole as to the importance of the effort to reach an international agreement on the reduction and limitation of armaments. They were not opposed to it, but they did not think it mattered very much. Accordingly when I was asked by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to go with my right hon. friend Mr. Bridge-man to the Three-Power Conference, I doubted whether I could be of any use. As, however, my colleagues thought differently I yielded to their opinion, particularly as it was believed that agreement was almost; certain and I thought that such an agreement would help the larger negotiations.

Before we set out there was a discussion in the Committee of Imperial Defence as to the case that we were to lay before the Conference. In the course of that discussion the question was raised whether we were to admit that the Americans were entitled to equality in cruisers' on the same model as that which had been conceded to them in battleships. I certainly understood—I may have been wrong—that influential members of the Committee expressed the view that unless we conceded this it was no use going to Geneva. That was unquestionably my own opinion. When we reached Geneva it was apparent that there had been no previous discussion before we met, so that each set of experts came armed with their own plan, to which they naturally were deeply attached. Indeed, I believe that the first we knew of the American proposals or they of ours was when they were announced at a public meeting of the Conference soon after our arrival. That was very unfortunate, and undoubtedly gave the Conference, a bad send-off.

The next thing that became clear was that, as I had anticipated, the Americans attached great importance to what they called "parity"—that is to say, equality of auxiliary craft on the same lines as the equality of battleships agreed upon at Washington. The first Lord of the Admiralty and his advisers at Geneva saw no great objection to accepting the American contention on this point, and after a few days he made it quite clear that, though we doubted whether the American need for cruisers was as great as ours, we had no objection to their building up to our limit if they wished to do so. It was, of course, understood that this should be part of the agreement that we were then negotiating. Unfortunately this decision caused great anxiety to some of our colleagues, though we had in fact received express authority from the: Cabinet to agree to it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, for instance, has since the breakdown of the Conference stated specifically:— Therefore we are not able now—and I hope at no future time—to embody in a solemn international agreement any words which would bind us to the principle of mathematical parity in naval strength. Though I do not in the least agree with him, I am quite sure that my right hon. friend is convinced that this warning is essential to the safety of this country. I am equally sure that, if persisted in, it bangs, bolts and bars the door against any hope of a further agreement with the United States on naval armaments.

My right hon. friend is a very forceful personality and I have no doubt that from the, moment that he realised that we had at Geneva agreed to what he calls the principle of mathematical parity—that is to say, that we had extended to cruisers the standard accepted for battleships—he began to press on his colleagues the necessity of avoiding the consequences of what he regarded as a disastrous concession. Accordingly we began to receive telegrams which seemed to indicate that the Cabinet were dissatisfied. At last they culminated in a request to us to return home for consultation. We pointed out that such a proceeding would be very bad for the success of the negotiations, and for the time being we were allowed to remain.

Meanwhile discussions had been proceeding on the other branch of our negotiation—namely, assuming an agreement that the American auxiliary vessels should be equal to ours, what was to be the amount of the tonnage of such vessels? At the outset the figure that we proposed was a good deal higher than that of the Americans, and the American figures were higher than those proposed by Japan. After prolonged discussion the Americans suggested that, since the British and Japanese were the furthest apart, they might try first to reach an agreement. This invitation was accepted, and by the last week in July we were able to present to the Americans a joint Anglo-Japanese proposal, which the Americans received favourably without committing themselves to every detail of it. I am myself convinced—I say this deliberately—that, so far as tonnage went, they would have accepted it.

On the two most important questions, therefore, and on several subsidiary ones, agreement had been reached, or nearly reached, though there was still one question outstanding. Our naval advisers had only been ready to agree to the Anglo-Japanese figures by dividing the cruisers into two classes. The class of larger cruisers consisted of cruisers of 10,000 tons carrying 8-inch guns. The class of smaller vessels was of cruisers of 6,000 tons carrying 6-inch guns. It was agreed that the first class cruisers should be limited roughly in the proportion of 5: 5: 3 for the three Powers. I think that this agreement had actually been arrived at. It was certainly substantially arrived at. There were some existing intermediate-size cruisers which it was proposed should be dealt with similarly. It was with regard to the second class cruisers that the difficulty arose—the cruisers smaller than the intermediate size. The British proposed that the limit to the size of the guns permitted by the Washington Treaty for the calibre of cruiser guns, which was 8 inches, should be reduced to 6 inches, upon the ground that to bring themselves down to the Anglo-Japanese figures of tonnage and yet to have the number of cruisers which their naval advisers recommended, the second class cruisers should not exceed 6,000 tons each; and a ship of 6,000 tons cannot carry 8-inch guns. The Americans, on the other hand, were content to build fewer cruisers of larger tonnage, which could therefore carry 8-inch guns. To get over the difficulty various expedients were discussed, but no agreement had been come to when we were peremptorily summoned home.

I was very much disturbed. Agreement seemed to me to be in sight, and I felt that if there were to be an adjournment for some days it was only too likely that the opportunity would pass. However, the wording of the summons left us no alternative but to obey. When we got home we found, as I have already intimated, that certain members of the Cabinet strongly took the view afterwards expressed in public by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They thought that it would be most dangerous to have stated in the Treaty that the Americans were entitled to mathematical parity in auxiliary vessels. These Ministers clearly intimated that they preferred no agreement to one embodying that principle. It was to meet these views that the Cabinet decided, against my opinion, to make the statement read in both Houses of Parliament reserving, in effect, full liberty of action to this country on the question of parity at the end of any period for which an agreement might be made. I objected to this on the ground that it was unnecessary and likely to increase the difficulties of negotiation. Beyond that, the Cabinet at its first meeting decided that we were to continue the negotiations broadly on the lines theretofore adopted.

There was a second meeting of the Cabinet to complete our instructions, and it was at this meeting that the question of whether we should insist on the 6-inch gun came up for decision. Between the two meetings of the Cabinet telegrams had come from America indicating that the United States attached vital importance to the retention of the right to put 8-inch guns in any cruiser. I confess that the American attitude on this question seemed to me to be entirely wrong and the reasons advanced for it quite unconvincing. But it also seemed to me madness to allow the negotiations to break down on such a point. It was therefore with amazement that I heard the majority of my colleagues decide to insist on a 6-inch gun, even if it meant the breakdown of the negotiations. It was evident to me that such a decision could only be come to by men who took a very different view of the importance of an agreement with the United States on this matter from that which I did. Accordingly I immediately suggested to my colleagues that they should send someone else to Geneva in my place. When it was pointed out that such a change in the middle of negotiations would remove the last chance of success, I told them that I would return with Mr. Bridgeman, but that if the negotiations failed on this point about the guns, as I felt sure they would, I must reserve my full liberty to resign, or words to that effect.

We returned to Geneva. As soon as We arrived there it became clear that without a compromise on the 8-inch gun question there was no hope of agreement, and I personally so informed the Cabinet. At the same time we suggested, as a possible way out of the difficulty, the adoption of a 7-inch gun. In reply we received a telegram rejecting this suggestion and telling us in so many words that we were not to offer any compromise on the 8-inch gun. A day or two later the Americans put forward the suggestion that, if any party so utilised its rights under the Treaty as to cause anxiety to another party, a conference might be held and, if no agreement were come to, the Treaty should terminate. We were anxious to reply by giving to this suggestion a more specific reference to the 8-inch gun. The effect would have been to postpone the decision of the question until the Americans actually decided to arm the secondary cruisers with 8-inch guns. This also the Government rejected. The Conference in consequence broke down.

What then was I to do? The Government had, against my most earnestly expressed protests, taken a course which had caused, as I believed, and believe, the failure of these vitally important negotiations. If I remained in office I should have had not only to take responsibility for this decision but to defend it. I felt that was impossible. The decision was wrong in itself, and it seemed likely to threaten the whole course of reduction of armaments by international agreement, which I regarded as vital to the future of the British Empire and civilisation. Further, I felt that it was only too probable that if a similar question arose in the larger disarmament negotiations a similar result would follow. If we could not agree with the United States over a question of minor importance in naval armaments, what prospect was there of an agreement with a number of Powers over much more complicated questions?

Moreover, I felt deeply the fact that whereas Japan was ready to agree on any scheme of limitation, provided it permitted her to make a reduction of armaments, the two great Anglo-Saxon communities, who had always claimed to be the most peace-loving of all States, had preferred disagreement to concession on a relatively insignificant question of the gun-power of second-class cruisers. Surely our two nations, instead of meticulously counting up every ton and every gun in each other's Fleet, should rather have regarded themselves as equal contributors to a joint force whoso chief duty was the maintenance of the peace of the world. Inside the Cabinet it seemed to me that I could do no more for the cause of disarmament. I could only hope that I might be able to serve it better outside.

There is one topic which I mentioned in my letter of resignation, to which I have not alluded to-night, and that is arbitration. There, too, my opinion had been overruled, for I had strongly wished that the Government should have signed the so-called Optional Clause. But I do not propose to deal with that now, partly because I do not wish to trespass on your Lordships' attention, and partly because the decision of the Government not to sign was not, as I understood it—I think I do not misrepresent what has fallen from my noble friend—on principle, but rather because they thought the time to sign had not yet arrived. It is still therefore possible that they may be open to conviction on this point. I welcome the invitation which I understand my noble friend to have conveyed, that we who favour the adoption of this step should satisfy the Government that public opinion would support it. We will do our best.

It is inevitable that a speech such as this should be controversial. A Minister certainly ought not to resign unless his difference of opinion with his colleagues is of a very serious character, and any candid explanation must make that clear. But I have no wish to exaggerate that difference. I have no kind of doubt that my noble friends are all as anxious for peace as anyone here to-night. I am ready to believe that they are warm supporters of arbitration, and that they desire the success of the Preparatory Commission. Apart from the unhappy events of last summer at Geneva it may be, as the Foreign Secretary has said, that we differ more about opportunity and method of achieving our objects than about those objects themselves. Time will show. All I say in conclusion is that in all well-directed efforts for peace and disarmament the Government may count on my support, for whatever that may be worth.

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE EAEL OF BALFOUR)

My Lords, your Lordships will readily understand that I rise on the present occasion with very great reluctance, because I am apparently brought into some kind of collision with my noble friend, with whom I have been associated in politics for many a long year, and with whom my connection goes back far beyond any period at which controversial politics came into consideration. Let me say that I am certain that my noble friend, in the last sentences he uttered, expressed his genuine convictions and his sincerest hopes. Nor do I complain, though I regret, that he should have thought it necessary to bring forward the series of charges against his late colleagues which have culminated in our loss, and greatly regretted loss, of his services in the Cabinet Council. I must frankly admit, however, that even after his explanations I am wholly unable to understand how he can think that the course of events in connection with the League of Nations, or indeed any other subject which he has gone through, as I have gone through, can possibly justify the extreme course which he has thought it desirable to adopt.

I do not pretend that I am competent to follow the detailed account which he has given of the various negotiations at Geneva, in which he has taken so important a part. Although my connection with the League of Nations, and with its proceedings, was at one time very close and intimate, of recent years I have not closely followed the details of the work either of the Assembly or of the Council, or of the various Committees on which my noble friend has served. But I cannot help thinking that he has allowed the inevitable differences of opinion which happen whenever independent minds come together to deal with any question, differences in themselves small, to accumulate to a point at which I will not say his temper gave way, because that seems disrespectful and the last thing which I wish to do is to say anything disrespectful to my noble friend—but I am quite incapable of understanding, as far as I have followed the broad outline of what occurred, why he found it impossible to go on working with His Majesty's Government.

His first quarrel in point of time with the Government was not with the members of the existing Administration but with their predecessors in office. They, apparently, are responsible for one-third of the reasons which induced my noble friend to leave his colleagues. With that part of the crimes of the Administration at home I do not propose to deal. I leave that to noble Lords opposite, whose Government were apparently responsible in that particular case. With regard to the next cause of grievance to which my noble friend referred, I am afraid I know too little to say anything that would be of value to your Lordships, but, if I understood my noble friend's exposition, there was a controversy between himself at Geneva and the Admiralty at home with regard to naval forces. In that controversy in the main the Government took my noble friend's part as against the technical advisers, and agreed with him except in one point, having to do I think with non-commissioned officers—was it not? I cannot believe that that was in itself an adequate ground of quarrel, or that, in this cumulative process to which my noble friend referred, it could really have added any serious weight to the grounds which have induced him to take so serious a step as to separate himself from so many old friends and colleagues.

I come, therefore, to what, I take it, is the dominating reason of his resignation, and there again I confess I find it difficult to follow my noble friend. That may be in part my ignorance of detail. I cannot help thinking that my noble friend knows too much of the details. What was the real ground of difference—temporary difference, as I hope and believe—between the American Government and ourselves, in which apparently my noble friend thinks that the American Government, though not wholly right, had, broadly speaking, better grounds—I see my noble friend shakes his head, but if I misrepresent him or the facts I hope he will correct me.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

The whole basis of my argument was that the point on which the negotiations finally broke down was quite insufficient to justify either party insisting on its view; but, as between the two, I thought the Americans were wrong, and we were right. But it was madness for us to allow a point of that magnitude, or rather of that small magnitude, to cause the failure of negotiations, the success of which, I am quite sure, my noble friend himself had greatly at heart.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

My noble friend is quite right, I had greatly at heart the success of the negotiations. But, as I read what happened at Geneva, the fundamental point of difference between this country and the United States—fundamental, but, I hope and believe, temporary—was the refusal of the United States to give any consideration whatever to what we deem to be the special circumstances of this country—not as regards equality of naval power. We have no desire in any sense to go beyond that equality which was the basis of all our negotiations at Washington, and which led on that occasion to most happy results. We had no desire whatever to interfere with that, but we did ask the United States to remember—and surely we did not ask unreasonably—that while they were a great self-contained continent, with a coast-line not open to attack, absolutely impregnable from enemies' efforts either by sea or by land, we were a very scattered Empire, a very small island, whose approaches went through narrow seas and for vast distances, and that when you left the subject of the Fleets, on which naval power ultimately rests, and on which we were ready to grant full equality in every respect to our kinsmen across the sea, we had problems to deal with which they had not to deal with, we had difficulties to face which they never had to face, and that if we were to come to an arrangement which included other vessels than battleships and large cruisers they must remember that we could not by perpetual Treaty, and by a public admission before all the world that that was the permanent position which we were to occupy—we could not consent to a limitation of what we deemed to be the small craft necessary, both in peace and war, to preserve our Empire's security.

That was the fundamental difference. It was the only fundamental difference. I have not the minute knowledge of my noble friend of what went on behind the doors, in public or in private, at Geneva, but I do claim that that was the broad consideration which influenced certainly myself and, I believe, my colleagues, in taking the line we did with regard to the all-important question dealt with at Geneva. But did we do it in any manner that would make future arrangements difficult? Did we do it in any manner which could embarrass any American statesman, irritate the susceptibilities of any American citizen? I hope we did not. I think we did not, because we said to them: "We do not ask you to diminish your building of small cruisers to your own necessities, if you think that inexpedient. We do not pretend to be the judge of your necessities: that is not our affair. All we ask you to do is to recognise our necessities." And how anybody can think that unreasonable, how anybody can think that, a ground on which Americans—any American—need cherish resentment against this country completely passes my powers of comprehension.

Speaking for myself—and I suppose as the British negotiator at Washington a few years ago I speak with as much authority about the subject as any member of your Lordships' House—the last thing I think of is jealousy of American shipbuilding. I do ask them to think of our necessities as members of a world empire, with a world commerce on which our very existence depends, and I am certain that every American citizen who looks at that with any species of impartiality will sympathise with the attitude which those who think with me have adopted. These technical discussions are always apt, I admit, to entangle negotiations on big issues. My noble friend has suggested that there might have been, and should have been, more preparation before the Geneva Conference. It is not for me to judge one way or the other, but I am inclined to agree with my noble friend. I can answer for it that the British Admiralty believed that when they went to Geneva their proposals so closely fitted in with the avowed objects, of President Coolidge that the British proposals would be welcomed and accepted without difficulty by their American colleagues. There can be no doubt that the proposals which they thought would be accepted were proposals which led to a great economy and a great diminution of the cost of armaments and were, in consequence, a long step in the direction of the voyage or the journey which my noble friend desires to take. It is impossible to deny that their proposals to diminish the size of battleships, to limit the number of large cruisers, to diminish the size of cruisers—that all those proposals were in the direction of economy, in the direction of disarmament, in the direction of preventing this immense and preposterous diversion of public wealth to naval or military enterprise.

I understand that the Admiralty, therefore, went to Geneva quite sincerely of opinion that they had suggestions to make which the great naval Powers of the world would gladly accept. They were wrong. I suppose if there had been preliminary discussions with Washington it would have been shown that they were wrong. Before the Geneva Conference opened I think it is quite possible that preliminary talks would have made each country understand the view of the other and would have led to a happier result. I hope and believe that that happy result, though deferred, is not too far beyond our immediate ken. I agree with my noble friend; I cannot believe and it is really absurd to suppose that the two most pacific countries in the world, the two great countries which are wholly without great military offensive powers, the two countries which depend more than any other upon commerce and industry, the two countries as to which I think you may safely appeal to history to show that they have the least appetite for military or naval aggression, are incapable of coming to some friendly agreement upon this point.

But the circumstances of the two countries—I mean the material, the physical and the geographical circumstances of the two countries—are so different that no doubt it may require some effort of sympathy for them to understand exactly what their positions are. In the meanwhile we have raised no objection to the Americans building as many of these smaller craft as they think necessary either for their duties, their necessities or their dignity. We only say to them: "We have duties to perform to the Empire of which we are a member and, so far as naval matters are concerned, the principal member. We have duties to perform to them. We have duties to perform to our own community in the way of protecting the trade by which they live and giving them the food by which they exist. Do not ask us to diminish the small craft, which do not threaten your existence and threaten nobody's existence, beyond the point which we deem necessary for our safety." Do not tell me that that is a line of policy so inherently unreasonable that the American Government will refuse even to consider it.

I regard the Geneva Conference as interrupted but not ended. Nothing will make me believe that the two branches of the English-speaking race are incapable either of understanding each other or of coming to a common agreement. Our interests, after all, as the non-military maritime nations of the world, are identical interests, and as our interests are identical, as our traditions are so largely the same, as our positions in the world have resemblances to each other which they have with no other communities, nothing will induce me to believe in those circumstances that successful negotiation is out of view.

I have been tempted, I think I might go to the length of saying that I have been forced, to go beyond the limits not only of the Motion on the Paper of the House but beyond the scope of my noble friend's speech. It is because I differ and differ deeply from the view of my noble friend, who has found it impossible to work with his colleagues in the Cabinet or with their technical advisers, on grounds which seem to me as compared with the great issues that I have done my best to lay before your Lordships, entirely small and petty. I deeply regret that neither the present Government nor the last Government have been able to satisfy my noble friend that they are worth working with in a cause in which he and we are all concerned and with which he and we—and I include in the "we" noble Lords opposite—are all concerned, which is the furtherance of peace, of international agreement, of arrangements between great countries, of all the steps that may make it impossible in the future that the safety of the world and of civilisation shall again be endangered by a great war. If I have travelled into these wider areas it is because I most sincerely think that the kind of arguments my noble friend has brought before us to-day upon this subject belong to a much lower plane of political considerations than that which I have laid before your Lordships, and that if he had had those issues in mind or had put them in the same perspective as I have tried to do we should still have had the inestimable advantage of his services in the Cabinet and in the Government of this country.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

My Lords, the debate to-day has been one of a profoundly human interest. A trite saying, trite although modern, has it that tragedy is often the conflict not of right with wrong but of right with right, No one could have listened to the two speeches we have just heard without feeling how strong the sense of right was in each case. The noble Viscount we all know for his public spirit and his energy and enthusiasm in advocating the principles to which he is attached and the cause of the League of Nations. That has led him to take characteristically strong views whenever he is engaged in these matters. The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Balfour) concluded his speech with words to which I listened with great satisfaction, because they indicated that he, for one, does not regard the negotiations for disarmament as more than interrupted. He looks upon them as negotiations which are still, potentially at least, going on. I was very glad indeed to hear that.

Now I will venture to make my own observations as an outsider, and the outsider sometimes sees most of the game. I think both parties in this are open to serious criticism. It is all very well for the noble Viscount to go to Geneva and say: "If I am to do any good the Admiralty authorities must not predominate, must not be able to impose their veto on things." That is very true, but if he is going to deal with the Admiralty authorities he has to know the Admiralty authorities' case in the way in which I am not sure that he does wholly know it. To me the profound error in all these things was going to the Geneva Conference with very insufficient preparation. The question really became a diplomatic one. When the Admiralty had said what they had to say then came the time for the Government, as a whole, to review it from the point of view of strategy as well as from the point of view of diplomacy, and to say by no means necessarily should the Admiralty have all they wanted. If that had been done and the results put in scientific form and communicated through diplomatic channels to the American Government, it may well be that some agreement could have been come to before the Conference took place at which the noble Viscount was present and in which he came into conflict with the Admiralty as well as with some of his colleagues here. But it was not done and you never can, in a question like disarmament, get anything unless you have gone through a period of preliminary preparation and unless you clearly visualise what it is you really want.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

Perhaps my noble friend will allow me to interrupt him and to say that I never came into conflict with the First Lord of the Admiralty. We were agreed right through.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

NO. I read as much as I could of the proceedings that took place there and the relations were most amicable, but the noble Viscount's complaint is that the First Lord's advisers were insisting on certain things unnecessarily.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

Not his advisers at Geneva.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

No, not at Geneva. But that is the whole point. The First Lord does not go to Geneva without being advised here and that is why I said the whole thing should have been settled here. To send the noble Viscount, very naturally inadequately instructed in the procedure of the Admiralty War Staff, to Geneva, without having the whole thing thrashed out and in a position to be submitted to preliminary consideration by the American authorities, seems to me to have been to doom that Conference to failure. What the Admiralty will always do, and what the War Office and the Air Force will always do, is this. If you enter into covenants, if you say we guarantee the frontiers of certain Powers, however unlikely it may seem to the lay mind that those guarantees will have to be put into force and that the Treaty powers we have given will have to be called into action—however unlikely that may be, the War Staffs of the three Services will set to work and get out plans for them and, what it more, I should deplore the day in which they ceased to do that. It is their business to work out all contingencies. Thinking costs nothing and it is their business to think.

What you are going to do when the time comes depends upon what agreements you have been able to come to with other nations and in what way you have been able to avoid that which may call your forces into play. All Treaties and covenants, whether under the name of Treaties of Mutual Assistance or of Protocols, which involve engagements of this kind, inevitably lead to the Services taking what may seem to us outsiders alarmist views of their responsibilities, but which history has proved not to be alarmist views. We have more often been caught out unprepared than we have been found prepared. Therefore I will never deprecate the Admiralty or War Office or the Air Service taking a strong line as to what they consider necessary. After that has been done it is a question for the Cabinet of the day to determine how far these conclusions need be pressed. They may be modified by diplomatic agreements, they may be got over in other ways, but all that shows that it is not to Geneva that you should go to settle the whole of these things on the spot.

The noble Viscount seems to me to have been under the impression that he ought to have been able to settle these matters in the Conference at Geneva. I should have very little hope if I were told that he was going to settle matters of that kind under those conditions. The mischief of this matter is that there was not enough preliminary work done before Geneva was approached, and I hope that when the Disarmament Conference is renewed it will not be renewed unless the problem has been worked out not merely by the Admiralty, but by the Government as a whole bringing the best information and advice they can to bear upon it. They have to consider and tentatively sound the advisers of the American Government diplomatically upon the questions which they mean afterwards to submit to the Conference at Geneva. The advantage and the chief function of the League of Nations is to meet at Geneva and there to talk over matters. Very often you get rid of numbers of problems by talking over them before and, when you have to settle highly technical matters of this kind, taking the defined view of each Government, brought to a focus and to an agreement if possible, in order to deal with the whole matter.

I entirely agree with what the noble Earl opposite says, that each nation must work out its own scheme of defence and its own necessity. It does not follow that each nation will wish for the same provision as its neighbours in dealing with those necessities. I cannot imagine that the Chancellor of the Exchequer meant any more than that when he spoke of mathematical agreement. No doubt it may be that one Power will have less of a certain weapon and another Power more, but that may be compensated. In other words, in the scheme of armaments you cannot lay down anything mathematically. All you have to do is to bring the wisest heads you can to bear upon the question: Is the Empire sufficiently protected by the arrangements which have been made, even although they may not be precisely the same as the arrangements which the American Government thinks necessary for its own protection? If that was what the noble Viscount had in his mind, then I agree with him; but it is obvious, if I am at all right, that that question was not one for him, not one for the First Lord out at Geneva, but a question to be thrashed out far ahead and to be the subject of communications between the advisers of the two nations concerned. In other words the League of Nations must not be used as a substitute for what really belongs to diplomacy. It will be found whenever you try to do that, that you cannot get these things properly considered and that a conflict of minds—perhaps rather abstract minds—is the result.

That is all I wish to say. The course of the debate has swept away other interesting topics which were touched upon, topics about reservations, Treaties of guarantee, and so on. We cannot go into them at this period of the debate, which has come into the realm of human controversy. I think the noble Viscount has played a very fine part in sacrificing so much for the cause which he had very much at heart. But I also feel that if he had approached his problems possibly a little more gingerly he might have found a way out—a way such as I have endeavoured to indicate to your Lordships and a way by which he would not have been faced with problems in this fashion. I cannot but think that this debate will do good. There has been much discussion to-day which I think is rather inconsistent. We have been calling out for disarmament and we have also been calling out for the signing of agreements. For reasons which I have given your Lordships, if you sign agreements you will have the forces of the nation at once calling upon you to take steps to enable them to be in a position to fulfil the agreements. They will never succeed in doing that if we are only careful to keep things sufficiently in hand for them to be able to protect us and make provision for protecting us against anything which may well arise. I did not like the Protocol just because it involved so many agreements and I may say that I never was a party to any suggestion for us to sign it. The noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, has got all the records of these things at the Foreign Office. Therefore he knows. I object to these things because I am not so bloodthirsty as some of my noble friends.

LORD PARMOOR

Oh! yes, you are.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

My noble friends think they are not bloodthirsty because they do not realise fully what they are doing. They are putting weapons into the hands of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force which will be used against them. I do not want to entangle myself with these things. I think we ought to encourage arbitration wherever we can and I think we want to be more definite about some of the matters about which we are bound to arbitrate. There was a question the other day between Hungary and Rumania. I do not like these engagements. I am quite as anxious as anybody to make our position in regard to arbitration clear. That is one thing, but it is quite another to enter into engagements to use force for the purpose of redressing the infraction of Treaties by Powers with whom we have nothing to do.

I doubt if people realise what, at least theoretically, they are letting themselves in for. France is a country with which we are on the most affectionate relations and the last thing likely is that we should go to war with France. But suppose we were forced to blockade France. Suppose France, having strong and justifiable views, made an aggressive attack upon some small Power, and suppose we found ourselves bound to come to the assistance of the League of Nations and to go to war with France; suppose then that we tried to start to blockade France and to stop the commerce of the United States with France, the United States being no party to the League of Nations, where should we be? You may say that that is very unlikely, but I can assure you that your technical advisers will take it into full account when they are advising what you require in naval armaments, I am quite sure that these agreements and these proposals for cutting down armaments are two things which it is not very easy to reconcile. Therefore, I think this has been a very profitable debate. I am very glad my noble friend beside me has raised it, because it has brought out a number of points which might have been obscure before but which certainly are not obscure now. I am very glad we have had the opportunity of discovering that between the noble Earl and the noble Viscount there is no conflict of ideals but only one of methods, on which it is not for us to pronounce which is in the right and which is in the wrong.

LORD PHILLIMORE

My Lords, I am very glad to learn that His Majesty's Government have not definitely decided against signing the Optional Clause or the Optional Protocol, and it is with a view of endeavouring to bring the pressure of your Lordships' House upon His Majesty's Government that I venture to address to you a few words. I cannot help thinking after following the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, that he is not perfectly acquainted either with the origin or the effect of the Optional Protocol. The two noble Lords who have spoken to-night, the Earl of Balfour and Viscount Cecil, who were then both in office, combined to appoint a Committee to draft a scheme for the League of Nations. They did me the honour, as perhaps your Lordships may be aware, to make me Chairman of that Committee. That Committee discovered that a body could be set up to which unilateral communication could be made and before which a State complained of could in some way be brought willy-nilly. That, as the noble Lord rightly observed, is the effect of Article 15 of the Covenant as it is drawn. A State which considers it is injured can go to the Council and can induce the Council to take the matter up whether or not the State complained of is willing.

The Covenant, which I had no hand in drawing, went so far as to provide that and also to insist, as the noble Lord rightly observed, upon the great benefit of arbitration. It also went further and suggested that an International Court of Justice should be set up. I fancy they felt it was not very likely it would be set up, because twice over at The Hague the attempt to do it had failed. They contemplated the possibility that it might be set up, but they had not been seized fully of the principles of a Court of Justice. They said it should be a Court to which people could go if both parties agreed. That is very little different from a court of arbitration. Will your Lordships forgive me if I remind you of the three distinctions between arbitration and the Court of Justice? The first is that in arbitration both parties must agree to have the matter decided. In a Court of Justice the party complaining comes to the Court and says: "Bring my adversary before you that he may answer." The second difference, of course, is that in arbitration you have to choose your arbitrators and agree upon them. With a Court of Justice you have a court already set up for the people to come to, and the Judges established. The third point is that in arbitration you have to agree what is the matter about which you really want to arbitrate or, to put it in another way, how to state the case. Your Lordships may think that a very simple thing. At The Hague, when we were forming the Permanent Court of International Justice, Mr. Elihu Root, who had been Secretary of State in America, told us that when Lord Bryce was Ambassador they had tried for a twelvemonth to state the case for arbitration about the fisheries and each time when they thought they had come to a way of stating the case somebody would say, "You must not state it in that way; that is giving up our side." In the end they had to put the papers at the heads of the arbitrators and say: "You must find out what the question is and you must decide it." Those are the three great differences between a Court of Justice and a court of arbitration.

I had the further honour of being a British representative at The Hague on the Committee which formed the Permanent Court of Justice, and with the great assistance of Mr. Root—and people were good enough to associate me with it also—we arrived at a plan of appointing the Judges which got over the difficulties at The Hague that had been previously experienced. Having established, as we hoped, a Court of Justice, we said that this Court of Justice ought to be a real one. It ought to deal only with juridical matters and—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, will be kind enough to follow this, because I think it might meet his point about vital interests—we limited it to four matters: the interpretation of a Treaty: any question of International Law; questions of any fact which, if established, would constitute a breach of an international obligation; and any question of the reparation to be made for the breach of an international obligation. We said with regard to those four points that it ought, in our opinion, to be a real Court of Justice before which State A, complaining, could bring State B, complained of.

When this matter got to Geneva, unfortunately, objection was taken, and most unfortunately the British Government was foremost in taking objection. It was then left in this way, that it is a Court of Justice before which Great Britain must come for certain purposes, it has jurisdiction in all cases which parties refer to it for arbitration and all matters specially provided for by the Treaties and Conventions in force. With regard to our obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of Trianon and so forth, it is a Court of Justice before which we must appear; but with regard to other matters it was left to the various States to agree whether or not they would sign the Optional Protocol. The Optional Protocol, of course, says that we agree to be summoned, not for all matters, but for those four matters of the interpretation of a Treaty, the principles of International Law, facts and damages. It is sometimes answered that we can be got there anyhow, whether we like it or not. If that be so, these precautions on the part of the British Government are ineffective. In a sense it is true that we can be brought, though we have not signed this Protocol, before the Court of Justice, because everyone can act under Article 15, the Assembly can refer everything to the Court of Justice and eventually we may be brought there. Again, therefore, all our precautions are unavailing.

What I want His Majesty's Government to do is to make a gesture in favour of peace and of law. There is no doubt that Sir Austen Chamberlain's speeches, wise and prudent as they were in many respects, did operate as a cold douche and did make the nations of the world think that we were withdrawing from the provisions as to the substitution of law for war which the Covenant and the League were setting out to establish. It would be what the French call a beau geste if England were to come forward now and say: "We will sign the Optional Protocol," if you like, with reservations—and you can make any number of reservations. If you are going to sign an agreement, you can sign anything that you think proper. It would be a great thing, and would have a great effect upon the world, if England were to come forward and say: "We trust the International Court." After all, we have one of the most distinguished members of this House, one of the most respected men in this country, Viscount Finlay, as a Judge in this Court, and we have no complaint of the decisions of that Court, which are now many. I have followed them and I do not believe that there are any which have not received general approval as being just and right. Why should we, of all nations of the world, who will always have a Judge, probably a leading Judge, upon that Court, shrink from undertaking to submit to it, not questions of policy, but questions of pure law if we should be cited by another State before them?

That is what I want to urge upon His Majesty's Government. As I think Lord Cushendun said, it is not often that the point will arise. We are obliged, under Article 36, to go before the Court in all cases where we have bound ouselves already by Treaty, we can be brought before the Court indirectly, whether we like it or not, by a prolonged operation under Article 15, and by holding out in this way we simply leave the nations to suppose, either that we do not trust in our right, or that we do not trust the Court. I hope that we shall follow the hint which, I understand, Canada gave, that some at least of the Dominions would not be unwilling that this should be done, and I trust that we shall bring ourselves to sign this Protocol.

LORD PARMOOR

My Lords, I do not propose to address the House again, but will merely ask leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, before my noble friend withdraws his Motion I would submit a point to his consideration. There is evidently—though I feel I must be wrong—an entirely different opinion between my noble friend Lord Balfour and myself as to what really brought about the failure of the Geneva negotiations. He attached it to an entirely different cause from that to which I attached it. He thinks it was the refusal of America to admit our right to build small ships. I think it was entirely due to the difficulty that we had over the question of the 8-inch guns. I venture to hope that my noble friends will see their way to lay such Papers upon the Table as will make quite clear what really did happen at Geneva. The whole thing is a matter of record. It has all been recorded, and there can be, I should have thought, no objection to laying sufficient Papers to make it quite clear what really was the cause of the breakdown.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.