BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY.

HL Deb 17 February 1938 vol 107 cc757-94

Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion, made yesterday by Lord Arnold, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for Papers relating to British foreign policy, particularly in regard to the League of Nations.

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN

My Lords, before I come to the main subject-matter of this debate, I should like to ask the Leader of the House for just one further explanatory remark about the functions of the new Chief Diplomatic Adviser. So far as I could understand it was said yesterday by the noble Earl the Under-Secretary that Sir Alexander Cadogan and Sir Robert Vansittart were going to advise the Secretary of State on parallel lines. That seems a very dangerous phrase to use. Surely the only way in which the matter can be adjusted is, as I understand, that which was laid down in the original statement. Sir Alexander Cadogan is still responsible in the ordinary way as Permanent Under-Secretary; all business has to go through him, and he is responsible for the management of the Office. Sir Robert Vansittart, as Chief Diplomatic Adviser, deals with any matters which are specifically referred to him by the Secretary of State, and he is no longer responsible for the day-to-day work of the Office. Otherwise, if there are two people who are responsible for the day-to-day work of the Office, then it becomes inevitable that the Secretary of State himself has to become the head of the Office. I think it is important, in view of the slight misunderstanding which I think occurred yesterday, that that position should be made clear, and I would invite the Leader of the House to do so when he gets up later on.

The noble Lord to whom we are all grateful for having raised this debate yesterday, introduced into it a discussion of the League of Nations. I do not propose to spend a great deal of your Lordships' time in discussing the League of Nations, for the reason that what I think is the most dangerous aspect of the League of Nations—namely, the interpretation which has habitually been put upon it by the League of Nations Union in this country—is pretty well dead. I have always felt that the interpretation put on the League by the League of Nations Union went a great deal further than the original intentions of the framers of the League itself. That interpretation was very well put by the noble Viscount who is the principal champion of the League of Nations in this country, Lord Cecil, in his speech yesterday. He said, with great eloquence, that the great interest of this country was peace, that the purpose of the League of Nations was to maintain peace, and that we ought to be willing, in effect, to incur the risk of war anywhere in the world in order that we might preserve the peace of the world. The most reverend Primate pointed out yesterday that the conditions under which the League of Nations functions to-day are very different from the conditions which existed when it was first constituted. It is no longer universal, and some of the most powerful nations in the world—five of them—if not actively hostile, are certainly outside it.

But I would refer to a different aspect of the question which has always seemed to me to be at the root of it. The interpretation put upon the League of Nations by the noble Viscount would, if carried into effect, convert it to discharging exactly the same functions as those which were discharged to the general indignation of the world, by the Holy Alliance after the great Napoleonic War. Further, he said it was the function of the League of Nations to maintain the rule of law. But the rule of law only begins when you have a legislative institution which can alter the law, as well as a policeman who can enforce it. The great difficulty about the League of Nations is that it can never alter the law, and that the law has been the Treaty of Versailles and all that went with it. It is, according to his interpretation, the function of the League and it is the duty of this country in all circumstances to go to war rather than see the Treaty of Versailles amended, unless it can be amended voluntarily. It seems to me that that is inevitably going to turn the League of Nations itself not into an instrument for maintaining peace, but into an instrument for making war. That was not the original concept of the League at all. The original concept of the League definitely left the way open for alteration after six months' examination even if it meant war, because it was quite clear at that time that the difficulty of securing amendment by consent—either the consent of all the world or the consent of all the parties to the quarrel—is so great that if the League failed, say, within six or nine months to secure agreement, then you must leave a way open by which alteration can be made. That was, in effect, the threat of war, without imposing any automatic obligation on the rest of the world to go to war with a nation which attempted to use force or power politics in order to alter the status quo.

I think the League of Nations now, at last, is going to have a chance of recovery, for the reason that this particular interpretation, which has been its besetting sin, the one thing which has led to its failure from the beginning, is now dead. While I agree with noble Lords that it is no use trying to alter the text of the Covenant, it is now clear beyond all possibility of doubt that the automatic interpretation of Article 16, involving the obligation to go to war to resist any alteration anywhere, no longer exists, not only because the new League is no longer universal, but because an increasing number of the Members of the League have said emphatically that they repudiate that interpretation of Article 16. Therefore I am more hopeful of the League to-day than I have been for a good long time, because it has ceased to be an instrument to try to perpetuate the status quo, which obviously in a rapidly-changing world cannot be expected to exist and which the League of Nations itself has no means whatever of altering.

This brings me to the second point and, as it seems to me, to the real issue which confronts us to-day. There can be no doubt, I think, in your Lordships' minds that the fundamental problem of the world to-day is still the problem of Germany. If it were not for the German difficulty, I think the situation in the Far East and the situation in the Mediterranean, which are the two other main preoccupations of this country, would be comparatively easy to deal with. It is the German question to which we come back every time. Why is Germany the issue? In my view the fundamental reason is that at no time in the years after 1919 has the rest of the world been willing to concede any substantial justice or reasonable understanding to Germany, either when she was a Republic or since she has become a Totalitarian State. It is generally believed, or still largely believed, that Germany was solely responsible for the last War. I would commend to your Lordships' attention a very remarkable document which I saw very recently. It is a joint report by a number of German and French historians who, after a great deal of correspondence, met together a few months ago and examined the main historic controversies between Germany and France for the last hundred years.

While they, needless to say, did not agree about everything, and indeed about many of their conclusions there were qualifications first on the one side and then on the other, the document itself is an extraordinarily interesting statement showing how far the popular interpretation of events about the origin both of the Franco-German War and of the last War diverges from what historians recognise to be, and what are agreed to be, the known facts. They put this report out with the plea and in the hope that historians on both sides, in writing the history of their own countries and of Europe, would at any rate conform to what they agreed to be the substantial truth about the facts. I will only read to your Lordships just one sentence: The Committee"— that is, the Committee of German and French historians— is in agreement that the documents do not warrant the view that a deliberate desire for a European war can be attributed to any Government or people in 1914. The difficulty which has arisen since was inevitable in view of all the war-time propaganda. Since the end of the War Germany has been treated as though she was solely responsible for pouncing, from a clear sky, almost, on the rest of the world.

The result of that propaganda was first of all the Versailles Treaty, and I have always believed that what followed Versailles was immeasurably more serious than what was done at Versailles itself. The very essence of the Versailles Treaty was the guarantee by the United States and ourselves of France against unprovoked aggression. The second essence was the Reparations Commission, one main purpose of which was to get an independent body to define within a short time what it was Germany's capacity to pay. The result was the withdrawal of the United States and the withdrawal of our own guarantee to France, and France, inevitably as I think, fell back upon the policy of enforcing with the utmost determination those clauses of the Treaty of Versailles which kept Germany unilaterally disarmed and open to invasion on her Western frontier. That was followed by the Ruhr invasion, which was the real origin of the National Socialist Party, for the destruction of the middle class created the Fascist Party. Even the Locarno Treaty, which was regarded as one of the greatest acts of peace-making ever known, was based on the assumption that Germany would be indefinitely unilaterally disarmed and unilaterally unable to defend her most vulnerable frontier.

It is these things, and other things which were set forth by my noble friend Lord Noel-Buxton in the admirable speech he made yesterday, which lie at the root of the problem that confronts us to-day. I do not think there is any doubt that modern Germany is the result of the policy of the United States, whom I cannot absolve from responsibility, of ourselves, and of France; and in this matter the responsibility of the United States and ourselves is more than that of France for defaulting on the obligation to give France some security so that she should allow Germany to recover. The result of that policy is that now you have Hitler Germany, more totalitarian, militarily more formidable than ever. You have convinced her that the only way of altering a treaty, of altering conditions, is by having the power to compel their alteration. Nor is that the only violation. Even the invasion of the Ruhr was declared by the Government of this country to be an illegal violation of the Treaty of Versailles itself. There are the origins, there is the root, of our troubles, and the result is the totalitarian system, the system of persecution, which fills every liberal-minded person in this country with horror.

If we are to see this thing fairly we have to recognise that we and our associates must share a considerable measure of responsibility for the situation which confronts us. There are still matters in which, even if we did not help to create Totalitarian Germany, most people would say concessions were still due to Republican Germany. There is the Colonial question, there is the whole question of self-determination for Germans in Eastern Europe. It is because Germany is totalitarian, because we are afraid of her, because she is a very formidable menace, that to-day we are unable, or feel it difficult, to give to her those things which we would concede without difficulty to Republican Germany. The root of the problem, the great weight that weighs on the world, is that our own follies are coming home to roost, and it requires a degree of statesmanship far greater to remedy that, and courage far greater, than to deal with ordinary diplomatic questions; and it is because of this that the Far Eastern situation and the Mediterranean difficulties are so great.

What are we to do in these circumstances? We are faced with the most difficult and possibly the most fateful decision that has ever confronted us. We are confronted with a more dangerous situation, with the possibility of conflict on three fronts in different parts of the world, than we have been confronted with for several hundreds of years. Unlike my noble friend who introduced this Motion, I am not an isolationist. In one sense, if you like, I wish I thought it possible to be an isolationist, but I do not think it is possible. If once the vast machine of war begins to move in the modern world I do not think it is possible for anybody long to avoid being dragged into it. I have already said I am against what I call the League of Nations Union interpretation of the obligations of the Covenant, and I am glad to think that that particular interpretation is growing less authoritative in the world every day. Nor am I a pacifist. True, I have a great deal of respect for the out-and-out Christian pacifist—that is, the person who is not a pacifist because he is unwilling to face the sufferings and hardships of war, but because he is convinced that there is no way of solving the war problem, the international problem, by force of arms, and who does not refrain from taking action, which will bring suffering on himself, by constant protest against war or injustice. The most ignoble attitude of all, I think, is that which seeks to keep out of war merely because we are unwilling to face the sacrifices or burdens involved.

There is only one solution to this problem. You have got to combine collective justice with collective security. You have got to give remedies to those nations which are entitled to them or in whose case an impartial body says that alteration of the status quo is necessary. You have got to be willing to concede to them—and one of them is Germany—alterations in the status quo and you have also got to incur obligations with other like-minded nations to resist changes which go beyond what impartial justice regards as being fair. I do not like to say it, but I am being driven more and more to the conclusion, as many other people are being driven, that unless the democracies are willing to face the obligation of war, they will be driven inexorably to retreat in face of the menaces we have seen applied to Austria in the last few days. On the other hand I am convinced that unless you can establish also an absolutely impartial attitude to the claims of all nations, and are willing to concede them, the attempt to create collective security against aggression will fail. That, I say, is the supreme problem that confronts us. When we are willing to admit that we are ourselves largely responsible for the tragedy that confronts us, for the fact that Germany is the centre of the world problem, and are willing to concede to Germany what a fair-minded and impartial authority would say was a fair solution of her problem, and if, in addition to that, we are willing to say, "We will meet aggression to secure more than this with the only means in which it can be met," then I consider there is hope for the world. But, without these two conditions, I confess the future does not seem to me to be a future that leads to lasting peace.

LORD SNELL

My Lords, the Motion which my noble friend Lord Arnold has placed on the Order Paper of your Lordships' House compels us once more to think more seriously about a problem which is always with us, and which grows in anxiety and is always upon our minds. The speech which my noble friend made in introducing his Motion reaffirmed views with which we have become familiar, and views which do not appear to suffer either in vigour or emphasis by their repetition. His speech was sincere. It was forcible, provocative, and a trifle dangerous. The noble Lord was good enough to say that he did not speak for the Labour Party. He will forgive me if I say that I admired that part of his speech more than any other, and he will not think me offensive, I am sure, if I accept completely his generous disclaimer. As a biographical avowal, Lord Arnold's speech was of great interest, because it appeared to show he had lost faith in the possibility of what he called the rule of law and had arrived at the conclusion that collective security can never be established.

It is a harder task to try to put before you in such a debate the point of view taken by a responsible political Party. If we heard, as we did yesterday, a sustained criticism of the League of Nations, we did not hear at the same time any attractive substitute. We were told that the League of Nations was in effect recreating a system of balance of power, and at the same time we were assured that we wanted a better understanding with Germany. We do indeed; all of us would wish to have that, but what is that but another form of balance of power? We have to recognise that until democratic institutions prevail in the world and some measure of disarmament has been secured, some system of alliances is more or less essential and inevitable. I have always felt that the essential principle of British foreign policy could never be one of undeviating directness; it could never be simply or eternally consistent. A self-sufficing nation has an easy task in comparison with ourselves. It has only to defend its shores, but we are faced with varying and complex factors that we cannot control. We have to secure a food supply for our people, and, inasmuch as we live by exports, we must try to keep our trade routes open, and inasmuch as we have an Empire situated in various parts of the world we are compelled to take all those divers factors into account. So a British foreign policy, though it has to take those things into account and is compelled to calculate the varying pressure of danger that may appear at any given point, has never been one of mere self-interest, or, on the other hand, of mere irresponsible idealism.

If we consider our foreign policy at the present time in relation to past experience, we have to remember that Great Britain never was strong enough to face alone a great Power, nor is she at the present time. Our fathers in the nineteenth century based their policy on making friends with the Liberal democracies of their time. I find Lord Palmerston, speaking in June, 1840, saying: Our policy is not to intermeddle in the affairs of other countries, but by the legitimate exercise of the influence of Great Britain to support other nations in their struggles to obtain for themselves institutions similar to those which have been described as forming the boast of this country. That was the attitude adopted by nineteenth century Liberal philosophy in this country, but the authoritarian States then, as now, took an entirely different view. The noble Marquess has referred to the Holy Alliance. Well, the first article of that Alliance said: The High Contracting Powers, being convinced that the system of representative government is as equally incompatible with the monarchical principle, as the maxim of sovereignty of the people with the Divine right, engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative government, in whatever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known. There you have the issues stated in the last century, and I do not think that they are seriously altered at the time in which we live. Our fathers sought to secure the peace of the world by obtaining the cooperation of the democratic nations of that period, and now it does not seem to me that any peace will be secured except by direct admission that our interests as well as our moral obligations lie with the democratic and not with the authoritarian states.

My noble friend Lord Arnold and other speakers yesterday, and the noble Marquess to-day, have referred to the position of Germany. I personally am most anxious to be just to her. I want that we should recognise her rightful position in Europe. I want to see her once again a Colonial Power and all the rest, but I am not going to make a political pet of her and to assume that she is the entirely guileless organisation that has been suggested. Let the needs of Germany be examined in a thoroughly generous spirit. Let us make as far as we can our own national contribution to remedy those grievances, but we have at the same time the right to expect that, inasmuch as she has also a moral responsibility for the future of civilisation, she should make her contribution to the solution as well as ourselves. I should have expected that in yesterday's debate and in the speech to which we have listened to-day that the new situation in Austria, and in consequence in Czechoslovakia, would have formed part of our considerations, but this important event was not so far as I know dealt with either by those who took part in the debate or by the Government themselves; yet we are very interested, and I should like to ask for some information about it. Can the Government, for instance, tell us anything about it that will relieve our anxieties? I should like to know whether the Government still stand by their Stresa joint declaration of Great Britain, France and Italy in February of 1934, to the effect that the integrity and independence of Austria was a matter in which we had some considerable interest.

I want to deal very briefly with the position of the League of Nations. I welcome the statement of the noble Marquess that he feels that the chance of the League of Nations to-day is more hopeful than it has been, because the old interpretation is dead and a new interpretation will have a better chance. My Party will not join in the acrimonious chorus of criticism of the League of Nations. We continue to believe, being simple people, that the League of Nations is full of possibilities for the future good of the world. My noble friend said it was only half a League. Well, if I may use a cheap illustration, let us have half a League onward rather than half a League backward. The noble Lord, Lord Arnold, said that the League had failed in everything it had set out to do. I at least will not accept that interpretation of the history of the League of Nations, but even if it were true that would be a fault in the nations themselves rather than in the institution which was set up for them to use. No institution or country or individual life exists to-day against which a whole pile of objections could not be raised. All of us fall short of our own ideals. I dare not assume that your Lordships are of the same poor clay as myself, but I make noble New Year's resolutions and very shortly afterwards they seem a pitiful wreck. Yet I am glad to have made them, and I hope some day I shall be able to keep more of them.

Let us admit, then, that the League of Nations has not fulfilled its expectations. It has not been well served even by its friends. It represents more of an ideal than of an achievement. But then, as a distinguished friend of mine has written, "history is the biography of ideals and if we do not have ideals we do not make progress." Personally I agree with what was written in The Times the other day: Deep in the conscience of the British people—and certainly in other people's also—there exists a profound conviction that the principles of the Covenant and of the Kellogg Pact must somehow be made to prevail unless we are all going back, as Mr. Eden said the other day in the House of Commons, to the ways of cave-dwellers, living in the perpetual shadow of fear—fear not now of wild beasts, but of barbarities the more terrible for being humanly devised. I feel that it is necessary to reaffirm that faith whenever a note of pessimism is struck, because we are all tempted to despair of the situation as we know it.

In the process of his speech the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, found occasion to throw what I thought was a somewhat faded bouquet at His Majesty's Government. He said that they were doing their best according to their light, but their light may not have been dazzling in effect. My own difficulty about the Government is that I can never reduce its mind to a coherent motive. Its psychological pedigree and impulses and reactions are as varied as are the physical pedigrees of its members. As a composite photograph the Government appears to me to represent rather intellectual debility than real competence and attractiveness. The members of the Government seem to be political sleep-walkers who do not know that they are moving and do not know where they are going. But so far as we in the Labour Party are concerned we venture to reaffirm our hope that in some way the League of Nations may be made to prevail either in the old way or in a new way. If the interpretation has been wrong let us have a new one. If there is dead wood in the tree of the League of Nations, let it be cut away and let us graft on to it a new and living growth.

Our view is that the next war about which we are always talking need not happen; that the arms race can be stopped, and that the League of Nations can again be made strong. We would make an immediate and powerful appeal to the Powers of the world for a general disarmament treaty. The National Council of Labour has declared that it is conscious of the dangers which to-day threaten our civilisation. We refuse to accept the doctrine of the inevitability of war, and we will continue to work for a durable peace based upon friendship and justice between nations and respect for International Law. That always has been the faith of my Party and it is not dimmed by recent experiences. I conclude only by expressing our very deep conviction that our foreign affairs have been grievously mismanaged; that the Government have fumbled, and have appeared to be not merely one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, but confusedly and harmfully everything at random. We most sincerely believe that had the courageous word been spoken in 1932, and on occasions since that time, the world to-day would be a better place to live in.

LORD STONEHAVEN

My Lords, the noble Lord who has just addressed us with the charm that he invariably shows has in effect affirmed once more his belief in the League of Nations. He asserted that the League of Nations must be made to prevail. When people say that I always wonder why they do not realise that we are only one of fifty nations. What more can be expected of us than we have done to make the League of Nations prevail? If the Government have made mistakes—and I think they have made a very small number all things considered—in their foreign policy it is because they have been handicapped by their efforts to make the League of Nations work, and the League of Nations, which was an idea that commended itself to us in this country, was not one which has ever commended itself, or I think ever will, to the world at large.

I wonder if you will bear with me if I invite your attention to what I think is a good description of the functions of the League of Nations as they were intended to be. I will not go back as far as Lord Palmerston but to 1915, when Senator Lodge used these terms in referring to the idea of a League. He said: Nations must unite as men unite in order to preserve peace and order. The great nations must be so united as to be able to say to any single great country, 'You must not go to war,' and they can only say that effectively when the country desiring war knows that the force which the united nations place behind peace is irresistible.… It may seem Utopian at this moment to suggest a union of civilised nations in order to put a controlling force behind the maintenance of peace and international order, but it is through … the search for Utopias that the real advances have been made. That may be true, but unfortunately America refused to join in the search for Utopia, and without America how was it possible to create a body comprising all the great nations, so united as to be able to say to one single nation, "You must not go to war"? We have had countries in America, Europe and Asia engaging in conflict; they have found that they can ignore the dictates of the League of Nations with impunity; and what is the use then of going on, as my noble friend on the Cross Benches said yesterday, affirming your belief in institutions which have proved to be unworkable?

VISCOUNT CECIL of CHELWOOD

They have not.

LORD STONEHAVEN

I am afraid we must differ as to that. The League of Nations occupies in the policy of the British Government, as has been announced, a place which makes it an indispensable instrument in the carrying out of their foreign policy, and I was myself surprised when the Under-Secretary yesterday indicated that, while he had to apologise for the failures of the League of Nations, yet the Government still preferred half a League to no League, on the principle, I suppose, that half a loaf is better than no bread. I should have supposed that a better analogy would be a coach that has lost one of its wheels. A coach with three wheels is no use at all for a journey, and it is better to have a bicycle or even a wheelbarrow. That being the case, I think that the League in its present condition is not only dangerous but mischievous. Already it has deluded the Chinaman and the Abyssinian into thinking that they have security against aggression, and I think we were humiliated by having identified ourselves with the pressure brought upon the aggressors in those cases, when we were unable to implement the bargain.

I was astonished to hear my noble friend point to the speech of Sir Samuel Hoare at Geneva in 1936 as a laudable achievement, when, as we know, it brought upon us one of the greatest humiliations to which this country has ever been exposed. It brought about the defeat of the Abyssinians, and that breech between ourselves and Italy which ought not to have arisen, and would not have arisen but for the League of Nations. I cannot myself see what good there is in continuing on those lines. Is it not fair to recognise, first of all, that the League has not developed on the lines anticipated by Senator Lodge? I can quote similar quotations from Theodore Roosevelt and others, who thought that it would be a good thing if an over-riding power could come into existence with not only authority but direct power to prevent the outbreak of war.

If your Lordships will study the speeches and writings at the time when the Covenant of the League of Nations was drawn up, you will find that General Smuts most clearly contemplated the existence of an over-riding body which would function in a world where all the normal divisions had been broken down and would deal with "new problems which transcended all national limits"—a body which would exercise a "steadying, controlling and regulating influence," giving "stability to progress" and removing the "wasteful functions which have dissipated so much social force in the past." That was a very laudable and proper ideal, but he went on to anticipate this from the League of Nations … it may well be destined to mark a new era in the government of man and become to the peoples the guarantee of peace to the workers of all races, the great International, and to all the embodiment of the moral and spiritual unity of the human race. This describes a picture which has no relation to the reality of the world in which we live, and I am sorry that the Government should continue to pin its faith to an institution which has never been brought into existence as it was intended to be and which cannot function in a world so different from the world in which it was meant to function.

My noble friend suggested that a declaration should be made once more on strong lines. I agree with him, but I want that declaration to be in a totally different direction. I would like His Majesty's Government to take their courage in their hands, and they have the precedents of free trade and disarmament. So far as the League of Nations is concerned we have done our best, by example and by running grave risks, to make the thing work. Nobody followed our example, and therefore the time has come when we should be wise to put it into the category of unrealised ideals—something splendid if it could be achieved, but which must not be pursued as a practical object because by pursuing it you would bring this country, and the whole world, into danger. As your Lordships may remember it took many years to realise that "free import" was not "free trade." That came to be understood at last, and we are all the better for the understanding. We disarmed when all the other nations continued to arm, but a moment came, luckily just in time, when it was appreciated that the only result would be the ruin of the Empire. It would not have prevented war, but it meant that in the next war we should have been defeated. I venture to think the time has come when we ought to treat the League of Nations in precisely the same way. I can assure my noble friends below me that large numbers of their keenest supporters feel very strongly on this subject, and that any action on the lines that I have suggested would undoubtedly be welcomed very widely in this country.

I apologise for delaying your Lordships, but I would say one or two words on the subject of German Colonies. In listening to the noble Marquess, and to the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Buxton, yesterday, I could not help feeling that they were speaking as if under the impression that Germany, having won the War, had been unjustly deprived of the fruits of her victory. It seemed that Germany encountered no blame at all. We were to blame, the French were to blame, and, most of all, the Americans were to blame for the present situation, but no blame attached to Germany. That point of view has been expressed very widely, and I hope your Lordships will bear with me if for a moment or two I try to invite your attention to the other side of the question. The demand for Colonies, which is the point that now intervenes between us and Germany, is quite a new one. In Mein Kampf Herr Hitler definitely deprecates Colonial adventures. He is of the opinion that it is in Germany's interest to unite all Germans in Europe before embarking again upon some Colonial adventure. In that he follows the line of Bismarck, who was equally against Colonial adventure. But various people in Germany who have been associated with the Colonies in the past: General Goering, Herr Hess, who spent many years in Egypt, and others succeeded in persuading the Führer that it was necessary to claim the return of the German Colonies.

It may interest noble Lords opposite, if they have not noticed it, to hear a quotation from a pamphlet by Dr. Bauer, published in 1935 with a view to stimulating interest in the campaign in favour of the return of Colonies to Germany. There had to be a campaign in favour, because it was not the natural instinct of the Germans to demand these Colonies back. In the course of this very interesting little pamphlet, which I am afraid is not much read in this country, because it is only published in German, the same arguments are used which noble Lords have been using to-day and on other occasions in advocating the return of German Colonies. There is this passage: that one of the most important things to do is to collect and employ to the fullest extent all statements emanating from authoritative sources abroad in favour of the return of our Colonies, as well as all reference to German Colonial questions in the foreign Press. The noble Lords made very substantial contributions to that question, but I rather think that they are not doing Germany a good turn. I think they are rather misleading Germany by putting forward views which are not held by the majority of people in this country. I was very glad when the Government refused to be drawn on this subject at all and merely repeated the quite colourless communiqué made when our Ministers met the French Ministers and discussed these subjects.

But, the German case having been put so often by them on the platform, in both Houses of Parliament and in the Press, I must crave your Lordships' indulgence if I put what I conceive to be the British case once in a while. I conceive the British case to be this: that we do not accept, first of all, the bald claim for the return of their Colonies. When, for example, Herr Hitler says, "What we have a moral right to in the question of Colonies is that which belonged to us before the War," I can see no moral right, nor any other kind of right. The Germans lost their Colonies because they lost the War, and under Article 119 of the Treaty of Versailles Germany renounces in favour of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions. She handed those overseas possessions over; she could not help herself. They were handed over, not to the League of Nations, as is wrongly stated, but to the Allied and Associated Powers. That is why we come to have them. It is worth quoting an extract from Herr Hitler's book Mein Kampf—the German edition of it, not the expurgated English one—in which he sets forth the real basis of unquestionable right. He says: State boundaries are created by men and altered by men. The fact of success by a people in excessive acquisition of territory carries no higher guarantee of eternal approval. It proves at the most the power of the conqueror and the weakness of the victim. It is from this power alone that right is derived. That, according to Herr Hitler, makes our title to the possession of the lands to which he says he has a moral right absolutely unquestionable, and that, therefore, I think, is a point that deserves to be made.

But I yield to no one in the desire for improving relations with Germany. It is true that I think there must be considerably greater disposition shown on Germany's part to meet us halfway than she has shown up-to-date, and a great alteration in the tone of the speeches of the German leaders. The sort of statement, for example, from Field-Marshal Goering, that the Colonies were stolen from them after an unfortunate war, is not the kind of thing that you would expect any of my noble friends on the Bench below me to accept. I confess that I think that if Germany wants attention paid to her claims she would be wise to adopt the phraseology and manners which are in use among civilised nations. But, without attaching too much importance to that, it does have some effect, because there is no question that it does not predispose people to be in favour of meeting the German point of view.

As to the return of these Colonies, which is demanded, what objection is there to meeting the German demand? The first objection, of course, is that we can only deal with those territories over which we have control. That rules out the territories which the French and the Japanese control, and the territories controlled under Mandate by all our Dominions. You therefore come down to East Africa and West Africa. General Smuts, in an interesting speech made just before the end of the War, laid this down: As long as there is no real change of heart in Germany, and no final and irrevocable break with militarism, the law of self-preservation should be considered paramount; no fresh extension of Prussian militarism to other Continents and seas should be tolerated; and the conquered German Colonies can only be regarded as guarantees for the security of the future peace of the world. Will anybody claim that there has been any real change of heart in Germany, or that there has been a final and irrevocable break with militarism? Is it not right and proper to suggest that the caution that was advised by General Smuts is amply justifiable in dealing with people with whom we have had the experience of four years of war?

More than that, it is worth while, I think, and not without interest, to study what the Germans would have done if they had won the War. Fortunately we are in possession of their plans for what they called "Middle Africa." This is what Professor Delbrück said in the Preussische Jahrbücher in 1917 or 1918: If our victory is great enough, we can hope to unite under our hand the whole of Central Africa with our old Colony South-West Africa; Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Dahomey, well-populated Nigeria with the port of Lagos, Kamerun, the rich islands of San Thomé and Principe with their splendid ports, the Katanga ore district, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Mozambique and Delagoa Bay, Madagascar, German East Africa, Zanzibar, and Uganda; and in addition the great port of Ponta Delgado in the Azores, one of the most important and most frequented coaling stations; and Horta, one of the most important centres of the Trans- atlantic cable system. At present the Azores belong to Portugal, which is at war with Germany. Portugal also owns the Cape Verde Islands, with the port of Porto Grande, one of the most frequented coaling stations in the Eastern Atlantic. All these territories together have over 100,000,000 inhabitants. I think that is an over-statement; if you give them half it is quite enough. United in a single ownership, and with their various characteristics supplementing one another, they offer simply immeasurable prospects. They are rich in natural treasures, rich in possibilities of settlement and trade, rich in men who can work and also can be used in war. The important point, as I see it, of this extract is this. It ends as follows: To demand them is not unjust and does not offend against the principle of equilibrium, since Germany would thus only be obtaining a Colonial Empire such as England and Russia, France and America, have long possessed. To accept that basis for a distribution of the land of the world seems to me to be something we cannot consider for a moment.

We have collected within the British Empire a quarter of the surface of the globe. That is quite true. In that area there is justice, there is security, there are free institutions; people live, taking it by and large, more happily, more safely—they have certainly got more liberty—than in any other part of the world. If the same conditions applied over half of the world instead of over one quarter, and if we were responsible for maintaining these conditions, we should have no right to sacrifice the people who are enjoying these conditions because they are members of the British Empire. That is a point that has to be remembered. It is not a question of meeting German convenience. It is a question of carrying out our immemorial obligations, a question of doing justice to those who are entitled to look for security to the various Parliaments of the Empire. Therefore, though it is desirable to discuss and consider and see what can be done to meet Germany's desire for some overseas possessions, we have to bear two things in view. We have to bear in view the need for maintaining our strategic safety, and we have to bear in view the interests of the inhabitants of the countries involved, be they natives or settlers from here. They cannot be treated simply as chattels to be bandied about, and least of all can a single inch be given in deference to threats and bluster. If a bargain can be struck, if a suitable and sensible businesslike arrangement can be made—not with us alone but between Germany and the rest of the Powers possessing overseas Colonies—well and good. Let something of that kind be effected. But noble Lords opposite and others outside do a disservice to Germany, and certainly do a disservice to the cause of peace, by raising hopes of meeting the German point of view which ignore the British people and which I hope there is not the slightest chance of the Government accepting.

LORD ALLEN OF HURTWOOD

My Lords, I realise that I am speaking at a very late hour and that the noble Viscount the Leader of the House is anxious to leave. Therefore I must obviously cut down the remarks I should like to have addressed to your Lordships' House to the narrowest possible limits, because all of us are anxious to hear the statement of the noble Viscount. I confess I wish the procedure of this House could sometimes be reconsidered in order that the claims of the dinner-hour might be met by an earlier meeting of this House when other claims are so urgent; but having had the audacity to make that observation, I shall say no more upon it at this moment. There was only one point of any substance that I intended to put to the noble Viscount in the hope that he would make some observations about it. But, before I come to that point, I feel I cannot quite neglect the remarkable utterance that we have heard—no more remarkable than other utterances we have also heard—from my noble friend Lord Lothian.

I think, perhaps, his mind is one of the most obscurely arranged minds of any member of your Lordships' House on the question of the League of Nations. He made an attack upon the League of Nations Union. I do not know upon what particular foundation of evidence he made that attack, but he reached the conclusion that at last we had an opportunity of combining collective security and collective justice, and that as we had at last been enabled to approach that dual offensive towards peace he was now feeling a little more restful about the League of Nations and felt there was some hope for that great institution. I do not know what documents of the League of Nations Union my noble friend has been reading, but if he had taken the trouble to read them with any exactitude I suggest to Urn he would have discovered that the principles for which the League of Nations Union stands are a combination of the principles of collective security and collective justice; and that throughout the League of Nations Union there has been a desire to advance towards peace by that dual approach. If my noble friend feels happier about the capacity of the League of Nations, not the League of Nations Union, to deal with the problems of the world of to-day, I do not knew on what evidence he is basing it, because the Covenant of the League of Nations has made ample provision from the moment it was drafted, not only for the protection of law, but for the making of changes in the status quo by the lawful procedure of common counsel amongst the nations acting together. May I just make one passing reference to the fact that my noble friend is himself, in some measure at any rate, responsible for the Treaty of Versailles and that it is out of the Treaty of Versailles that the disasters of the present have arisen rather than out of the Covenant of the League of Nations which my noble friend Lord Cecil and others were responsible for drafting. I suspect, therefore, it is probably his guilty conscience about the Treaty of Versailles which is causing him such trouble at the present moment.

May I just make one reference to the speech of Lord Arnold? I always listen to him with the greatest admiration, but on this occasion I confess I listened to him with complete despair. I doubt whether I have ever heard in your Lordships' House a more completely destructive speech than that delivered by Lord Arnold. When he sat down I had no more idea of what he desired to do with the dangers and problems of the contemporary world than I had before he broke his silence and read his Notice on the Order Paper. He and many others of your Lordships' House continually refer to the immediate disaster that confronts the world and draw certain conclusions about the past from that disaster. They look at the present position and say, "Here is the evidence which proves conclusively that the League Covenant was from the start on the wrong lines. Here is the evidence that proves that the whole conception of its Articles was wrongly framed." The evidence of the present proves no such thing. All it proves is that the League Covenant has never been put into proper operation, that it has never been used as it was intended to be used by its founders.

It is sometimes argued, in particular by my noble friend Lord Lothian, who has now cancelled all his previous arguments, that it is national sovereignty which is the major impediment making it difficult to operate collective law under the auspices of the League Covenant. Sovereignty is unquestionably an impediment. When in the process of time we have learned to merge our sovereignty more than we have at present, unquestionably international action will be easier than it is to-day, but sovereign States have acted together collectively and can act together collectively. Sovereign States, despite all their sovereignty, acted together for the protection of law in the Great War itself of 1914, and many of them went to the point of having one Commandant on the Western Front, a Generalissimo for all forces drawn from those different sovereign States. Nine sovereign States came together only recently at Nyon. They pooled their action; they enlarged their sovereignty; and dealt with piracy in the Mediterranean. What happened? Not what pacifists and others prophesied—namely, that when you put collective force behind the law you extend the area of war, you turn all wars into world wars, you lead to bloodshed. Nothing of the kind. That which those who favour collective security prophesied then took place—namely, that instead of extending the area of war you prevented war, and you prevented illegal action. There has been comparatively no piracy since that time, and the sovereignty of the nations who then came together was no impediment to collective action when the will to act was there.

There is only one other reference to law that I would like to make at this stage and it is rather a contrary line of argument. My noble friend Lord Cecil very wisely besought the House, and through the House the world, to base law more firmly upon justice. He said that we must not allow British opinion with regard to League action, or British opinion with regard to the defence of our nationals abroad, to appear to America and to other countries to be exclusively and entirely devoted to the selfish national interests of this country. He besought the House to return to fidelity to lawful procedure, and to stand as the protector of peace as well as of national interest. I share that view. I only have one slight doubt as to the emphasis which my noble friend puts upon that at this moment of time.

I find it difficult to criticise, or even to differ from my noble friend in any respect, but I do feel that this requires to be said. We are passing at this moment through a period of broken circumstances. We are passing through a period of transition. Unquestionably, had the League Covenant been operated from the first as it was intended to be operated, we should not have found ourselves in the position in which we find ourselves to-day; but unfortunately statesmen, during the year or two which succeeded the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, interpreted the upholding of law as the maintenance of the selfish interests of the States who were most fortunate at that moment of history, with the result that there has now come about something which ought never to have come about and need not have come about, a conflict between the principle of law and the principle of growth, and we are faced at this moment with a transitional period that is exceedingly difficult. Consequently I feel at this moment that we should in no respect surrender the British determination to stand by the protection of lawful procedure, but that we should be willing that the method by which we implement that principle should be more elastic than it need have been had the broken circumstances of the present never come about.

I was grateful to the most reverend Primate yesterday for doing me the gracious kindness of referring to a letter I ventured to address to The Times not so very long ago, in which I pleaded for two things: first, that we should under no circumstances at this moment strike Article 16 out of the Covenant, for if we were to strike Article 16 by deliberate act out of the Covenant we should in the eyes of all the aggressors inflict a deep and serious wound upon the belief that we were prepared still to stand by the principle of law. But I begged at the same time that we should, for the purposes of common action between League Powers and non-League Powers, bring to the forefront of our activity Article 11, which enables a more elastic procedure to be adopted than is possible under Article 16. Therefore I only venture to say to those who lay such emphasis at this moment upon the need for protecting the law that, because of the difficult transitional period we are passing through, the procedure that we employ must be more elastic than it need have been had the present situation not come about.

The only other point I want to make is in fact a point of substance that I wish to address to the noble Viscount. I refer to his own visit to Germany, and I also refer to the urgent necessity of further steps being taken towards bringing about, if we can, some general settlement of the problems that confront Europe at the present moment. When I plead for some statement from him if he should feel able to make it on the subject of appeasement, may I venture to make this point unmistakably clear. When I plead for appeasement I do not mean making concessions to aggressor or potentially aggressor States in the form of baits that may serve their ambitions. Nothing would seem to me to be more disastrous than to make concessions in that form. Moreover, when I plead for appeasement, I am not asking that this nation should be the one nation which was continually pleading and praying with other nations of an aggressive character to come into negotiations. I do not believe it is right and proper that we should be continually inviting aggressor nations to come into negotiations. I believe that we have taken a lead through the visit of the noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, to Germany, which was of notable value, and it is now vital that the next step towards further meetings should come from some other source, perhaps from the nation which the noble Viscount visited. May I also make absolutely clear that when I plead for appeasement I plead also for strength. It is dangerous at this moment to talk of conciliation unless this nation has power, authority and strength so that it may deal with the situation from the standpoint of strength. None the less, if we are to talk of the protection of law, it is indispensable that the law should be as just as we can make it.

For better or for worse, I personally think infinitely for the better, the noble Viscount in the full glare of limelight went on a visit of exploration to Germany. That was nearly three months ago. During the last few days we have seen a new beginning of disaster in Europe. I do not ask my noble friend to give us any of the details of his conversations in Germany. I am sure that if I did I should receive a very inadequate response from the noble Viscount. I do not ask him to make any outline of the kind of settlement that he or the Government would like to see, but I do most earnestly ask him whether it is possible, having regard to what is going on in Europe at this moment, to give us some indication of the kind of steps forward to a new settlement that he thinks may now be taken, having regard to his visit and to the fact that change is again being attempted in Europe, not by consent, but by violence. The Austrian situation which has now occurred is a tragic disaster. If I may venture to say so, some of us at the time the Treaty of Versailles was signed protested for all we were worth against the unfair discrimination which had been imposed upon the relationship of Austria and Germany which was not imposed upon the relationship of any other two sovereign Powers. We were not listened to. Some of us protested again later on when by the overwhelming consent of both Austria and Germany a Customs Union was desired by those two countries and was rejected, not I think so much by this country as, unhappily, chiefly by our French friends. Now to-day we are faced by another attempt to make change, and to make it by forcible means.

Is this drift toward change by force never to be stopped? Are we not to get some procedure expedited towards a peace settlement which would enable these various grievances, if there are grievances, to be examined by the legitimate procedure instead of being forced upon us by threats of violence or by violence itself? I do earnestly plead with the noble Viscount, having regard to what occurred three months ago, whether he can tell us anything of the kind of steps that are in contemplation towards reaching, not a bargain of weakness, but conciliation based upon strength. I plead for it for one other reason. Unless we know what steps are being taken towards a peace settlement and the manner and principles upon which that settlement is to be approached by this country, we shall have over and over again dangerous controversies arising such as the controversy now begun on the subject of Germany's claim to Colonies.

If I may say so to Lord Arnold, I thought his reference to the Colonial question was, to say the least of it, most unfortunate. There is no question that a grave injustice was inflicted upon Germany in the particular mariner in which Colonies were taken from her by the Treaty of Versailles, but, my Lords, whatever may have been true of the past you cannot solve this Colonial problem by handing round Colonies as if they were cards in a game of beggar-my-neighbour. This question of Colonies, whatever may have been the injustice of the past, raises questions of the desires of native populations, it raises questions of strategic values. There is only one way in which the Colonial question can at this stage be dealt with, and that is as part of an all-round settlement in which there is give and take on both sides, in which our German friends not only receive a reconsideration of that problem but themselves contribute to the necessary security which we need if there is to be a peace settlement for Europe. I believe that the most likely form of guarantee which could make that peace settlement a living reality, so that we could trust the word of each other in the future, would be that there should be an agreement for limitation of armaments whereby equality was granted to all comparable Powers and no one nation was able alone to dominate the Continent of Europe. We should make that clear to our German friends at this moment and not go into the Colonial question as a separate matter of making concessions.

In conclusion, I would only say that I earnestly hope that His Majesty's Government will not be—and I am sure they will not be—deflected from working towards a new peace settlement because of the disasters which have occurred during the last two days. For my part I very much doubt whether the victory of aggression in Austria is as complete as some people think it is. In my belief the Austrian situation is only at the very beginning of its development. What I do feel is that dictatorship is something which we should not in the least try to meet except by opposition of the strongest kind. Dictatorship is a disease, a neurosis for which we are partly responsible, but it is a transitory disease. It is not well founded in the equipment of contemporary civilisation. Democracy, as I understand it, is the expression not only of centuries of development but is the natural expression of the intelligence of ordinary men and women in all civilised countries at the present moment. It may be under a cloud, but I believe its authority will be restored. Therefore, whatever may be the transitory disasters which may come from the disease of dictatorship, I earnestly hope that His Majesty's Government will not be deflected from their efforts, because what are now required both for the sake of peace and of democracy are British strength, British initiative and above all British magnanimity.

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)

My Lords, the noble Lord who has just spoken always commands the attention and the respect of your Lordships when he addresses you, and he concludes a debate in the course of which our attention has been attracted by means of many powerful speeches to the great issues that are predominantly in all our minds. I owe a word of apology to those of your Lordships who spoke yesterday and whom I was not able to hear through no fault of my own, but I have done my best to inform myself of the course of the debate. I am also sensible that I owe an apology to the noble Lord who last addressed your Lordships for imposing upon him the necessity of depriving the House of part of what, had there been greater time, he would have been able to say to it.

Before I come to the wider issues that have been raised in the debate I think that perhaps it would be convenient if I were to deal with two specific subjects on which I have been asked specific questions. The first one is a question that was asked me by the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, concerning the function of the Chief Diplomatic Adviser, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, was the first to direct our thoughts yesterday. The noble Marquess to-day asked me, as I understood him, whether I could give him an assurance that the Chief Diplomatic Adviser was not going to be concerned with the current affairs of the Office on which, as my noble friend said yesterday, the Secretary of State would probably be advised by the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, the head of the Office. I can tell him quite definitely, as I think indeed my noble friend made plain yesterday, that the Chief Diplomatic Adviser is not concerned with the current affairs of the Office. He is concerned, as was made plain in the statement at the time of his appointment, to advise the Secretary of State upon major questions of policy and so on, remitted to him for that purpose, and I think that my noble friend came as near a precise definition as is possible when he spoke, I think, of parallel lines. My noble friend will remember that one of the first properties of parallel lines is that they never meet and therefore never clash.

The other specific question, that which the noble Lord, Lord Snell, asked me—he has been obliged to leave the House for another engagement—was whether I could tell him precisely what was the position of His Majesty's Government with regard to events in Austria, on which I may perhaps have a word to say in a moment, and more precisely whether His Majesty's Government still stand by the joint declaration known as the Stresa Declaration of 1935. I think perhaps the most convenient course would be if I were to read the answer given by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, to-day, in another place, which I think summarises the latest information on the general question that is in the possession of His Majesty's Government. The question was asked by Major Attlee "whether he has any further statement to make regarding the situation in Austria," and my right honourable friend's reply was as follows: Yes, Sir. I have received certain information in regard to the new Austro-German Agreement. As, however, the terms of this Agreement have not yet been made public by the parties to it, I am unable at this moment to give any detailed information to the House. I hope, however, to be in a position to make a statement at an early date, perhaps to-morrow. In the meanwhile, in view of statements in the Press, I should perhaps add that His Majesty's Minister in Vienna was informed of the proposed meeting between the Austrian Chancellor and Herr Hitler on February 11, that is to say, on the eve of the meeting itself. The views or advice of His Majesty's Government were not invited in connection with that meeting. While at the present moment I am not in a position to estimate the exact effect of this Agreement"— perhaps in that connection I might interpose that I think a certain element of reserve is called for in our judgment of events at the present time— His Majesty's Government are following developments with close attention, and His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin has already been instructed to indicate to the German Government the interest which His Majesty's Government take and have always taken in the Austrian question. With regard to the question addressed to me by Lord Snell as to the Stresa Conference, I think the reply I should give to him if he were here would be that the policy of His Majesty's Government continues to be inspired by the joint resolution of the Stresa Conference, but as he will remember the efficacy of that resolution depends on the loyal collaboration of all the parties to it and not on His Majesty's Government alone. So far as the resolution refers to the maintenance of the independence and integrity of Austria, His Majesty's Government are not yet in a position to estimate the effect of the recent Agreement between Germany and Austria, but, as the answer I have read has made plain, they are watching how the situation develops with the closest attention.

I pass to make some comment on the general speeches that have been made in the course of this debate. A great many valuable contributions and a good deal of new thought have been brought into our debates by those speeches, but, while saying that, I do not think it is unjust to a great many of the speeches which have been made, as it will certainly not be unjust to my own, if I say that part of their usefulness has been to test what I call the survival value of arguments and views more than once stated in this House. As so often happens, the Government policy has been the target of criticisms, some friendly, some less friendly, from a variety of different angles. In so far as speakers have been concerned with the League of Nations, there have been those who have found fault with the Government policy for being too weak, and who would wish to go further, and act with far greater firmness in connection with Article 16. There are others, like Lord Arnold, who initiated this debate, and my noble friend Lord Stonehaven, who frankly regard Article 16, and the other Articles connected with it, as dangerous and as provocative, and as a genuine hindrance to that international co-operation which they wish to see.

My Lords, nearly everybody, including persons so modest as the noble Viscount at present in occupation of the Front Opposition Bench (Lord Cecil of Chelwood) and Lord Arnold, has a natural tendency to think, and is rather pleased to think, he is either more virtuous or more perspicacious than his neighbours. Making allowance for that, I would ask them—I take them as champions of opposing views, with the most reverend Primate perhaps in a more comfortable position in the middle—I would ask them not to magnify their differences, not with one another but with the Government. Lord Arnold is apt to speak as if he were the only realist in the House, and the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, is apt to suggest that most people, except those who agree with him, are in danger of betraying and being untrue to the ideals with Which he would wish them to be inspired. But the wise man is he who can combine in just measure the qualities of both idealism and realism, as I think the most reverend Primate said yesterday. Those two attributes, let me say in passing, are not by any means incompatible, and it would be most unfortunate for human life if they were. For most human life consists in reconciliations, and the whole of human life would stop unless it were possible for us to make some effective working reconciliation between realities which are often ugly and ideals which, as has been well said to-day, are the foundation on which all progress depends.

The facts as to these so-called coercive Articles of the Covenant are of course plain enough to see, and it is quite inevitable, in my judgment, that we should draw differing conclusions from them. It is quite possible, with Lord Arnold, to recognise disagreeable facts, and yet to doubt whether he draws the right conclusions from them. If I may give an example, nobody feels more strongly than I do how vulnerable to-day is the position of the League with these coercive Articles, so-called, in the Covenant; and yet one is bound to recognise, with the most reverend Primate, with the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, and with hosts of other people, how limited to-day is the power of the League of Nations to enforce them. The noble Lord, Lord Allen, has said, "But look how successful was the Nyon Conference; there you had the principle of the League of Nations in operation, with immediate success." And he said that the reason was that the will to act was there. Exactly; that was the whole point, and it is just when you get a situation in which the will to act is there that the League of Nations principle, the collective security, will work. It is just because the will to act is not always there with all nations that it will not always work. We must all be prepared to recognise that fact.

No one is more sensible than His Majesty's Government of the complications caused by the non-universality of the League. I would make great sacrifices to redeem the League from that truncated state. But are we sure there is no ground for the fear that was expressed by, I think, the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, that if, moved by those considerations, you were to follow the course of expunging Article 16 from the Covenant, you might find yourselves, as the noble Lord who spoke last said, unwittingly weakening, if not destroying for years to come, the whole conception of international order which the Articles in question were designed to promote? Quite certain this is, that you would get no agreement upon any such course. My conclusion, as is also that of very many of your Lordships who are much wiser than I, is that the Advisory Committee of the League was wise, having regard to the widely-differing views held in the Committee on these matters, when it decided to adjourn and give further opportunity for consideration. I am prepared to say no more at this stage than has already been stated on the subject on behalf of His Majesty's Government.

The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, asked that some reference might be made to a matter on which a complaint was, I understand, advanced in certain quarters at Geneva, with regard to the actual procedure which had been there adopted for the framing of a resolution in regard to the Sino-Japanese dispute. He, of course, will be quite familiar with what was said on that occasion by the British representative, Lord Cranborne, and what was also said by the Chinese representative, and I do not think I can usefully add anything to what they said beyond saying that to the plain man, like myself, who is not so skilled in the ways of Geneva as the noble Viscount opposite, it would have seemed an elementary part of the machinery for the despatch of business, when there was no Rapporteur to the Committee, as in this case, for a few of the principal Powers concerned to meet to prepare a resolution for the convenience of the whole Council. It was solely with the desire to facilitate business and not to hinder the Council in any way that that action was pursued.

The noble Lord, Lord Arnold, in the course of his speech yesterday made a statement which I think is sufficiently important to deserve a specific reference. He was arguing the case for isolation in contrast to the Covenant, and he used these words: … under isolation there is a very good chance of keeping out of the next war, whereas under League policy there is no such chance at all. Under League policy whenever war comes, wherever it is or whatever it is about, Great Britain is bound to be in it—and not only in the next European war, but in all European wars. He went on to say: I find it difficult myself within the limits of temperate language to find the right adjective for such a policy. I almost felt bound to borrow those last words as indicative of my own feeling towards such a statement. The noble Lord cannot really believe that that statement, in those simple terms, is true. I am sure that on reflection he will agree with me that in those terms it is apt to be, to one less informed than himself, dangerously misleading.

I do not want to weary your Lordships, but I think this is important enough for me to remind your Lordships of how the Foreign Secretary, some fifteen months ago, defined quite clearly—and your Lordships will not have forgotten it—the military obligations of this country in a now not unfamiliar speech at Leamington. I do not know that I need quote his definition to your Lordships, but noble Lords will remember that he there defined them in quite specific terms. I make this assertion with complete precision: that there are no other military commitments of this country, and that in every other case His Majesty's Government would be wholly free to act as they might, in all the circumstances of the time, think right. I do not, however, agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, that it is either possible or even always desirable for any country to state precisely when it would or would not feel it right to enter upon armed resistance. I am quite certain that it is not possible. I do not think that he would disagree with this, which I am afraid I must confess that I have said in this House before but he will forgive me for saying it again: Unless you are prepared to say, "I will always fight when the Covenant is attacked anywhere," or "I will never fight unless I am directly attacked"—unless you are prepared to take one of those two extreme positions, there is always bound to be ground between them in which His Majesty's Government of the day must judge whether they will advise the country to fight or not.

I go the whole way with the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, when he says that no Government in this or in any other democratic country can commit the country to war unless they have a preponderating public opinion with them. I agree, but I would add this one observation on what I know is his policy for this country, of isolation. Incidentally, I think that Lord Allen was a little unjust to Lord Arnold in saying that his speech had left no clear stamp on his mind. On my mind it left a perfectly clear stamp: that his policy is the simple policy of isolation. Such a policy is, of course, I suppose, attractive if you think it will work, just as retreat into a monastery has through history offered attraction to anxious souls tormented by the insoluble problems of the world. But those who went into a monastery were at least sure that when they got there they were out of the storm. I am not certain that any great nation can feel the same degree of assurance as those early pious and devoted men. Therefore, while I share, as everyone of your Lordships shares, the noble Lord's repugnance to war and his conviction of the need for public opinion being behind any war, I cannot feel that it is either politically practicable or morally justifiable for this country to pretend that it can disinterest itself in what goes on in the great world outside.

The noble Lord, Lord Snell, had some very harsh things to say in his inimitably gentle style about the Government having no coherent motive and acting with the dreamy irresponsibility of sleep-walkers in foreign policy. I could not help thinking that here was a charming illustration of what seems to me a not infrequent tendency that one sees in many quarters to think and to speak of international affairs in terms of domestic politics. He said that in some ways the League of Nations must be made to prevail. Now what I mean by the tendency to think of international affairs in terms of domestic is this. In domestic politics the Government are free to reach their decisions and, subject to criticisms and attack and possibly decease, to act on their decisions, taking the risk. They can do it. But in international affairs there are only three ways that I know in which things can be settled. There is the way of agreement, there is the way of war, and there is the way of the fear of war. It takes at least two parties to make agreements, and therefore it does not lie with one party alone to enforce that agreement. Therefore, when I heard the noble Lord saying that in some ways the League of Nations must be made to prevail, I rubbed my eyes and wondered if he thinks any one Government can, as my noble friend Lord Stonehaven said with great force, bring about the result that he deems so important.

During these last years every one of us knows only too well that of the necessity for agreement, and of the fact that advance is only possible by agreement, we have had abundant and all too much evidence. I would only say this about the kind of course that has been more than once pressed on His Majesty's Government for more vigorous action here, there, or elsewhere, that it might or might not have been successful but it certainly would not have been successful by way of agreement. When you rule out the possibility of agreement in international affairs you bring nearer the only alternative we all wish to avoid, which is war. Let us not forget that, whatever be the place in our philosophy that we give to the League of Nations, the League of Nations itself is only a great means to the greater end of international peace, and if it is possible to reach agreements which really offer international appeasement through machinery other than the League, I can hardly suppose there would be any Member of the League so shortsighted as to grudge their conclusion. I do not wish to see the world divided into blocs of democratic and non-democratic States, as was hinted by the noble Lord, Lord Snell, and His Majesty's Government have repeatedly made it plain that they earnestly desire world appeasement to which all nations have got to make their contributions and to which, on such conditions, we should be very willing to make ours.

I agree, if I understood him aright, with the noble Lord, Lord Allen, that in such discussions on these subjects as might be undertaken there must be no jealous balancing or bargaining items one against another, for that way, I think, lies only irritation, suspicion, and disappointment. Rather, I think, must these matters be approached from the angle that all nations must be prepared to make a contribution to that which is the common object of each, and His Majesty's Government would hope that all those who are concerned would be prepared to meet, as opportunity offered, in a spirit of willing determination to make the fullest contribution that might rightly lie in their power towards the end that all, I hope, desire to secure—namely, that of a full and peaceful understanding. I hope it is not necessary for any spokesmen of His Majesty's Government to say that, in any efforts we may make to reach such understandings, nothing is further from the thought of His Majesty's Government than an attempt to impair the smooth working of the Berlin-Rome axis, any more than in any conversations we might have, or that might be held elsewhere, we should ascribe to Germany or to Italy any Machiavellian project of trying to interrupt the close relations happily existing to-day between ourselves and France.

As to Germany—and we all, I am sure, felt great force in what fell from the noble Marquess opposite as to the effect of the passage of recent years in reconsidering verdicts passed fifteen and twenty years ago—the suggestion made, I think, by Lord Arnold and Lord Noel-Buxton that this country had been responsible for failure to reach understanding will not, I venture to assert, be the verdict of history. I think it leaves too much out. But, as noble Lords will remember, the Prime Minister made it plain in the statement after the visit of the French Ministers a few weeks ago that we were energetically pursuing an examination of questions that were raised when I had the opportunity recently of meeting the German Chancellor, and I am not in a position to-day to add to that statement beyond assuring noble Lords that it remains true to-day as it was a fortnight or three weeks ago when the Prime Minister made it. I listened with attention to what my noble friend Lord Stonehaven had to say upon the difficult question of Colonies, but I should be unwilling to break his almost imperative injunction to His Majesty's Ministers not to say any more than had already been said, by following him in greater detail into it. As regards Italy, I do not believe that, with good will on both sides, it should be difficult to re-establish the relations which for so many years prevailed between our two countries, and which I believe the peoples of both countries wish to see restored. Whatever may have been our judgment on recent events it is not the way of the British people to wish to maintain differences when the circumstances from which they arose no longer remain unchanged.

May I sum up what I have tried to say in a few sentences? The broad purpose of foreign policy of any Government of this country must be to pursue that which is the greatest of all British interests—namely, peace, and if at any time one hundred per cent. success in that pursuit is impossible—and that is not a matter that lies wholly in the hands of any British Government—it will still remain the object of any British Government, I hope, to protect as much of the cause of peace as it may be able to do. We believe, not less strongly than any one of your Lordships, that the future of the world depends upon its willingness to prefer the way of reason and law in international affairs to the use of force. But—and here I recognise the force of what has fallen from several of your Lordships during this debate—inasmuch as the world never stands still, we have to be on our guard to see that the assertion of these principles is not distorted into an attempt to obstruct all change, which is one of the primary laws of all human life, and nothing that the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, said, I think, had greater force than the observations he addressed to that thought. I agree with him that not the least of the problems that are to-day confronting us is to make provision for the security of peace, which may not exclude peaceful revision and change, where such may be rightly required.

I do not believe, and I have never believed, in the imminence of war, and in more directions than one I believe time to be on the side of peace. Greater progress would in my judgment be made if we could rid our minds of the catastrophic conception of Europe always on the brink of the abyss, which I think is itself largely responsible for maintaining the background which makes the whole picture look so dark. As I see it, the truth is that Europe is not so much dangerous as confused. For years since the War, Europe sought, in appearance at least, to build its policy upon the League, and it is naturally disturbing when that basis is the object of such direct and open challenge as it is to-day. None of these considerations is absent from the mind of His Majesty's Government, and I hope I have said enough to show that we are very sensible to the force of all the arguments that may be urged from all the different angles of this highly com plex collection of problems of which the world to-day is made up. I can only say that in face of the sharply conflicting advice that is tendered to His Majesty's Government from many different quarters in this House, representing as it does sharp differences of opinion outside, they will relax no efforts that they are able to make by whatever machinery seems to them most appropriate to remove misunderstandings that endanger peace, and to labour in support of those things that may reinforce it.

LORD ARNOLD

My Lords, at this late hour I will refrain from making any further remarks. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

House adjourned at a quarter past seven o'clock.