GOVERNMENT POLICY AND DEFENCE SERVICES.

HL Deb 19 November 1936 vol 103 cc267-320

Debate again resumed (according to Order) on the Motion, made on Tuesday by Lord Strabolgi, to resolve, That inasmuch as the extent of the armed forces of the Crown depends mainly upon national policy and the purpose they are designed to serve, this House calls upon His Majesty's Government to furnish full information to Parliament as to what measure of rearmament has already been achieved and as to what is the programme for the immediate future; and at the same time to make an explicit declaration of the policy in relation to the League of Nations and foreign affairs which they are pursuing as a justification for the heavily increased expenditure on armaments.

LORD RANKEILLOUR

My Lords, if the Motion before your Lordships were confined to Defence I should not dream of intruding upon your discussions, but as it is of a much wider character and involves a number of questions of policy I venture to offer a few observations. I wish in the first instance to make a protest against the tone of exaggerated pessimism which, it is true, has been less in evidence in this debate than in others, but is still very apparent in various utterances outside this House. Of course in a mad world anything is possible, and we must be prepared against, I might almost say, everything to the utmost of our power, but to keep on harping, as some do, on the worst of possibilities is not only to create the maximum of irritation abroad but to engender a feeling of fatalism which may be the worst thing possible for the cause of peace.

In this connection I would take exception to what was said by the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, two days ago. He dwelt on the dangers of collective security under the League. We are well aware of these dangers, but let us consider what the present position is. I trust the League may be made an efficient instrument for international co-operation and for peace, but in view of our experiences last year I cannot believe that, whatever the issue, it will be pressed for a very long time to the point of a war between major Powers. That I think is the one certain lesson of the events of the last year. Nevertheless I do not regret our recent experiences. We were bound under our covenant to do what we did. We did our best honestly and straightforwardly, and we have learned our experience, on the whole, at no great cost.

A great deal of the talk about our humiliation owing to the events of last year leaves me proud. The truth is that we are not understood, we have never been understood, we never shall be understood by the public opinion of Europe. If we were to spend a million a year on propaganda the result would be just the same. We are no doubt a difficult people to understand. Our chronic grumbling that means so little, our careless ways, our want of precision and method, our easy tolerance—these things and, I think I might add, our occasional deep slumbers and sudden and startling awakenings all make us difficult to understand. Therefore we must expect that public opinion abroad will misunderstand us, and the less we worry about that the better; but if we are strong the Governments of foreign countries will know we are strong and will deal with us accordingly. That is the great object of the Defence programme that has been as far as possible unfolded to us. If we have to regret that it was our duty to carry out our covenant, the fault lies a long way back. It is no use talking of humiliation now. We ought to talk of our mistakes in common with other countries in 1919. If we embarked on a vessel that proved unseaworthy, that is a good reason for patching that vessel up; it is no reason for not having embarked on a voyage on which, in duty and honour, we were bound to embark.

The noble Marquess dwelt for some time on the Franco-Russian Pact. I entirely agree with him that it has been a most deplorable transaction. It has exasperated Germany, it has alienated Belgium from France, it has divided French opinion, and it has caused uneasiness in this country lest in some way we might become involved. And the gravamen of the matter is not the kind of Government there is in Russia. We have been accustomed in the past, and in the present we are able to co-operate with Governments whose constitution and internal policy we thoroughly dislike. For many years Sir Edward Grey held his Government and held the Liberal Party, though not without murmurs, to a good understanding with Czarist Russia, and one might quote other instances.

The gravamen is that the Russian Government are not content with the working of their own system, but are everlastingly attempting to stir up trouble abroad. That is not the case with other Governments. I have not yet heard that either the Fuhrer or the Duce has been decoying Sir Oswald Mosley from the lawful avocations of ordinary citizenship. They are content to leave other countries in their internal policies alone. But Russia never is, and that, it may be, constitutes a reason why she should not have been admitted to the League of Nations. That may or may not be, but it is this deliberate policy of interference abroad that puts the Franco-Russian Pact on a totally different footing from many other events which we may dislike or deplore but which have not the same significance. In fact, I can only compare it, looking back historically, to the Treaty which Francis the First made with the Turks at the time when the Turks were perhaps at the maximum of their power and aggressiveness against Western Europe.

But having said so much, I cannot follow the noble Marquess into what he said about the necessary danger to our-selves. It may be quite true that the German General Staff, neglecting all other considerations, might attack the enemy which it felt most qualified to defeat. But consider the position. It is assumed that Germany will be at war with Russia on the one hand and France on the other. If that be so, they will have to face two enemies. Why in the name of all that is sane should they deliberately make a third. The position as I understand it under Locarno Treaty, will be this. If they make an unprovoked attack upon France it is our duty to assist France, but if on the contrary they wait, sit quiet, and France attacks them, then at once we are released from all our obligations. It will be the simplest wisdom for them to sit tight in those circumstances. I believe, from all the reading I have been able to get through upon the subject, that that ought to have been their policy in 1914. If they had been on the defensive on the West they could have easily dealt with the Russians on the East and "pinched out" what was then the great Polish salient, and that I think must be their policy and strategy now.

As a matter of fact, it is not very easy to envisage how a war between Russia and Germany could proceed. They could not immediately deal with one another without violating some other territory, and I do not think that Poland, whose forces are not negligible, would invite either of those belligerents in, because, if they did, it might be a question as to whether they would go out. Of course, there is a great story of enormous aerodromes in Czechoslovakia. Well, they cannot be ready in a day; they cannot be prepared secretly, and if there were such, manned with Russian planes, that would be a legitimate casus belli and the result would be that the City of Prague would be knocked to pieces far before Berlin, and we neither should nor ought, in those circumstances, to do anything to stop it. On the other hand, I cannot believe that in any circumstances, with the examples of Charles XII and Napoleon before them, any serious invasion of Russia could possibly be undertaken by Germany. Therefore, I cannot share the anxious apprehensions of the noble Marquess in that particular matter.

Now I come for a moment to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. It was very interesting to see in the course of his speech how the native hue of good sense, and I think of patriotism, was visible under the Party rouge with which it is necessary he should be bedaubed. With much of what he said I fully agree, but I cannot follow him as to any imminent danger from the Spanish situation. He appears to have assumed—in fact his argument was meaningless if he did not assume—a hostile Italy. I do not admit that there will be a hostile Italy. The troubles of last year will, I trust, pass away, and though, as I said, anything is possible, there are no such fundamental conditions of hostility as to make us assume that we have specially to be on our guard against that Power. And to that I might add, whatever views noble Lords may have on the present situation in Spain, that there has to be considered the interests the Spaniards themselves have in their own future, whatever their Government is, and I cannot think that they would lightly incur the enmity, considering their two Atlantic seaboards as well as their Mediterranean, of both England and France in a policy which would in the greatest probability lead to their loss to France of their African possessions.

If I have spoken with some slight degree of optimism I am by no means unaware of the possibilities of the ease. Let me say just this. There is much pressure on the Government for a declaration of policy. I think their reticence is right and that it would be wrong for them to make any definite declaration of policy in an ever-shifting and ever-changing situation. But at the same time a moment of crisis may come when a decision, and an explicit decision known to the world, may be necessary. I had always believed until quite lately that Sir Edward Grey in 1914 was unable to speak clearly to France and to Germany because of divisions in the Cabinet, but there is evidence that it was his deliberate policy to keep both France and Germany guessing until the last moment. That evidence I find in a most unexpected quarter, in the life of the late Lord Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury. It is an entry in his diary after an interview with the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, on July 31, 1914. This is Mr. Asquith's explanation of the then position, three days before the declaration of war: All turns on what England may do, and the object of our Foreign Office at present is to keep Europe in suspense on that point. So long as Europe does not know what England is likely to do, there is a great steadying influence upon both France and Russia, for they both feel that Germany might be difficult to tackle unless the other Powers had us supporting them. Germany in the meantime shrinks from aggressive action—e.g. through Belgium, because it does not know whether or not we should vehemently oppose; and, if we did, their task would be doubled in difficulty. Hence the expediency of our not saying at present what we will or will not do. That was said on July 31, the day before Germany entered Luxembourg.

I do pray that our reticence and our deliberation will never in the future in a crisis be carried to such a point as that. For the rest I believe that the policy of the Government is perfectly straightforward. It is that we should keep our promises, but it is at the same time that we shall fight for no ascendency of any kind either in Western, Central or Eastern Europe; that while we are preparing for any attack we cannot see that as things are now there is any rational reason for war. It can be no one's interest to make war now, but if war should come it will come from mutual fear and common hysteria among nations. I pray that we may not make any contribution to the general dementia of the world.

LORD HIRST

My Lords, may I ask the indulgence of your Lordships to one who is making his first contribution to a debate in this House Like the noble Earl, Lord Moray, I have been waiting for two years for a suitable opportunity to take part in a discussion on a subject on which I believed myself competent to speak. I have since learned my limitations and I might have to wait much longer for that opportunity. I hope, therefore, that you will permit me to take part in this debate from a particular angle, speaking not for myself, but for organised industry, which I represent. I listened to the introductory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. He discussed the Motion from the point of view of politics and on that side I cannot be with him. He then discussed the question whether the armaments programme was comprehensive enough and whether it would be proceeded with in all haste. Other speakers in this House have since Expressed fears that we have not aeroplanes that are fast enough, that we have not bombs that are big enough, that we have insufficient research work in the Royal Air Force. All kinds of fears were uttered, but I feel sure that the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, the Secretary of State for Air, will be able to give an assurance that those fears are unjustified. I would like to confine myself to the methods of production which the Government have devised.

The Government had to take a very momentous decision. They had to decide with their better knowledge of the state of international affairs in Europe whether a war was imminent or whether, though there was a cloud looming above our heads, it was not likely to break upon us for some years. As we know, they decided in the latter sense. They were supported in that by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, and many other speakers. May I add that they are supported in that also by the man in the street who has a very curious, sound intuition in regard to anything that endangers the safety of this country. In consequence plans have been laid in a certain direction. Let us consider what would have happened if the Government had fallen victims to panic. They would have created a state of dislocation of industrial activity in this country that would have ruined all that we have worked for in the last few years. We have reduced unemployment, we have increased our resources and our wealth, we have gained prestige all over the world as the result of our achievements in restoring prosperity once more. The National Government contributed a very fair share towards that. All that would have gone to ruin at once. Instead of that, a plan has been proposed which allows, under conditions of peace, the production in the most efficient manner of the armaments which the country requires. I wish to assure you Lordships' House that industry as a whole is most anxious, regardless of material interests, to help the Government. Industrialists are very anxious that the Government in their programme should interfere as little as possible with the flow of business and particularly with export business, but if there should be a scarcity of raw material or of labour, so that the Government at any time thought it necessary to limit activities for private purposes, industry would understand and would gladly help. That message, I thought, might be of interest to your Lordships.

I have only one more word to say. We are speaking of armaments, and commonly one understands by the word "armaments" guns, ships and other dreadful things of that kind. We must realise that future wars do not mean the equipment of just so many sailors or soldiers. We learned towards the end of the last War that every single man and woman of the population is more or less conscripted to work for the defence of the country. If we are preparing for war, let us think not only of armaments in the strict sense but also of food, of clothing and of all kinds of things which the nation wants. Again I say: with every desire to help on armaments, with every effort that industry will make to assist the Government, do not interfere with the flow of the country's business, because we shall want every industry—with the exception, perhaps, of luxury industries—to be helpful and give us their full output in critical days. Speaking for industry, I say that every one of us wants to see the country strong, wants to see it sufficiently strong to defend the Empire and so strong that if we throw, our weight on one side, another side will be deterred from going to war.

EARL BEATTY

My Lords, may I also venture to ask for the indulgence of the House in making my first speech? I am very diffident in speaking to your Lordships in this very important debate and on the last day of it, but I hope that I may have some claim to refer to a matter which has been raised continually in your Lordships' House and in another place during the past fortnight in these Defence debates. I feel and have felt very strongly for some time on the dual control system of the Fleet Air Arm, and therefore I make no apology for raising this subject once again, very briefly, to your Lordships. I do so for two reasons. The first is a very personal one and I hope your Lordships will for give me for mentioning it. I am convinced that had my father, the late Lord Beatty, been alive to-day he would have fought hard on this point to obtain a separate Air Arm for the Royal Navy, and would have crossed swords once more with the noble and gallant Viscount who sits on the Cross Benches, as he did so very often in the past. My second reason is that, having served in the Navy myself, many of my contemporaries are now serving in the Fleet Air Arm, and the views of those who have loyally carried out their work in spite of the anomalous and sometimes ridiculous position in which they are placed by being under two heads, are perhaps worth some small consideration in your Lordships' House.

With regard to the first reason I only wish to make a very short remark, and that is to give your Lordships two quotations. In a speech last year Lord Beatty said: I n the early days, in arriving at the decision that it did, the Committee"— that was the Balfour Committee— held the view that the Navy was insufficiently air-minded to be entrusted with the development of this important integral part of the Navy's equipment. To-day the Navy is completely air-minded, and there is no part of the Navy to which more attention is paid and more efforts made to increase its efficiency. The other is a quotation from a letter to the Daily Telegraph of February 13 this year, a short time before he died. He said in this letter: It is in my recollection that Lord Salisbury, who arbitrated on the question of the relations between the Navy and the Air Force, made it clear that in his view ultimately the Fleet Air Arm may become a special branch of the Fleet in all respects like any other. The situation to-day is that we have had more than ten years' experience and the present system has failed. So, my Lords, it was obviously the wish of one who faithfully served the Royal Navy for a great number of years that a change should be made, and his opinion that perhaps this was an appropriate moment at which to make it.

Some hard things have been said on the subject of a Board threatening to resign when in opposition to a Government's views. I cannot think that a Board of Admiralty who would be willing to take that responsibility and to sacrifice their careers in the future by making such a gesture could on any account be accused of anything but a most sincere respect and regard for the Service in which they were serving. Perhaps it is as well to remember that not only was the leader responsible but it was the whole Board who had a very great deal to suffer—perhaps more than they would have in another service, or another profession, with which your Lordships are more familiar. Resignations in other services are not always quite so serious as they are in one of the three fighting Services.

Now as to the younger members of the Fleet Air Arm, there is no question that dissatisfaction exists among them. It is commonly thought that the necessary numbers of officers are easily obtained in the Navy and in the Air Force, and that we have only one anxious Service to look to, and that is the Army. But, in this branch of the Navy there is a very real anxiety to-day, because in the past the Fleet Air Arm has been supplied by volunteers from both Services, and last year and this year there has been a marked falling off in those volunteers. In fact, it is practically impossible to obtain the pilots that are required without strong coercion by senior officers in the Navy. That is a very serious position for this important branch to be in. There is one other point, which has already been mentioned by the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cork, in his speech yesterday—that the petty officers and noncommissioned officers in the Royal Navy have no chance at present. I believe, and am firmly convinced, that if they had that chance they would be willing to come forward in great numbers and take the same part as sergeant pilots do in the Air Force. Under the present system it is not possible for them to do so.

Now we turn to another point. The noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Trenchard, yesterday made a very powerful speech, and one which, no doubt, has carried a great deal of weight all over the country; but it seems to me that most of his arguments were based on visualising only one war, and that war a European war. Admittedly it is the most dangerous war which we have to face in this country, but if the Navy is to be efficient, and if the Navy has to see that all its branches are efficient, surely it has to be prepared to fight in all parts of the world. Therefore it is important to the Navy that its Fleet Air Arm should be sufficient in that respect. But not only does the Royal Air Force have the greatest responsibility in a European war, but the Navy also, because even in a European war, as was said yesterday, we have our arteries to look after and protect. It seems to me to be obvious that there is a dividing line between the Royal Air Force and the Navy in this direction, and that the responsibility for the administration and use of its own money and man-power must logically be put under the control of each separate Service.

The other impression left on my mind by the noble Viscount's speech, yesterday, was that he said that air work was much the same over land and sea. I agree with him that in respect of fighting it most certainly is the same whether you fight over the land or over the sea, but there is a very definite difference in the other duties such as bombing, reconnaissance and control of naval gunnery, as compared with the control of artillery ashore. Reconnaissance has to be taken up by pilots and observers who are able to distinguish between different types of warships, submarines and merchant vessels. I believe it is a very specialised service, and it cannot make for efficiency if the average time of Air Force officers who are seconded to the Fleet Air Arm is only two years.

I do not agree with what some noble Lords have said in the debate, that one can compare the United States Navy and the Japanese Navy and our own in numbers. It is obviously a matter of money with the United States that they are able to have a great many more machines than we have; but where I quarrel with those who believe that we are efficient is that our types of machines are no doubt behind those of other countries. I submit to your Lordships that it is very largely the fault of this dual system that they are, because the Admiralty, when they wish to get a new design, have to pass it through the Air Ministry before the Air Ministry are willing for the design to be put before tie Technical Board. That seems to me a very cumbersome machinery when so much depends upon it.

It was always the original intention to review the question in years to come. Even the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, himself agreed to a certain extent with that view, because in the Supplementary Air Estimates in 1919 the Chief of the Air Staff, then Lord Trenchard, published a long explanatory statement in which he included the forecast that "in addition there will be a small part of it (the Royal Air Force) specially trained for work with the Navy, and a small part for work with the Army; these two small portions becoming, in future, an Arm of the older Service." The noble Marquess on the seat below me subscribed to the same view, that in future, at some time, this question would have to be reviewed. My Lords, thirteen years ago the Fleet Air Arm was in proportion to the Royal Air Force much larger than it is to-day. Is not that in itself a condemnation of the system under which it is run to-day?

Now we are embarking upon a great expansion. Would it not be wiser, in view of this dissatisfaction which exists among junior and senior officers, that an inquiry should be made before rather than in the middle of or at the end of the expansion of these Services? This question has been raised, unfortunately or not. I know how difficult a subject it is, but I do feel most sincerely that if these two Services, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, are to give their proper services to this country in the future this grievance must be removed. I beg His Majesty's Government to see that an inquiry is made soon on this subject, which is vital for the future of the two Services, so that when a decision has been made it can be loyally obeyed by both Services, out of which we can then get all that is best for the good of this country and the Empire.

LORD RENNELL

My Lords, the pleasant duty has fallen upon me of expressing the admiration of the House for the speeches to which we have listened from noble Lords speaking here for the first time. I feel that the speech of Lord Hirst combined all that is best in a speech—pith and matter with brevity—and it is a great pleasure to me to be allowed to voice to him my congratulations. I am particularly pleased—I may say delighted—to be able also to express my congratulations to the son of a very old friend. It has given me the greatest pleasure to realise with what gravity, knowledge and lucidity Lord Beatty has placed his ideas before us, and I hope that we shall in the future have many opportunities of listening to his voice in your Lordships' House.

I will now turn to the matter of the Resolution. I am not going to contest the premises of my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, though I should have thought myself that the extent of the forces of the Crown—which I presume means their proper strength—would depend not so much on national policy as on safeguarding our own security at any given time. That is the only thing that I have to say about the defence part of the Motion. I pass on to foreign affairs, with which the Motion is combined. We do not often have occasion in this House for discussing them, and I came down with the intention of saying a good deal, but I have been told that there are many other speakers, and I do not wish to take up any undue time. All the same, I would like to make a few observations and to associate myself with the desire expressed in the Motion for more information on foreign affairs; and particularly I should like some explicit definition of the limits to our international commitments.

In default of any authoritative guidance on such matters, I have been for some time past engaged in trying to obtain the views of the average man in this country on foreign relations—the average man who now takes a very much deeper interest in these matters than he used in former times to do. I do not think I need dwell on a certain body of opinion, of which I gather my noble friend Lord Cecil has a certain knowledge—a group of people who consider that our own interests must be subordinate to our obligation to give moral lessons to the world. But in my experience I would like to say that I have encountered a very general and growing conviction, among non-politicians very largely and particularly among business men, that a very great national interest is involved in the restoration of cordial relations with Germany. At the same time, it would be idle to conceal that there is among such people as I have referred to a growing impatience with the intransigent attitude adopted on the other side of the Channel to a succession of advances which have been made, and a very considerable apprehension as to the possible implications of the recent Franco-Soviet military—or apparently military—understanding, which extends certainly beyond the framework of the League of Nations. The matter was dealt with, however, so fully by the noble Marquess who spoke from the Liberal Benches on Tuesday, that I need not go into that further. So much for the average man, as I meet him in many quarters.

On the other hand there is a very articulate group of elder statesmen, with a considerable following of younger politicians, which cannot accept recent developments in Germany as merely a response to the failure of other countries to implement their undertakings to disarm, or to the turning down of any advances made on their part. They seem to regard these developments merely as a calculated preparation for aggression. Between these two the policy of the Government seems to the average man to be somewhat indefinite. There are repeated pronouncements of a desire to arrive at a new Locarno Pact within what is called the framework of the League of Nations, which, as at present constituted, seems to him to frame comparatively little which inspires his confidence in the future co-operation of the Powers who may see their interests in abstention. He has therefore, I find, considerable sympathy with the attitude adopted by Belgium which, while recognising the duty of fulfilling certain obligations, has laid down very explicitly that there must be definite limits to those obligations. I find also a growing desire for a renewal of that old intimacy with Italy which until recently remained unbroken ever since the formation of the united Kingdom there.

My own modest contribution to this debate, in view of what I have said, would be to look for something more concrete and constructive, and to try to get away from clichés. For a number of ears past, almost everywhere where I have been year after year over the Continent of Europe, the only subject of conversation has been the imminence of war within three or six months. Here I think it is only more recently that the public and politicians have become so much oppressed with the sense of impending crisis. None the less, a great many years have passed, and there has been no open rupture. Governments, I think, can hardly fail to be aware that among the masses in every country there is a passionate desire for peace, and that is one of the reasons why I do not feel disposed to go so far as my noble friend Lord Lothian in the rather alarmist conclusion of his speech. In these circumstances it seems to me it might be well briefly to take stock of our position in relation to the other great Powers and, liberating ourselves from preconceptions and legacies of the Great War, to consider where our own real interests lie, and to make it clear, and in the first place to ourselves, what limits those interests impose on international commitments.

Well then, let us begin nearest home. Consider our common interests with France. Obviously in major issues the logic of things as they are makes it imperative that we should stand together. The freedom of the Channel is indispensable to both of us, and we could not ourselves regard with any indifference a menace to the security of our nearest neighbour. Again, we both of us have immense responsibilities in the Far East. In my opinion in both countries far too little attention is paid to the grave Asiatic problem which confronts us, on one side with a very active propaganda of Bolshevism—more attractive perhaps than anywhere else to less complex Asiatic minds—and on the other side the rapid political and economic development of a highly intelligent and very patriotic race all working like one man for a common end. That second common interest brings me to the third, which is the necessity for France and Great Britain to maintain open that great waterway which is the main artery of our communications with the East. Here are links which could not be broken without danger to ourselves and which to my mind need no pacts to rivet them; but if pacts there are to be, let us make it perfectly plain that they involve us in no obligations on account of alliances to which we are not a party.

The consideration of our relations with Italy and the Mediterranean follows in natural sequence. I am not going into past history beyond observing that it is made evident in an authoritative publication recently issued there that our attitude during the last two years has been gravely misunderstood or misrepresented. I had thought of sketching that point further and going into the reasons why, but I do not wish to take up too much of your Lordships' time, so I shall pass it over and merely give you the conclusion I have come to in that investigation—namely, that so far as the Government of this country is concerned there has been no quarrel between us, nor should there ever be so long as the freedom of our communications is not questioned. Great Britain, France, and in particular Italy have a common interest in untrammelled access arid freedom of passage. Surely the time is ripe for some concrete mutual recognition of this common interest. There are rumours—I do not know how far there is any truth in them—that some negotiations are already on foot, and the country would most certainly welcome definite leadership from the Government in that respect. I am personally not greatly enamoured of pacts, which by their nature seem to suggest behind them the existence of mistrust. But there are other ways of recording understandings, such as exchanges of notes, and no doubt diplomacy could find other measures besides.

We are invited to rest our hopes on collective security—a noble ideal; but in collective security, depending on an incomplete collectivity, I am afraid I have considerably lost faith. Does experience suggest that anyone is likely to fight our battles for us unless his interests happen to coincide with ours? I cordially welcome the announcement made by my noble friend the First Commissioner of Works that we were proposing to modify Article 11 of the Covenant, which requires unanimity in considering steps to counter or avert coming dangers. Unanimity, however, seems almost as remote as collective security. But when he tells us, what is perfectly true, that the League of Nations was not founded with the idea of encircling any one country, I can only remind your Lordships' House that none the less its institution was immediately followed by the formation within that body corporate of a bloc of nations having that end in view. There should to my mind still be a great function for the League of Nations to perform as a world's tribunal to pronounce judgment on international equities.

But to return to the situation more directly affecting ourselves. I have always based my appreciation of foreign issues, and probable action resulting from them, on the real interests at stake, and I ask myself what interest could Germany have in attacking France. But for those imponderable circumstances which may arise from new pacts and new alliances it should be possible to eliminate that bugbear of apprehension which has so long stood in the way of appeasement. That was, it would appear, primarily responsible for a, to my mind unfortunate questionnaire being substituted for a welcoming reply to certain proposals from Herr Hitler which seemed to me worthy of very serious consideration. Such consideration has in consequence now it seems been indefinitely shelved, and meanwhile new occasions of friction continue to arise.

I sometimes feel that my countrymen fail to realise that different peoples with different temperaments and different conditions must approach what they believe to be their salvation from quite different angles, very different to ourselves, with our tradition of so many centuries of Parliamentary government. Those who witnessed the chaotic conditions that supervened in Italy after the Great War, and the rapid progress made by subversive propaganda, might have seen a Fascist movement gathering strength to resist before the present Chief of the State co-ordinated it and made it into a national movement. Those who knew Germany, as I did, under the old Bismarckian régime, and then realised the terrible conditions prevailing there after the Great War, with a disillusioned and disconcerted people, and who contrast them with the conditions of the present day, with a new and more democratic spirit, with the healthy co-operation of all classes in making sacrifices for a national revival, can appreciate what drastic revolutionary methods might have been necessary to bring this about. Their leaders have, however, understood that armaments alone are not enough, but that you must build up the physique and nerve of a people, more especially to enable them to resist such panics as may be induced by new engines of warfare.

Although their methods are not our methods—that is their own affair—it is not excluded that we may appreciate and admire much that they are doing. Do not let us make a bugbear of a name whether it be Nazi or Fascist. Without some compelling co-ordinating drive such as has taken place I doubt whether either of those countries could have survived impending anarchy. The tradition of this country has always, we say it in all thankfulness, resented compulsion, but we ourselves have accepted compulsory education because we believe it to be for our own good, and yet we seem to jib at compulsory physical training which, as the early Greeks taught so long ago, is an essential function of education. To many of us to-day all these questions sink into insignificance beside the vital issue of bringing the four great Powers of Western Europe into line to form a bulwark against forces which work surreptitiously to undermine the bases of Western civilisation. Twenty years or even ten of assured peace and good will would do very much to establish solid foundations for reconstruction.

Cannot we then, who have been the fiat to achieve economic revival, take the lead and by re-establishing as quickly as possible cordial relations with Germany and Italy create a moral force in Europe from which I cannot believe the great French nation would readily dissociate itself. Let us have done with preconceptions and recriminations and start afresh. We have ourselves, I hope, learned one great lesson, and that is that you cannot govern the world by sentiment. When we have made our strength as appreciable as our good will then we shall realise the full value of our influence for peace and conciliation in this distracted world.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, I should like at the outset to associate myself with the compliments that have been pa id to the two noble Lords who have spoken for the first time in this House to-day, and to repeat what others have said, that we shall hope to hear them speak often in contributions to our debates. If I might, I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, on what I thought was the remarkably statesmanlike speech which he made on Tuesday. It is a curious thing that in another place the speech made by his colleague Mr. Attlee seemed to me—I read his speech carefully—to be almost the only one on the day he made it which lifted the whole of the Defence debate in that House on to a higher and more Imperial plane. I have always maintained that in the rank and file of the Labour Party there is to be found a wealth of great Imperialists. Therefore I am glad to see that on this vitally important question of Imperial Defence they are being led by two people who have got the essentials of Imperial strategy very closely at heart.

A very eloquent plea was made the other day in The Times by its distinguished military correspondent. He pleaded for greater clarity of thought and precision as to what uses cur Army was to be put in another war, should any ever come about. The Defence White Paper of March last, as your Lordships remember, gave three main functions for the Army. One was the garrisoning of our oversea possessions and naval bases. The second was home defence including anti-aircraft defence under which comes internal defence and security). The third was the provision of an Expeditionary Force for use abroad wherever such action might be desired. This was obviously intended to be in support of any Continental obligations that we have. It was a definition of the use of our Army which might have been made any time in the last hundred years, and shows, as I venture to suggest, far too little recognition of the complete change which modern warfare has undergone since 1914.

It would be a truism to say, as I heard said the other day, that the next war will be as different from the war of 1914 as the war of 1914 was from the war of 1814 and as the war of 1819 was from the war of 1614. Every European war of which we have had experience up till now has been in the nature of a slow inundation. The last one was. We were considerably better prepared in 1914 than we are to-day; yet we were very little prepared. It took us nearly two years to get our forces into being. As we know, it involved the sacrifice of the very rower of our youth before we could really get our defences in order. Since air power has been born there will be no warning, no tap on the shoulder. The full blast will come swiftly in a moment. It will come not as an inundation, slowly, but as an explosion. The enemy's object must be to detonate panic by striking both at the nerves and at the bodies of the civil population.

What nation which is supreme in the air can for a moment forgo the use of so potent a weapon for creating panic if it can, if I may use the expression, be sure of cashing in with the panic once created? That surely can be the only meaning of the vast array of armaments that are being piled up on the Continent. That also can be the only meaning of the enormous emphasis which Continental peoples, particularly the Germans, are laying upon the discipline, the mental, physical and bodily discipline, of the civil population, knowing as they do that in the struggle of nerves which a new war must mean panic is the greatest danger, and that those best equipped in nerves are most likely to win. We have to remember that in the last War only 300 or 400 tons of bombs were dropped on London in the four years; yet the Italians in about as many months dropped 1,700 tons of bombs and 1,900 tons of food supplies in their recent campaign.

It seems to me that His Majesty's Government have not shown in their actions or in the speeches they have made enough recognition of the enormous importance—I was interested to hear my noble friend who has just spoken make the same point—of the vital necessity of discipline, physical and mental, in the nation. Mr. Baldwin discourses about democracy being two years behind dictatorship. That in itself shows a complete lack of recognition of the swiftness with which a calamity may come upon us and deal a deadly blow. It may not be two years, it may not be two months, it may possibly not be two weeks in which that blow will come upon us. "Two years time lag!" These are the kind of expressions which occasion us anxiety and alarm. It is possible, as the noble and gallant Viscount yesterday told us, that an enemy could rain bombs upon us, upon a crowded city, and not only on one city. After all, the terror-striking propensities of the air are not the only power that will be used. Surely in a beleaguered garrison island like ourselves enormous attention will be brought to paralysing every port where our food is loaded and unloaded, not because the ships will not be able to enter or emerge from the ports—no air power could completely stop that—but because air attack could make it impossible to load or unload the ships. No workmen, however good their morale, could in face of constant bombing with gas and explosives carry on their work in discharging the cargoes of ships.

Therefore it is that I have ventured on more than one occasion, and I am going again to-day, to make a plea for a definite declaration from the Government as to what they are doing in relation to both food production and food storage in case of war. I do not want to repeat the facts and the figures that I have already brought before your Lordships several times. Those facts and figures we put before the Government when a few of us were received by the Prime Minister as a deputation last July, and I propose to put them before the Government again when we meet the Government next week. From that time to this we have had no reply from the Government as to what measures they are taking to provide in this country proper supplies of food so as to relieve our military forces from the enormous labour of food convoys in the early months of a war.

The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, in his reply, told us definitely, if I remember rightly, that nothing was going to be done. If we had command of the seas, said he, it was unnecessary and superfluous, and if we had not command of the seas it was useless. I ventured at that time, as I would remind your Lordships to-day, to say how frivolous was that reply. There is really no other word for it. It is in order to retain command of the sea and liberate our depleted Navy for other functions that we desire to have food stored. The other reply, that if we concentrated food supply in storages those would be vulnerable to the enemy, does not stand any close examination. You are as well able to scatter food storage units as to scatter port facilities, which the Government are now doing. Thereby you would gain not only food supplies, but, what is very important, there would be a great strengthening of the country's morale if the people felt that they had behind them six or eight months' supply of food to carry them over the early dangers of a new war.

May I now turn your Lordships' attention for a few moments to one or two observations in regard to the Army? The public realise, I am afraid, terribly little of the weakness of our Regular and Territorial forces and of their equipment. The facts are known to every foreign Government, and I am not going to say anything which has not been published over and over again; but I want the Government to tell us what they are really doing in this particular matter. Your Lordships will remember that last autumn two-thirds of the fifth division were hurriedly sent out to Egypt during the Abyssinian crisis, and this September the first division less its artillery was sent out in similar manner in consequence of the Palestine crisis. Even for this tiny force sent overseas men and equipment were completely lacking. For the equipment of this tiny force the Army had to be stripped, for instance, of all its signal personnel, both brigade and divisional. We had to take personnel from all sorts of places. To make up one large sized tank battalion the whole Tank Brigade had to be stripped of all its modern tanks, all its wireless and a large proportion of its gun mountings. I only mention these things to show how terribly grave is the shortage of equipment when even for a portion of a division there were no essentials in the way of gun mountings and other things.

Take the position to-day in regard to tanks. Your Lordships will remember that we were the inventors of the tank and we were the greatest tank Power at the end of the war both in the actual number of tanks and in design. Now our situation in that respect is as inferior as that of our arms in most other respects. We sent 100 modern light tanks to Egypt a few months ago. We sent about all we had, and at the time of the autumn manoeuvres this year certainly they had not been replaced. I should like to ask the noble Lord who is going to reply if he will tell me to-day whether those modern light tanks have been yet replaced, and if not, when they are likely to be replaced. We have no modern medium tanks at all. All we have, so I am informed—I hope the noble Lord wi11 correct me if I am wrong—are tanks of the 1923 model, and only about 100 of them. The 1923 model is quite unfit for war and barely fit for use in practice in peace time parades. It is estimated that Russia has probably five to six thousand tanks, but our equipment is what I have told you. In Bren guns and anti-tank guns I am informed— again may I ask for information—that production is more in arrear now than when the Government spoke about them last March. I hope the noble Lord will be able to correct me on that.

We had a particularly interesting speech from the noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, in regard to recruiting. I should like, if I may, to make one or two suggestions on that score. What are the Government really going to do about recruiting? We have been told very frankly by the noble Earl yesterday how ill is the situation with regard to it. Far from improving, it is not even static but is getting worse. We are getting so used to these alarming and dangerous statements that we scarcely realise the fullness of their significance. It is the gravest thing that a country can be told that its manhood is not joining its Regular Army. Yet it is clear from the recruiting returns of the Navy and the Air Force that it is not entirely, if at all, military service that deters the men, but the particular conditions in one branch of that Service—namely, the Regular Army, and, to a certain extent, the Territorial Army. I believe there are a great many reasons for that. I will suggest one or two, and perhaps the noble Lord will tell us whether he concurs with any of them and whether anything can be done on the lines suggested.

The first thing is that as long as we retain the voluntary system we must have an improvement in pay, so that the men are well paid, and we must see that when they come in they are cared for in a quite different way from that which prevailed twenty years ago. I do not mean any luxuries, but I will give you one or two instances. I have consulted with many people in. the Army, officers and others, and one of the things that the recruit finds most unbearable to-day—he is, after all, a very highly educated person—is the excess of drudgery and fatigues, which deter the young recruit who comes in keen and who desires to do his training, get ahead with it and become a soldier. He is constantly put on, under the old system, to very dull and unnecessary fatigues, which could be carried out equally well if the proposal were adopted which has been made—it is not a novel one, but was before your Lordships' House several years ago, I know—that there should be labour companies into which older men of less good physical standard could be enrolled. These would give the older men suitable employment and leave the young recruit to learn to be a soldier. He would not be kept carting manure round and cleaning out the yards when he wants to learn how to fight and defend his country.

Then there is the old question of irritation at constant deductions from pay. A recruit is told when he conies into the Army that he is going to get 14s. a week, but in fact he very rarely gets more than 10s., and there are other stoppages as well. The other day, when the War Office brought in a new regulation—which was a popular one—allowing the men to wear blues, what they gave, or seemed to give, with the right hand they took away with the left. It was found then that the wearing of blues was a luxury for the rich and that the soldier bad to pay for them himself. That caused a great deal of depression. Seriously, my Lords, if there is a uniform in the Army the Government should pay for it, so that there may be uniformity of opportunity for wearing these clothes. Other restrictions which were enormously discouraging to the interest of the soldier in the Army were at once instituted. For instance, when they had the blues, the Fifth Dragoon Guards, or some other cavalry regiment, wished on their blues to wear their shoulder-chains, but that wish was refused. Surely, if you want to make the Army attractive you must give to the individual soldier and to his regiment as many personal distinctions—what are known in slang terms as "regimental quiffs"—as you possibly can. A stripe down the uniform, some distinguishing mark or family difference which gives the soldier or his unit a family feeling, is always popular in the British Army. If you allow cavalry to wear their overalls with their blues instead of slacks or distinguishing badges on their blues, and so on, you will humanise the Army and do a very great deal for recruiting. Moreover, vocational training ought to be given free in the Army, which I understand is not entirely free. A soldier who goes into the Army and wants to come, out of it ought to have his vocational training, while he is in the Army, entirely free.

The question of service abroad is at present causing a great deal of discontent. That is not because the soldier does not want to go abroad; he is generally keen to go abroad; but to-day he does not want to be kept a great many years abroad. The men dislike it much more than they did, and I should have thought it could have been arranged that either the service abroad should be shorter in number of years or else, if it must be maintained at the present or at greater length, that a man should be given an opportunity of coming home once in his period. There is great annoyance, I know, right through the Army at a little notice at the bottom of the recruiting form. A man enlists for seven years, and printed at the bottom of the recruiting form is a little notice saying that he may be held for eight. A man feels rather swindled if he is kept for his eight, and most of the men recently have for obvious reasons been kept for eight. Surely, a man ought to be able to know definitely what his term of service abroad is likely to be, and that term should be adhered to.

Finally, there is a question which I think is more operative than any of those to which I have referred, and that is the assurance of employment when the man comes out of the Army. It is inevitable, whether in the Air Force or in the Army, that a man's service should be likely to come to an end just when he is too old to compete with his fellows who have not been in the Army and when he is therefore at a disadvantage. The moment when he is just wanting to marry and settle down and be in a solid job, is the moment when he is pitched out of the Army or out of the Air Force, and he is handicapped. It very often occurs—I think the noble Lord will agree with me—that a man comes back from a term of foreign service and completes his service immediately. He has not been in touch with anybody at home all the years he has been away, and then he is out of a job for a long time to come. It seems to me that a man should always be brought home a few months before the time of his discharge so that he may intensify his vocational training at home and, before he leaves the Army, have a few months in his own country to look round for a job and get settled down.

Then there is the question of the Territorial Force. I should like to ask the noble Lord if my facts are correct in what I am going to say. We all know that the Government have recently converted several battalions of Territorial infantry into anti-aircraft units. What happened? These were converted in fact long before there was any equipment. The men who joined them joined up very keen to take part in a new form of defence which they felt was—one might use the word "topical," but at any rate absolutely necessary at this moment. They come in, the battalion is converted, and they find that they have absolutely no means of training at all. They have no equipment ready to train them. Enthusiasm goes; their fellows are discouraged, and they do not come in.

Perhaps I had better not give the number, though I believe it is known, but there are a considerable number of anti-aircraft depots in several sections, of which, for instance, perhaps the most important is from Portsmouth to the Wash. I need not emphasise their importance and the speed with which they need to be equipped. I am told that the anti-aircraft guns are not ready yet nor likely to be ready for a considerable time. But, more than that, my information—I hope it is not correct —is that not one brick has been laid of a single one of the establishments, certainly on the Portsmouth-Wash section. Why not? If that is the case, it appears that when the guns are eventually ready they will be cluttering up the works because there will be nowhere to put them, as the establishment has not yet been built. I should like to ask the noble Lord if he can tell us whether that is true, what progress is being made in this particularly vital branch of our home defence, and in fact to give us as much information as he possibly can. I only mention this because it will be seen how much there is, in small details, that could be done with some imagination to encourage recruiting and to make people feel that they really were taking part in a live show and in the active defence of their country.

Before I sit down I want to make some remarks upon the general situation. Here we have the noble Lord, Lord Rankeillour, deprecating at the opening of his speech any remarks being made which would cause alarm at the present time. I think he is right. On the other hand, he will realise that we are all in the same dilemma. The country has been brought into a grave state of peril and is practically entirely unprepared, and we have either to keep silence and say nothing about it, which I am sure is not the duty of a Member of Parliament, or we have with reasonable discretion to speak clearly, find out what is being done and support the Government in what they do. I am not one of those who think that the people of this country cannot stand being told the truth. I believe it is only by telling the truth frankly and fairly that we shall get them behind us, insisting upon the Government carrying out the necessary defensive measures.

What are the facts to-day? Here we have an Army denuded of men without even the minimum requirements in machine guns, tanks, anti-aircraft guns and searchlights. I would like to ask how many anti-aircraft guns of a modern type there are in London to-day. Nor have any adequate measures of any kind what- ever been undertaken for either food storage or production, and on that I am going to speak frankly because I believe it is necessary. This is the situation for which Mr. Baldwin has to answer to the country to-day. He has for years been in complete and unchallenged authority and power. No Prime Minister in history has ever had a greater draught of confidence given to him nor enjoyed greater majorities. It is equally true, and no one in this House or country could deny it, that no Prime Minister has ever led England into such peril so utterly unprepared as we are to-day. I believe that there is no hope of the country succeeding in rearming unless it is led with vigour and activity and unless that activity finds expression in every department of the State.

Mr. Baldwin has recently pleaded that, although he was aware of the gravity of the danger of the situation since 1933—and he confessed the other day in a notable speech that the Government were very worried about the situation—he could not act because he had no mandate. I, and I believe your Lordships also will absolutely refuse to accept that novel and most un-English doctrine of mandate. The Prime Minister of this country every moment of the day or night has always not only a mandate but an inescapable duty to do anything at any moment to secure the safety of the realm, and no Minister of the Crown has the smallest light at any time to excuse himself for not seeing to the security of the country by saying that the people did not know or care about it. Nor does it come well from Mr. Baldwin that there should be this delicacy about mandates because my mind goes back to another controversy—namely, about India, when the Government went straight ahead and the country was never consulted.

But the Prime Minister had a mandate: he had the strongest mandate to re-arm in 1933 that any Prime Minister could possibly have. I speak with certainty on the matter because I myself proposed a resolution at Birmingham in full Party Conference, and we carried by a vast majority that resolution, not only supporting the Prime Minister but imploring the Prime Minister to see to our defences and make them sure. If that is not a mandate, what is? No Prime Minister can have the whole of the country with him. There must be a minority, but Mr. Baldwin had the greatest majorities and the entire support of his Party at the Party Conference. Again, next year at Bristol I proposed the same resolution and it was carried unanimously, and for the third time the same thing was carried, with one dissentient only, at Bournemouth. What Prime Minister could have greater evidence of the great support of the country in rearmament at such a juncture?

My Lords, so far back as 1933 the Prime Minister and other members of the Government admitted deficiencies, and right through the years 1933 and 1934 there were statements, sometimes soothing the country, sometimes admitting dangers, until the other day we had the statement from Mr. Baldwin that he could not act because of the deduction that he had made from the Fulham by-election that the country was not with him. It is honest and active leadership which this country needs just as much now as in time of war, and it is that which we must have. Surely knowing the danger in 1933 after the Fulham by-election—I do not think that by-election was lost for the reasons which Mr. Baldwin thought—it was the Prime Minister's duty and the duty of every Minister of the Crown to go on the public platforms of this country and tell the people what the dangers were and not to blame the people of this country for not following him. I believe it is the greatest libel he could commit on the people of this country. In 1914, although we were only partially prepared, the people of this country responded on an oblique issue and fought for four years, and I believe they would do the same thing to-day. But for four years and more the Prime Minister has been preaching pacifism and League of Nations' doctrines to the people. How can you expect the people, who for years have been assured that they can safely hide behind pacts or protocols, to see the need for rearmament?

It is because the people are to-day realising the danger that the leaders are following and are telling the people what they should do. The country is getting more and more anxious and alarmed. I believe individual Ministers are doing all they can, but the country needs leadership and active teaching. When, for instance, have the leaders in this country ever gone on the public platforms and told the youths of this country what their duties might be, or told the employers what their duties were towards those who volunteered. It is those things which we need to-day in leadership, and I hope the noble Viscount who leads the House, when he replies for the Government, will tell us now that active leadership will supervene upon these months of darkness and delay.

THE UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL)

My Lords, you will be aware that the final task of winding up the debate falls upon the Leader of the House, and I only rise to give an answer to certain specific questions which were directed to me as representative of the War Office in your Lordships' House. The first question to which I should like to draw your attention was that put in his opening speech by Lord Strabolgi, who really asked, in short, what was the purpose of the British Army. Your Lordships' House, I know, is aware of the great variety of Imperial obligations for the discharge of many of which outside this country the Army is really a mobile police force. I think the short answer to that question is one which was given elsewhere the other day by the First Lord of the Admiralty—that the Army is really an all-purpose force available as an instrument of intervention on the Continent or elsewhere, as may be dictated by the policy of the Government; and that answer was embroidered, also elsewhere, in a speech by the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, when ho pointed out that the full and efficient protection of this country and of the Empire may undoubtedly require Continental intervention, whether it be with others in the maintenance of collective security, or it may be in alliance with somebody as the result of unprovoked aggression. At any rate there is a small force at home which must be ready to go anywhere as our Imperial interests require, and it is the duty of the Staffs to prepare that force for every eventuality and climate in which it may have to operate.

I pass to the more general question of recruiting, which, as one would expect, has exercised your Lordships' attention in the course of this debate. The first thing I want to do is to try to dispel a certain amount of doubt and disappointment that may have been caused by the misconstruction of some of the figures which were given in your Lordships House yesterday. The real position on November 1 with regard to the Territorial Army was that there was a deficit of 41,984 other ranks. But that does not take account of the fact that there has been a marked improvement in Territorial recruiting in the last few months, with which I hope to deal later. If recruiting continues at its present rate, the intake for the current financial year will be about 40,000 and the deficit on March 1 next year should only be in the neighbourhood of 46,000. I want to make it quite clear to your Lordships that the reason why that figure is not lower is the fact that in the course of this year and of the coming year we have had to increase the establishment of the Territorial Army by the formation of those Territorial anti-aircraft divisions, about which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, has just spoken.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Will the noble Lord state what the actual deficiency would be, even making allowance for the distinction which he has just made? Can he tell us so that we shall exactly know not merely what the actual deficiency is, having regard to the increased establishments, but what it would have been if the establishments had not increased.

LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL

That, I think, is the figure I just gave to the noble Marquess. Without the increase it would be in the neighbourhood of 40,000, but the larger figure, which was given in your Lordships' House yesterday, is due to the fact of the continual increase of the establishments, some of which have not yet taken place, but which will take place by the end of the financial year.

Now I think this is a moment at which I might well give a brief answer to the noble Marquess who raised in this debate the question of the Militia. Your Lordships will all be aware of the interest that the noble Marquess has always taken in this question, and of the very powerful plea that he made yesterday in the Press on its behalf. I think the real position is that since the days of the South African War and since the days of the initiation of the Territorial Force by Lord Haldane, our requirements have changed so far that it is now, I think, generally agreed that what we want is a regular Field Force and the means of bringing it to mobilisation strength and of maintaining it in the field. We want also a means of expanding that force, and we need a, force for home defence. The two latter are, or will be in a national emergency, the function of the Territorial Army. The reserves for the Regular Army, that is, the Regular Field Force, consist of the Army of Reserve and a Supplementary Reserve. There is clearly, I think, no place in this organisation for the old home defence Militia, and the case for reviving it would seem to rely more or less on a resuscitation of the Special Reserve. But I think the answer to that is that our present reserve organisation provides not only the men that we want, but gives us much better value for money. The old Militia system was, and would be to-day, very expensive in overhead charges, establishment, permanent staff, and that sort of extra charge which comes when any such change as that is made.

And of course there is another point—what one might call a psychological point. The old Militia was recruited from a section of the country, the country gentleman and casual country labourer, as I think was pointed out in his speech by the noble Marquess, who were able and willing to train for a short time. But I think to-day that type is ceasing to exist. With the mechanisation of agriculture and changes there, there is no longer a large class of country lads who could get work at sowing and at harvest and at other times. Their number is not now a large one, and when they are not working at such employments I regret to say that they probably live on their unemployment benefit. Those who do exist are now catered for by the new Infantry Supplementary Reserve, which was established this year with an establishment of 17,000, recruiting for which only began two months ago.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Might I intervene in order to clarify the matter to the House? The establishment of this Supplementary Reserve is 17,OOO. Well, that is trivial. The Militia numbered at the end 70,000. I want the noble Lord to tell us: Is it suggested that these 17,000—of which they have got. I think, something under 1,000 now—are afterwards to be expanded to be as big as the old Militia was? If not, it is no substitute.

LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL

I think the noble Marquess misunderstood me. I was endeavouring to point out that the new Supplementary Reserve does provide an outlet for those country people who care to join it, other than those who would, we hope, join the Territorial Force. The Territorial Force is the main reserve to-day for home defence, but this new Supplementary Reserve has, as the noble Marquess said, only 850 men so far. But I think that when you consider that recruiting has only gone on for two months, one of which was harvest month, while the month of October is the month when people are coming back from holidays, taking up a. new job, that is not a bad start. At any rate, we are satisfied, I think, in our own minds that with a Territorial Force increasing in numbers as it is to-day, we have got the nucleus of a force which will serve our purpose in the years to come.

Now I think I should deal with a question which was addressed to me by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, dealing with the position of an unemployed man at camp. I think he quoted a case, or what he took to be a case, in which an unemployed man was out of pocket as the result of going to camp. It is true that an unemployed man who goes to camp is, for the purpose of the law which covers unemployment benefit, in employment, and therefore men drawing military pay during the fortnight of Territorial training are not eligible for benefit. It was exactly that situation which was brought to the notice of the Secretary of State for War last year, and he took the trouble to introduce in the Estimates for the Army provisions where by it was ensured that no man would be out of pocket as a result of going to camp. That was done partly by reducing the age for marriage allowance from 26 to 21 and partly by an increase in pay, so that now we can say with safety and certainty that there is no case in which there is a financial loss to an unemployed man through attendance at camp. If the noble Lord has any specific case which makes it appear I am wrong in making that statement I should be very much obliged if he would pass the details of it to me privately so that I may look into them.

The noble Lord also asked me to make a special point of dealing with the experiment shown in the film of dropping troops behind the line by means of parachutes. I also had the privilege of seeing that film, which was certainly a very impressive one, and I would like to assure the noble Lord that the War Office is considering the relative values of that experiment, but before spending an undue proportion of money on it, it wants to be quite sure what success foreign Governments have achieved with this method. It is worth while pointing out, incidentally, that while the Russian film of the 1935 manoeuvres, which I saw, and which doubtless the noble Lord also saw, showed tanks and artillery being dropped behind the lines by parachute, in the subsequent film of the 1936 manoeuvres we were only shown, I think, troops being dropped behind by parachute.

Now I come to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, who asked a great many questions about recruiting. All I can say to him at once is that all these matters have been, as he can well guess, engaging our attention for some time, and that the Secretary of State hopes very shortly to be able to announce certain measures which we hope will remedy the distinctly unfavourable position in regard to recruiting to the Regular Army. The noble Lord represented the difficulties of foreign service, of which we are well aware, and he mentioned also certain difficulties in regard to pay and discipline. We are, I assure him, doing our best to make changes there when and as they become possible. With regard to the question of uniform which he mentioned, I am authorised to state that the Secretary of State hopes that those detachments of the Territorial Army who will be present at His Majesty's Coronation next year will be equipped with blue uniforms at the Government expense. One of the main difficulties in regard to recruiting, of course, is the question which Lord Lloyd raised—namely, the question of employment after a man leaves the Army. Undoubtedly the value of the Army vocational centres cannot be overestimated. It seems probable that if we extend the Army vocational centres we shall automatically be able to make it more likely and more possible for men to find jobs when they leave the Service.

We are endeavouring, and have been endeavouring for some time past, to encourage all employers to make it attractive and feasible for men to attend camp, and I think it would be wrong for me, standing here, not to acknowledge the fact that in a great many instances all over the country employers have made it possible for their men to go to camp, They have provided them with wages for that period, and have given every possible encouragement to men who are anxious and willing to serve their country in that way. We, for our part, have had to recognise the difficulty which employers have naturally represented to us that at times it may be awkward for men to leave for camp all at the same time from one big works. The camping season is usually in July, August and September. The War Office is now engaged in working out a scheme whereby it may be possible for men employed in big works, instead of going to an annual camp, which would of course be more desirable, to go to train at a depot with regular troops at any time of the year which will suit them and their employers in lieu of camp. That is a step which we hope will help both the employer and the employee.

The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, asked me a great many questions about equipment for the Army, but beyond telling him that we are working on a settled programme, and reminding him of the assurance given elsewhere by the Prime Minister that that programme is going ahead smoothly, I am afraid I am not in a position to give him any details. He asked me a specific question about light tanks, and all I am in a position to say about that is that orders have been placed for such light tanks as we want.

LORD LLOYD

I do not press the noble Lord; it may not be in the public interest for him to say; but can be tell us anything about anti-aircraft depots on the coast?

LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL

I was just coming to that matter. That was the last point I wished to mention to your Lordships. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, did mention the question of anti-aircraft depots by which I understand him to mean depots more particularly in the southern area of the Kingdom. He used the expression from Portsmouth to the Wash, where, as the result of our having to convert infantry battalions, we have had to find new headquarters and new sites for the antiaircraft companies so formed. I can only tell your Lordships that this has resulted in our having to find something like twenty-nine new drill halls. For ten of these sites have been acquired, but I cannot give the noble Lord or the House any comfort about the progress which has been made in building them, except to say that we have been making a special endeavour during the last few months to hurry up this work. The difficulty, as your Lordships will be aware, is to acquire land in those areas, which may have been already built up by new housing schemes and so forth. I hope the House will accept that statement as all I can say to-day. The noble Lord must, I am sure, be disappointed that I cannot give him more details, but as he himself suggested a moment or two ago it would not be in the public interest for me to do so.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

My Lords, it has been observed throughout the debate that the discussion can be regarded from two aspects, the one political and the other technical. I am obliged to say a word on the former, because at an early part of the debate the speech which was made from these Benches by my noble friend Lord Lothian has been animadverted upon by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, who I think is not now in the House, and also by the noble Lords, Lord Rankeillour and Lord Rennell. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, was apparently under the impression that my noble friend Lord Lothian, who is not, here having had to retire to his northern fastness, had altogether abandoned adhesion to the League of Nations, and had seemed in fact inclined to serve under the banner of another noble Lord, who is not, I am told, now in the country, Lord Beaverbrook, as an apostle of the isolation of this country.

I think the attitude of my noble friend was entirely misapprehended by the noble Viscount on the Gross Benches (Viscount Cecil). What Lord Lothian did was to lay emphasis on the fact, and it is a fact, that the constitution, and the application of the constitution, of the League of Nations has broken down whenever a great Power has been concerned so far. I will not dwell on the question of Japan, because it is a long story and there are two sides to it, but we all know what happened in the case of Abyssinia, because His Majesty's Government have fully stated the part that they played in the matter. They came forward suitably attired in sackcloth and covered with ashes. Unhappily it has to be admitted that the case of Abyssinia and the case of its Ruler would have been less hard than they are if the League of Nations had never existed at all. That is a most deplorable fact, and for it His Majesty's Government have to bear their share of responsibility, and it is not a small share. But it is, I believe, the firm intention of His Majesty's Government, so far as they can, to help in amending the constitution of the League of Nations and, so far as they can succeed in doing so, to make it impossible that there can be a repetition of those unhappy circumstances.

Time is short, and I know the noble Viscount who leads the House has to leave early; therefore I will not go into any details, but I understand that it is the hope of His Majesty's Government that the constitution of the League will be amended in certain respects—that is to say, by modifying the rule of unanimity in Article 11 and also by making modifications in Article 19 dealing with possible changes in the territorial settlement of Europe. But obviously the most difficult crux is that connected with Article 16 of the Covenant. If I remember rightly the second paragraph of that Article deals with the contribution to be made by Members of the League in the event of military operations having to be undertaken. It is quite clear that any alteration made in the complete freedom which the Covenant of the League gives at present in that respect becomes a most delicate matter. In my view the one hope in this respect is that the great Powers should agree to a far freer system of mutual inspection of their resouces than exists at present. I know it is a very difficult matter to persuade the Staffs of the different Services to advance far in that respect. I am certain that will be confirmed by anybody who has had to do with any of the Services in the past. But in the present absence of the possibility of instituting a system of world police such as some of my noble friends have so often advocated, it seems to me that it is on a system of inspection that you will have to rely. I have raised this matter merely in order to show that it is by no means the case, when His Majesty's Government go forward with attempts to improve and strengthen the League of Nations, that they will not receive support from the Party represented on these Benches.

There are one or two technical matters on which I should have been glad to say a word, especially with regard to the Home Services and the Territorial Force, because there are so many members of your Lordships' House who are either Presidents or Chairmen or both of Territorial and Air Force Associations. I feel that the question of the defences of this country, which are so greatly-wrapped up with the existence of the Territorial Force, are of special interest to this House, but I am not going to attempt to go into any detail on these points which were set forward with so much spirit and force by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, and to which the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, gave an answer. How far the noble Lord's answer on the subject of recruiting was satisfactory I confess I do not quite like to say. I was not entirely convinced by its validity. I hope I may be wrong, because this matter of recruiting, and in particular as regards recruiting for the Territorial Army of which I know most, appears to me to be a very grave question indeed, because our modern manners and way of life and the general tastes and attitude of all classes in this country seem to me to be adding greatly to this difficulty of recruiting for the national services. However, I do not want to stress this point. I would merely add that we must all regard this as having been a most useful and serviceable debate, and I hope your Lordships have been struck, as I have been, by the dignity and restraint with which it has been carried on all through.

LORD SNELL

My Lords, it may be well at the beginning of the few words that I shall venture to address to your Lordships to-night to recall your attention to the words of the Motion that is on the Paper. The Motion was designedly put in very wide terms so as to give an opportunity to His Majesty's Government, so far as they could do so, to take the country into their confidence, to give a frank explanation of their policy in regard to foreign affairs and the purpose for which they are asking that increased armaments should be given, the purpose for which the country is to be asked to bear a very serious financial burden, and also so that they might declare their attitude towards the League of Nations. The noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, complained of the wideness of the Motion. There is, as your Lordships will note, no word of condemnation or even criticism of His Majesty's Government in the Motion, which only shows how very difficult His Majesty's Government are to please.

There has been a good deal said on the technical side of the questions that this Motion covers, but on the political side, to which we attach the very greatest importance, very little has been said. It is my duty to press that side upon the attention of His Majesty's Government. If the Government are expecting the support of the Labour Party in their policy, some explanation of what their policy is likely to be in the future may be regarded as a necessity. We have not approached and we do not approach this problem in any narrow or carping spirit. We are content to sit and watch the Government suffering vivisection at the hands of their sometimes peevish and irritable friends. But we have reservations nevertheless of a very vital character which cannot be removed either by any haughty contempt or complete silence.

What is the Labour Party's standpoint in this matter? The noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, last night said that if we came down here defending the policy of Edinburgh, he should very seriously have quarrelled with us and attacked us What is wrong with the policy of Edinburgh? Let me read to your Lordships the decision: We will maintain such defence forces as are required by our country's responsibility as a Member of the League of Nations, the preservation of the people's rights and liberties, and the observation of International Law. That resolution may have caused dissatisfaction to the declared pacifists in our own Party, but why it should arouse the anger of His Majesty's Government is one of those mysteries which give me perpetual anxiety. However, that is the policy of the Labour Party. It has been, and it is, their policy and it cannot be changed to appease His Majesty's Government. What does it mean? It means that the Labour Party is willing to support the Government in providing proper equipment for the fulfilment of our equitable and proportionate obligations in a collective system. It means that we do not ask to enjoy the blessings of peace as a nation without sharing the obligations which fall upon nations. It is perhaps difficult for His Majesty's Government to concede, but we are really just as anxious for the free safety of our country as His Majesty's Government or anybody who sits on that side of the House.

There has been in this debate some repetition of the rather cheap talk about divisions in the Labour Party. Well, my Lords, this matter is a subject that touches men's consciences very deeply, and we have always felt that where a man had a moral intuition against war, there was no reason for him not stating that in the Labour Party on in your Lordships' House or anywhere else. Each is compelled on an issue of this kind to make his own contribution. The Labour Party-is a free association of individuals, and not a dumb and caucus-driven crowd. We all admire the blissful unity which we observe in the Tory Party and the undisturbed harmony which prevails upon the Liberal Benches. But you must not overestimate our apparent differences. It is our habit to have a Party meeting every week and talk these things out, and it works. But I venture the assertion that if the Conservative Party were democratic enough to have a Party meeting every week, the Party would break up within a month. Differ as we may in the Labour Party as to the way of peace, we are all united to secure it. We, at the same time, feel that our admiration of the self-proclaimed excellency of His Majesty's Government is of a more restrained character than that in which they themselves indulge. However, we do not propose to press that on this occasion.

I cannot pass on, however quickly, without noticing a few things that were said last night by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. He gave as a paternal and admonitory address, to which I paid a good deal of attention. Ho said it was a waste of time to refer to what had happened in the past. But is it? It might indeed be vital. It is a question of confidence, and our difficulty is one of lack of confidence in the purposes of His Majesty's Government. It seemed to the noble Marquess that there was no other way open to us except to rearm. But there are other ways. Armament is a mere auxiliary; it is not an alternative solution to a problem. There may be questions of policy which would alter altogether the emphasis which should be put on armaments. Then the noble Marquess made one statement which really astonished even myself as an old and hardened politician. He said that if he disagreed with His Majesty's Government's policy, that would be all the more reason why he should support them on this occasion. That is to say, the more His Majesty's Government offend our fundamental principles and outrage our convictions, the greater claim they have to our support. That is not a theory of political life to which we shall give ready adhesion.

The noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, yesterday said that the Government are willing to go as far as other countries but no farther. Very well; we have never asked for solitary military action but we do ask for moral leadership, and we do ask that His Majesty's Government, at Geneva or anywhere, shall not be the last to make suggestions for the appeasement of the world. So there are other ways. We do not ask for specific action on behalf of this country that would lead to war; we do ask His Majesty's Government, if they can do so, to take a lead in steering the mind of the nations into pacific channels.

There is a great deal more that I should like to say, but for reasons which the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, will appreciate, I propose to defer that until another occasion. I will end by just saying this: that I doubt whether we can have from the Government a clear idea of the end sought or the means by which they seek to achieve it. That is our difficulty. We put down this Motion in order that there might be a useful debate, and I think that object of the Motion has been achieved. I believe that everybody has contributed to the best of his ability and that, if the debate has failed of its complete purpose, that is perhaps because His Majesty's Government are not able to be more explicit than they have hitherto been. But we should like to know, and we think the country has a right to know, what their armaments policy is to cost, how much it will cost this year and next year, and how they propose to spend the money. The question of recruiting must be left for another time. There is very much that we in the Labour Party would like to say about it, but this is not the occasion. I can only hope, in conclusion, that we shall have from the Government some clear answer to the various questions that are on the Paper.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)

My Lords, I am very sensible of the courtesy of the noble Lord who leads the Opposition in making arrangements in the course of his reply that will permit this debate to be concluded at a reasonable hour. I am in entire agreement with him in feeling that the noble Lord who put this Motion on the Paper and who initiated the debate has laid the House under a great debt for a debate which has been, as the noble Lord who spoke last said, of great value. I perhaps owe the House a word of apology on behalf of His Majesty's Government in that in the course of the three days' debate we should have inflicted on the House no fewer than four spokesmen from this Bench, but I think your Lordships will realise the difficulty of avoiding a rather generous admixture of Government spokesmanship in regard to a problem which is so many-sided and upon which your Lordships rightly seek all the information that it is in the power of the Government to give.

The debate has been notable in more ways than one. It has introduced to us the makers of three maiden speeches, whom we have been glad to welcome and who have spoken on the particular topics to which they addressed themselves with a particular claim so to speak which the House was quick to recognise, and we hope that we shall often hear them again. I agreed entirely with an observation which fell from my noble friend Lord Rankeillour in the course of his remarks, when he recognised the full extent to which the observations of the noble Lord who inaugurated the debate—and, I would now add, of the noble Lord who ended the debate—were inspired, however much we might have disagreed with particular things they said, with a spirit of desire to serve the cause of national defence not less real than that which animates any of your Lordships, in whatever quarter of the House he may sit. It has indeed been one of the remarkable features of this debate that it should have betrayed so large a measure of unanimity on the main issues as that of which we have, I think, all been conscious. I shall come in a moment or two to some of the matters on which there may be difference of opinion, but of that broad unanimity I do not think there can be any substantial doubt. In that respect the House seems to me to have again shown itself in the character of a Grand Council of the Nation in which these natters—great issues—can be objectively, tranquilly and solemnly debated without the importation of any smaller consideration.

Those of my friends who have spoken from this Bench have endeavoured to the best of their ability to deal with most—I hope all, but certainly most—of the technical questions that have been raised in the debate. I am not going to deal with those except incidentally in the course of what I have to say. There was, however, one matter on which it would perhaps be appropriate that I should say a word, lest misunderstanding should be created, and that is in regard to some observations that fell from the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, who spoke last night. He was totally misinformed in saying that at the present time no pure research is conducted by the Government on matters connected with the air or with the aircraft industry. A great deal of research is in fact going on, of which I regret the noble Earl had not had an opportunity to inform himself before he made that statement. He further made a statement with regard to the performance of Russian aircraft. I desire to say nothing about that beyond this one sentence, that I should be, and I hope all your Lordships would be, reluctant to accept the noble Earl's estimates of the performances of Russian aircraft, and I can assure him and the House that his assumption that only one type of heavy bomber is included in the Government programme is also without foundation.

The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said—and the noble Lord opposite found some fault with him for saying it—that it was mainly with the present and the future that this House and the country were principally concerned. There is, I think, a general agreement that what we are doing is broadly justified by circumstances, and I think the principal questions in the minds of your Lordships are: First, is the programme of the Government adequate? Secondly, is the progress of that programme proceeding at a rate which can be considered satisfactory? I must say a word about those two main questions in a moment, but before I come to them I am constrained by the speech of my noble friend Lord Lloyd to say one word about the past, and that in relation to certain strictures which he made upon some language employed by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister a few days ago.

My noble friend Lord Lloyd used, as he himself said, I think, strong terms in that part of his speech, a strength of language in which, not being naturally given to superlatives either thought or speech, I should naturally not so readily follow him. The first reflection I made as I listened to his speech was that he had been so busy composing his own speech, to-day, that he had not been able to read the Prime Minister's speech of yesterday, because I think if he had read it he would have modified some of the observations which he made. It is surely indubitably true, and here I find myself in accord with the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, that for a great national programme like this a great deal of national assent is essential. The only point I have of difference with him in this matter is that I would like generally to remind him that the Labour Party has no monopoly of the representation of the manual workers in this country.

No one who casts his mind back over two or three years to when the Disarmament Conference was in being can doubt that since that day public opinion in this country has been undergoing a very necessary and very steady process of education on the whole question which we have to-day in debate. Whether that process of education could have been completed more quickly do not know. I doubt it. But, whatever be the view which we take about that, I must candidly admit to my noble friend that my desire to see the defence of the country made good fills me with a certain amount of gratitude to Providence that it fell to the present Prime Minister to make good the deficiencies rather than to the noble Lord himself. The criticism which he made that two or three years had been wasted is really, if he will take it from me, a suggestion without substance. Long before the Election, he will remember, proposals were made to Parliament for the first programme of air expansion, and long before that was laid before Parliament the Staffs of all the Services, and of the Government Departments affected, not least the Finance Department, had been engaged upon a detailed examination of the plans which it would be for the Government to submit as soon as they could get popular approbation for the plans to be laid before the country.

If the suggestion be that which Lord Noel-Buxton made on the first day of the debate, that there had been failure by the Government to acquaint the country with their intentions at the General Election, I can assure him that if he will look at the speeches of supporters of the Government long before the Election he will be of opinion that no such charge could be made. I have those speeches here, but perhaps he will take it from me that that charge, which I have seen made in public, is one which cannot possibly be sustained.

These things, although they are of the past, do vitally concern the present, and because it is through the operation of causes for which all Governments since the War have been responsible that we started with considerable handicap, the scope and speed of the programme are all the more important. That programme, as my noble friends beside me have said, is steadily proceeding. Attention has been drawn, to-day, and on previous days, to a number of points where deficiencies are not being remedied at the rate which the speakers deem satisfactory. We all know that. We should be the first to admit that that is so. Of course it is impossible for progress to be uniform over the whole programme of repair and expansion. We have spoken frankly about the difficulties in regard to recruiting. We may be a bit forward on one part of the programme and a bit backward on another, but your Lordships may rest assured that the Government know as well as anybody else where the difficulties are making themselves felt, and are losing no time, to the best of their ability, in overcoming them. It is, I think, quite impossible to bring these things to what I may call any final test of certainty. We are not dealing in all this business with factors which are easily to be insulated, as it were, or controlled. The whole problem of national defence is a thing with a hundred heads.

My noble and gallant friend Lord Howe and my noble friend Lord Phillimore directed the attention of your Lordships to particular aspects of the problem concerned with food supply in time of war, and the different measures that might be taken to meet those difficulties. With regard to what fell from Lord Phillimore, and also I think from my noble friend Lord Lloyd, on the question of food storage, I was a little bit surprised to find Lord Lloyd placing quite so much emphasis as he did upon the remarks that were made by the Lord Chancellor in an earlier debate. My impression was that the main purpose of the Lord Chancellor's speech had been to point out the difficulties that attached to food storage, and to say that at that time the mind of the Government was not convinced that it was either possible or desirable. But certainly I can assure both noble Lords who interest themselves in this subject that the mind of the Government is by no means closed, and that this is indeed at this very moment, among other cognate issues, engaging their most serious consideration. And along with it goes the other issue of the whole question of home production—to what extent that can be stimulated, and to what extent home production is to be regarded as an issue connected with the defence problem. I have no hesitation in saying that in these days, and indeed in all days, it must definitely be so regarded; and I hope it will not be unsatisfactory to your Lordships to know that in the last four years—four years of peace—it has been possible to increase the total value of home production in this country by something between 16½ and 20 per cent. The noble Lords may rest assured that those issues are very present to the mind of His Majesty's Government.

I mention those things for this reason. From one point of view it might be argued that this country could not, in the present condition of the world, be held safe unless it was at this moment as strong in material armament as any conceivable enemy, and indeed one sometimes hears argument almost on those lines. But it is of course obviously impossible to state or to decide the problems so simply as that. The noble Lord opposite is perfectly right in saying that much—I had almost said everything, but much evidently depends upon the foreign policy that you are pursuing, and the ends which you try to encompass and promote. I put to the House as typical of what I have in mind three questions which must present themselves to the thought of every reasonable man. Is the policy that you are pursuing likely to lead you into conflict with others? Is it, so far as you can judge, likely to be to the interests of others to force a conflict with you? And is material armament the only thing you have to consider; and are you not bound also to take account of financial and economic strength?

The problem only has to be stated, I think, to show how impossible it is to deal with it regardless of all those other more general considerations. And of course, the weight that has to be given to other variants must vary itself with them. Take the question to which my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air addressed himself on the first day of our debate, and in regard to which I am not going to do more than to say three or four sentences—the question of a Ministry of Supply. He pointed out to your Lordships that the root fact in the problem to-day is that the competition for skilled labour and material is not a competition between Service Departments, but a competition between Service requirements and civil industry, and that therefore if that is to be tackled it can only be tackled by a pretty complete system of control such as we knew in the late War, which would involve a pretty free invocation of the Defence of the Realm Regulations and the like. Would you under that system get along any more quickly? I imagine the answer is that after an initial period of dislocation, that would last for some months, you might.

But what is quite certain is that in the process, as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Hirst, you would gravely dislocate trade, Budgets, general finance, and the general credit of the country. Circumstances might, of course, arise where you would have no other course, but do not let us be under any illusion as to what it would mean. Therefore, the conclusion that I reach is that prudent men, while making all the practical preparations that are necessary for the immediate turnover in the event of war, would wish before actually adopting such heroic remedies to satisfy themselves that it was the only way to achieve their end. That, therefore, leads you to this question—Are we, as the noble Lord, Lord Hirst, said, in fact to judge the question so serious that everything has to give way to the military reconditioning of our Defence Forces? Such a conclusion, in fact, appears to me to rest upon a premise, not only of the inevitability, but of a degree of certainty as to the early imminence of war which I am not prepared to accept.

Foreign policy and this policy of rearmament of course all the time act and react upon one another. If we believe, as I think rightly, that a strong England will help the Foreign Secretary in his attempt to secure European peace—and I was glad to hear the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, say last night that he assumed (and he assumed rightly, of course) that the rearmament programme was essentially a policy of defence—it is not less true that in giving effect to this policy of rearmament, we are bound at the same time to take into account the influence that general policy may exert in the foreign and economic field. On the economic side we hold, as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said the other day, that one of the greatest means of improving international relations would be, if we could, to ease the flow of international trade, and thus diminish these economic difficulties that press upon the world. It would, of course, be the abrupt termination of all such hopes as those if we were to begin by introducing new and grave disturbance into the trade and industry of this country, which remains one of the world's best and most receptive markets, and which, I hope, we are not too self-satisfied in regarding as a rallying point for economic sanity.

As to foreign policy, there are two things I think that can be and ought to be said. It will, I think, be generally conceded that no country has laboured during these last years more disinterestedly for the cause of peace. Through years that have not been easy His Majesty's Government have consistently, and not without success, pursued a policy of avoidance of the risk of war, and that—perhaps it is well to add—not from any lower motive than because they felt that once the prairie fire started it was not easy to say where it would stop. The other thing I must say about foreign policy, and which I must develop in rather more than a sentence, is that it is based on the League of Nations, as we made plain in the gracious Speech, and one of the principal purposes of the measures now being taken is to place us in a position in which, if we so decide, we can throw our weight with others into the scales for preserving peace. But the corollary of that is that if war ever came we may reasonably expect not to be alone, and therefore the hypothetical aggressor, when weighing the chances of a speedy and successful issue from military adventure, would not be able to feel any assurance that he might not find himself more deeply and more doubtfully involved.

From several quarters during the debate has come a demand for clear thinking, and that is Always a process important and desirable. I would hope that that demand is not made only upon the Government. Some persons argue that it is the duty of the Government here and now, regardless of perhaps vital circumstances, to state their readiness to implement the fullest obligations of what is called collective security, sometimes going beyond even the direct obligations of the Covenant. There are others, of whom the noble Marquess who spoke from the Liberal Benches two days ago is one, who plead that our obligations should be strictly limited, and that it is the duty of the Government to be quite clear as to what were vital issues, for which in the last resort they would be prepared to fight. In the course of the speech that he made he addressed himself in some detail to what he conceived to be the complications introduced into European politics by the Franco-Soviet Pact, and my noble friend who spoke to-day addressed himself also to the same topic. I excuse myself from following them in detail over ground that is extremely difficult and extremely delicate, but I do permit myself to make this observation. As I conceive it, there is, and there always will be, a firm determination in this country not automatically to be dragged into participation in any war where the vital interests of the country are not involved; and in this connection I would perhaps remind your Lordships, if it were necessary, that the Covenant itself contains no automatic military obligations.

But having said as much as that, may I go on to say this? I think it is very important that we should not in this matter quarrel about words. However zealous we may be to support the League of Nations, we do no service to the League by laying upon it burdens heavier than it can bear. We shall, I hope, so long as our signature stands, continue to honour the obligations that that signature entails, but everybody knows that in a non-universal League—the noble Marquess who spoke last I think had this in mind—States Members will not in fact be prepared to accept. in every case, in advance, automatic obligations to take coercive action, in all circumstances and regardless of what they may consider to be their own vital interests. That is true of foreign nations, it is true of the Dominions, it is true of this country, and we do well, I think, to recognise it. Everybody knows also the difficulty of making even economic action effective in a non-universal League. It will not have escaped notice that M. Litvinov, in July of this year at Geneva, reminded the world that 25 per cent. of the existing Members of the League were not applying all the sanctions that were agreed upon in the last dispute. Therefore I think the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, gave us good advice when he said we should face realities.

I would hope that it was not necessary for us to pretend to think that the attempt to face realities implied any disloyalty to the League or to the League's ideals. It was exactly that reason—a desire to be loyal to the League—that led my right honourable friend to make the concrete proposals that he did at Geneva the other day for the improvement of the working of the Covenant. He spoke, your Lordships will remember, about the better operation of Article 19, on which I do not wish to dwell to-night. He spoke also, as Lord Noel-Buxton mentioned the other night, on the separation of the Covenant from the Treaty of Versailles. Incidentally, when the noble Lord appeals to the Government to give a lead on this matter, I think I am entitled to say we have already given that lead, and whether that lead is to be followed will depend on the degree of agreement we secure for it when it comes under the consideration of the machinery of the League.

Perhaps the most important proposal was that which has indeed secured a considerable measure of approval from those who have spoken in this debate—the noble Viscount, the noble Marquess, the noble Lord opposite, and also my noble friend Lord Rennell—namely, the proposal by which the operation of Article 11 should be facilitated and improved. I am quite sure the noble Viscount was right when he laid emphasis on the importance of enabling the League [...]o intervene before, instead of after, a war has begun, and, as my right honourable friend pointed out at Geneva, if that can be done you will achieve one of two objects, both desirable. If such an examination shows that the Council feels strongly, and that States Members of the League are evidently prepared to act, that knowledge will be imparted to the hypothetical aggressor before he is too deeply committed to his project. If, on the other hand, they are not prepared so to act, then it is evidently to the advantage of everybody that the facts should be known early so that disappointment subsequently may be avoided.

Besides these, as it were, drafting proposals, your Lordships will remember the suggestion frequently made for the extension of definite regional pacts. These, as I understand, involve obligations, as the noble Viscount hoped yesterday, which are not in substitution of, but in addition to, the obligations of the Covenant. I confess I did not follow his thought when he expressed some anxiety lest the mere existence of these regional pacts might in some way that was not clear personally to me have the effect of diminishing the force of the Covenant. I would have thought that they would have operated, or ought to operate, in exactly the opposite direction, and I am quite sure, as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary stated the other day, that the almost self-evident truth is that the value of agreements for collective action as a deterrent evidently depends largely on the certainty that they will be applied.

His Majesty's Government, I hope I shall have made plain, are not by any means blind to the dangers of the world, especially those that arise from the clash of sharply-conflicting ideologies in Europe to which I think my noble friend Lord Stonehaven made some reference a day or two ago. Especially perhaps would anyone in my position be alive to the dangers of confident prophecy as to what turn the wheel of fate might at very short notice take in these disordered days, and no statesman would be wise to forget the classic example of the case of Mr. Pitt who, the House will remember, a short time—I think six months only—before Europe was plunged into the revolutionary wars, had the misfortune to assure the House of Commons that "there never was a time when from the situation of Europe we might more reasonably expect fifteen years of peace." But that said, and applying the best judgment that His Majesty's Government can, and putting the matter on the lowest grounds of self-interest, they do not believe that any country to-day is prepared, much less anxious, to take the responsibility of letting loose a war that might spread through Europe and beyond it.

For the last three years certainly, there have not been wanting those who have persistently preached to us of the inevitability of war. Nor, I think, is it to be wondered at that the sequence of many events should have frayed many nerves in Europe. We have been witnessing the gradual substitution in Europe of a new order—which in some degree many have long been deemed inevitable—for the order constituted by the Treaty of Versailles. For years the attempt was made to find some simultaneous solution for the twin problems of German equality and general security, and when the simultaneous solution was not found it was not unnatural that many, still to some extent under the influence of the earlier order of ideas, should feel some doubt whether German equality, unilaterally achieved, would in fact be found compatible with security. It is not given to men to see far into the future, and it were folly for any nation, our own or any other, to close its eyes to possible dangers from whatever quarter they may arise. But it is not less folly for all nations to lose the chance of strengthening the forces of peace, as my noble friend Lord Rankeillour said, by the exaggeration of all the things that make for international suspicion and by failure to remember the words that always live in my mind, the words used by the late Lord Grey when, your Lordships may remember, he said that "Nothing so predisposes men to understand as the consciousness that they are understood."

Well, so far as we are concerned, we mean what we say when we say that we wish to be friends with all nations, and we believe that other nations sincerely desire to establish friendly relations with ourselves. It, is therefore not with unmixed feelings that I read strong criticisms of the Government for what is at present, so it is alleged, their only partial preparedness to meet the sinister purposes that are ascribed by the critics to other Powers. I recognise of course the patriotic impulse that is at work to promote the cause of National Defence, but in my judgment these critics would be rendering better service to the safety of their country if they could introduce more often into their writings or their speeches something which might make a real contribution to the appeasement of international feeling and international anxiety.

I am the last person to complain that His Majesty's Government should be pressed and, if need be, criticised; but it is well to remember that by the nature of things the Government can never disclose all that is being done or the point that preparations have reached. His Majesty's Government, after all, have the best skilled advice that they can command—Service, technical, industrial—they are in closest touch with all the threads of foreign policy, and are as anxious as can be anybody else to do everything in their power to discharge responsibility. Unless, therefore, we are to believe that the Government, with all those advantages, are less able or willing to weigh the risks and make provision for meeting them than their outside critics, there does come a point when criticism may bring new dangers, by disparagement of what is actually being done, and thus giving encouragement to dangerous forces abroad and spreading discouragement, not less dangerous, among our own people at home. His Majesty's Government do not underrate either the magnitude or the urgency of the task before them. They are applying themselves to it with energy and recognise the proper interest that is taken in it in all quarters. And they are not, therefore, unwilling or afraid to appeal to this House and to the country to give them all the support they can in its execution.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, it would be discourteous of me if I did not thank the Leader of the House for his most interesting speech which, I can assure him, we will study with very great care, and I hope we shall derive some comfort from it. I also wish to thank the other Ministers who have spoken. I hope the Leader of the House will understand that as far as my noble friends and I are concerned we approve and support the practice of having a long debate of this sort, and in having more than one Minister to answer the different points that are raised. I think the Leader of the House is right when he says that most of the points raised in this debate have been answered, and therefore the Motion has served its purpose to that extent. I hope also that the remarks made by various noble Lords will have been of some service to His Majesty's Government. I have a further more important hope than that, and it is that this debate has been noted abroad in a number of countries.

I want to add only one quite brief observation before I ask your Lordships' permission to withdraw my Motion. One thing that has been borne in upon my mind at this time is that there is something more important needed by this country than munitions and weapons. What I am going to say may sound a little rude to noble Lords opposite. I do not want them to take this personally. This House is not in a position to turn out Governments, or make or unmake Cabinets. But I want to say that there is something we want much more than armaments, and that is leadership. I do not say this in any personal way to noble Lords who represent the Government here. This nation needs leadership, I submit, at the present time. We are a Lion-hearted people, and we deserve something better than sheepish leadership. In my humble opinion we are entering into a very serious situation. I am not one of those who make alarmist speeches, and I do not believe, as I said at the beginning of this debate, in the inevitable war, but we are entering into a situation which will require not only delicate handling but great moral courage. With these remarks, while again thanking the noble Viscount the Leader of the House and his colleagues for their answers to the various questions put, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

House adjourned at half-past seven o'clock.