LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

HL Deb 29 July 1936 vol 102 cc327-93

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE rose to ask whether, in preparation for the September meetings of the League of Nations, His Majesty's Government will seriously consider putting forward a proposal for the elimination from the Articles of the Covenant of any obligation on the part of nations, Members of the League, to use military force; and to move for Papers.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

My Lords, before the noble Lord begins his speech perhaps he will allow me, and your Lordships will allow me, to say one word about procedure. Your Lordships will have noticed that there are three Motions on the Paper dealing with substantially the same subject, and it occurred to me that if it seemed convenient to your Lordships and to those noble Lords whose names appear on the Order Paper, it might perhaps be advisable to take a general discussion covering the ground raised in all three Motions together.

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

My Lords, I should like at the outset to thank the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for having safeguarded my right to move this Motion on this day, and also for having said that a reply would be given by the Government. There is nothing so disarming as courtesy and acquiescence, and feel as if I was almost precluded from offering any criticism of His Majesty's Government, but I do not think that the noble Viscount will expect me to stretch my gratitude quite to that point. I noticed in the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, last Thursday, that he disclaimed any intention of discourtesy towards myself in the confusion that arose, and I am convinced that that was the case. I think perhaps he did not quite understand what the result of his putting down a Motion before mine would be, and perhaps he imperfectly realised that the conduct of proceedings in this House rests on a procedure of accommodation, agreement and consent between all of us—a most valuable factor in our procedure.

But I must apologise to the noble Earl for having addressed my communications to him in such a way that they were received by the caretaker. Judging by the interval that seems to have elapsed until he himself received them I cannot help thinking that she—or perhaps he, or perhaps he and she—must have digested the contents of those communications. I hope they did. If so, I am quite sure they will be on my side. Support comes to me from most unexpected quarters in these days. In perusing the noble Earl's speech, with which I found myself in substantial agreement, it was news to me that there existed an important body known as the Imperial Policy Group, of which the noble Earl apparently is one of the leaders. I hope very much that they are in full numbers here to-day in order to give me their support.

Now I want to isolate, if I can, this one question of military force which is contained in the Articles of the Covenant, to eliminate from those Articles what we have come to regard as sanctions. As economic sanctions have shown themselves to be of such a nature, if they are drastic and effective, as to need military sanction behind them, I include of course economic as well as military sanctions. The people to whom I may refer as the pundits of the League of Nations—who, I should like to interpose, are not always in my opinion the best friends of the League of Nations—adhere to the sacrosanetity of the Covenant as it stands, and are, in the words of Mrs. Swanwick, who was a Government delegate to the League in 1924, invariably apt to make a very dangerous simplification of what is in reality very complex. On paper and theoretically sanctions, whether economic or military, would seem not only to be formidable but indisputably effective. But we have recently had almost the best example of aggression, and really one of the simplest, and yet it was found that sanctions were ineffective. I find that another oversimplification is made not only by those who try to define aggression but by those who are constantly contemplating the possibility of war. They always regard a very simple case of war between us and Germany, war between us and Russia, war between us and Italy, war between us and France, or something of that sort; whereas we know that in this curious tangle of relationships between nations, the next war, if unfortunately it does arise, will probably arise out of some quarrel between Portugal and Timbuetu in which we shall gradually find ourselves involved.

There is an over-simplification of the definition of aggression, but there are two considerations which the League supporters always seem to leave out of account. Firstly, they really ought to have learned, after the events of the last six months, that the disposition and the inclination of all foreign Governments, over whom we cannot be expected to exercise any control, cannot be prophesied until the actual circumstances arise, and will differ in every hypothetical case you can imagine. The other consideration that they also invariably leave out of account is the precise nature of the possibility of organising military force. When I say "military" I mean Army, Navy and Air Force. I have very often described in this House the reason for the recent failure of sanctions against Italy; how it was due to the reluctance of other Governments to pull their weight and, I may say too, to the unconvinced attitude of His Majesty's Government with regard to the efficacy of sanctions. These considerations will recur again and again in varying circumstances should any further act of aggression take place. It is quite clear that no effective system of collective security, with force behind it, can be established on so weak a foundation as this.

To-day I want more especially to analyse the question of military force. The pundits of the League of Nations want military force to be retained in the Covenant and, if possible, strengthened and made the ultimate basis of the League's authority. I want to draw your Lordships' attention very much more precisely to what military force involves. To begin with we may leave out of account—and there are not a few of them—those who said in the recent attack on Abyssinia by Italy that they would like Great Britain to go in single-handed if the others would not come in, blow the Italians out of the water, and bar the entrance to the Suez Canal. That is very heroic, no doubt, but that is not collective action, and so I do not think we need deal with it.

We then come to the principle which is laid down in the Covenant itself, in Article 16—what I may call the quota principle. The Council recommends to the several Governments concerned what effective military, naval or air force the Members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used… not only against the condemned aggressor but in defence of other nations who may be attacked by the aggressor. If it comes to that—and it very nearly did; there is no question about it that if oil sanctions had been imposed it would have involved military force—such a heterogeneous mass of force from different countries, from different sources, under different commanders, operating in different spheres would require the most careful organisation and would be a matter that really would impose too great a burden on any Power which would have to co-ordinate the varying items. To my mind it really would be almost impossible so to utilise these quotas of force supplied by each nation as to make them effective and at the same time prevent the spread of war. We have never reached that point, and we have made no sort of preparation as to how these varying forces are to be co-ordinated—where the Air Arm is to come from, where the Fleet is to come from (it will be generally ours) and where the military forces are to come from, and how they are to be so united as to form a really effective force.

I think it was largely the fear of the chaos that would ensue if we were driven to military sanctions that made the nations and His Majesty's Government very reluctant to strengthen economic sanctions or to reach the danger point of military sanctions being operated. At any rate, we know by our experience that the other nations were not in the least inclined to contribute towards military force as, primarily, they feared very much the extension of the war, more especially those who were in close contiguity to Italy. I do not believe that is practicable and, at any rate, nobody has thought it out, and nobody can think it out owing to the different circumstances which must arise if it were called into being. It is because it has not been brought into force, and because the nations, all of them, know, although they do not declare it at Geneva, that it cannot be brought into force, that the aggressor may feel on another occasion that he can depend on the failure of sanctions.

I now come to the third idea, which is the International Army. I see the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is in his place, and he is a very keen advocate of the International Army, of which I think Mr. Winston Churchill has now become Commander-in-Chief. Again, on paper, it sounds a very plausible suggestion, but here again the details are never looked into. I never can get any really clear explanation with regard to all the questions that arise—where the headquarters are to be, what is to be the method of recruitment, who is to pay it, how it is to be co-ordinated, where it is to exercise, and all the necessary details that any military man requires to know. Most of all, what authority is to set it in motion, and on what occasions precisely will its services be required? All those points are insoluble. They have never been sufficiently clearly explained to convince anybody in His Majesty's fighting forces, or anyone who really looks closely into the best method of trying to prevent the outbreak of war or the unprovoked aggression of any nation in Europe or in the world. Then there is a still further attempt, made more or less on the same lines but rather modified—and this is very warmly supported by many politicians—which is referred to as an International Air Police Force.

The supporters of these various proposals think it sufficient simply to say: "We must have an International Army; we must have an International Air Police Force," and they will not vouchsafe to go into any details as to how these forces are to work. Let us take this International Air Police Force. Every officer in the Services knows perfectly well that one of the prime necessities in handling any arm of force is to study all the possible objectives on which it may operate. We cannot have this International Air Police Force just simply buzzing about in the sky. The Air officers will want to know: "Where are we to operate? On what are we to drop bombs? When the danger occurs, to what part of the particular country are we to go?" That is quite apart from the fact that we do not know where the enemy are going to come from. Just imagine—and this would operate also with the International Army—the International Air Police Force sitting in conference, the commanding officers round a table settling where force must be exercised. They must make preparations. You cannot expect Armies, Navies and Air Forces to operate without making very careful and precise preparations. Let us imagine the conference table with the British officer present. They have got to take into account all the nations.

It is all very well your saying: "We are never going to be the aggressors." Other nations will not accept that. All nations indiscriminately have to be analysed, and they will say to the British officer: "Now, will you tell us exactly what would be the best place for us to bomb in Great Britain? What is the most vunerable point? If we have to go to the nerve centre of the nation, as we very often might, and not go to the scene of action, we should like you to tell us exactly where our bombs are to be dropped." That shows at once the absurdity of supposing that any officer that was manning that International Air Force would give any information whatsoever about his own country; and, therefore, the machines would buzz about in the air without any objectives at all. I have wasted a little time over the International Army and the International Air Police Force, which is adopted as a policy, only to show that this question of force is never faced in a really military, naval or air-minded manner, and in such a way as really to equip with tactics and strategy the particular forces that are to be brought into being. The same is precisely applicable to the quota system which exists under the League of Nations; more so, because, there you have a heterogeneous mass not linked together, and it is because of the danger of setting these military and force sanctions into action that, very properly, the nations have refrained from doing so, even in the most extreme case with which they could have been possibly confronted.

That is not all. The supporters of force always take it for granted that it will be just a very quick matter, that the thing will soon be over, that they have only to collect these forces and send them out and the matter will be settled, the aggressor will be stopped, the war will be ended and we shall all be happy. There is also a considerable psychological difficulty which they never face. In a national war you can arouse animosity against the enemy in such a way as to inflame passions and drive men to volunteer to go out and sacrifice their lives. The enemy's case is never allowed to be heard. The enemy is depicted in the blackest possible colours, and by methods which we all know a state of indignation in the whole population can be aroused which will create the patriotic fervour upon which war depends, because war depends just as much on the psychological element as it does on the material element. In a League war, in an International Army war, in an International Air Police Force war there is none of that. All through the last six months we were constantly saying—the Government spokesmen said it in all their speeches—" We have no quarrel with the Italians at all." But if it had come to the use of force we should have had to say to the Italians: "Although we have no quarrel with you whatsoever, we are obliged to bomb Naples; we will drop a bomb or two on Rome all for your own good." There, again, the absurdity of trying to induce the regular forces of the Crown to sacrifice their lives against a people with whom the Government at the same time declared "we have no quarrel," is manifest.

I cannot understand why Mr. Eden in another place said that the Government were not committing themselves on this point. The Government are far too fond of not committing themselves. At the same time there is not a shred of argument that can be brought forward in favour of the use of force by the League of Nations. Experience, principle, expediency and morality are all emphatically against it. Instead of saying." Oh wait and see till we get out there and we will hear what other people say," the Government ought, quite frankly and openly, to give a lead in this matter. They ought to say: "We have come to the conclusion, after recent experience and after analysing the question a little more closely, and after gathering the consensus of a very large body of opinion in this country, that the League would be strengthened and not weakened by the elimination of all Articles in which force appears."

The rearmament of Europe has produced a sort of mass hysteria, and the Government, I am sorry to say, have joined in it and have rather encouraged it. The Government say of their policy that the nations in Europe very much approve of our rearmament. Of course they do, because they are going to ask us to pick the chestnuts out of the fire when they are in trouble. That is always going to be the case. They thought our Fleet was going to operate because, for purposes of safety, we had to display it in the Mediterranean. Of course they like our rearmament, because if another danger comes to some of these smaller nations they want the strong British arm to go out and British lives to be sacrificed in order that their quarrels may be solved. No, my Lords, the Government have taken the wrong course. They have taken the old, old course of thinking that you can secure peace by armaments. You cannot ensure peace by war, and you cannot stop war by war. You cannot enlist Beelzebub to defeat Satan, and by adopting this policy of rearmament and competition the Government have missed a golden opportunity.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and Sir Thomas Inskip declare with great gusto that it is for defence, as if that was something new. Not a cartridge has been added to the armaments of any country without the Government of that country declaring that it was for defence. No country has ever armed declaring itself to be an aggressor, and for that same old excuse to be given for rearming at this time of day seems to me a deplorable attitude for the Government to adopt. I very much object to the false analogy which is always trotted out of the policeman and the criminal, but those who are incorrigible in that matter go on using it. Let me remind them that crime in this country has not decreased as it has because of strengthening the police force but because of the gradual spread of education and enlightenment. If you spend your millions on general reconstruction, on the improvement of conditions and on education, that is national defence against war. If you spend your millions on armaments under the guise of defence against some prospective enemy, that only brings war all the nearer.

The sanction of force as it rests in the League now weakens the League. The League has had an almost shattering blow because of the failure of being able to use that particular weapon. I repeat again here what I have said before, that I am a believer in the round table. I know it is laughed at because it is not spectacular. I think it is all the more valuable for that very reason. I think meetings of statesmen are of infinite value, and I am glad to see that my support of that form of international intercourse has been exemplified in a very signal manner at the Montreux Conference. Anybody who is a student of foreign affairs knows that there is literally in the whole world no more complex problem than the problem of the Dardanelles. By sitting round a table that complex problem has, for the time being, been resolved. Mr. Eden, referring to it in his speech in another place, said: …the Conference has shown that treaty revision by negotiation and agreement, in accordance with the normal procedure and the normal principles of international relations and practice, can lead to a settlement more favourable to all concerned than the method of repudiation or the method of the modification of treaty engagements by unilateral action. And I would add, or the method of imposing by force the decision of a majority on a dissentient minority. The settlement of that very difficult problem could never have been brought about by force. A compromise can never be brought about by force. I am quite sure that the exchange of ideas is far more profitable than the exchange of shot and shell, and persuasion is a far more powerful weapon in the long run than any bombardment.

I want to see the League strengthened, and I think this is the first thing we have got to do in strengthening it. I believe that building up the constructive efforts of the League is of infinitely greater value than attempts to check and punish evil. If I may be allowed to quote an admirable sentence from a letter by Sir John Fischer Williams which appeared recently in The Times I do not think I can quote anything that puts my argument better. He wrote: We need the League, not as a military organisation—whatever once was the case, that is now impossible—but as a meeting ground for all countries, a centre of international co-operation by persuasion and conciliation from which perhaps in the fullness of time may spring peaceful processes of reorganisation taking the place of war. It is very tempting to deal with the various possible reforms in the League and the various questions connected with the amendment of the Covenant such as whether the League should be only for Europe or whether it should be universal. That is a question to which I attach great importance—whether all nations are eager to co-operate in strengthening all the activities of the League. There is another question which I see the noble Lord, Lord Allen, mentions in his Motion, and that is the question of providing economic advantages to States Members of the League. I consider that is an extremely important point. Membership of the League should involve advantages—may be tariff advantages, or other advantages, so that defection from the League or the breaking of the Covenant in any way may so damage the national economy that there would be an inducement to nations to come into the League and retain their membership. I put also the question of the revision of treaties automatically. I have elaborated that point formerly in your Lordships' House and for it I have received a great deal of support.

The Motion which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, has put on the Paper is, I think, more or less in direct opposition to my Motion. I really must class him in the category of what I described just now as a. League pundit. I have read with the greatest care a book of his, and he really exemplifies what I said just now to your Lordships: he takes so much for granted, he does not analyse the difficulties that we see now to exist. He says "When all sanctions are known for certain to be available." We know now that very few sanctions will be available, and certainly not all. Then he goes on to say that we shall all agree in future as to the precise maintenance of our international obligation. It would be a great comfort if we did, but there is no sort of prospect of that happening. I could quote other points from this interesting discourse by the noble Lord, who says that he likes a "steel-like intellectual precision." I wish he would adopt it! This vague phrase "collective security," which occurs on almost every page of the book, really means nothing at all unless you analyse very carefully what is involved from the military, naval and air points of view, precisely and exactly. These officers are not going to be sent out on a wild goose chase; they want to know precisely what they are going to do, who is going to command them and under what authority they act; and they are never told.

Making these criticisms of the League does not turn one into an isolationist. I am a believer in the League of Nations and, I think, a better supporter of the League of Nations than those who want to maintain the sanction provisions. I am not an isolationist because I think they take up a defiant and aggressively self-contained attitude and are Imperialistically determined on our particular supremacy. I do not approve of that attitude; it engenders jealousy and suspicion and is not of any assistance in helping others to resolve their quarrels. Although the world is in a confused state, I have never lost hope, because everybody is endeavouring to the best of his ability to build up some structure which will be of use in settling disputes. Statesmen meet, statesmen are frightened, populations tremble, but in my opinion war is not coming, because humanity realises that this barbarity must not be allowed to take place.

I should have liked to ask the Leader of the House for one more favour. There is no condemnation of the Government in my Motion; there is no demand that the Government should, before the September meetings of the League, definitely and publicly express what their line is to be. I should like the Leader of the House to allow my Motion to be put to the open Vote of the House, so that he may judge—and I think it would be useful for him to know—to what extent there is support in your Lordships' House for the particular policy which I advocate. That is merely, in the words of my Motion, that force shall be eliminated from the Articles of the Covenant of the League. I beg to move.

LORD ALLEN OF HURTWOOD had the following Notice on the Paper:—To ask whether, at the September meetings of the League of Nations, His Majesty's Government will submit a comprehensive statement of policy in favour of setting up the necessary machinery to implement the Articles of the Covenant, so that they may be used to remedy grievances, provide economic advantage to States Members and strengthen the procedure for the collective maintenance of the Covenant in its entirety and particularly for steady collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will agree in expressing gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for giving us this opportunity of discussing the future of the League and the international situation before the House adjourns, and particularly before the meeting of the League Assembly which is being called for September. Having paid that compliment to my noble friend, I earnestly hope that His Majesty's Government will turn a deaf ear to his persuasive arguments. Whether they are going to turn that deaf ear or not is, I think, in some doubt. My noble friend is becoming infectiously popular so far as his opinions are concerned. He himself said that he was receiving support from unexpected quarters. He is; he is receiving a certain degree of support from some members of His Majesty's Government who have never been clearly defined in their attitude to the use of force under the League Covenant. He is also receiving support from those who are armed isolationists and have never believed in the League Covenant at all. I put it to my noble friend that, as the result of this mixing of contrary opinions into an unreal support, he may find that the conclusion is very different from what he himself would desire. He may find that his arguments are welcomed but his conclusions are rejected. From that we may see a result of which he would strongly disapprove: not peace but further armed anarchy, an increase in the armaments race, and possibly in the end war itself. So, since one pacifist has come to the rescue of armed anarchy, perhaps another pacifist may try to come to the rescue of armed law.

Before I deal with the actual question of force, I want, if I may, to say that I regret very much that the noble Lord, at this moment in particular, should have joined in what I can only describe as a hue-and-cry against the League Covenant. I can conceive of no more lamentable decision than for the League Covenant to be rewritten in the month of September, even, if I may say so despite what my noble friend has said, in quite minor particulars. None of us dispute that the League Covenant could be improved; many of us would like to see Article 11 strengthened; but I cannot believe that, having regard to the negotiations in which the Government are now engaged, it is desirable that we should now proceed to a reform of the League Covenant itself. The noble Lord said that we who are pundits of the League are disposed to think of the Covenant as sacrosanct. Not at all. What we do point out is that the failures of the last few years are in no particular whatever due to the Covenant of the League; those failures are due to lack of will-power on the part of Governments at the right moment of time to make use of that Covenant. It is a grave danger that we should now find a new scapegoat upon whom we can place the responsibility for our failures.

If I may take two illustrations. The exaction of Reparations from Germany, the failure to grant to German democracy an equality which we have been forced to grant to German dictatorship, had nothing to do with the Covenant of the League at all. Those two tragic errors in political judgment were due to the state of mind of those who were operating the Covenant, and not to the Covenant itself. Therefore I feel a very great sense of apprehension that we should be considering on September 1 a number of proposals that may be coming from various countries as to the reform of the League. I also regret, judging by the statement of the Foreign Secretary in another place, that His Majesty's Government feel it undesirable that they should give any indication to the nation at this moment of the direction in which their minds are tending so far as reform is concerned. I venture to put it to the Government that this issue is one essentially upon which public opinion should have some opportunity of judging their intentions.

For the Government to say that they feel that it would hinder them in negotiations to reveal their intentions now, is utterly contrary to the facts. Other nations are not being restrained from submitting their points of view. It is the silence of His Majesty's Government, the obscurity of this country's attitude, which is encouraging other countries to place before the League and Assembly points of view which, were we to be precise in our attitude, probably would never have been put forward at all. If I may give one illustration, Senor Madariaga has submitted a memorandum on the question which I cannot believe he would have submitted if the view of His Majesty's Government had been clear on this issue. I put it to the Government that no delay was found to be necessary in stating in another place what the attitude of His Majesty's Government was going to be with regard to the withdrawal of sanctions in the Italo-Abyssinian dispute. It was not considered to be inexpedient that His Majesty's Government should declare its policy on that issue. Why was that? Because His Majesty's Government knew what they were going to do. So far as this issue is concerned, surely an equal clarity on behalf of the Government is desirable, because when we are dealing with the question of reform of the League, or the question of collective security, we are dealing with an issue which may involve the personal lives of the citizens of this country who may be called upon to take part in collective support of a policy. Surely an issue which involves the personal lives of the people of this country requires that His Majesty's Government should make a statement of their policy before the League assembles.

I pass to the Motion of my noble friend. He says: Eliminate force from the Articles of the Covenant; change the Covenant. Might I suggest, as an alternative, that what we require at this moment is not a new Covenant but a new policy? It is for that reason that I personally venture to offer the most respectful congratulations to His Majesty's Government with regard to the negotiations that have recently taken place so far as the Locarno Powers are concerned. I believe those who have uttered criticisms of His Majesty's Government owe it to the Government to say that we believe that these negotiations will be supported by all sections of public opinion, and if those negotiations can be ultimately extended to include not only the five Powers but also Russia, and the countries of East and South-East Europe—a difficult proposition, as I am sure the noble Viscount knows perfectly—then indeed we should be on the road to final settlement of the immediate European problem. I do congratulate the Government on that new direction in policy.

But, supposing a settlement is ultimately reached and an agreement ultimately come to, shall we not be back again to the exact position that we have been in almost ever since the Treaty of Versailles? Are nations prepared to guarantee the agreement at which they arrive? Are they prepared to say to each other: "Not only will we sign this agreement, but we will protect what we sign"? That issue has been burked over and over again during the last few years. It can no longer be burked. Nations are apprehensive of each other, they suspect each other's bona fides. Therefore to start upon a new policy and reach a new agreement and leave doubt as to whether it is to be protected, will only leave us in the end in a new position of obscurity. Force therefore cannot be eliminated from a world which retains arms, and this new policy, in the working out of which the Government are row engaged, will ultimately reach the point when we shall all have to say whether we will guarantee what we sign.

Lord Ponsonby says: Eliminate force from the Covenant. Imagine the result. Imagine at this stage of the negotiations in the month of September, just when the smaller Powers of Eastern Europe may be called upon to consider treaty revision, just when we are trying to bring Germany back into the League, and when you are trying to test the bona fides of each country, that you proceed to eliminate force from the Covenant. If the noble Lord had come and proposed unilateral disarmament and had said "Let this country disarm," I could have understood him doing so as a pacifist. But he comes to this House and says: "Disarm the law but leave the litigants engaged in an armaments race." That seems to me to be a policy which can only lead to disastrous results. You cannot have armaments in the world, with each country highly armed, and have no collective policy as to the regulation of their use, eliminating from your international machinery any policy which would direct and bring those armaments under some kind of general control.

With the consent of the House, on the suggestion of the noble Viscount, we are permitted to include the discussion of the three Resolutions which are on the Order Paper. Might I therefore venture to suggest that what is needed in the month of September is not an attempt to reform the Covenant, but a comprehensive statement from His Majesty's Government which shall approach the problem of European peace by two approaches at the same time—by the approach of remedying grievances and by the approach of giving greater precision to the organisation of force? We speak far too often of the League as an instrument of force and too little of it as an instrument for the organisation of justice. Therefore I have ventured to put in my Resolution a suggestion that when we come to the September Assembly we should place before our fellow Members suggestions for the setting up of machinery which shall enable grievances to be explored with a view to their being remedied. We are not going to get countries to declare their policy on the organisation of force, we are not going to get them to accept a new agreement unless they feel that this League whose membership they are asked to accept creates the machinery required for changing the status quo and for remedying grievances.

We require no world conference of hundreds of delegates and many secretaries; we require machinery which is smaller and more workmanlike than that. We require what I may term fact-finding commissions which shall deal with the problem of access to raw materials, with the question of the movements of surplus populations, with questions of Colonial Mandates and with the revision of frontiers themselves. We require to make countries, which say they have grievances, see that there is machinery available to explore those grievances. It may well be that the grievances which they say they feel are really only emotional states of mind, and that they are not grievances which are in fact justified by statistics and by facts. That matters not. A grievance which is emotionally entertained is as powerful a source of irritation as one which can be justified by facts; and what we need at the Geneva Assembly is to follow up the speech of Sir Samuel Hoare and the reference to that same subject made by the Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons, and to create fact-finding commissions which shall enable nations who are aggrieved to know that now under the auspices of the League those grievances are to be explored.

But supposing that you create that favourable atmosphere, we shall still need the organisation of force. On this point, which is the last point that I wish to make, I would like to press the noble Viscount who is to reply to see whether he cannot give us at least some indication of what is the attitude of His Majesty's Government to what are described as regional pacts. If force is to be retained in order that the new agreement, when it is finally worked out, may be protected, what is the manner in which that force is to be applied? As I understand it, the tendency is to use the League in the sense that nations will be called upon to accept special responsibilities in areas where their own frontiers are concerned, and therefore we are talking about a series of regional pacts for the protection of law in Europe. Now it is conceivable that you could have a regional pact west of the Rhine. What is a regional pact? A regional pact is a bringing together of certain nations in a geographical area whereby there may be preponderant power available against any aggressor in that area. So far as the West of Europe is concerned that may be possible. I do not believe that similar pacts are possible in any other area of Europe. I do not believe that either in the East of Europe or the South-East of Europe it is possible for any expert to envisage a geographical pact which would provide within itself preponderant power against any potential aggressor. In those areas all regional pacts which you can envisage would consist of discordant nations and would not provide preponderant power. Therefore if you have a regional pact in the West, and it is not possible to create similar pacts in the East and South-East, while you may get safety behind the Rhine, you get ultimate war in Europe.

It may be argued that if we could get safety behind the Rhine that at least would be an advantage. But can you? May it not be that this regional pact behind the Rhine will turn out in the end to be a death-trap so far as this country is concerned? If France is permitted as one member of that Western regional pact to straddle across into the East and be associated with the Eastern area, are we so sure that in these circumstances we shall keep out of the entanglement created by our own Western pact? Are we sure if we retain, as we must retain, our commitments in the Eastern Mediterranean, that therefore merely by showing our hand in the West we are going to keep out of entanglements in the East? I put it to my noble friend who leads the House that I would infinitely prefer isolation to trying to protect the security of Europe by regional pacts that do not cover the position in the East. Surely, the alternative is this. We desire a settlement that is just, a settlement which has the machinery for remedying grievances. When that settlement is available for signature it must be protected throughout the whole of Europe.

That may seem at first sight to be a hard proposition to put to this country. I do not believe that in fact it is. We need economic sanctions to protect that settlement which are universal throughout Europe. We also need military obligations, if all other nations will share them when that agreement is prepared. But when it comes to the application of those military sanctions throughout Europe Annex F of the Locarno Treaty provides us with the method by which that contribution to a universal obligation can be made. Annex F of the Locarno Treaty states that the obligations resulting from Article 16 of the Covenant on the Members of the League must be understood to mean that each State Member of the League is bound to co-operate loyally and effectively in support of the Covenant and in resistance to any act of aggression to an extent which is compatible with its miliitary situation and takes its geographical position into account. I put it to the noble Viscount that it is our duty when the September Assembly gathers and we consider the organisation of force to protect the new agreement, to give further life to Annex F of the Locarno Treaty. Annex F imposes upon us all a universal obligation to exercise force if necessary in Europe, but it does vary the contribution which each contributing member shall make towards that force. That is something quite different from organising security in a number of rigid geographical pacts where our obligations are limited to a particular geographical area.

I venture to hope therefore that now that we have started forth on these new negotiations, for which the Government are fully entitled to claim every credit, we shall, when the Assembly gathers at Geneva, not at this critical moment begin to revise the Covenant of the League, not eliminate force from law, leaving it in the hands of nations, but that we shall make a dual approach to our problem, an approach which is concerned with the provision of machinery to remedy grievances, an approach which will make more precise our intention to protect an agreement when it is arrived at. I believe public opinion would give its support. What public opinion cannot understand, what is bewildering it at the present moment is that it should be asked to consider taking part in the protection of peace in Europe first in this area then in that, in Memel, in Danzig, in Czechoslovakia, in Austria, with no common plan which it can understand and which provides for a common settlement. But if we can provide a comprehensive plan and an ultimately comprehensive agreement which would be shared by all countries, as I have ventured to indicate, then I am profoundly convinced that public opinion in those circumstances would protect International Law with the same certainty that it has hitherto protected its own national safety.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

My Lords, I feel sure that nobody is likely to underrate the importance of the discussion upon these three Motions. They all from different standpoints contemplate the possibility of this country being one more at war and, as we all know, if war were to come all the questions which now most deeply move the mind of the country—questions of unemployment and how to mitigate unemployment, questions of housing and the clearing of the slums, questions of education—would disappear by force of circumstance into the background. These three Motions represent three different points of view. Although the Motions of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, and of Lord Ponsonby seek to arrive at the same goal, they would reach that goal by different roads. It would be safe to say, I think, that on ninety-nine questions out of one hundred, if not on 999 out of 1,000, these two noble Lords would not find themselves in agreement; but they are both agreed that the coercive clauses of the Covenant of the League of Nations ought to disappear into thin air. The real question is: Is it or is it not possible to secure a common standard of conduct to which civilised countries are expected to adhere in their international relations and, if some country does not attain to that standard of conduct, are there no steps that can be taken to vindicate the public conscience in that regard?

The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, made it clear how supremely difficult in his opinion any such enforcement of the standard would be, and it is necessary to ask whether or not the employment of force is necessarily at the back of the enforcement of any standard of International Law. I take as an instance the policy of the United States which, more than a hundred years ago, was promulgated under the title of the Monroe doctrine. That, as your Lordships know, was a declaration on the part of the United States that in no part of the American Continent, north or south, must any European Power make any new settlement or undertake any new responsibilities beyond those which were formerly held by Britain, Spain, Portugal, France and, in the case of the West Indian islands, by some other countries, and which, so far as Spain and Portugal are concerned, have been handed over to independent Republics. The Monroe doctrine in that respect goes far beyond any obligation proposed by the Covenant of the League of Nations, because if a most pacific arrangement were entered into between some European Power and one of the great South American States for a lease of a considerable territory by the American State to the European Power with a view to the founding and populating of a colony, as I take it the United States would at once step in with a veto, and the ultimate sanction of that veto would undoubtedly be making the attempt a casus belli. That surely is an instance that even though you may not put forward, as the United States certainly never does, the sanction of force as being at the back of your policy, it cannot be disputed that that sanction does exist.

Now to turn for a moment to the League of Nations. The ultimate use of force has been from, quite early days, dwelt on far more strongly than has ever been the case with the Monroe doctrine. There was the Treaty of Mutual Assistance, followed by the Protocol, which imposed definite duties upon the different countries forming part of the League; the proposition of the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, whom we are glad to see back in his place in the House. Some thought it was more the business of the League to consider means of stopping and avoiding war than to consider what steps should be taken when war had broken out. I think that probably such objections were wrong in that view. I fear that events since—the action of Japan in the first instance and the action of Italy more lately—have shown that it was a blunder not to attempt one of these two solutions of the question. But that may or may not be the case.

Where I find myself differing from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is in his belief that the complete disappearance of the three coercive Articles of the Covenant, as they are known, would not merely leave the Covenant in existence, but would actually strengthen it. I car not follow the mind of the noble Lord in that respect. The League has done very remarkable work, quite apart from what I may call high politics. It would continue to deal and, no doubt deal powerfully, with such questions as the white slave traffic, the export of pernicious drugs, important labour questions, and many other things of the kind, but so far as the nations are concerned, and such relations as might lead to differences ending in a conflict, it appears to me that the function of the League of Nations would, in such a case, disappear altogether. The noble Lord spoke of a belief in round tables. I do not for a moment dispute that. I have sat myself at a good many, at some with a certain degree of success, at others which were a marked failure, and I would certainly admit—more than admit I would claim—that the first function of the League of Nations should always be conciliation and conversation, and that the use of force should be placed as far as possible in the background and talked about as little as possible. But I could never bring myself to agree that the existence of the League of Nations is really worth while to the world if the possibility of some coercion of an evil doer is ruled out altogether.

I quite appreciate the attitude of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, and of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, in the dread that they may be dragged into war by the League of Nations, but I cannot help feeling that to be dragged into war without the League of Nations, which after all must be a possibility, would be far worse. There are some, no doubt, who believe that the best and most desirable League of Nations is the League formed by the British Empire. I am not likely to say anything in depreciation of the British Empire. It so happens that it has been my fortune to preside over Departments covering the whole of the British Empire outside these Islands. But we have to consider that the British Empire, as it now is, is a vulnerable object—there is no getting away from that—and more so than it was forty or fifty years ago. At that time the command of the sea, which we had, made us practically impregnable. Some of your Lordships' recollections go back thirty-six or thirty-seven years to the South African War. I think there is no doubt that if we had not then had the command of the sea there was more than one country in Europe which would have been highly pleased to intervene on behalf of the South African Republics. Now we have in one sense, I trust, command of the sea, but not in the same sense; we certainly have not command of the air; and, therefore, in that respect one cannot think of the British Empire as being altogether invulnerable. Then, of course, if the League of Nations has to have a compelling power, possibly on the lines advocated towards the close of his speech by the noble Lord on the Cross Benches (Lord Allen of Hurtwood), His Majesty's Government will no doubt consider it. I have no doubt that if modifications have to be made in the coercive clauses His Majesty's Government will consider to what extent they should be modified, but, as I have already shown by what I have said, to depart altogether from the principle of coercion would in my opinion mean the break-up of the League of Nations.

In one way I think some of the criticisms made, not to-day but at other times, on His Majesty's Government have not been completely fair. I do not think it possible to argue that if some other Foreign Secretaries than those who in turn have represented His Majesty's Government at Geneva had been in their place they would have been able to move the other parts of the world upon a board as though they were chessmen. It is obviously right that the influence of this country should be asserted so far as can reasonably be done. It is all very well to say "Let justice be done though the sky fall," but if the sky is going to fall on somebody else the saying is not as heroic as it might be if it were going to fall on our own heads. I sincerely hope that the present Secretary of State, therefore, when these matters come to be discussed, will have the will and show the power, as I believe he can, to assert the influence of this country in the way that it ought to be asserted, on the side of right.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, before my noble friend Lord Snell started on his voyage to California on important international business he asked me to express the official view of the Labour Party on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, which I shall attempt to do. Perhaps I might be forgiven any presumption if I say that with most of what the noble Marquess who leads the Liberal Party said, I find myself in agreement, and it looks rather as if we were making progress towards a form of popular front, at any rate on this particular question.

I hope my noble friend Lord Ponsonby will permit me to offer some criticisms of two points in his argument. He used the expression that the sanctions in the Italo-Abyssinian case were ineffective. I venture to point out to him that the sanctions provided in the Covenant, especially in the original edition, were not applied. The sanctions that were applied were very limited sanctions. Later indeed my noble friend said that if oil sanctions had been applied that would have meant war; and he implied that the oil sanction might have been effective. The other observation I venture to make in regard to what my noble friend said is this. I think he is a little too pessimistic, judging by the teachings of history, about the effectiveness of a mixed collective force. I am going to remind him of two examples, with one of which I am particularly familiar. The first is one with which I think the noble Earl, Lord Cork, is more familiar than I am. In the Boxer Rebellion in China, without any previous plan at all, military forces representing, I think, seven or eight Powers took part in a campaign for certain objects which they achieved. The other case is more recent. I could, of course, go back to the Crusades and the Knights of St. John. The Knights of St. John were a very good example of an international force. They were both at Rhodes and afterwards at Malta the great bulwarks of Christianity against the Mahomedan advance which was formidable. Their organisation worked very well.

But I will take a more recent case, of which I have personal knowledge, the operation of a very mixed naval force in the Western Mediterranean which worked without any plan's being made in advance during the Great War. I had some small responsibility in operations in which naval forces took part from the following countries: America, France, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, and Great Britain. That means there were six different naval sections operating together. In the Eastern Mediterranean there were Japanese naval forces as well, and I am sure if they had been asked to co-operate in the Western Mediterranean they would have dovetailed in very well with the other six naval force's. We carried out very complicated duties, patrols, convoys, combined searches and so on. I used to preside over a staff committee on which all those six countries were represented. It cost me a good deal in champagne and other entertainment in the evening, I may say, but we managed to get along very well. We worked out our plans ad hoc and we operated them. I would beg my noble friend, therefore, not to be too pessimistic about the chances of the functioning of mixed forces.

Nevertheless, I would like to be allowed to congratulate my noble friend Lord Ponsonby on having a policy. I cannot congratulate the Government in the same way. I would add my entreaty to that of the noble Marquess in begging the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, to use his deservedly great influence—and I would ask also for the influence of the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, the other member of the Cabinet beside him—to have a reconsideration made of the Government's declared intention not to say what is their policy in this matter. The failure of the League in the Abyssinian case has left a vacuum, and a very dangerous vacuum too. I suggest that in any policy which we try to adopt we have the tremendously important task of educating public opinion here and abroad and in the Dominions. There is no time to be lost. I agree with my noble friend Lord Ponsonby to this extent, if he will allow me to say so, that it is better to have no coercion under the Covenant and to say frankly and outright that we are non-resisters, than to pretend that there is a system of collective security when there is neither common action nor collectivism nor the will and determination to resist aggression.

The policy of the Labour Party has been declared by our National Council since these recent events and I do not think there will be any change in it at the Edinburgh conference despite the eloquence and deserved popularity of my noble friend and those who work with him. Our policy is to build up and strengthen the system of collective security.

THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL STANHOPE)

Without armaments?

LORD STRABOLGI

I am glad the noble Earl has reminded me of that point. We are in favour of sufficient armaments to carry out the policy of collective security. Our friends in another place, of course, voted against the Government's Estimates. I do not blame them; I would have done the same myself. That is because we totally disagree with the Government's policy or lack of policy. As the noble Earl has interrupted me, I may say that we have a special reason for considering that the Government are deserving of the greatest censure for having lowered our prestige everywhere in the world. We can be insulted by any one to-day. The noble Marquess spoke of his affection for the British Empire, but I would say that we are going the best way to lose our Empire. The Foreign Secretary in Geneva was openly insulted by some hitherto unknown senator from Danzig. Perhaps if the noble Earl had been there it would not have occurred, but the Rumanian representative admonished the British representatives at Montreux. I do not say he was insulting, because M. Tituleseu is a man of great courtesy, but he criticised us in the most stringent way. If I may use a colloquialism, our name abroad, thanks to the National Government, is mud. The noble Earl knows it himself. It is not his fault. He was not responsible until recently, but he will be soon. The next time we discuss this in the autumn he will be responsible and if I have the opportunity I shall venture to make some criticisms of him unless there is a change in the meantime.

We are prepared to vote for armaments for a policy we can support. But, as I have said before in this place, if we are involved in trouble it will be necessary in order to achieve victory to have a united nation, and you will never get a united nation on the policy which the Government are carrying out at present. We are still believers, in the. Labour Party, in the League of Nations and even in a small League of Nations on which we can rely. That would be better than a larger League on which we cannot rely. I ventured before to draw an analogy between the present position and the time when the torch of learning was kept alight in Europe by one country only during the chaos of the Dark Ages. Even if we could only get the Scandinavian Powers and one or two others into a League I think it should be kept alive, because I am certain that if the League is destroyed it will have to be reconstituted. The only good thing that came out of the War was this idea of the reign of law instead of the reign of force.

I must make one more reference to my noble friend behind me. I gathered that he is in favour of a League in which there shall be economic advantages for the Members. If I may say so that is a very admirable suggestion and I should like to be allowed to support him in that. I presume that if any Member broke the Covenant of this pacifist League then those economic advantages would be removed, and he said so in so many words. By that I presume is meant that tariffs would be put on against a treaty breaker. But that is sanctions. Before I had the pleasure of hearing my noble friend speak this afternoon I had made a note to ask him a question. If an aggressor broke the law I presume he would not be in favour of allowing free trade in weapons to that nation. Suppose then we were threatened, as in the case of Italy. Suppose the Mussolini of the day said: "You dare put on a tariff against me, you dare stop your nationals from selling me poisonous gases, or aeroplane bombs, and I shall attack you." What then? Indeed, I am afraid that in this case we are in an inescapable dilemma. I do not believe that moral pressure is going to restrain modern dictators. I am afraid that is the menace, and therefore I am afraid the policy of non-resistance is impracticable.

That being the case, what are we to do? The noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, has had the advantage, I understand, in company with the Prime Minister, of hearing the views on defence of a number of very distinguished members of your Lordships' House and of another place. I do not know what they said to him and I do not know what he said to them, but I very respectfully put this consideration before him. I do not know any secrets, and I make no secret of that of which I am now going to remind the noble Viscount. The noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, spoke of our former command of the sea. We have a limited command of the sea still; that is perfectly true. But we have two great responsibilities at the present time: one is in the Pacific and the other is in European waters. Has he called for the plans of the Admiralty—and if he has not clone so, might I venture to suggest that he should; he, Sir Thomas Inskip and his other colleagues—in the event of there being a threat in the Pacific which necessitates our moving the main bulk of our Fleet out to the Pacific, and at the same time a threat in Europe? That is not an impossible state of affairs at all.

In that case what is the situation going to be? You may have a threat from the Fascist Powers—in the plural—in Europe, and you may have to choose between leaving the Pacific to be defended by, perhaps, the good offices of the Americans and exposing yourselves to very serious threats in the Atlantic and in European waters, in the North Sea. If that is the case—and that is what isolation will mean, and that, if I may say so, will be the result of the dual policy, the allied policy, of Lords Ponsonby and Mansfield—then you will have to double the proposed strength of the British Fleet; and in addition to that, as the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, has reminded your Lordships, there is the menace of the air situation as well. No, my Lords, I must say that those who are to-day weakening and belittling and those who apparently would like to betray the whole idea of the Covenant of the League of Nations, are not the best friends, though they may not know it, of the British Empire and of the British nation. In other words, we at the present time need allies, and the best form of alliance we can have is, I suggest, with fellow Members of the League of Nations who mean to stand by each other. I do not care what the complexion of their Governments is at all, if they are prepared to work and maintain the Covenant of the League.

My last point is this, and here I am again expressing as clearly as I can the Labour point of view. There are certain causes of the present unrest in Europe. What are they? Really basically, they are economic causes. There is the extraordinary economic paradox at the present time of tremendous wealth of every kind in the world, thanks to our application of science to production, agriculture and transport, whereby there is abundance and plenty for everyone, while on the other side you have terrible, grinding poverty amongst hundreds of millions of people. The dissatisfied nations, so-called—Italy, Japan, Germany—are all really dissatisfied because their people are miserably poor, and we have unrest in this country for exactly the same reason. Over the week-end I addressed a number of very great meetings in the North of England—this will interest my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. When I spoke about unemployment, the Government's Regulations and the so-called means test—I spoke in areas where 80 per cent. of the male population were unemployed—there was intense interest. Then I went on, as I always do, to speak about this question of the League and of the prevention of war and collective security. There was much less interest; I could not even hold them on that subject. I could not hold my audience on that particular point; it was perhaps my own fault, but I held them on the other subject.

The trouble is economic, and if we can solve the economic problems and the economic troubles of these nations and our own, then I believe that the chief causes of war will be removed. To that extent I venture to agree with my noble friend Lord Ponsonby in that part of his speech. I therefore suggest that we have to attempt to follow a double policy; that of strengthening the coercive side of the League—the safeguarding side of the League against aggression—at any rate for long enough to give us a breathing space; and that of seeking to remove the economic causes of the trouble and war threats in the world. I could make many suggestions to that end, but this would hardly be the place and there is hardly the time for it. I would, however, only say that I am bound, if my noble friend does go to a Division—I do not know if the noble Viscount will accept his proposal for a free Vote—to vote against my noble friend, which I should regret doing on personal grounds.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, your Lordships have before you three proposals, though, as I gather from the speech of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, he is in agreement with the Motion which has been put down by Lord Mansfield, so that in effect we have two proposals and not three. The proposal of my noble friend Lord Allen seems to me of very great interest and importance, presented, as I am sure your Lordships will agree, with great force and lucidity in his speech. He said that it is not enough to strengthen the barriers against war, but that you must make some great effort to get rid of the tension and suspicion that exist in Europe; you must have a co-ordinated policy for dealing with the difficulties that now exist. I personally feel in great sympathy with that point of view, but with my noble friend's permission I am not going to deal with it this evening, because I shall confine my observations to as narrow a compass as I can. I want to say a few words about the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, which he has fairly suggested to be a very important issue on which there is a strong, a fundamental difference of opinion.

To my mind the air has been a good deal cleared in this respect by the speech, and particularly by one passage in the speech, delivered by the Foreign Secretary on Monday last in another place. The particular passage which seemed to me of importance was this. He said: Moreover, there are certain principles connected with the collective organisation of peace which, in our view, it is essential to maintain and to which the Covenant gives expression. Most important of all these principles is the prevention of war. That includes a number of important elements, of which I will mention four: the machinery for the peaceful settlement of disputes, the machinery for the adjustment of grievances, the creation of a deterrent to war, the establishment of an international agreement for the reduction and limitation of armaments. I feel in great sympathy with those broad general principles, and I particularly welcome what my right honourable friend, if I may be allowed to call him so, said about disarmament. I do firmly believe, in spite of the doubts which I know my noble friend Lord Ponsonby feels on the subject, that until you can get an agreement to limit and as far as possible to reduce armaments, the threat to the peace of the world must continue whatever other provisions you make.

However, I am not going into that, because there is, I hope, no substantial difference of opinion upon that point. It is on the third of his principles that I confess I wish the Foreign Secretary had felt able to be a little more precise. He says that he believes there must be maintained in the Covenant a deterrent to war, and in the earlier passage which I read he expressly refers to the provisions of the Covenant as those with which he does not wish to interfere. I confess the expression "deterrent to war"—no doubt selected for that reason—is so large and so general that it does not get us very far. I am not at all sure that Lord Ponsonby and lord Mansfield would not be in favour of a deterrent to war. I imagine that they would be, only they think it can be obtained by some form of diplomatic objurgation. But the really practical and important issue which we have to face is whether you are going to entrust the international authority with some means of coercion.

Lord Ponsonby's Motion only rejects military coercion in its terms, but he explained that it extends to all forms of coercion, economic as well as military, and he holds that there is not a shred of argument—he used that actual phrase—that can be urged in favour of a contrary view. He will forgive me for saying so, but that kind of statement fills me with distrust. When I find that the enormous majority of those who have given the closest attention to the subject throughout Europe take an entirely different view, it seems to me odd to say that there is not a shred of argument in favour of the view which they hold. If I understand my noble friend's argument—he will forgive me for referring to him so continuously, but he is the front of this case, he represents a very considerable body of opinion of which Mr. Lansbury and Canon Sheppard are very vigorous exponents outside this House—he says that the objection is to force itself. My noble friend at the end of his speech denounced rearmament with quite as great vigour as he denounced the use of force within the Covenant. He objects to force altogether. He does not believe in it at all. He says it is an attempt to erect Beelzebub against Satan. I think that was the phrase.

I know there is a very respectable and important body of opinion which holds that view. They go the whole hog, and say they are against all force, even in civil matters. They do not hold with the police or any force, and indeed I do not see how logically they can stop there. If it is casting out Satan and erecting Beelzebub to use force in international affairs, I cannot see how it is not equally so to use force to prevent crime in this country. My noble friend would not seriously suggest that if you abolish the police force to-morrow you would not have an increase in crime. Everybody knows you would. It was one of the achievements of the nineteenth century to replace the fantastic old watchmen of the eighteenth century with the present day police, to the greatly increased security of life and property in this country.

The noble Lord objects to force altogether, and that is where he differs from those who represent that distinguished body, the Imperial Policy Group. They believe in force, and worship and love it, but it must be national and not international force. That is the distinction. They are perpetually urging, with the assistance of Lord Lloyd, who is unfortunately not present here this evening, a much greater increase, and reproach the Government with being slack in their rearmament proposals. They want more force, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby wants less force. But they are combined in order to destroy what Lord Crewe rightly said was the element in the Covenant which makes the League of Nations a reality.

What is the alternative proposal? It is discussion sitting round a table. That, of course, was the conception at the basis of the Kellogg Pact. I think the Kellogg Pact did some admirable things in laying down general principles as to the iniquity of using force as an instrument of policy, but as an instrument for preventing war I thought everybody agreed that the Kellogg Pact had turned out to be perfectly useless. Pure discussion! My noble friend, very strangely I thought, brought in aid the Montreux negotiations. They are admirable. No one who advocates more vigour in the Covenant proposes to get rid of diplomatic negotiations. If you can settle a thing by discussion and bargaining everyone agrees that that is the best thing. The Covenant expressly retains that view. Nothing is to be done until the resources of negotiation have been tried and have failed. It is only in that case that the question of the use of force arises under the Covenant at all.

I shall have a word to say about the actual cases in a moment. Everybody wants negotiation, and believes that it is the best way of settling international differences. It is only when that has failed and the two sides are arming against one another and preparing for war, as for months before the Abyssinian war broke out, that you have to deal with a situation which is extremely difficult. To tell me that when those preparations have been made, and armies are on the point of marching, you will stop it by merely talking round a table, seems to me to be a fantastic point of view. It is not only a question of theory. We have got a great deal of experience of the working of the League—my noble friend conveniently ignores that—in the way in which the League successfully prevented wars of a smaller character. There was the war in Albania, which had actually begun. Serbian troops had actually invaded Albania. The Council meets and word is sent to the Serbians to stop, with an intimation that if they do not stronger measures will be taken against them, with immediate economic results in Serbia. The Serbians stop, go back, make terms with the Albanians, and come to an agreement which has never been disturbed since and which has led to a far greater measure of peace between the two countries than existed before.

Or take the case of Bulgaria. Actually I fighting was in progress. The Bulgarians or the Serbians (I forget which) had shot people on the frontier. The same thing—a meeting of the Council, direction to the parties to withdraw, and intimation, perfectly well known, that the Council were considering what steps of a more drastic character could be taken if the parties did not agree. They withdrew. The matter was settled and arbitrated upon without any difficulty at all. Again, I happened to be rather closely concerned in the controversy between Greece and Italy over Corfu. There was a very serious grievance undoubtedly, a complaint that the Greeks had allowed an Italian diplomatic personage to be murdered in their territory. Very naturally, strong remonstrances by the Italians, very vigorous action, the landing of a force—a very small force because there was nothing to oppose it—in Corfu, and the occupation of the island of Corfu. Thereupon the Greeks went to the Assembly of the League, which happened to be sitting, and ultimately the Italian troops withdrew from Corfu. The Greeks very properly paid a considerable—I think rather too large—indemnity for the outrage, which they certainly ought to have paid, and the matter was settled, but settled because it was perfectly well known that in the event of a failure to settle strong action would be taken.

Now on the other side take those two other cases, Manchuria and Abyssinia. What really happened, whether rightly or wrongly—I am not attempting to attribute blame—in each of those cases was that every attempt was made to settle by peaceful negotiations. In Japan the most elaborate attempts were made. I know it is sometimes said that the Council threatened Japan. There is not a word of truth in it. They did not threaten Japan. In three separate meetings of the Council the matter was discussed, and at two of those meetings the Japanese agreed to every resolution that was passed in favour of peace. But the moment the Council had separated Japan treated those resolutions as waste paper and went on with their invasion of Manchuria. Why? Because it was perfectly well known that, owing to circumstances which, again, I do not wish to comment on at this time, none of the parties was prepared to use violence or force in order to compel the Japanese to desist. I have not the slightest doubt myself that if that had not been known, and if the position of world affairs had been such that it would have been possible to use force, you could have arrested the Japanese aggression.

The same thing is true of Abyssinia. Every effort was made for months to reach a solution of that. I need not remind your Lordships of the circumstances, because they are very much in your recollection, but every effort was made. It was only when that failed that this attempt to coerce Italy was made, and it was only because it was perfectly clear that no amount of reason, no amount of remonstrance, no amount of argument was going to check the Italians in their invasion of Abyssinia that the attempt failed. I am sure I do not wish to treat my noble friend with anything that approaches disrespect, but it docs seem to me simply astonishing that in the face of the actual facts you can maintain that discussion will put a stop to aggression where you have a country determined on aggression and having made plans in order to commit that aggression.

I conclude that part of my observations with the reminder that practically every country which is in danger of invasion is determined to maintain the coercive provisions of the League of Nations if it is to remain in the League at all. The only countries in which, as far as I know, there is serious doubt—perhaps some of the very small countries may be put aside—are two dictatorship countries, which are said, I do not know with what truth because I have only got popular report to go on, to have doubts about coercion, and America, which of course is not in danger of invasion. But countries which are in danger of invasion and are not in favour of aggression are unanimously in favour of maintaining some form of coercive power in the League.

That is particularly true when you come to the question of disarmament. My noble friend Lord Crewe made a reference to the draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance and the Geneva Protocol. I had something to do with the first of those. The idea of the Treaty of Mutual Assistance was simply that we might regularise and put in a more clear manner the duty of countries to go to the assistance of a country that was attacked. It was objected to on the ground of its militarist tendency. What is the history of that? There is an obligation laid upon the League by Article 8 to reduce armaments. From the very moment it was formed it set about its duty, but it was met always with the objection: "Well, but you ask us to reduce armaments. How are we going to protect ourselves if we reduce armaments and then the other fellow, whoever he may be, does not reduce them really and only pretends to do so?" It was in order to meet that case, and that case only, that the Treaty of Mutual Assistance and afterwards the Geneva Protocol were devised. In order to give those countries sufficient confidence that they would be protected by force if they disarmed, those provisions were put forward, and personally I regret that they were not adopted. Very respectfully I cannot believe that the policy which my noble friend advocates has any chance of success, and I think my noble friend Lord Allen of Hurtwood was perfectly right when he said that the only effect of his campaign is to assist people over here to destroy the League and therefore increase their case for extensive rearmament. So far as I can see that is the only result. I do not believe there is the slightest chance of getting rid of force in international affairs. The only possible question in my mind is: Is that force to be controlled by the nations, or is it to be controlled by some international authority? That is, in my judgment, the only practical question that we have to face.

Now I will say just a word about my noble friends who want to get rid of the League altogether. I know that they do not always put it quite so plainly but a very interesting and illuminating speech was made by my noble friend Lord Stonehaven on the last occasion when we discussed this matter. He said with great force and great lucidity: "I want to go back to the state of affairs that existed before 1914. I think that was a very good state of affairs. After all, we got on very well under that system." Well, that means that you go back to the old system of alliances and armaments and rely for your protection, not on the armaments of this country only, because no country under modern conditions can hope to make itself safe by its own armaments alone, even in theory. They must have alliances. That is the only way in which they can be safe. They may be alliances made beforehand or alliances made, as we made them in 1914, when the war had actually broken out, but alliances in some shape or form you must have. The difference between them and the League system is whether you are to have these partial alliances or groups set against one another, or whether you are to try to have a new system of all countries being for each country and each country for all as far as the peace is concerned. That is the whole difference between the two policies.

I cannot help feeling that it is far sounder, far better, far safer, far more moral, far more desirable in every way that you should have the new system—a system of a general alliance, if you like so to call it, against war, rather than partial alliances against individual groups or individual countries. That is the whole case. It is said this will never succeed, that you will never get people to act. That is the cri de bataille of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. All the practical difficulties that he points out of getting the countries to work together apply to every system of alliances just the same. You are no better off under the League system in that respect than you were under the old system of alliances. I believe, in point of fact, that he greatly exaggerates the difficulties, as we know from the late War. No doubt an allied army or an allied force does not work quite so well as a unitary force, but, in point of fact, you can get very good results, as almost every page of history shows. Therefore, I do not believe that the practical difficulties are very serious.

But all the opponents of the League system say it has failed in these two cases—the Japanese case and the Abyssinian case. I will say no more about the Japanese case, beyond reminding your Lordships in one sentence that the case of Japan was a very peculiar one, because the countries mainly interested in it, besides ourselves, were Russia and America, neither of which was in the League at that time, and therefore there were undoubtedly very special difficulties in operating a League policy in reference to Japan. As to Abyssinia, I want to avoid using any kind of language of recrimination this afternoon, but I am bound to say that the difficulty did not arise from the League. It arose from the Governments, and the Governments only. My noble friend talked continually as if all the Governments had refused to operate the League system. That is not so. They were all ready to operate it, with some insignificant exceptions, with marvellous unanimity. It is quite true that most of them were small countries which could not do very much, but they risked a great deal because it was always possible that their action would produce very serious results for themselves. It was the Governments of the two great Powers, France and England, which really settled the question of whether the League system was going to be employed or not.

I do not wish to weigh in the balance which of these two Governments was most to blame. I can only say that their joint policy was a half-hearted policy. They treated sanctions as a kind of objurgation. There were all those professions of friendships for Italy and the allegation that we had no quarrel with the Italian people or the Italian State except on this point. There is no justification for the use of sanctions unless the country against whom you are going to use them has committed a grave international offence, and if you are going to put that very serious machinery into force, it is only throwing a doubt on the sincerity of your action if you make great professions of friendship for the country which you are attempting to coerce. I am afraid that on those lines the policy of sanctions was bound to fail. I do not think you can operate a system like Sanctions unless you are really deeply in earnest and prepared to take the risk. In my judgment people were prepared to take the risk and would have followed anything that the Government had done. So far as the French are concerned, there was a General Election fought on this issue, and an overwhelming majority in favour of those who stood for a determined policy.

LORD DARCY (DE KNAYTH)

May I ask the noble Viscount what decision the new French Government took on the subject when it had been elected in accordance with this overwhelming will of the people?

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

The new Government took this decision, as I am sure my noble friend will remember, that they said specifically they were prepared to take any course and back up any course that the British Government proposed. That is what they said both publicly and privately.

LORD STRABOLGI

May I also ask the noble Viscount, because I want this matter clear, whether it is not the case that the people here fought an Election also and the Government won it on this point?

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

As far as this country is concerned I do not want to go into controversial matter unnecessarily, but as far as my judgment goes, whenever the feeling of the country has been tested, either in that much-abused Peace Ballot or in the Hoare-Laval episode, or in a recent by-election, the people have always said they were prepared to back up the Government in whatever they thought necessary. I need not elaborate that point, because I do not believe anybody seriously doubts that that is so. Just let me try to bring this part of my argument to a point by reminding my noble friends of the kind of syllogism, if I may so put it, that was constantly in the mouth of the Government. They said, in the first place, that sanctions, if they were to be effective, might lead to war. That they were constantly saying in opposition to any proposal that sanctions should be made more effective." We, the Government, are against war, we are opposed to war in any case." The only conclusion therefore is that the sanctions to be used must not be effective and must be ineffective, and so it was understood by the Ruler of Italy, I have no doubt. I am quite sure that that kind of policy must fail. I do not think anyone would desire to see a renewal of what we did in the last few months.

In conclusion, may I venture to submit, not proposals, but certain suggestions as to the principles on which a policy ought to be based? Personally, I agree with what the Foreign Secretary said the other day. He did not think it at all likely nor, as I understood him, at all desirable that there should be any drastic revision of the Covenant. I respectfully agree with him, apart from one or two alterations that I should like to see—for example, the construction of Article 11 which seems to me to hamstring its operation. I should like to see that altered, but these are details into which I need not enter now. What I venture to submit to the Government is this, that in the first place, if the League is going to intervene in a serious quarrel it should intervene at the earliest point it can. It should take the matter over as soon as it is reasonably clear that the parties will not arrive at an agreement unassisted. Of course, as long as there is any hope that they will arrive at an agreement, it is best to leave them to do it, but surely in this particular case that hope ought to have vanished months before it did vanish.

Secondly—and this, I venture to think, is an important difference in procedure which might well be adopted—I agree that action under the League must be joint action. Therefore it is important that there should be a consultation between the Members of the League who have decided that action is necessary, whether of a preventive character or in order to put a stop to a war that has broken out—it is important that they should come together at a very early stage and make up their minds exactly what they are going to do, how far they are going to go, and what is to be the object of their policy. I should wish our Government, or whatever Government was taking the lead in the matter, to put forward definite proposals on the subject, to put forward a definite policy, and ask Members of the League to undertake to carry that policy through in the same way that allies at the beginning of a campaign commonly enter into an agreement that they will go through with the matter and will not make peace without the assent of their fellow allies.

Once having got that definite plan agreed upon—not one which can be laid down, I agree, beforehand, as a plan which will be available for every case, because each case differs—once you have your plan laid down for that particular case, then there must be no hesitation in applying it, and whatever force is necessary must be used. I am sorry to have detained your Lordships so long. My conclusion is after all nothing new—Beware of entrance on a quarrel, but, being in, bear yourself so that the opposed may beware of you. That is the sound principle in dealing with these matters. One thing that we must avoid, and avoid like poison, is anything like irresolution, uncertainty, doubt as to what is to be the policy of this country and what policy it will recommend to the League.

LORD RENNELL

My Lords, I propose to be, as I think I generally am in your Lordships' House, brief, although on the historic references that have been made to the important successes and major failures of the League I might have a good deal to say. But I intend this evening to confine my remarks to the terms of the Resolutions before your Lordships' House. Being myself a great believer that the League of Nations, a universal League of Nations reconstituted from the actual one, must be the best hope for the future peace of the world and for bringing about a better understanding between the nations, I inquired not many months ago of His Majesty's Government whether they were contemplating any proposals for a revision of the League or of the Covenant, because of the notorious manner in which, as at present constituted, it had failed to avert war between two of its Members. The answer which I then received was a negative one; but since then, moved perhaps by the claims of the aggressor, who has been entirely successful in defiance of the League, His Majesty's Government have admitted that they are considering the question of revision.

The result has been the three Resolutions which have been placed on the Paper of your Lordships' House for today, two of which contemplate practically the same objective, whereas the third appears to me to be conceived in an entirely contrary spirit, because the maintenance, not to say strengthening, of the Covenant in its entirety connotes not only the application of economic sanctions but also the use of force. Now, personally, of the three Resolutions, I prefer that of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, though I should not go so far as he does in saying that the elimination of the obligation to use force necessarily involves the elimination of economic coercion. In a reconstituted League I do not think it need do so. I prefer the terms of Lord Ponsonby's Resolution to that of my noble friend the noble Earl who sits behind me (the Earl of Mansfield) not because there is any real essential difference in them but because, as drafted, his Resolution seems to me to impose upon the Government, when about to enter a conference, a sort of sanction in the form of a recorded opinion of your Lordships' House.

But let me turn now for a moment to the Motion of my noble friend Lord Allen. I hope he will allow me to say that whenever I study any of his pronouncements I always have a profound admiration for his splendid faith in the perfectibility of an imperfect world, which is in strong contrast to that deplorable practical scepticism which a long residence in foreign countries has induced in one like myself predisposed by his nature and a tolerably good-natured temperament to optimism. I do not, however, understand what further machinery he contemplates could be or need be set up to implement the Articles of the Covenant, which would, it seems to me at any rate, require no further implementing if the signatories had been, or were ever likely to be, prepared to carry out the actual obligations undertaken under the Covenant and to submit to all the consequences involved. It is not the Covenant but its execution which has failed. They have shown that they are not prepared to put into practice what, both in theory and in principle, they have assented to.

It is useless to go back on past history or to consider what our own actual obligations may have been under that Tripartite Treaty of 1906 by which three great Powers undertook to maintain the political and territorial status quo in Abyssinia which, thirty years later, one of the three set out deliberately to extinguish. It may, of course, be argued that the provisions of the Covenant designed to assure collective security to all Members of the League superseded that Treaty by a larger and more universal guarantee, but in any case one has proved quite as ineffectual as the other. Of course people may differ in their interpretation of obligations, and we have heard something about reservations of conscience, but the fact is, unfortunately, that no social or moral standard is common to all the nations of the world, and many of those included in the membership of the League of Nations are in a far more advanced degree of social evolution than very many of the others. I am sorry to have to admit that a long experience has made me sceptical about the attitude which some of them—I always like understatement and so I say which some of them—are likely to adopt when interests are in one scale and obligations in the other. The result is that an unfair and possibly even an intolerable burden may be laid on those who are scrupulous in fulfilling their obligations.

How, then, are we to deal with an instrument based on the presumption that undertakings accepted by the signatories will be fulfilled? Personally I am afraid I must rule out altogether the proposals so earnestly and conscientiously advocated by my noble friend Lord Davies for an international force. The practical and psychological difficulties in the way appear to me, as I think they must do to any one who has resided for forty years of his life in foreign countries, quite insuperable. I therefore reluctantly come to the conclusion that from the revised Covenant any general obligation to take military measures should be eliminated. I am, however, not by any moans convinced that economic coercion should not be retained under certain conditions. One of these in the revised Covenant would have to make it plain that economic coercion should be made really effective in its full extent, that it should be rigorously and not merely partially imposed, and that the same economic boycott should be applied equally to any Member who stands out or who makes reservations or who violates it. At the same time it must be, of course, questionable whether economic coercion can ever be really effective until practically all nations become Members of the League.

I believe, however, that if the coercive military obligations were to be eliminated there would be a far better prospect of universal adherence to a League called upon to pronounce collective or majority judgments on issues submitted to a world's tribunal. With such an end in view I impenitently adhere to the opinion I have already expressed here that it would be more practicable to have three councils sitting in three continents with an ultimate appeal to Geneva as a World Court of Final Instance. It is to my mind conceivable that within such a universal league there should also be regional pacts for giving execution in cases of recalcitrance to the decisions of the world's tribunal. Short of such an ideal reconstruction of the League, which I believe to be not unrealisable, I fear that what was intended to be an instrument of collective security promises to become not only a self-denying ordinance but even a danger to those who respect their obligations, as well as an additional occasion for mutual mistrust and suspicion.

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN

My Lords, at this late hour, when we are all anxious to hear the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, I do not propose to detain you more than a very few minutes. In the first place I should like to congratulate the noble Viscount and his colleagues on the statement that emerged from the conference last week. That seems to me to end that fatal era in Europe in which European problems were looked at and handled in the light of the Treaty of Versailles. It does, I think, end the days when Germany was expected to acquiesce in unilateral discriminations eighteen years after the Armistice which no other nation in the world was willing to accept. It is terribly late, dangerously late to have made that decision. But I would like to congratulate both His Majesty's Government and the French Government on having done so at long last, because I think it is the most hopeful augury for the future. Further I believe that the noble Viscount will not follow the example of a former Foreign Secretary who in another place only a few days ago made a speech which seemed to be suffused with hatred instead of good will. I do not think the noble Viscount who leads the House will follow that example.

As regards the forthcoming Locarno Conference I would like to remind him of a well-known saying—I believe of the great Marquess of Salisbury. He is alleged to have said that it is a very dangerous thing to go to an international conference until you have reached by diplomatic means a basis of agreement. You should never go to an international conference merely in the hope of something coming out of it, because if you do and an agreement does not follow your last state is always worse than your first. I believe it has always been the tradition of good diplomacy to prepare the ground and not to meet until you reach the point when you feel sure of getting an agreement of sufficient value out of your meeting. I would commend that ancient tradition of British diplomacy to the benevolent attention of His Majesty's Government.

I think this recent event is hopeful also from the point of view of the future of the League, because in my view one of the main reasons why the League has been in such difficulties has been that it has been used as an instrument—I will not say in whose hands—for maintaining against Germany the discriminations of the Treaty of Versailles. When once you separate the whole Versailles system from the Covenant of the League of Nations, then only will there be a chance of the League having that authority which it ought properly to exercise. That is why I venture to hope that before very long some method will be found of ending the connection between the League and Danzig. That, as far as I know, is the last of the special discriminations. The High Commission was created to prevent Poland from seizing Danzig. It is a matter which has no proper relation with the League. Germany and Poland are now in a position to make a satisfactory agreement because each has something to give in negotiation. I hope therefore that before very long every aspect of the Treaty of Versailles will be removed from the Covenant. We may then begin to make progress towards better international order and especially European order under a Covenant which has no relation to the events of 1914 to 1918.

There is just one word I should like to say about the Covenant itself. I venture to think that a good deal of the discussion to-day has been a little unreal. I do not think the contrast is between the position of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, who does not want to use force at all, and the position of people who want to use Article 16 unlimitedly, to go to war all over the world. The real problem is about the point at which you can effectively use force in certain circumstances. The analogy is then used between law and order inside the State and law and order in international affairs. It is a most dangerous analogy. The essence of law and order as we understand it is that the power of the State is used against the individual—not against Governments, but against the individual—and the individual, if he commits a crime or takes part in a riot, is arrested individually by the policeman and individually put into a prison until his case is adjusted before a court of law. In international affairs, however, your instrument is not the policeman and the person who is arrested is not the individual. The instrument which in the last resort you have to use is war—war against another Government highly organised for war. That is why all sensible people automatically and instinctively hesitate before using that frightful weapon as an instrument for maintaining peace.

On the other hand, I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, in the view that there are cases in which even that instrument is preferable to the defeat and the complete destruction of liberty in the world, and the question which is going to present itself to the League is this: At what point are you going to mobilise power, or force, through the League against an aggressor? At what point are you going to do that? It is quite clear that economic sanctions, which were the original step by which you could begin to bring pressure without all the trouble and all the dangers of war, cannot be successful except in a world in which the sanctions are applied universally, and the experience of the last year goes to show—and my noble friend Lord Cecil has not disputed it—that the instrument which has now to be used under Article 16 to make it effective must be war, or you must be ready to go to war. If that is true, it seems to me that the first and most obvious conclusion that must be drawn from the situation to-day is that at all costs we ought to free ourselves from the automatic and universal obligation to use that frightful weapon all over the world. You are not going to help peace by pretending to the world that you are going to use war in everybody else's quarrels, wherever they may be, all over the world. You will never get a healthy discussion of this question until we free ourselves from the automatic and universal obligation to use war under Article 16.

Then, when it comes to the question of the stage at which you are prepared to throw that terrible sword into the scales of international justice, the answer inevitably depends upon the amount of force in war which you are prepared to put in, and the amount of force in war which your neighbours are prepared to put in. If any fruitful discussions are going to take place next September, they are going to centre round that question. Let us put it to the test: What are we prepared in the last resort to go to war about, and what are other people prepared in the last resort to go to war about? When that has been decided, then you may be able to make some agreements behind the general structure of the League which will be effective, because people will then know exactly where they are. But the attempt to base the League upon a universal and automatic obligation to go to war all over the world is to darken counsel and to give to nations hope which will certainly be falsified, as certainly as it was falsified in the case of Abyssinia.

I hope that the Government will bear that point of view in mind and make it perfectly clear that, while they do not wish to rule force altogether out of the League—it seems to me that it has a part, but a limited part—the obligation to use it must be strictly limited to what we ourselves can perform in war and what other nations also are prepared to perform in war, and we should not go one inch beyond that limit. What we are prepared to do must depend in great measure upon our armaments. That is a question which I was going to ask my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, but as he has not listened to my speech I will not do so. I will, however, commend that point of view to the Government, and I hope that they will bear it in mind in the discussions which are to take place in Geneva in September.

LORD RANKEILLOUR

My Lords, I have never known a series of speeches in which there were such strange partial agreements and partial disagreements. I may say, for one, that I find myself in very large agreement both with the noble Lord who has just spoken and with my noble friend Lord Mansfield, and I have so found myself on previous occasions with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. However, I only want to say this in the first instance. Some weeks ago I ventured to say that, with the exception of one unhappy week in December, we had nothing with which to reproach ourselves in our conduct of the Abyssinian question through the League of Nations from first to last. I wish to repeat that now. I know that many persons felt sentiments of something approaching horror when sanctions were withdrawn in their application to Italy a short time ago. The only sentiments I felt were of the profoundest relief, and I may say that with the more freedom because I was warmly in support of the application of sanctions up to that time. Not that I love the League especially, not that I love sanctions especially, but Government after Government in this country had committed themselves to the policy of sanctions and it was our duty in honour to go on with them. I think my noble friend Lord Cecil did little justice to the Government in what he remarked about their attitude. The Government at the time of the Election pledged themselves to uphold sanctions and to go as far as any other country would go—any other country that counted. That was the extent of their pledge, and they acted up to it. Unhappily the result was a failure, and the very reason for applying sanctions has ceased to exist. It seems to me that I may sum up our attitude as a country by saying that if we had not attempted to apply sanctions we should have been knaves, and if we had continued them we should have been fools.

A good deal has been said about our humiliation. I cannot follow that in any degree at all. If I am in a train or a car that breaks down, I do not feel humiliated, I feel annoyed, and I am tempted to vent my feelings on the manufacturers or designers of such cars or trains whether they be the firm of Messrs. Wilson, George and Company, or any other. That, however, is the extent of my sentiment, and when we hear so much of this loss of prestige and the rest, of foreign opinion being against us, there again I ask myself whether there is not a great deal of unnecessary hysteria about. If we assert ourselves, and foreign opinion knows that we are in a position to assert ourselves—and the foreign Governments do know that now—then it does not matter what public opinion in foreign countries says. It may make it a little uncomfortable for Englishmen resident abroad, but when the noble Lord opposite talks about our being humiliated because some delegate at the League of Nations made an unseemly gesture at the Foreign Secretary, to suppose we should take such a thing seriously is really too absurd. I think we in England care very little—or used to care very little—about being abused and insulted so long as we are not obstructed; then we are apt to get nasty. Some of us have apparently changed in that regard, and all I can say is that, little as I admire the policy of the Italians, I think that in their callous indifference to foreign opinion some of our neurotics at home might well imitate them.

We are sometimes told that we have no policy. I ask, what is policy? Does it mean a long-drawn, carefully-concocted plan preserved in the archives of the Foreign Office, handed down from Government to Government, with which we are traditionally associated? If it means that, I cannot but recall to my mind something that Lord Balfour said to a friend of mine: "England never has had a policy, has no policy, and never will have a policy." That, I think, is true, although we have traditional instincts which break out from time to time and show at bottom a deep instinctive consistency in dealing with foreign affairs. If by policy you mean the working towards a certain end I think we have a policy—the policy of European appeasement. Sometimes I cannot help thinking that the attempt towards that end has suffered from previous commitments and attachments. That undoubtedly is our end, and you cannot have a definite means of accomplishing that end in circumstances which are continually changing. It seems to me that we have a policy and can only leave it to the Executive to devise the means.

I cannot help thinking that there is another form of hysteria about. It is that which is continually implying, if not actually saying, that war is inevitable, and bringing forward some example of aggressive sentiment or preparation by some other country, and arousing a sense of popular anxiety and fear. In so far as that procedure affects policy it can only tend to bring that about which is not inevitable at all. But I would say that there is no reason to yield to pessimism of this kind. We must be prepared against any possibility—possibility of difference with any country—which I might illustrate by saying that it takes far longer time to make a battleship than it does to make an enemy, but we must never have in view the sort of basic conception that there is in some peoples' minds, that we have always a standing enemy against which we have to provide. With all the excursions and alarms of this year, I cannot help recalling a line with which some of your Lordships were familiar in your youth: O passi graviora dabit deus his quoque finem.

Then there is another conception against which I should like to say a word. It is said that we could have done more, and that we could have solved the late Abyssinian question, if we had been fully armed as we should have been. I am all in favour of most full and thorough armament, not because I think we should act as the sole police authority of the League, but for the sole reason that we may be in danger ourselves, but to say that we have done wrong because we were not so fully armed that we alone could carry out the decision of the League appears to me to be a sentiment which may have the gravest results if we allow it to pass unchecked.

I confess I am bound to agree with what other speakers have said with regard to military sanctions. I do not believe you wall ever get them to work. In the first place it throws upon particular Powers a special difficulty—Powers which are able to carry out the sanctions and also the Powers which are most geographically vulnerable if military sanctions have to be carried out. We know that in the Abyssinian case, when it came to the point, although great risks were taken in incurring the danger of war, no Power was willing to take the positive obligation of beginning it. So I believe it will always be. The noble Lord opposite spoke of the ease with which a naval combination was effected in the Mediterranean. I think the difficulties of a joint land force would be greater, and I am not sure that it does not involve very special risks. One can recall what happened in the case of the Danish war.

The League undoubtedly has had a great blow. For the moment, it is not a useful instrument. I personally would not bar economic sanctions. I think if they had been enforced for a little longer time, and the Abyssinians had shown a little longer resistance, they might have prevailed, but for the moment I do not believe that the League is a useful instrument either for military or for economic sanctions. Even if Germany had been in the League, to suppose that you could have applied these economic sanctions as a solution of the Rhineland question is at least to show as great an optimism as Lord Ponsonby shows in his belief in human nature. It seems to me that you must deal with the urgent problems first and reconstitute the League of Nations later, and I am glad to think that that is what is intended.

The immediate situation seems to me to demand certain conditions which I think are being fulfilled. The conference which is to take place, as we hope, must be a conference between equals. The slate must be wiped clean before that conference begins. If we are right to co-operate with Italy after the Abyssinian crisis it is of no use to raise any question as to the breach of the Locarno Treaty. If the greater sin must be forgotten and absolved, the lesser also must be forgotten. Moreover, the discussion must not be weighted by juridical argument. We must regard policy rather than the text of International Law, and I venture to agree with what the noble Marquess said the other day, that we must speak for ourselves and not be the mouthpiece of a formula agreed upon as a compromise formula with others. I cannot help thinking of certain phrases in the cominunicauion to Germany, because I believe that if we had had our own drafting that instrument would have, been put in very different terms.

Then in our defensive pledges we must stand outside the League altogether. They must not be dependent upon any finding of the League. We have given certain defensive pledges and those we must keep. We must not wait for findings on any matter, but must be our own judge or it may be too late. To France and Belgium we have given pledges, but, to Holland, though so far as I know we have given no pledge, we are equally bound by the most urgent self-interest. I cannot believe that there is any danger for a long time to come of any aggression in the West, whatever danger there is in the East, and I will conclude by saying that although this country would ever fight for its honour, it will never fight to maintain a Slav ascendency in Central and Eastern Europe.

LORD DAVIES

My Lords, after listening to all the speeches this evening, I imagine that most of us realise that the real question with which the Government are faced at the present moment is whether they propose to strengthen the League or to weaken it. I am one of those who sincerely hope that when the discussion takes place at Geneva the British Government will be found on the side of a remodelled and revitalised League, which will be equipped with those institutions which will enable it to carry out the commitments and the pledges which we undertook at the conclusion of the greatest and most devastating war in the history of the world. After all, I think your Lordships probably recollect that the Covenant of the League was the only positive result of the Peace Conference. We were told at that time that the War was a war to end war, that militarism was to be destroyed, and the terms that had been made by the statesmen of almost every country were incorporated, or were supposed to be incorporated, in the provisions of the Covenant. I venture to hope that, whatever happens in the discussions which are going to take place in the near future, there will in any case be no weakening of the provisions of the Covenant itself. I would go further and express the hope that plans will be put forward for the strengthening of its provisions in order that it may become a real international authority which can make its writ run.

There are many points which have been raised in this discussion on which I should like to comment, but unfortunately there is no time for that, and I only desire to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that in these three Motions we have three distinct policies, three distinct schools of thought—first of all the views of the abolitionists, those who do not believe in the employment of force for any purpose whatsoever, represented by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby; then the views of what I may call the international duellists, who still believe in the ancient practice of trial by battle; and then the views of those of us who believe in the policing function. That, it seems to me, is the difference between these three Motions, and if we are going to strengthen the League then obviously we have to see to it that Article 16 remains an integral part of the Covenant, that the Covenant should not be emasculated by eliminating this Article, but on the contrary should be developed and its commitments clearly defined in order that eventually force may only be used for the policing function.

The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, told us that sanctions had been ineffective in the recent Italo-Abyssinian conflict. I think he was quite wrong, because sanctions as a matter of fact have never been tried out or tested at all. There are included in Article 16 at least four sanctions: first of all, the military sanction, to which the noble Lord alluded; then financial and economic sanctions. The financial sanction was put into operation, but the economic sanction was only put into operation partially. Then there was the diplomatic sanction, which was not used at all; and, fourthly, there was the permissive sanction of expulsion from the League, which was never even considered. Therefore when we talk about the whole policy of sanctions having failed I think it is quite obvious that those sanctions have never really been tried out or tested at all.

It is quite true that France went back and repudiated her traditional policy of supporting sanctions, and that of course was due to the fact that during the whole course of the Disarmament Conference we had refused to consider seriously any of the French proposals which had been put forward for an International Police Force or for strengthening the whole system of collective security. What was the result? France had to seek compensations elsewhere. She went to Italy and she went to Russia, and when this unfortunate conflict broke out she had already tied herself up in engagements which she found it very difficult to get out of. That is due to the policy of successive British Governments ever since 1920.

The noble Lord opposite talked about international policy. I have always understood that in this country, so far as foreign policy is concerned, we endeavour to see that there is continuity in that policy. That was certainly the old doctrine long before the War, adhered to by Conservative and Liberal Governments alike. This maxim seems to have been entirely thrown overboard, because from 1920 to September, 1036, our policy had been the League minus Article 16; then quite suddenly we entirely reversed this policy and last autumn it was the League in its entirety. Now apparently, if we are to believe the suggestions put forward in certain quarters, it is to be the League with limited functions. I suggest that at the last General Election at any rate the people of this country endorsed the policy of the League in its entirety. The people of France repudiated the policy of M. Laval and in the recent Elections they also apparently supported the policy of the League in its entirety. Therefore I sincerely hope that in these discussions which will take place in the next few months the Foreign Secretaries and those who are responsible for their Governments will remember that the two great democracies in Western Europe, the democracy of this country and the democracy of France, have supported the League and the Covenant in their entirety.

I have already exceeded my time, but I should like to ask the noble Viscount who leads the House why it was that during all these unfortunate happenings during the last six months, and when we addressed the questionnaire to the Mediterranean Powers as to what assistance they would give in the case of a reprisal as a result of the imposition of economic sanctions—why it was that apparently Article 9 of the Covenant was entirely ignored. As he will remember, Article 9 provides for a Commission of military, naval, and air experts to advise the Council of the League in regard to certain questions, especially air questions, naval questions, and military questions. Now Article 9 refers specifically to the provisions of Article 8. Article 8 lays down certain provisions in regard to disarmament. It also provides—and this is the important point—for the enforcement by common action of international obligations. Therefore it is quite clear that when this Commission alluded to in Article 9 was established in Paris when the League was constituted, it was intended not only to deal with questions affecting disarmament, but was also intended to deal in an advisory capacity with all questions that affected the enforcement by common action of international obligations. One would therefore have imagined that one of the first things that would have happened at Geneva last autumn, when the policy of sanctions had been decided upon, would have been that this Commission should have been summoned at once to advise the Council as to how best to co-operate in carrying out Article 16 in the event of any reprisal being taken by the aggressor as the result of the imposition of sanctions.

Before I sit down, may I remind my noble friend Lord Ponsonby that I have never been guilty of advocating the creation of an enormous International Army? He talked about such an International Army as though that is the object of the Society to which I have the honour to belong. It is nothing of the kind, and I am sure the noble Lord would not wish to suggest something that was quite untrue. What we have all along suggested is the creation of an International Police Force. We propose that this should be limited in the first instance to the creation of an International Air Police, and that at the outset the operations of such a force should be limited to Europe, because, after all, Europe is the danger point, and we have been told by the Prime Minister and by Mr. Winston Churchill and other distinguished people that when war breaks out in Europe it will be the end of Western civilisation. Therefore I want to dissipate, if I can, the misapprehension that appears to dwell in the mind of my noble friend, and to assure him that there are a great number of military men, not only in this country but in other countries, who believe that such a plan is feasible. My noble friend doubted the fact, but I can communicate to him the evidence of very distinguished military men who tell us that from the purely technical standpoint, apart from any political objections there may be, it is feasible to create and operate a common defensive force in order to defend all those nations which are Members of the League. My time is gone, and I can only once again repeat that I hope and trust that when the Government's representatives go to Geneva they will do their utmost to strengthen the Covenant of the League and will not allow themselves to be persuaded to weaken in any way the duties and responsibilities which we, as a Member of the League, have undertaken to perform.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

My Lords, I chink my first word must be one of apology to the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, for ray inability to be in the House when he made his speech on his Motion last week. The debate to which we have been listening is one that has taken a wide range, and has been one of great interest and great value. Your Lordships will forgive me if I do not, on this occasion, attempt to follow all the leads that have been given into some of the wider paths of general foreign policy. I welcome gratefully, of course, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the recognition that was given most generously by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and by the noble Marquess opposite, and I think by other speakers, of the work of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary last week in connection with the meeting of the Locarno Powers. I was particularly glad that the noble Marquess opposite made special recognition of the great contribution made to the success of that meeting, and to the promise for the future that it might appear to hold, by the action of the French Government. Nor do I pass aside to combat the noble Lord opposite, Lord Strabolgi, whom incidentally we may congratulate on his accession as Leader of the Opposition pro tem., in regard to what he said as to the prestige abroad of His Majesty's Government. I have nothing to add in that respect to what fell from my noble friend Lord Rankeillour, who I think dealt adequately with the observations of the noble Lord.

The course of the debate seems to me to have been typical of a very sharp divergence of opinion. It is all very well for the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, to say that the real question between the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and the noble Lord, Lord Allen, is where force can properly be used. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, was very careful to say that from his point of view, and holding the views he does, he disliked the use of force anywhere and had very little belief in it. Therefore, I think we are, in fact, face to face with a real clash of opinion, and it is that clash, for a few moments, with your Lordships' permission, that I want to analyse a little further. There is, if I may take it in inverse order to that in which it has been presented to us this afternoon, first of all the attitude represented by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and my noble friend Lord Cecil, which would maintain that in order to ensure peace, and in order to maintain the League as a reality, it is necessary to make the obligations of Articles 10 and 16 much more precise, or, at least, to make much more clear the will of all nations to give these Articles their full opportunity.

It would not be untrue to say that to the collective system, in Lord Allen's view, there might be applied what the late Mr. Chesterton once said of Christianity—that Christianity had not failed because it had never been tried. I think Lord Allen would say the same about the collective system. Those who hold that view believe quite honestly that if a strong enough lead were given by some great Power along the lines of asserting their unqualified willingness to resort to all measures in the exercise of force for Covenant purposes, all other nations would follow their lead, all would be well, and the way to disarmament would be clear, for the reason that in future the threat of general war against all invasions of the Covenant would be so intimidating that there would in fact be no such invasions and that, consequently, the threat of general war everywhere would be a great security against a real war anywhere.

I think that is not an unfair statement of their view. At the same time I think the more thoughtful representatives of that school would recognise—the noble Lord would, I am sure—that there is difficulty in the plan, because, as other noble Lords have said, nations may be unwilling to fight or to risk having to fight in causes outside what they conceive to be causes involving their honour or national interest. That is, as we have all seen in the last few months, and I need not labour it, a very real limitation; and while I could not for a moment agree with my noble friend Lord Cecil's reading of the events of the last six months, if he had been here he would, I think, have agreed with me so far as to say that at least there would have been no unanimity among the principal nations concerned—I think the noble Lord representing the Opposition took this point—at any time during the last six or twelve months upon the pursuit of a policy that was likely in fact to lead to a European war.

But there is another reason why I think the extreme philosophy as stated by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, requires modification, and that is in what to my mind is always an even profounder difficulty arising out of the nature of the constitution of the League itself. There is sometimes academic debate as to whether it is the principal purpose of the League to secure peace or to secure justice. It is quite evident that these two things need not be, and perhaps will not always be, identical, and I think it is true to say that under the present League constitution the emphasis rests rather upon the avoidance of war and the preservation of peace. As things are, the League is pledged to protect peace, but without any corresponding power to secure the removal of conditions that may threaten the preservation of peace. It is quite true, as noble Lords have reminded us, that Article 19 is in the Covenant but the League has no power to give effect to Article 19 against the will of any one of its States Members, and in that respect, therefore, I do not think it is untrue to say that the League is in the somewhat unenviable position of responsibility without power; and if and when the cause of peace might, for any such reasons as those, appear to conflict with the cause of prudence or justice, it is perhaps not certain that world opinion would in all cases be prepared to use force to enforce peace. Those are some of the difficulties which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Allen, would be the first to recognise confront his advocacy of the most stringent application of the coercive Articles.

Now the opposite view, that stated by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is not unfamiliar, and has been very powerfully stated by him this afternoon. He says in effect—and my noble friend Lord Mansfield would say this also with him in chorus—" Above everything, let us in these things be realists." The ultimate test by which any such general undertakings must be tried is, as the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, said, the willingness to fight. The noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, gave, I thought, a remarkably forceful illustration from another sphere, showing how the real support of anything so well established in the world as the, Monroe doctrine was exactly consciousness in all quarters that in the last resort there was the willingness to use force for it. And, of course, the converse is equally true. My noble friend Lord Cecil talked about Japan and Manchukuo. Well, that case, I think, was conclusive proof at that time of what happens when nations are not in the last resort prepared to fight under all conditions, but only when, as I said just now, they conceive themselves bound by honour or self-interest to do so.

I think it is unhappily true, as my noble friend Lord Rankeillour said, that in most cases that one can conceive the brunt of military action would in fact fall upon few shoulders, and that if any general coercive system were to be surely counted on to function successfully in all cases it would have to be on the conditions contemplated when the Covenant was framed—that is to say, that all nations should be in and that all nations should be disarmed. I believe that to be true, and I believe, therefore, that the most loyal supporter of the League may readily admit that it is impossible to give full application to such a theory—the original theory of the League—when the circumstances of its operation to-day are so radically different from those in which it was conceived. Those who would hold that view would say—I suppose Lord Ponsonby would say—that it was better to re-design your structure, to cut out these coercive elements and, though I do not think he said it, to open the door, as he might hope or we might hope, to the great Powers whose participation in the League is essential but who perhaps will never give it to a League invested with and pledged to use coercive force. Thus he would feel that we should avoid the danger of misleading any who might be mistakenly relying upon a greater measure of support than in fact would be in the power of the League to give them, and that by that means only could he look forward to a system that could properly enjoy the title of collective. To that school also belongs, I think, the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, though, as has been pointed out, for entirely different reasons.

Now, as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said a few days ago in another place, I do not believe there is any chance whatever of securing agreement either in this country or at Geneva on either of these extremes—that is to say, on either the system of automatic and universal coercion, or of such an evisceration of the Covenant as to leave it merely a body for consultation and conciliation. Therefore, holding that view, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, will not be surprised when I tell him that it would be impossible for the Government so far to disinterest themselves in the fate of any of these Motions as to refrain from giving any counsel to their friends or those who habitually support them were he to press his Motion or were any of the others to be pressed to a Division. What then is to be the attitude of His Majesty's Government and of this country? As I see it, for various reasons this country has been in a position somewhat different from many others, and for that reason alone it must be our duty to try to find a solution as between these two extremes which would command the maximum of support elsewhere. I do not think it is very helpful to make proposals that we know beforehand are not likely to win acceptance.

I think that while keeping our own ideal we must also remember that we have to face real and disagreeably hard facts. Just as I think that a convinced pacifist like the noble Lord, Lord Allen, may legitimately feel obliged to acquiesce in something short of his ideal which he deems to be immediately unattainable, so Governments who are concerned to try to build up a world system must always take account of the views of other nations which either fall short of or which go beyond their own. I would mention in passing—it will not be absent from the minds of any of your Lordships—that it is very essential that we should take account of what may be the views on these issues of the Dominions, and I would strongly deprecate a definite formulation of views by His Majesty's Government on matters that so vitally affect Imperial policy before there has been opportunity for the fullest consultation with the Dominion Governments. Therefore it is that I look with some suspicion on the plea that is advanced, and that has been advanced in this debate, to the effect that it is the duty of this country, or that it would be profitable for this country, to give at this moment a clear lead on these highly controversial and debatable issues in advance of discussion at Geneva.

I think it is probable that the nations will have to try and reach a middle course, and as your Lordships know there are several that have been suggested. The object of all of them—of all that I have seen—is to seek to introduce by way of interpretation of Articles 10 and 16 just that principle of variety of obligation according to national circumstances and willingness of nations to undertake precise commitments. Into that general group fall those regional pacts of which the noble Lord spoke with some apprehension, regional pacts that should be incumbent only on those who specifically for specific purposes make them. Your Lordships will know that accompanying such a plan as that the suggestion has been made that there might be a system general of application by which other States Members would bind themselves to take economic action against aggressors. That economic action would range from extreme forms of sanctions—complete severance of financial and commercial intercourse—down to refusal to do such obvious things as supplying arms or lending money.

Whatever may be the suggested middle course, whatever may be the middle course on which agreement may ultimately be found, it remains true, as the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said, that conciliation and the round table stand in any case as the first stage, and after that emerges the dominant question to which we have to find if we can the right answer. It is this: Is it in the last resort better to preserve on paper a code of general obligation, although you know that when the test comes that code may not in fact be capable of fulfilment, or is it better to recognise facts as they exist and make the best of them, not laying greater burdens on nations than they are willing to sustain, and admitting that with great nations outside the League, with national feelings and national anxieties still strong everywhere, making progress to disarmament difficult, the conditions for the successful operation of any general coercive plan are only partly present?

Whatever their views, I do beg men of all Parties not to blind themselves and not to wear blinkers about the read obstacles that we have to overcome. We have to face the fact that until the League is universal many States who are Members of it will never be willing and can hardly be expected to frame their policy and action as if it was universal. With all respect to the noble Lord opposite, does he really believe that if he had what he calls a small League with which he would be content—half a dozen Scandinavian countries I think he said—does he really believe that if he had that only in Europe it would be possible for those nations in that small League to ignore all the rest of Europe bound by no such obligations as the small select society that he would have gathered around himself? I cannot think that he would. Therefore I think it is true that unless nations are prepared to forgo a largo part of their national sovereignty and accept in advance what the rest of the world by majority may decide; unless nations are prepared so to reduce their armed forces that when Lord Ponsonby's difficulties are overcome the International Police Force to which Lord Davies is so loyal becomes possible because it would be the only effective instrument of compulsion and consequently able to impose international awards; and lastly—and this is not unimportant—unless all nations in fact believe that all their neighbours are certain in all cases to adhere to such self-denying undertakings, I venture to think we should be in some danger of misleading both ourselves and others if we were to pretend that we had overcome the dangers and the difficulties with which we are to-day confronted by the drafting of any League constitution, however widely its provisions might be drawn.

Therefore, my Lords, it is for these reasons, and seeing those things on each side, that I conceive that it will be in the forthcoming discussions the duty of this country to use all its influence for the reconciliation of opinions that will be very sharply opposed to one another, bearing always in mind those principles to which the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, alluded, and which were referred to by my right honourable friend in the House of Commons a few days ago. May I put those principles in a slightly different frame? The first, to my mind, is that there must be a collective plan. Without it the world falls back into chaos. On that there is universal agreement, and indeed I think on no point in Europe to-day is there greater agreement than in the opinion that to return to any system that invited, or appeared to invite, the establishment of armed camps ranged in opposition to one another would be to court disaster. The second thing I would say is that in any such system the purpose must be the prevention of war and the deterrence of aggression. There I share the view of the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, that there is something to be done—not a great thing, but perhaps a valuable thing—by the amendment of Article 11, by which the preventive power of the League will be strengthened inasmuch as the operation of that Article might no longer be made dependent upon complete unanimity.

The third thing I would say is—and here I find myself in association with the noble Lord on the Cross Benches concerning what he said about the double quality that is represented in the League—that I believe that if we are to have real hope of achieving our purpose of discouraging aggression and preventing war, we must devise means more effective than we have at present by which the potential causes of war may be freely brought into the arena of discussion and the pressure of world opinion directed to their remedy. Human life is not static, it is always a changing thing, and nothing is more certain than that an international organisation which represents an attempt to encase world affairs in a rigid mould of a particular date carries within itself the seeds of disintegration and decay. In no field is that more true that in a field which was touched upon by reference in the speech of the noble Lord opposite, the field of economics. It is especially true, I think, of the economic maladjustments in the world to-day of which he spoke, which reflect themselves directly in the standard of life, and in the outlook consequent upon the standard of life, of many nations. There are few things more urgent than for all countries at the present time to realise how vitally these forces, always in operation and operating with inexorable force, are affecting future success or failure in the establishment and maintenance of peace.

There are, in these matters, no short cuts. Every day we learn—and my right honourable friend, I am sure, knows better than anybody—how laborious is the effort for peace and how constantly checkmate attends our best endeavours. But I think it is right to remember that if these things to which I and others of your Lordships have this afternoon made allusion are against us, there are also powerful influences on the side of peace. I believe that in every European country to-day the masses of the population, and not least that part which fought in the Great War, craves for peace, and that most of the irresponsible talk about war to-day—and here I agree with my noble friend Lord Rankeillour—is in truth rather the reflection of men's fears than of their expectations, for they know that if there should be war again in Europe there would be a ruthless obliteration of the distinction between combatant and non-combatant, and the wound to civilisation, on which all their life depends, might be mortal.

Therefore it is the duty of all of us, and your Lordships will, I hope, believe that it is the constant endeavour of His Majesty's Government, to use every effort that we may to liberate these forces of peace through the promotion of understanding and through the removal between nations of everything that would impede its growth. I believe that in proportion as we can achieve success in this direction we shall at once facilitate our task of devising machinery for the new international order in which we work, and we shall also ensure that this machinery shall truly represent the corporate will of those whom it will be designed to serve.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD, in whose name stood Notice of a Motion to resolve, That in the opinion of this House His Majesty's Government should not propose support, approve or agree to, any alterations in the Articles of the Covenant of the League of Nations which do not provide for the removal, in letter and spirit, of the coercive clauses in the Covenant, said: My Lords, my excuse for inflicting myself upon you at this rather late hour is simply that by postponing my remarks till now I have been able to cut them down by more than half from what they would otherwise have been. In the first place, I wish to express to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, as he is here, my regrets that it should have been necessary for me to move my Motion last week. Circumstances were most unfortunate; it was no one's fault. It was not the fault of any lack of courtesy on my part, but was simply owing to the fact that I was moving rapidly about the country and the greater part of my correspondence was following me about some twenty-four hours behind. I beg to assure the noble Lord and your Lordships' House that no discourtesy was intended, but I could not postpone bringing forward my Motion without being disloyal and dishonourable to my colleagues.

I think that the answer given by the noble Viscount this afternoon, although not unexpected, has been disappointing. Frankly, I cannot agree with him that it is much of a solution for the problems which afflict this country and the world to-day, that His Majesty's Government should go to Geneva without at least giving us some indication of the general lines, even in the vaguest terms, upon which they would like the conversations to proceed. I do not suggest for a moment that the noble Viscount should explain in detail, or put forward any really fixed attitude from which they would not be willing to depart under any circumstances, but I do suggest that it would have been a help to the achievement of international agreement had they been able or willing to put forward some line of action, even if only as a basis of discussion.

During the last few months I have undertaken a number of expeditions abroad as a member of the mission sent out by the Imperial Policy Group. I think the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, doubtless occupied in endeavouring to heal the many divisions in his own Party on various subjects, has not yet noticed the existence of this body. I can assure him that it is an ever-growing force within the ranks of the Conservative Party and that it enjoys Government support. My experience has been that, while the name of this country is certainly not mud, as was so lyrically chanted by the noble Lord speaking for the Opposition, a grave dissatisfaction is still felt in many foreign countries, and especially in those which are friendly inclined towards our own country, that we have not for some time past been giving them a definite lead in various important problems. Here I should like to stress that upon these missions we were only there as inquirers. We supported His Majesty's Government in all our conversations with foreign Ministers, diplomats and non-official personages. We supported the Government wherever possible, and if any question arose upon which we were not in agreement with the Government, we gave no views of our own but merely asked questions for elucidatory purposes. The whole time we were endeavouring to sustain the principles of our Government and of our country.

As regards the debate, to-day, I have no time in which to say anything, except to express my perpetual wonder that those who from sincere conviction express pacifist views do not seem to realise that war is going to be just as bloody, and just as cruel, if waged under the auspices of the League of Nations as if waged under a single country. There is one member of this House who will be delighted at the attitude of the Government, and that is Lord Beaverbrook, because this perpetual hesitation on the part of the Government in stating their foreign policy is doing much to drive a large element in this country over to complete isolation. As I have told your Lordships, that is not a policy in which I or my group believe, but we are forced to the conclusion, from experience in this country, that unless a lead is given much more definitely in the future than has been given in the past, the policy of isolation will continue to grow until it reaches overwhelming proportions.

No one seems really to have spoken, to-day, except for the gentle hint given by Lord Allen, as to what would be the attitude of the people of this country in the event of our being dragged into war at the heels of the League of Nations. I venture to suggest, what I believe to be absolutely true, that if this country were drawn into war by any such means there would be a terrible reaction against any Government which was in power, greater and more grim than any which has occurred in recent times. It is to avoid that, and for the other purposes I have mentioned, that I do wish it had been possible for the Government to have given a more definite lead this afternoon.

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

My Lords, I in no way regret having put my Motion on the Paper and having provoked what I think has been a most interesting debate, in which we have had very characteristic speeches. I think a slight error has been made with regard to my attitude, and has been followed up more than once. It has been suggested that I am a Tolstoyian. I am nothing of the kind. The policeman has been brought up again, and I pursue him wherever I go. I was glad of the assistance given to me by Lord Lothian in showing what a false analogy that is. If I saw anybody in the street illtreating a child I would not hesitate to knock him down. What has that got to do with the League of Nations, and countries of millions of people?

I agree with the noble Earl who has just sat down that we are disappointed that the Government are not on this occasion going to give a lead which I feel many would follow at Geneva in these days of hesitation. I do not think that those who have spoken in favour of the admission of force have made out their case any better than I have ever heard it before, although I think Lord Cecil was as eloquent in his advocacy of the League as it stands as I have ever heard him. My Lords, 1914–18 is sometimes regarded by supporters of force as a success. A military victory, yes, but surely not a success. If force and the League, as the supporters of the League wish it to be, had been brought against Signor Mussolini and he had been prevented from taking Abyssinia, I do not know whether a thwarted Italy would have been a good factor in the world, to-day, any more than the Italy that we have. After all, Italy in 1912 took Tripoli, wrongly no doubt; but nations have a way of doing these things, and the question is whether we shall, if we can, try and prevent them doing it. I do not, of course, intend to go to a Division, but I want to thank the noble Viscount for his summing up, most judicial as it was. I thought that the half of him that spoke on my side was certainly the most eloquent and the most convincing, and made me wish—and this I certainly do wish, anyhow—that the noble Viscount who leads this House will be one of the Government delegates to the League of Nations in September. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.