DEFENCE SERVICES.

HL Deb 19 March 1936 vol 100 cc112-53

Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion of Viscount Swinton to resolve, That this House approves the defence proposals of His Majesty's Government which are outlined in Command Paper No. 5107 (Statement relating to Defence); and on the Amendment moved by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede to the foregoing Motion, namely, to leave out all the words after "That" and insert "as the safety of this country and the peace of the world cannot be secured by reliance on armaments but only by the pursuit of a policy of international understanding, general disarmament and economic co-operation so as to remove the causes of war, this House cannot agree to the proposals for rearmament now adopted by His Majesty's Government; such a policy can be no guarantee of security, but by drawing this country into the disastrous international competition in armaments is calculated to inflame public opinion and increase the danger of war; and in depleting our national resources by a heavy expenditure for destruction, the urgent need for social and domestic reconstruction by which alone the well-being of the nation can be secured must be seriously and adversely affected."

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, it is naturally a matter of regret to us that on account, as we understand, of a Cabinet meeting at this critical time, neither the noble Viscount who moved this Motion nor the First Lord of the Admiralty, nor the Lord Chancellor, nor the Leader of the House is able to be present at this discussion. I am all the more sorry, as I should have liked to express to my noble friend who moved this Motion my congratulations on the interesting and important speech which he delivered. There were passages, however, in the earlier part of his speech which reminded me so forcibly of the speeches that I have been making up and down the country for the last four or five years that I should have felt inclined, if he had been here, to accuse him of a welcome, if tardy, plagiarism. For many years past the doctrine of collective security has been deliberately founded by His Majesty's Government on a basis of unilateral disarmament, and any other view has been held to be quite incompatible with that "broadminded statesmanship" of which we have heard a great deal in the last five or six years!I am glad to hear that the Government at long last have recognised that the only solid foundations for collective security, or indeed any other kind of security, are to be based on British strength and on a rapid restoration of our armed forces.

I have no desire to dwell on the past, though obviously we regret that matters have been left so long, and must involve us therefore in a very great deal of expense which need not have been incurred. It is fully a year since the White Paper warned us of the unprecedented gravity of our situation. I need not repeat the language used by the Prime Minister, but he told us we were entirely unable, in the case of aggression, to defend ourselves, our food supplies, our people, our towns, or, indeed, anything we had from attack. That was probably the gravest statement on defence that has ever fallen from the lips of a responsible Minister. And yet it was on the very same day that grave announcement was made that Mr. Baldwin stated in the House of Commons that, apart from anti-aircraft defence, there was "no question of any increase in the armed forces of the Army or the Navy." It was very difficult for us at that time—it is difficult for us now—to appreciate how those two statements could possibly have been reconciled one with the other. Therefore the present White Paper relating to defence, the one which we are discussing to-day, is, of course, a definite improvement on that—to put it very politely—negative attitude of last year, inasmuch as we are at last given to understand that the Government are determined actively to take the situation in hand. I shall therefore readily and gladly vote for the Motion which has been moved by my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air.

I am not going to make any observations on the air question to-day. First of all I am ill-qualified to do so and, in comparison with my noble and gallant friend behind me, entirely unqualified to do so. He is going to speak on that subject, but I should like to say that if I do not make any reference to it, it is not because I do not realise the vital importance of it. It would be difficult to make too high a claim for the importance of secure air defences at the present time. I believe, however, that there is reason to congratulate His Majesty's Government on the rapid advances made quite recently in the provision of our air defences, and I wish again for that reason that the Secertary of State for Air were here to hear how grateful we are to him for the steps he has taken in the matter. None the less, we are left very much in the dark on many matters in this Statement on Defence, especially those which relate to the time factor—namely, as to when the terrible state of defencelessness in which we find ourselves to-day is going to be exchanged for one of reasonable security.

After all, since the White Paper of last year, since the grave admissions of our danger were made, the world situation has gravely deteriorated. At that time the Italo-Abyssinian dispute had not broken out. We had not had, in the words of His Majesty's Government, to "denude other areas to an extent which might have involved great risks," which indeed has involved us in great risks, because we have had to leave the North Sea and the Pacific virtually entirely unguarded. Since a year ago that rearmament which has been going on all over the Continent, all over the world, and about which a page of dramatic stuff has been written by His Majesty's Government in this White Paper—that rearmament which has been going on for at least five years has been feverishly advanced; and in the last few days there has been the German reoccupation of the Rhineland. Therefore the time factor, the question of how readily and swiftly His Majesty's Government are going to be able to carry out even the limited programme they have set before us in the Statement on Defence, is a matter vital to us all, and I do ask His Majesty's Government to take the country more into their confidence and give us some more details about the time question.

When Mr. Baldwin was asked the other day in another place whether he would give us this information—information, mind you, my Lords, not about the fuller programme which we understand is to follow, but on what Mr. Baldwin calls the "minimum programme," the only reply we could get was that he could not give us any more information about the fuller programme because that had to be flexible. A minimum programme cannot be flexible. It is about this programme, as set out in this Statement on Defence, that I am going to ask certain questions. We quite understand that the ultimate plans are not susceptible of detailed explanation at the present time. What are we going to do, first of all, as regards battleships? We understand quite definitely that we are going to have two battleships laid down next year, and that we are going to continue the reconditioning of the old. The latter part of that statement is, of course, not new because the principle of reconditioning or modernisation has been admitted for some time past. The first thing I would like to ask is, when are these two new battleships going to be completed? Last October I was reliably informed—I should be glad to be corrected by the Government if necessary—that no British capital ship had then been completely reconditioned and that the first would not be finished until 1937. If the first is not to be completed until 1937, when will the last be finished? Presumably, there are twelve to be reconditioned.

That is another question I should like to ask. We have never been told exactly how many are to be reconditioned. After all, we have to remember that by 1940, when one may assume that two new battleships will be ready, one of our existing battleships will be twenty years old, one will be twenty-three years old, eight will be twenty-four years old, and three will be twenty-five years old. So the question as to the time factor, both in relation to new construction and in relation to the reconditioning of ships, on which the Government are entirely silent, is one on which, I am sure your Lordships will agree, the country ought to be given some information. If we compare our position as regards reconditioning with that of other great Powers I have only to quote the First Lord of the Admiralty, who said as follows the other day: We have lagged behind other great Powers for a long while in the modernisation of our capital ships. The United States of America have modernised ten out of their fifteen, and Japan will have modernised the whole of her ships by 1937. If we are not going to get one done until next year and there is no plan for the remaining twelve or thirteen, we are indeed in a very grievous condition.

Let me for a moment say a few words about cruisers. So much has been said in another place about cruisers, the details have been so fully discussed, that I do not want to weary your Lordships with very much on that question. The naval authorities, as we all know, for some years past have insisted upon seventy non-obsolete cruisers as being the minimum for our requirements. Is that going to be enough now? The Government programme is not seventy non-obsolete cruisers; it is sixty modern cruisers, with ten obsolete cruisers. But since that naval programme was laid down, since the minimum of seventy was accepted by the Admiralty, the situation has very much changed. Germany had then no navy at all. Germany now has re-emerged into a potentially strong naval Power and is actually of some power today. All the more important is it to know when these seventy cruisers are going to be ready if the cruiser situation is as grave as His Majesty's Government have admitted it to be. Again I would respectfully ask the Government for a clear answer on this question. We have asked it several times; I have asked it on more than one occasion, but never yet had a reply.

If the cruiser situation is so grave, why was the escalator clause not used? Mr. Baldwin, a year ago, admitted—I need not quote his phraseology, though I can do so if your Lordships desire it—that we were amply justified by the construction in other countries in using the escalator clause, but he ended his remarks on that subject with these words: And again we took no steps to do that. We wonder why His Majesty's Government took no steps to do that. It is going to cost them a great deal more to build now at the speed at which they are going to build. It was only at the last moment that they decided to save the two "Hawkins" class ships, the "Frobisher" and the "Effingham." Even then they have not used the escalator clause for that, because they have done it within the limits of the Treaty of London by reducing their guns from 7.5 to 6 inch. I hope His Majesty's Government will tell us to-day quite clearly what were their reasons for leaving this cruiser matter in such a dangerous condition as it is in to-day, and why the escalator clause has never been used.

I come next to the destroyer position which, in my judgment—and I believe that most people will agree—is serious. I notice that in the House of Commons powerful speeches were made on this very question to the effect that the destroyer position is probably, take it all in all, in matters naval, the most serious of all On this we are given less information in the Statement on Defence than on any other matter at all, although it is the most important. All we are told is that the Government are, going to pursue a steady replacement policy. If all the other arguments of the Government on the naval question have any validity, it is not merely a steady replacement policy we want as regards destroyers, it is a multiplication policy as well. The gravity of the destroyer position in this case cannot be defended by any question of the limitations of the London Naval Treaty, because we have not nearly built up to the tonnage allowed us in the London Treaty in the matter of destroyers. At the beginning of this year we had only 80,000 tons of under-age destroyers as against the 150,000 tons we are allowed to build by the Treaty. Will the Government tell us why it is they have neglected to build up to the limits of the London Treaty in the matter of destroyers?

We realised the gravity of the destroyer question in the War. In the War we were very nearly brought to starvation when we had far more destroyers. We had 216 destroyers and a very large number of torpedo boats at that time. To-day we have only 169 destroyers, of which 110 are obsolete. These are very grave figures. I should not mislead your Lordships by using the word obsolete, perhaps one ought to say over age. I am not suggesting that destroyers that are over age have not some purposes for which they can properly be used, but of all the overage destroyers, a very large number are being worked absolutely to death and are not fit even for those duties which over-age destroyers can in many cases be usefully put to. And to compete with Germany's thirty submarines in 1914 we had in all 216 destroyers. Today Germany has fourteen submarines built, fourteen admittedly in the building, and I think there is strong evidence to believe that Germany has got a great many more ready assembled for rapid construction. If so, the destroyer position is far graver than it has ever been before.

In another place the Financial Secretary of the Admiralty made two statements both of which I should like to have explained, if possible. I did give the Leader of the House notice of the question that I was going to ask, so I hope we may be given this information in due course. In another place the Financial Secretary said that it was unnecessary for us to have completely modern destroyers. I am not challenging that statement; but in view of the fact that under the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, Germany is entitled to have 35 per cent. of all our tonnage, whether it be under age or over age, I do not think the statement can be left without some further explanation. He made another statement which is even more difficult completely to understand. He said that fewer destroyers were now needed to do the same work as was done by many more during the War in 1914. I have no doubt that is true in some respects but it must be untrue in many others, because, after all, geography has not altered.

The heavily reduced merchant fleet means heavier convoy duties, not lighter, because, paradoxically, it is obvious that not only because the units of tonnage are larger but because they are fewer we can far less afford to lose what we have got than even before the War. After all, in the last War a very large proportion, I do not know exactly what, but I think it was an overwhelming proportion, of our fuel, was coal fuel. Practically all the fuel for our ships now is oil fuel, which has to be transported from overseas, making therefore a still heavier charge upon the enormously reduced mercantile fleet which is available to us. And remember that the existing oil tanker fleet to-day is only just sufficient to oil His Majesty's Navy; and for all other purposes neutral tankers or foreign tankers have to be obtained. Add further to this that a tanker is far less profitable from the point of view of war purposes than any other ship, because a tanker is only in freight in one passage and not on two but requires just the same protection. It is only fair to say that the vastly increased submarine fleets can probably be set off against the improved methods of dealing with submarines which I believe are, if not phenomenal, very remarkable indeed. But those improved methods only obtain, surely, if we have an adequate supply of highly trained officers who know how to use them; and, with a sudden and rapid expansion of our destroyer fleet, where are we going to get the highly trained officers to use those methods effectively? These are some of the questions on the actual matter of battleships, cruisers and destroyers I will venture to ask His Majesty's Government to give us some information about.

I would like now to say a few words on the question of personnel. Do the Government really think that the promised increase of 6,000 men by the end of this year is sufficient, or is it merely all that they can manage to obtain or to train? After all it takes four to five years to train a seaman. The Italian crisis exposed very dramatically the terrible shortage we had in personnel. Although at that time three battleships were paid off and one was under reduced complement, we had hastily to get together 3,500 men in order to send the Fleet to the Mediterranean. It may be perfectly easy—I am glad to say I believe it is—to recruit youngsters to the Navy to-day, but that does not help the very grave shortage of experienced warrant and petty officers who are absolutely vital to the proper functioning of the Navy. We know that already a considerable number of time-expired chief petty officers or petty officers have been asked to re-engage for an additional five years. I should like to know, if possible, what has been the response. More recently warrant officers have been invited to volunteer for further service. All that shows the desperate straits to which the Government have been put with even a comparatively small strain on the functioning of the Navy. There is nothing to speak of in the Pacific, and I should like to ask the Government the specific question how many battleships have we in the North Sea and the Atlantic in full commission at this moment, and what are their ages. If the Government are already put to this pass to carry on, it does not augur very well for the expansion of the Fleet which we are promised.

I understand that men nowadays are not at all readily disposed to re-engage after the first twelve years' service. That is natural enough. It is much easier to get a job on shore after the first twelve years than if they serve for another ten years. In this connection would it not be possible, if I might venture to make the suggestion, to offer some greater inducement for re-engagement such as the payment of a lump sum—this has been suggested to me from many quarters—to enable a man after the second period of service to start in some small business or to set himself up in one? Equally in the case of officers, has not the enormously heavy retirement of officers of the rank of Lieutenant-Commander made a terrible gap in the number of officers who have experience of small commands, the very category we need most? I would not venture to detain the House by attempting to speculate upon the kind of reforms that may be necessary there, but as a noble friend said to me before coming into the House this afternoon, if we are always going to have our security Services sometimes up and down, on no level, how are we going to get officers to join the Navy when they know that they may be thrown out at twenty-eight, twenty-nine or thirty, and left with nothing to do? The whole question needs complete reconsideration so that officers may come in for a few years knowing they will be sure of something else later, or that they will have a full career in the Navy—one or the other.

May I say a few words now on a subject which is not touched on in the White Paper, and it is the only word of serious criticism I shall venture to offer. I think it is absolutely amazing that in the Statement on Defence there should be not one word, as far as I can see, about the Merchant Navy—as if it was conceivable that the Royal Navy could possibly function for one hour unless it had ancillary to it and in its aid a powerful and sufficient Merchant Navy. Yet the whole of this question, which is one of the gravest at the present time, is ignored. I am not going to attempt this afternoon to describe or analyse the dramatic decline in the strength of our mercantile tonnage. It is known that at the end of the Boer War, about 1900, we had 50 per cent. of the whole of the mercantile tonnage in the world sailing under the Red Ensign. In 1914 only 38 or 39 per cent. of the world's tonnage was so sailing, and at the present time barely 24 per cent.

In the War, when the enemy Fleet was bottled up in the Baltic, neutral tonnage was compelled to come to our aid if only to get freights. Air menace had not then developed. There was nothing to prevent the neutral tonnage of the world coming to our aid, and sorely we needed it. In 1917 with the world's shipping at our back, and double the tonnage we have now, we were brought within a fortnight of starvation. If 1917 revealed the vulnerability of the food situation of this country, the situation in 1936 ought to make us tremble. Yet not a word is said about it in the Statement on Defence. There are now about 900 tramps and 1,200 cargo-carrying liners, 2,100 in all, against over 3,000 in the War. As I said before, all fuel, or very nearly all, to-day is imported, and tankers, as I have said before, are only useful in one way. In the last War it was from Scandinavia and Greece that we borrowed the majority of our neutral tonnage. Are we likely to get it again in another war? We have to ask ourselves that question. Would not Scandinavia, at any rate, and possibly Greece, be subjected to immediate air reprisals if their tonnage was used to aid us against any great northern Power? And yet with the formidable decrease not only of our own tonnage, but of foreign tonnage in addition, there would not be the smallest hope of feeding ourselves in this country.

Then we have to consider trawlers, about which the Government have said something in Parliament, if not in the White Paper. We need a very large number of trawlers, but nothing has been done since 1918 to help the trawler industry. I have here a memorandum sent to the Admiralty and to the Government in which it is said: The personnel of the herring fishing fleet has already diminished to an enormous extent. It is still steadily declining and owing to the low earnings of the fishermen it is becoming increasingly difficult to man the present smaller numbers of vessels remaining in the industry. I am also desired to draw your attention to the fact that a very large percentage of the herring fishing fleet is nearly obsolete for purposes such as the Admiralty used it during the War. The memorandum goes on to say: Without a real ' lift-up "in the trade and better remuneration for fishermen and boatmen there will be few ships left of the herring fleet and few men available in a very short time. That question has been urged upon the Government year in, year out, and yet the Government are relying, or apparently are relying, on a depleted and largely obsolescent smaller fleet for all the duties which the trawler fleet so gallantly performed between 1914 and 1918.

That brings me in conclusion to another gap in the Statement on Defence. Little or nothing is said about the food situation in this country. After all, if we are nothing but a fortress in the North Sea, surely the provisioning of the garrison is of some importance in the question of defence If ever a lesson had to be learnt on the food question, one would have thought that the last War had been a pretty efficient tutor. Since 1918 nothing effective from the point of view of war purposes has been done in the realm of agriculture, food supplies or food storage by any of the Governments that have been in office. Professor Stapledon, who speaks as one of the greatest living authorities on the agricultural position in this country, has recently pointed out that, whereas in 1870 we had 14,000,000 arable acres, we now have 9,000,000—I am talking in round figures. This is reflected, of course, in the figures for wheat: then 3,375,000 acres and now 1,775,000; barley 2,128,000 then and only 793,000 now. There have been over 5,000 bankruptcies of farmers in the last ten years. No fewer than 197,000—nearly 200,000—skilled agricultural labourers have gone off the land altogether.

We can now see that reliance on imported food is going to cost us in additional finance hundreds of millions of pounds. Who shall say that we have cheap food in this country, when that is the case? I do not want to seem a pessimist, but if the Government are serious when they say that our defences need rapid restoration, that must mean that they believe that there is a danger, or else they would not provide against it. If there is a danger, I gravely fear that the provision of food supplies for emergency cannot now be achieved by the restoration of agriculture. I believe it is too late, or, at any rate, that it is partially too late. I believe also that the Government will be bound to consider what they considered at the end of the War, when they were "never going to be caught again." They will have to consider, and rapidly consider, the question of a big food storage policy, which in many ways is, I believe, far the most economical policy in the world and has a very important relation to the price of food.

I do not want to seem a pessimist, and I have already delayed your Lordships too long, but, though I congratulate the Government on what seem to be fine, even if belated, intentions, I am still anxious about the resolution of the Government to proceed in this matter with the speed, the urgency and the great determination which it involves. Why am I anxious? I am anxious because we have so little information. I am anxious, for instance, because of the remarks made by my noble friend the noble Viscount who moved this Motion, when he said the other day in this House, as regards the Navy: The plans…cannot be finally produced until we know…the results of the present Naval Conference— That would seem quite reasonable, but he goes on to say: …but, what is more important, until we know what action the other great naval Powers will take in the future following upon the conclusion of this Conference. My Lords, if we are going to wait until every other Power has laid down its ships, again that seems a very grave delay. It is what has been going on all these last eight or nine years.

Then, again, there was the remark of the Secretary of State for War when he was asked the other day whether the Government were prepared for a sudden attack, an attack without warning. He produced a very astonishing reply: "No, we are not, and we do not intend to be." What does that mean? Do His Majesty's Government really believe that, if we are going to be attacked, the attacking Power will warn us to get ready, because they are going to attack us? Remarks such as these have no meaning at all, or they are very indicative of indecision still. Then, too, the Prime Minister's indecision in his remarks, all coupled with the past policy of procrastination in regard to our defences, justifies us in asking His Majesty's Government to give us a very clear reply on the question of the time factor. We cannot forget that the project of the fifty-two squadrons in the air, which were to be created with a minimum of delay, was followed by four years at least of steady deceleration and was then abandoned. Naturally, we are anxious lest in the present far graver crisis some fit of indecision should overtake the Government and we should still not get the recovery that we have been promised. I hope I have not wearied the Government by asking them too many questions. They have been specific questions of which I have ventured to give them due notice, and I hope that the Government may give them a clear reply, so that the anxieties of the country may be alleviated.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, although it is two days after the first tributes paid in this House to the late Earl Beatty—and they were far more eloquently paid than I could pay them by the noble Viscount who opened the debate and by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby—I must say a personal word of regret at his absence from this debate. I want to take this opportunity because I have some reason for what I am going to say, in trying to remove a certain legend that has grown up about the gallant Admiral. The popular opinion seems to be that he was a man of great courage amounting at times to recklessness. That was not so at all. He was a very gallant fighter, but he was also a thinker. I know that every move he made was carefully thought out in advance. Furthermore, he was extremely receptive of new ideas. He surrounded himself with the best brains he could select, and ho listened to any opinion, however unorthodox, which appeared to have value for the Service and the State. I may, I hope, be allowed to add my regret that he is not here to guide us at this time.

The noble Lord who has just addressed you, and who, as, usual, made a very eloquent speech, expressed great dissatisfaction with the Government, and he will be glad to hear that my noble friend has decided to give him the opportunity of registering that dissatisfaction in the Division Lobby.

LORD LLOYD

Excuse me, I do not want to interrupt. I expressed only an anxiety. I said I would gladly and readily vote for the. Motion and I propose to do so. The noble Lord must not flatter himself that I agree with his policy on defence.

LORD STRABOLGI

The noble Lord might wait until he has heard it. Nevertheless, we shall have to get on as best we can without him if we are not to have his support.

In the event of the Government's not being able to accept the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby—of course, I hope that my noble friend has converted the Lord Chancellor and the other members of the Government in this House—in any event, he does not propose to trouble your Lordships with two Divisions. The substantative Motion, however, cannot be supported by us, for we should then be committed to approving of the Government's policy, or whatever it is, as laid out in the White Paper. That we cannot do, and so we propose to register our votes against it.

Might I begin, by reinforcing the request for information made by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in the debate on Tuesday with regard to a matter touched on by the noble Lord who has just spoken, Lord Lloyd: the defence of merchant shipping against air attack. Whose responsibility is this? The matter has been referred to in an earlier debate by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, who, I am glad to hear, is also to speak later to-day. Who is really responsible for this vitally important function in case of hostilities? The speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, filled my noble friend Lord Ponsonby with gloom. It had a different effect on me. I must confess it made me very angry—not in its manner of delivery, that was perfect of course, nor in its clarity (and indeed I can congratulate the noble Viscount on his batting on a very sticky wicket) but the policy, or lack of policy, that the noble Viscount had to defend was really appalling. Why are we building battleships? Because other nations are building battleships. Why are we increasing our armaments?—and this of course is implicit in the whole layout of the White Paper. Because other nations are increasing their armaments. That is the policy of slaves, and it is a policy which is not fit for this country at all. We saw it first adumbrated in that extraordinary White Paper of last March, which appeared over the well known initials "J.R.M.," and the more I have tried to discover what really lies behind the policy of the Government, the more confused I become. I am reminded of a well-known joke played by a celebrated French artist on the modernists. He presented a canvas entirely covered with black paint, and, when asked, he said that the title of the picture was "Portrait of a negro in a dark room." This, I think, might be a very good title for the Government's policy.

Before I leave the noble Viscount's speech I wonder if I might ask him, or the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, who is going to reply, to answer a difficulty that was exposed by the noble Viscount the Air Minister in the recruiting of Territorials, a subject of great interest, of course, to many of your Lordships, to whom, as I have said before, we are much indebted for the great part they play, and have played, in building up our Territorial Army—the difficulty of employers giving leave to Territorial soldiers to attend training. Have the Government considered making-it compulsory on employers to give fourteen days leave, with pay, and if so with what conclusion? I agree that there are difficulties, and it may be that certain employers would not employ Territorial soldiers, but that might be got over. Before I conclude my remarks I shall have a word to say on recruiting generally.

Before I come to some of the reasons why we cannot accept the Motion, may I refer to one or two of the speeches made on Tuesday, and particularly to that made by the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, who spoke for the Liberal Party. The noble Marquess took the occasion to make an attack on the Labour Party, and I preferred his speech when he was shooting straight across the Table. He spoke of the consternation which there would be in other countries if a Labour Party were in power in this country. My Lords, there are Labour Governments in Norway and Sweden and Denmark, not to mention Russia. Some may say that there is a Russian threat on the North-West Frontier, but no one, I think, will pretend that the existence of those Governments keeps the most, nervous old lady awake at night. Compare the situation when we had a Labour Government in this country, and Mr. Arthur Henderson was Foreign Secretary, with what it is now. The state of the world was far more peaceful then, and the hopes of disarmament and settled peace were far brighter than they are at the present time. I might also refer to France, in which the noble Marquess has done such great service. I do not think anyone can be sure that there will not be what we call a Labour Government next May in France, and I hope it may be so.

This debate naturally divides itself into two parts, and they are really inseparable. There is the political reason for this White Paper, and by political reason of course I do not mean Party politics, but the great strategical reason, and the technical side, which has been dealt with by Lord Lloyd. I think it will be agreed that armaments should depend upon policy, but I have had a suspicion, and I dare say other noble Lords have also had a suspicion, that recently our policy has been dependent upon our armaments, which is entirely wrong. Why is it that the Government feel bound to ask the State to find, by loan or taxation, this colossal sum of money? And I would like to repeat what I ventured to say yesterday that the latest estimate of the total cost of this great programme is £500,000,000. I do not know if the Lord Chancellor is prepared to comment on that, but I should like to support Lord Crewe when he said that we should not be kept in the dark, and that we ought to have some estimate of the probable cost within certain limits. Only five years ago we were supposed to be in the direst financial straits; why is it that now we are suddenly embarking upon this tremendously extravagant programme? The reason of course is that people are afraid of war. Let us be perfectly frank about it. It is not only in this country. That fear is unfortunately felt in all countries. I found it travelling about everywhere—I found it in Scandinavia—and yet it is also true that the common people in all countries, and even in Germany, do not want war and hate the very idea of war.

Why is it that there is this fear of war, and this despite the Kellogg Pact, despite the Covenant of the League of Nations itself, despite the Locarno Treaty, despite the various treaties of non-aggression? Why this fear? Surely we have to look a little deeper. I am afraid it is not only the fear of the armaments of other nations, because when Germany was virtually disarmed, France was still so terrified that she spent £30,000,000 upon the Maginot line of fortifications and she built up the greatest Air Force and the finest Army; and yet she was afraid. As Lord Londonderry said on Tuesday, we have somehow or other to reassure France. But it is not only by reassuring France but by reassuring the common people of all countries that peace may be secured. Is it not the fact that this fear is because of some sub-conscious understanding that the real reasons for war are economic—that discontented or envious people want greater wealth. In other words, the institution of war, although it existed long before, is to-day inherent in Capitalism, and only the Socialist solution will serve to abolish war.

You can call it by another name if you like, but Sir Samuel Hoare's speech at Geneva, in September last, might be described as a Socialist speech. If it had been made by Mr. Henderson or any other Labour leader it probably would have been described as Socialist. It is, however, along this line that we have to try to find a solution. We have also this other anomaly that there is enough wealth in raw material in the world for everyone. There is a super-abundance of all the raw materials required, and you have the technical skill and engineering invention, and so on, to-day, to make the fullest use of them. If only you can solve this problem and make this wealth available for everyone, I believe you would reduce this discontent in Europe, and do away with the terrible pogroms against the Jews and other minorities—all the fruits of poverty. Is it not an extraordinary thing in this connection that the most peaceful countries to-day are those within the sterling bloc? If we could only get the sterling bloc extended to include all nations so that all had a stable currency, then you could break down the trade barriers and make the natural resources of the world available for all, and then you might have hope of a settled peace.

But in the meantime we are squabbling, and if our quarrels degenerate into war there is a far greater danger to all of us to-day in the Pacific. I do hope that the delegates sitting now at St. James's Palace and noble Lords who are members of the Cabinet, when they are considering this present crisis, will glance over their shoulders to the East—to Japan and to the spirit that is abroad in Japan. If European nations commit mutual suicide by war, the hegemony will be with Japan. And the young Japanese make no bones about this at all. The young Japanese, with their Fascist tendencies, boast to-day quite openly: "In twenty-five years we will have India and everything that lies between." One last word on this political question—I feel it necessary to say it. I do not want to go deeply into the question of the delicate negotiations now going on, but my noble friends here and my honourable friends in another place believe that the acid test of the sincerity for peace, the often-expressed desire for peace, of the rulers of Germany will be their attitude towards Russia. It may be said that they can never abandon their hostility to Russia as long as the Russians engage in propaganda against them. Well, are we quite sure that some bargain cannot be come to there?—although my information is that the propaganda for world revolution is practically nonexistent in any country outside Russia to-day.

I would venture to address a few questions, of which I have given some notice, to the Lord Chancellor who, I understand, will reply to this debate. We have now had a Co-ordinating Minister for the Defence Services appointed. I have seen in the newspapers that a number of eminent civil servants have been appointed as his private secretaries and assistant private secretaries. Will the Co-ordinating Minister have an independent professional staff? I am aware that he can make recommendations for the better organisation of the Committee of Imperial Defence; but will he straight away have some professional staff drawn from the three Services, and with a professional head? Secondly—and I am sorry to have to put this question again, because I thought the point had been carried by reason of certain answers made in another place by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister—will there be a separate Minister for Supply? Will this Co-ordinating Minister, besides co-ordinating, have at the same time to engage in the enormous business of preparing our war potentiality in industry, so ably described by the Air Minister on Tuesday? Will he have to do that whole-time job as well? I understood from reading the replies in another place that there would be a separate Minister of Supply, but he has not yet been appointed, and if the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, is right, we are losing valuable time that we cannot afford to lose.

May I come to one or two technical questions with regard to the various Services? I speak with great diffidence about the Army, but it seems to me there are certain principles which really depend on common sense. If it is true, as my soldier friends assure me, that the infantry are no longer the assault weapon—that the tank is really our assault weapon—then I suggest that our artillery must be so organised and equipped as to be able to co-operate with our real assault weapon. In other words, our artillery must be armoured. What we appear to be doing, according to the White Paper, is providing motor tractors to haul guns along the road. But real mobility does not consist of going along the roads; in fact, in the manœuvres for the seizure of the passages of the Test last summer, I am informed, the road mobile forces were slower than the ordinary marching infantry across country. Our roads are the finest in Europe, and yet the congestion was terrible. The only real mobility, I am informed, is cross-country mobility, and that is not being applied to the artillery.

May I make a suggestion with regard to recruiting for the Army? The noble Earl, Lord Cavan, whom I am glad to see in his place, said on Tuesday that a suggestion of his might send cold shivers down the backs of my noble friends on this side of the House, the revolutionary and novel suggestion being that the Army should revert to the pre-War full-dress uniform. That did not send cold shivers down my back, but I wonder whether what I am going to suggest will send cold shivers down the back of the noble Earl. I have taken the trouble to go into the question of recruiting, because it is extraordinary that the Navy can get all the recruits it wants, and the Air Force can get all the recruits it wants, but there is this falling-off in the recruiting of the Army. I suggest that the way in which you will attract the right type for the Army is by completely democratising your system of entry for the rank and file and the officers and making it a common system of entry.

Consider other professions—the law, the Church even, medicine, and so on. There has been a continual widening of the area of recruitment for those professions, and boys who have done well at secondary schools can hope to rise in those professions to-day. In the Army, however—it is no use our pretending to hide these facts—there is still the class bias. There is the feeling, which may be exaggerated but it exists, with the ordinary man who might like to go into the Army but who has not been to a certain type of school, that if he belongs to the soldier class it will be quite difficult for him—as indeed it is—to reach the officers' mess, and that the officers belong to a different class. Our Territorials found that to be so very much, particularly in India when they went out as private soldiers—men who belonged at home to the professional classes, but who, when they went to India, as private soldiers found that they had not the amenities, the amusements and recreations which they expected, and that the gulf between them and the officers was enormous. The ordinary serving soldier serves during his time normally six years in India. If you brought in all your officers and all your rank and file through the same channel and promoted them entirely by merit, then everybody who went into the Army would know that if he had the ability and behaved himself he had a good chance of reaching commissioned rank.

I suppose it will at once be said: "Oh that will ruin the Army." Think of the greatest armies that Europe has seen in the last five centuries—the armies of Napoleon. They were recruited on that method. I could quote also the case of the Cromwellian Army in this country—that was recruited on that method—or the Red Army in Russia, which I believe is not altogether inefficient: that is recruited on that method, too. Here in this country you have a vast middle class and lower middle class, respectable artisans and their sons, who would be prepared to go into the Army if these class differences were done away with. I am aware that that would be a revolutionary thing, but I believe it is the way in which you would get the right type of recruit in ample numbers for His Majesty's Army. I should be very glad to hear from the other Service members who will speak later in the debate what they think about that. I know it may be said that that suggestion would come naturally from the Labour Party, and I am aware that we did not do very much in that direction when we had the opportunity.

I must say a word about the Navy, and there I would plead once more for consideration of the fact that there is doubt (to put it no higher) as to whether the assault arm in the Navy, to use a military term, is still the battleship. If that is so, if it is not the sure weapon of attack in the fuure, that means the complete reorganisation of your whole system of fighting units in the Royal Navy. I believe I am right in saying that many naval officers—and I am speaking in the presence of the late Commander in Chief of the Home Fleet—have recognised that aircraft are becoming the primary attack arm, even at sea. The noble Viscount, Lord Monsell, was good enough to explain how the modern Super-Dreadnought can fire, I think he said, 1,000 tons of projectiles in an hour and a half. I suggest that with the same effort and expenditure in the air you can drop 1,000 tons of explosives in a minute and a half; and whereas your Dreadnought's range may be 30,000 yards, the range of your aircraft is 200 or 300 miles. That brings me to a question I should like to ask the Lord Chancellor who will, I understand, reply for the Government. Is it intended to replace all the fifteen battleships? The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, seemed to think we might only replace two.

LORD LLOYD

I did not suggest that at all. I suggested that it was not quite clear whether we were going to recondition twelve or fewer. Of course the two related to new construction.

LORD STRABOLGI

I am not arguing with the noble Lord. I am asking for information, like himself. Is it intended to replace all fifteen battleships, and has the cost been counted? Has the First Lord of the Admiralty been informed of the latest designs of the Sikorski flying boats of 300 tons which will be in commission in a couple of years? They are for passenger work, but if it is true that you can really design suitable flying boats of 300 tons, you can put a good deal of armament and even armour in that displacement. I suggest that that is the air cruiser of the future. I am an agnostic in these matters; I am not an atheist; I am an honest doubter, and I would like the matter reconsidered. I suggest that all these questions, including those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, are really academic because if the figures I have are correct the matter, if it ever comes to be fought out, will be decided in the air. The gallant Field Marshal Lord Cavan said in his speech on Tuesday that there was no means at present as far as he knew of stopping a bomber. I understand that the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Trenchard, will speak later, and I shall he very interested to hear his views on this matter.

I am informed—and the Leader of the House knows one source of my information because he was good enough to receive it also—that the performances of the new design? of air bombers which all nations are building are very remarkable. The latest German bombers in commission, I understand, the Junker 52 type, have a ceiling of 18,000 feet; the ones coming into production will have a ceiling of 24,000 feet. The present type of German bomber has a speed of from 185 to 190 miles per hour. According to the Press, our latest type of medium bomber has a speed of 300 miles an hour. I am told that the new German bombers at that height of 8,000 metres, or 24,000 feet, will have a speed of 250–300 miles per hour. Nothing is going to stop bombers at that height; nothing that we know of now. There is not a noble Lord in this House with technical information who can deny that. The guns will not reach them. In any case the bombers will fly above the clouds on most days in this latitude.

If they were attacking London, Paris, Cologne, or Berlin, they would fly above the clouds, and make their attacks on cities through gaps in the clouds. No gun will reach them. Fast fighters, from the time the first bomber is reported to be crossing the coast until it reaches London, will have about nine or ten minutes in which to reach 24,000 feet. There may be a special type of these interceptors that can do it, but the man will be in an open machine, and if he gets up on two occasions in nine or ten minutes he will have to go away for a rest cure in a sanatorium; his nerves will go. And when he does get up, how can he find the bombers at that height? If you consider the three dimensions they are working in, and the different directions from which they come, your Lordships will appreciate the difficulties. There is a realisation—and in this there is hope—by airmen everywhere in all nations that the near-future bomber cannot be stopped.

Now, as to numbers. As far as I can make out—I quote here from the very interesting leading article in The Times of March 7, and although the whole of the figures were not given by the Undersecretary for Air in the House of Commons earlier in the week, the figures he did give seem to tally—our present first-line strength is 1215. The Russians, according to M. Cot, the French Air Minister, have a first-line air strength of 3,000, and according to their own technical publication, the technical paper of the Red Army, they are working up to a strength of 15,000. They are training pilots for that tremendous number every year. They are taking young lads and training them in gliders, and they intend to make the whole nation air-minded. They are working up to a strength of 500,000 trained pilots. That is the Russian air effort. The French have a first-line strength of 1670. The United States Air Force, very excellent, very good in every way, has 1170. The Italians have about 1100, and the German first-line strength to-day, I understand, is 800. The noble Viscount has better information on these matters than I have, but this is the best information I have been able to get. We are working up to a first-line strength by March, 1937, of 1,500 machines, and including the Overseas and Fleet Air Arms, 1,990; and in three years' time, 2,450 machines. Now take Germany. I understand that at Dessau, the aeroplane-making centre, 30,000 workmen are employed, and it has been calculated that they are turning out machines at the rate of from 120 to 180 a month, and by the end of 1937 the German strength in first-line machines, mostly bombers, will be 4,000, and by the end of 1939 5,000 at least.

If these are approximately the figures of air development in Europe, what a vista, what a prospect in front of us! Modern machines you cannot stop, on bombing raids—not at present—there is nothing in sight that I know of that can stop them. Lord Cavan hoped that science would find some means of stopping these very high-flying bombers. I hope so too, but there is no sign at present, there is nothing known yet, and it will take a long time to develop. Bombers you cannot stop are being built in tremendous numbers. The figures I have given would not be believed a few years ago, but now they are accepted in responsible organs of the Press as fairly accurate. If that is the case, why waste money on the old sort of weapons? I see some hope in the airmen themselves who are realising this and are understanding that there is no defence, and that war will be mutual destruction. I can only hope and pray that the airmen of the world will bring home to their Governments and their peoples what a calamitous thing war would be, and that they will be a great force for preserving peace. I have explained the reasons why we cannot possibly support the Government in the White Paper. There is no constructive policy whatsoever for preserving peace, and they are embarking once more on a suicidal race in armaments.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (VISCOUNT SWINTON)

Perhaps it would be convenient if at this stage I informed your Lordships of the arrangements with regard to this debate. I understand a number of your Lordships wish to take part in it, and it would therefore probably be convenient that the debate should be continued for another day. It is proposed that the debate should be continued on Tuesday next. There will be a Royal Commission at 6.30 this evening. After that the debate will be continued until some appropriate time, I suppose about half past seven, and then adjourned, to be resumed next Tuesday. I think that would meet the general convenience of the House.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I can promise not to interfere with the Royal Commission. I confess I listened to the speech which has just been delivered with surprise, if indeed anything in politics could surprise me. Here is the noble Lord, who a few days ago excelled himself, if I may venture to use that phrase, in explaining how deficient we were in the Army and the Navy and the Air Force, and who tonight has been emphasising with all his eloquence the great difficulties in which the defensive forces of the Crown were placed, yet saying when the Government come forward with a plan to try to put these things right, that he is going to vote against them. He says he is going to vote against the Resolution because he does not approve of the foreign policy of the Government. The argument is the other way, if I may say so. The worse the foreign policy of the Government is, the more necessity there is to have adequate armed forces. I really think that when the noble Lord reads his speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow he will, if he will allow me to use the phrase, feel ashamed of himself.

I am not including in that criticism the noble Lord who moved the Amendment (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede). His speech was not only adorned with those witty observations which we are accustomed to from the noble Lord, but, if I may say so, it was a speech of manifest sincerity from start to finish. The noble Lord does not approve of force. Force to him is no remedy. Of course force is no remedy for the causes of evil, but it is a remedy for the consequences of evil, and it is in that spirit, speaking for myself, that I most cordially approve the Resolution which the Government have submitted. I have ventured to speak, I hope he will not think in a patronising manner, of the speech which the noble Lord delivered, but it had a blemish. He told us how gloomy were his feelings, and of the depression with which he regarded the world. I agree with every word of it. But what was his remedy? We waited for sentence after sentence and paragraph after paragraph to hear it. No remedy appeared in the noble Lord's speech.

The noble Lord who has just sat down said the cause was economic. The cause is not economic; the cause is moral. It is the moral defect of society, looking over the world, which is the cause of the unrest and of the great menace which at this moment lies over Europe and calls for the necessity of the Resolution of my noble friend which we are discussing this evening. A moral evil must be approached by quite different methods from those suggested by the noble Lord who has just sat down. We must approach the persons who compose these communities, we must approach the persons who compose our own community. Nothing can be worse from the point of view of noble Lords opposite than the grudging spirit in which they received such a subject as religious education in the elementary schools. It is there where the evil lies; it is the want of religion which they ought to possess. If I may use a phrase which is common in a great religious movement which is taking place at this moment in this country and elsewhere, what you want are God-guided personalities, which make God-guided nationalities, to make a new world, and all the other ideas of economic adjustments are too small really to touch the centre of the evil.

But we are a practical people. We have to recognise that these evils exist in the world and, notwithstanding the pleading of the noble Lord opposite in his Amendment, we must support the Government. It is a pity that it should be necessary. We are all, or at least the great majority of your Lordships are, in favour of disarmament if it could be carried out. We view the world now, and think of all the pleas which were made in the last War, how it was a war to end war, how the world was to be made safe for democracy. It is pitiful in the situation in which we stand. No doubt mistakes have been made. No doubt things might have been better guided in this country and elsewhere. A disarmament policy might have been possible, but mistakes are of the very essence of every political problem. There are always mistakes, and it is because you have to meet mistakes and find the remedy for them that statesmen exist. That is what they are for. Therefore, although I think it is pitiful that we should be reduced to this point, I do not think your Lordships will hesitate to vote for the Resolution now submitted on behalf of the Government.

I should like to say one or two words about the White Paper which is under discussion. In the first place, I confess I am a little uneasy about the provision for reserves. We heard a most admirable speech, if he will allow me to say so, from my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air on Tuesday. He dealt with this subject a great deal and very thoroughly. Perhaps he could not touch upon every point, but I noticed that he hardly said a word from start to finish about reserves. I think he said something about reserves for the Air Force, but I am not quite sure about that. That, of course, is a subject which he knows best. But he said nothing about the reserves for the Navy and nothing about reserves for the Army. I am not qualified to speak on either, certainly not to speak upon re serves for the Navy, but I noticed that the noble Lord who has just sat down touched upon that subject. My noble friend, who just now delivered a most trenchant speech, touched upon it too I do not know what provision the Government are contemplating for reserves. You cannot have adequate fighting forces unless you have reserves. The moment at which you have to use these forces—and God forbid we should have to use them—the necessity for reserves becomes instantly vital. I should like the Government in any reply they may make to this debate to tell us what reserves they propose. What is true of the Navy is true of the Army. Nothing is said about the reserves of the Army.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

Will my noble friend permit me to interrupt for a moment? I had much to deal with in my speech, but I thought I made it plain that the programme was designed to do three things—to give adequate forces properly equipped, to give adequate reserves, and behind that to create a great war potential which would produce quickly the reserves needed. I certainly intended to make plain that all three points were covered in the programme.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

No doubt it was stupid of me not to understand that, but I took it that that potential had to do with material and not with personnel.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

I beg pardon, I meant reserves of material.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I am glad that now we understand each other. I am speaking of personnel. What provision is made for Army reserves? I do not know whether the reserves are accumulating as well as they ought to do. I do not know whether the Government are satisfied on that head. Something is said about the Territorial Force, and that is quoted as being a great reserve. So it is, a most important reserve, but it has its limitations. It is a very great force, and one of which the country may well be proud. But observe that when troops are in the field and casualties take place the units have to be reinforced. The Territorial Force is not to be used for that purpose. It is expressly stated that Territorials are only to go abroad as units. I am not criticising that decision, but I want to know how the casualties in the Army itself are going to be replaced in time of war. May I put in a plea for a force of which I do know something, the old Militia force? I should have been so glad if the Government could have indicated that the Militia force, which has never been expressly abolished, was to be resuscitated. The Militia were the direct reserves for the Army in the field. They could be used to draft into any regiment, and were so used. And of course they tapped a stratum of society which no other recruiting sergeant tapped.

The men of the Militia came from the lowest stratum of organised inhabitants of the country—not from vagrants, of course, but from the lowest stratum which had a recognised abode, and men must have a recognised abode if you are to be able to get them when you want them. They were in fact the casual labourers of England. The regiment which I knew so well was made up of the casual labourers of the county in which I live, the men who appeared for the hay harvest and the corn harvest and did all sorts of odd jobs all through the year. They were splendid material, not weeds. I think it was my noble and gallant friend the Earl of Cavan who spoke on Tuesday with great force of the feebleness of a large number of those who present themselves now for recruitment. That was not true of the regiment I knew. Those militiamen were splendid physical material, and with very little extra training could be made into the best troops in the world. I hope the Government will consider again the possibility of reviving the Militia force.

I turn from that to say a word again about the organisation of the new Ministry connected with the Committee of Imperial Defence. Since the debate a few days ago I confess I have felt a little less happy about this new appointment. I am very much in favour of the establishment of the new Ministry, but what is to be precisely the Minister's position? There have been several circumstances since that debate which have shaken my confidence a little. In the first place, there is the particular Minister who has been appointed to that office. I am not going to say a word against Sir Thomas Inskip. I have the great honour of knowing him, I have a great respect for him, I know that he is a very able man, and he may make a very good Minister. But he is handicapped by the fact that he has never been in the Cabinet before and has never been in any administrative office before. A man of his ability and with his training will, no doubt, get over those difficulties, but it will take him a good many months to do so. I confess I was a little surprised at that particular appointment. I need not say that he has my best wishes, and I am sure he has the best wishes of us all, and no doubt he will show that he is equal to the occasion, but it does make me look at the matter and at the speeches delivered in connection with the matter with closer scrutiny than I otherwise would have done.

The first thing I do is to compare the Report of 1924, in virtue of which I suppose this new Ministry has been created, with the White Paper as it is now delivered. There is a certain change of phraseology. In the Report this Minister was described as the responsible Chairman. He was no doubt Deputy to the Prime Minister, who was the President, but he was the Chairman. He had a Committee, of course, the Committee of Imperial Defence, over which he presided, but he was evidently looked upon as the first member of that Committee, the senior member. He presided over it. The three Defence Ministers were his colleagues but he was the first Minister there. Above all, in that Report, the function of initiative was expressly conferred upon him. Are we sure that the new Minister is to have initiative? I look at the White Paper. He is no longer Chairman; he is Deputy-Chairman. His subordination to the Prime Minister is emphasised. Of course he is subordinate to the Prime Minister; every Cabinet Minister is subordinate to the Prime Minister; but is he to be more subordinate, as it were, than any other Minister? If so, his independence of action is a good deal hampered.

I wonder what has become of his initiative. He has got a Defence Policy Committee, another Committee. Well, that is probably a good Committee, but a Committee is not the same as an individual. Everybody who has served on Cabinet Committees knows that. The Committee have Papers which are circulated to them; they have certain material on which they form a judgment. But they are not always there, always hearing everything that passes in the office and knowing all about it. It is a different position. I am a little bit afraid that, though the Committee is a very useful one, yet there has been a general tendency, since this matter was first mooted, to minimise the position of this new Minister. The noble Marquess, the Leader of the Liberal Party, noted in his speech on Tuesday night that that was the impression which his own mind had received from what had passed.

I hope there will be, if I may say so with great respect, no attempt to minimise the position of this Minister. He is of vital importance, and, mark you, he is there to make good what has hitherto failed. If was not through want of good will in the Prime Minister that his Chairmanship of the Committee of Imperial Defence was a failure. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister no doubt intended it to be a success in every respect, and no doubt he was assisted by all the skill and knowledge of a first-rate technical staff. But it did fail. It failed because we were left, after these years, in the position which my noble friend Lord Lloyd has explained to your Lordships this afternoon, and which, in spite of his vote, the noble Lord opposite also explained on two occasions. It is true. It is not denied by the Government; it is admitted, of course. Do not lot us repeat the error. Do not let us be making this Minister in a special way a mere subordinate to the Prime Minister. Do not let us lose the benefit which we hope to get from the change. That, indeed, would be a great waste of the efforts of the Government and of the wishes of your Lordships. I hope that that will not turn out to be the case.

It is not merely as regards the office of the Committee of Imperial Defence itself, but the same tendency can be seen in respect of the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff. In the Report of 1924 the new Chairman was to be assisted by the Chiefs of Staff, who might occasionally, when they wished, meet alone. The normal position was that this Chairman was to be the Chairman of the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff. That was the view of the Committee in 1924. But now I notice a tendency to alter that. The Minister is to be allowed to consult with the Chiefs of Staff, and it is definitely said that normally he will not preside. The whole emphasis is changed, and instead of our having this responsible Minister to whom the country is looking for so much after the mistakes which have been made, having him with his intimate knowledge of what is going on, his initiative and his high position in the Cabinet, he is merely to be a Deputy Chairman, who may consult with the Chiefs of Staff but who is to treat them as though they were equals with himself, and not his assistants and, in one sense, his subordinates. I hope that, in the reply which the Government give to this debate, they may reassure us on that head.

I am terribly afraid of confusion of responsibility. We are not making a constitution in the Committee of Imperial Defence for the moment; this is a permanent matter. Let us suppose that hereafter, in a few years, there is once more some defect in our military, naval and air forces. What is to be the position of the Deputy Chairman in the Cabinet? Suppose it has all gone wrong; that is the hypothesis. Is the Deputy Chairman to be in a position to say: "Well, you know, I was only a deputy; I had to do what the Prime Minister told me; you should go to him." Then, if you go to the Prime Minister, he may say: "Oh, well, you know, Parliament agreed to a Deputy Chairman, to have specific regard to this Committee of Imperial Defence some years ago; it was his business to look after it; you should go to him." It is just in those confusions and in the want of assigning a real responsibility that the danger lies.

What you want is to have a Minister who initiates what is necessary and who maintains it: who presses it on the Cabinet of which he is a Member, and who, if necessary, resigns if his duty compels him to say that they will not do what he believes to be necessary for the safety of the country. I hope frankly, my Lords, that I have happened on a mare's-nest, and that the Government, when they reply, will be able to say that this Deputy Chairman whom they are establishing will not only be a Minister but will be a Minister occupying a position of great ascendancy in the Cabinet: not the superior of the three Secretaries of State but their supervisor; and that the Government will be able to reassure the country that never again, until a real disarmament policy can be carried out, shall the country be left in the position in which it stands to-day.

LORD STONEHAVEN

My Lords, I think that most of us received with great satisfaction the White Paper which embodies the Government's policy on defence. I think so for two reasons: first of all, because it continues the practice that was started last year of providing an opportunity for discussing defence as a whole; and secondly because in Part III and Part IV it discloses a very well-thought-out plan, first of all for co-ordinating and improving the Services, and, more important still, for mobilising our industrial resources. It has never been done before, and it is fortunate that we have not waited, as we usually do, until another war breaks out to take advantage of the lesson we ought to have learned from the previous War. In both those respects—co-ordination and the supply of military stores—improvisations, and very expensive improvisations, had to be made soon after the War broke out, and it seems to me that we are doing well to take advantage of the experience then gained instead of forgetting it. In particular, I consider that the Government have been very wise and very fortunate to secure the services of Lord Weir to help them in this very important work. In any case the net result is a considered scheme, and the small amount of criticism which has been levelled against it is an indication that your Lordships recognise it as a serious attempt to deal with a vital national question.

I am not competent to speak, nor shall I endeavour to speak, on Part II of the White Paper, which deals with the details and increases in the various forces. We are fortunate enough to have had the views of the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cavan, so far as the military side is concerned, and are very fortunate that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, is going to address us on the subject of the air. My noble friend Lord Lloyd directed some very pointed criticisms against some portions connected with the Navy, and I have no doubt that the Government when they reply will be able to deal with those points. I sincerely hope that my noble friend is mistaken in the rather gloomy attitude he adopted. I shall be rather surprised if he is not mistaken in some respects, because never in the recollection of anybody has there been a Navy Board more distinguished, or one which holds the confidence of the country to a greater extent. Therefore I cannot conceive such a Board acquiescing in arrangements which are so foolish as my noble friend has described.

The main justification for rearmament, or one of the main justifications for rearmament, appears to me to have been given in the paragraph of the White Paper which recalls the White Paper of last year. There a speech by the Foreign Secretary was quoted, in which he said in November, 1934, that disarming ourselves in advance, by ourselves, by way of an example, had not increased our negotiating power in disarmament discussions at Geneva. I do not think he need have confined himself to Geneva. I doubt whether disarming ourselves has increased our negotiating power anywhere, in any direction. I would like to quote, in conjunction with that statement of the then Foreign Secretary, a statement made by the great Lord Nelson in 1801: A fleet of British warships are the best negotiators in Europe. The truth is that thanks to British statesmen having a British Fleet of that kind behind them, they not only prevented, or played an outstanding part in the prevention of a world war for one hundred years, but kept us out of any major war for one hundred years, and that deterrent effect, as anyone knows who was in the diplomatic service for twenty-four years before the Great War, prevented many wars which had started from extending in the world.

It is not useful to discuss it, but many people think that if our forces had been properly used, and if it had been made clear to Germany in 1914 that our forces would be used, that War would have been postponed. Without doubt war was prevented in 1911, 1908 and 1905, because it was known that we should throw our weight into the scale on the side of France. Noble Lords will recollect that when we were at war with the Boers, and had the whole of the world against us, nothing prevented a world war arising out of that except the formidable character of the British Fleet. Then there is another point which might be interesting to noble Lords opposite, and it is the case of the Conference of Berlin. There is a statement reported in history with regard to the Berlin Conference, which ended as noble Lords will remember in Lord Beaconsfield returning with the message "Peace with Honour "—namely, that it was not the discussions at Berlin which produced that result but the fact that the British Fleet remained at the Golden Horn all through the summer of 1878, and until March, 1879, and "was the sanction behind the Congress of Berlin and the suasion behind Disraeli's subtlety."

You can go still further back, but what I think is important is that noble Lords opposite reject this policy and suggest that in its place we can only secure peace by the pursuit of a policy of international understanding, general disarmament and economic co-operation, so as to remove the causes of war. The Government are pursuing a policy of international understanding. They have repeated it times without number, and in this White, Paper: "The establishment of peace on a permanent footing is the principal aim of British foreign policy." That, I think, disposes of the suggestion of Lord Strabolgi that our policy is adopted to fit our forces and not our forces to fit our policy. Noble Lords opposite try to pretend that they are the peace Party, and we are the war Party, but all that can be said is that by following a policy which has neglected the maintenance of our forces at their proper level, we seem to be nearer war than we ever were when we maintained our forces at a proper level, and there is no guarantee that by continuing to proclaim that we are in favour of peace, and will not keep our forces up to the requisite strength, we shall avoid the fate of other nations in the past who have done that—namely, be conquered by those who are in a position to conquer us.

Lord Strabolgi asked why is the world in this state. Lord Salisbury suggested one reason—namely, that it was a moral question. I suggest to your Lordships another reason. We are governed now by two bad Treaties, the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Trianon. Those Treaties were made considerably worse than they need have been because the citizens of the United States, who played so splendid a part in the later days of the War, and whose President played the leading part at Versailles, found it impossible either to join with us in the Treaty of Mutual Guarantees for France or take a part in the work of the League of Nations. The result was that the Treaty was an unbalanced one, and the League of Nations lacked not merely the prestige but the material authority which it undoubtedly would have had if the United States had taken their place.

May I be forgiven for quoting to your Lordships a description of what was expected of the League of Nations and its work, given by a man particularly well qualified to write it. The description is given in the third volume of Mr. Herbert Fisher's History of Europe. He was a member of the Government of the time when the Treaty of Versailles was negotiated and the League of Nations formed. This is what he says: A league of peace comprising ultimately all nations of the world, and having the Anglo-Saxon race as its solid nucleus and the Governments of the British Empire and the United States as the principal instruments of its activity and influence, such was the vision which filled the minds of President Wilson and his English associates as they sat down in Paris to work at the framework of a new international order. These large hopes were swiftly killed. After nineteen years, so far from approaching that ideal, we have gone a long way from it, and the misfortune is that to-day, instead of having a disarmed world, in which differences might conceivably, and probably, have been settled by argument, we have a world more heavily armed, except so far as we ourselves are concerned, than it has ever been at any time.

Instead of having Parliamentary Governments carrying out the business of government in all the countries of the world, you have in Europe alone at least 250,000,000 people, taking Germany, Italy and Russia, who are living under a system of autocracy more rigid than anything that has ever been known, where anything in the shape of the expression of public opinion, such as we understand it, cannot take place. Then you have a large number of countries whose financial and industrial position is precarious, where poverty is rampant, and unfortunately it is true that there are a very-large number of very unhappy people. Is there any justification for the suggestion that the proposed redistribution of wealth—which pre-supposes, I am afraid, the cessation of the creation of wealth—advocated by noble Lords opposite is going to deal with that situation on a permanent basis? You may for the moment relieve the situation, but you would completely destroy all the creative industries and any idea of progress, and your last state would be worse than your first. Therefore I believe that the Government are to be congratulated and thanked for the work that they have done and the comprehensive study that they have made of these vitally important questions of defence, as embodied in the White Paper.

I confess that the policy advocated by noble Lords opposite appears to be purely a policy of drift. Surely those of us, as we all do, who happen to have responsibility for the Government of this country, are not entitled to approach our responsibilities in that fatalistic style. We have tried a policy of disarmament: the Government, as they say in their White Paper, are prepared to try it again. But since it has not produced the result of inducing other people to disarm, since it has weakened us for the purpose of negotiation, surely we are bound to revert to the policy of bringing up our armed forces to such a strength as will enable them to discharge the elementary functions of producing security for ourselves, and, what is no less important, acting once more, as British forces always have in the past, as the strongest deterrent against any country that desires to break the peace. I consider therefore that the Government can claim that their policy is not merely wise from the point of view of securing our own safety, but it is the wisest they could adopt from the point of view of helping towards the security of peace.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, I have listened with growing gloom to this debate, and I confess it has not been very much relieved by the speech to which we have just listened. For, as far as I can make out from my noble friend, he has really no hope except to return to the pre-War condition of affairs with, I presume, the result that that system ultimately produced. He says that the British Fleet preserved this country from war for a hundred years. I am afraid he forgot the Crimean War.

LORD STONEHAVEN

I would not describe that as a world war.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

I did not say a world war. Thank goodness, none of us expects a world war every ten years. I think his expression was "any serious war."

LORD STONEHAVEN

Any major war.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

Well, certainly the Crimean War was a major war, without any question whatever. And of course we have had a great number of other wars, raging in various parts of the world, which were less serious, but were still very serious factors in the situation. Moreover, I venture respectfully to say that I think it is a mistake to regard our interest as only an interest in keeping out of a war ourselves. Wars wherever they occur are a grave injury to us and ultimately may produce, as they did produce in 1914, a major disaster in which we shall be directly involved. However, I do not propose to go further into the general question, which we have had many opportunities of discussing in this House. There are two questions before us. There is the question of the Motion and the question of the Amendment. I admit that I have some doubts about the Motion. As your Lordships will see, I am not an unqualified opponent of the policy, far from it, but there are aspects of the proposals which I admit fill me with great anxiety. In particular there is one which perhaps, considered in one way, is a minor matter; but I do very much regret that the effect of the Government's proposals will be greatly to increase the vested interest in war. That may be inevitable, but it seems to me a very serious evil, and one which I have no doubt will increase the evil which in my judgment already exists in consequence of the system by which large financial interests have a great interest in war and the preparation for war.

I want to say a few words about the Amendment. The wording of the Amendment is elaborate, but, as often happens, the elaboration does not make it any clearer than it would have been if it had been much shorter. Unless I am wrong in construing it, it consists of a good many statements which I think almost everybody in this House would accept, and a certain number of statements which may or may not be right according to the way you read them. I do not think I should be inaccurately describing it if I were to say that it laid down the principle that rearmament would be expensive and ineffective for peace. As far as I am concerned, I should say that that was true, but not the whole truth. I do not think it is true to say—I do not think it can be said—that armament is never effective to prevent or to postpone war. Your Lordships will remember in Boswell's Life of Johnson that when Foote threatened to libel Johnson, Johnson sent out and bought a thick ash stick, and the knowledge that he had done so prevented Foote from uttering his libel. It seems to me to be true to say that armaments in that sense may operate to postpone or prevent war.

But I agree that armaments by themselves will not cut at the root of war. Certainly not. I do not believe anybody thinks they will. I would even agree, as I think is stated in the Amendment, that armaments do not promote international understanding. I should have thought that was clearly true, and, with all respect to my noble friend who has just spoken, I do not think it is true to say, speaking generally, that in the total result armaments prevent war. But we are now in a very special position. We are in a position when the whole world is arming. The Government inform us, on their official authority and responsibility, that our armaments have fallen very much below the proportionate level which they used to bear to other countries. In these circumstances it may well be that rearmament will provide a breathing space during which we may make great efforts to secure a more permanent pacification. So far as I am individually concerned, that seems to be the only ground—a sufficient ground—for defending the policy of rearmament at this moment.

I am sorry my noble friend Lord Ponsonby is not here, because I must say a few words about what he said, and I regret I must do so in his absence. His thesis—one which he has often presented to this House with great skill and obvious sincerity—is that armaments are quite useless, that they have no advantage at all, that the more you have armaments the less likely you are to have peace, that they promote war and do not stop war. He used the phrase more than once, I think, that this was proceeding on the wrong road, and when my noble relative spoke, he said he had listened with anxiety for a practical positive statement and none was made. I believe my noble friend overlooked the very last sentence which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, uttered, because though he did not describe exactly how it was to be done, he did say that in his view the only way was to strengthen the means of conciliation. But we know from other speeches that he is against collective security, he is against the League of Nations, at any rate in its present form, and he never believed in the attempts to secure international disarmament. I do not know what his positive policy really is.

If he is right in saying that further armaments can do no good, that they only make for war, then his proper course is to advocate the abolition of the Army and Navy and the Air Force. I believe that in more congenial surroundings than perhaps your Lordships' House presents, he has advocated a course of that kind. He may be right. I know very well that there are people in the country who quite definitely disbelieve in force altogether in all circumstances. There are the Quakers, for whom everyone who knows them must have a profound respect. They disbelieve in it, but they disbelieve in force, not because they think it cannot succeed, but because they dislike it on principle, on the ground that the exercise of force is wrong. I understand that. But my noble friend Lord Ponsonby entirely denies and repudiates any opinion based on emotional considerations. He says, purely as a matter of reason, that armaments are wrong and disastrous. I feel sure he is wrong if you are to carry it to that extent, and I am equally sure—and if he were here I would like to have pressed it on him very strongly—that there is no chance whatever of the acceptance of that point of view in this country, or indeed in any country.

The real choice, the only choice, is, are you going in for a system where you are going to entrust the exercise of force to individual nations, or are you going to have a system of collective security? I have observed in recent debates a curious alliance between Lord Ponsonby and his friends and Lord Lloyd and his friends. They are both agreed in disliking collective security apparently, but my noble friend Lord Ponsonby dislikes it because it relies on force for security. He dislikes the security part of it; Lord Lloyd and his friends dislike the collective part of it. As a matter of fact, they differ more profoundly than any two sections of the House when it comes to the practical application of their policies. I would submit very earnestly to Lord Ponsonby that the only alternative to collective security that has any chance of acceptance is the policy which my noble friend Lord Lloyd and many of your Lordships strongly advocate—namely, an increase of armaments, and a greater increase of armaments, the old policy of alliances, the policy of force and force only, as the really effective, positive security that anybody can have.

I cannot accept that view in the least. I do not believe in it. I believe that we have got to proceed on the lines of collective security. I believe that the policy of international disarmament, reduction and limitation of armaments, is essential, and that without it you have no more chance of preserving the peace of the world than you have a chance of doing any other impossible thing. But I understand that the Government are strongly of opinion that they must proceed with all their strength and ingenuity with a policy of international disarmament. In the same way, unless you can institute, somehow or another, an international organisation to which you will entrust the duty of keeping the peace with sufficient force, I do not believe there is any prospect of maintaining peace by the casual operation of individual nations acting in defence of what they are pleased to consider their interests. There, again, I understand the Government are warmly in favour of that policy and intend to pursue it. In these circumstances I cannot do otherwise than vote against the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby.

I do not pretend to like the policy of rearmament. I do not believe anyone with any sense can like it. I was immensely impressed by part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, when he drew a picture of the fearful preparations that are going on for air warfare; the immense ingenuity and success with which these instruments of fiendish destruction are continually being perfected. It is an appalling prospect, it is a horrible thing to contemplate, something far worse than we have ever seen in the history of the world. Unless we can do something to prevent war breaking out, which some people think we are threatened with in a comparatively short time, although I think they are unduly pessimistic, the outlook is absolutely appalling. It is impossible to exaggerate it. In these circumstances I certainly should be utterly miserable and unhappy if the Government had no other policy than an increase of armaments. It may, I think it will, do something to give us an opportunity for more effective steps to be taken; it will give another chance to the collective system. It will mean, I hope, the abandonment of the terrible attitude which the National Government adopted during the first three or four years of its existence, when it did not appear to have any real interest in the policy of collective security at all. I believe they have learned their lesson. I believe they do think now that collective security is essential, not only to the maintenance of the safety of this country and of the Empire, but to the maintenance and safety of civilisation. It is because I do believe that they are honest and sincere in their statements that they are willing to proceed with a real peace policy of a vigorous and energetic character, that I for one could not think of opposing the measures which, with all the responsibility of the Executive Government, they think are essential to meet the actual emergency in which we find ourselves.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

My Lords, I understand that the debate will now be adjourned until after the Royal Commission.

House adjourned during pleasure.

House resumed.