FOREIGN POLICY.

HL Deb 18 May 1938 vol 109 cc108-216

LORD SNELL rose to move to resolve, That in the opinion of this House the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government, which includes the acceptance of the sacrifice of Abyssinian independence, and is detrimental to the democratic Government of Spain, offers no certainty of any corresponding gain to the principles of peace and democracy.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I regret that my duty here requires that I should once more initiate in your Lordships' House a debate upon foreign policy. I should certainly not have done so had I not been advised that such a discussion in your Lordships' House would, in view of recent events, be expected and, also, that it would not be a serious embarrassment to His Majesty's Government. The Labour view of foreign policy is tolerably well known and needs no elaborate restatement; but foreign policy has recently taken a form in which the conscience of the nation has become involved, and it is a policy which is viewed with the deepest misgiving and a good deal of distress. I should hope that nothing I may say in this discussion will appear to be an attack upon the noble Viscount, the Foreign Secretary, for whom, if he will permit me to say so, I have a long-established and great personal regard. There were two extremely unhappy men at the Geneva Council, His Majesty's Foreign Secretary and the Emperor of Abyssinia, but Haile Selassie had at least the consolation of believing that his cause was a righteous one. Let me say, in passing, that that unhappy man appeared to have borne himself with pathetic dignity.

I should hate, even more as one who has not to face the diplomatic and administrative difficulties of this time, to assume pharisaical attitudes as though I were superior in any way to my fellow men. Self-righteousness is one of the worst of sins. But I repeat again that the foreign policy of our nation has assumed a character which has stirred the moral qualities of our people into activity, and each of us is bound to speak as it is given to him to see and understand. I believe that there are millions of our fellow-countrymen at the present time who are perplexed and humiliated by the unrighteous compacts and by the un-English devices by which we are attempting to secure temporary respite from threats and from acts of aggression. Therefore, although it behoves all of us at a time like this to speak with restraint, His Majesty's Government should not assume that behind the words that may be used there is not a great deal of feeling.

Let me for a moment try to summarise the actual position. We have been faced with systematic defamation of our position in the Near East; we have had to submit to a subsidised totalitarian propaganda which has endeavoured to arouse the contempt of other nations for our administration; the nation has been taunted and goaded by assertions that we represent decadent democracy. The Empire, as I believe, has been placed in a position of greater danger than at any time since the time of Napoleon, and almost before the echoes of recent arrangements have died away there have been renewed truculent attacks upon our position. We appear to have lost some of our control over the Mediterranean. Our position at the western gates of the Mediterranean is in danger. That seems to me the position at the moment. How is that position being met? The noble Lord who is to move the Amendment which is on the Order Paper knows all these happenings, and yet he will use the language of a recent distinguished gentleman who also had contacts with Rome—"It has been too beautiful." I do not believe that the nation thinks anything of the kind, and outside our nation there are millions of people who are deeply distressed.

Take the situation in America for example. My own corespondence and what I have seen in American newspapers suggests to me that our reputation in America has deteriorated to an unexampled degree during recent months. If there is one thing that is characteristic of the American nation it is its belief in constitutional principles, and yet they see the nation from whom they derive their common law defending by every art of shallow casuistry the denial of legal and constitutional rights to other nations. They see her conniving at a spurious non-intervention policy in Spain; accepting, apparently with joy, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. They are not really impressed by the unfortunate attempts that have been made to harness to the chariot of His Majesty's Government the name of their President. Then, in regard to the small nations: they have looked to our country for example and for inspiration, and they are passing through a period of bitter disillusionment. Their rush to leave the League of Nations at the present time is because they feel deserted and are anxious to make terms while there is yet time.

Now let me deal very quickly with the question of negotiation. Let us try and get this thing straight in our minds. I am not, and the Labour Party is not, and never has been, opposed to negotiations with nations whose political theories we dislike. Over and over again I have pleaded that negotiations with such nations should take place. We have to live in the same world with them. The running of international questions is a business affair which requires constant negotiation. All that we accept, and indeed we welcome. It is the use that is made of negotiation that is in question here to-day. Take Spain as a mere illustration. We are apparently making a covenant with a Power for whose aggressive materialism a brave people is being sacrificed. I wonder. We are told that we must do this because of realism; we have got to recognise the facts, and to conform to them. Is every crime to be tested by its success? Is the burglar to be recognised because he has successfully got away with the swag? Is the murderer to be forgiven because his horrible technique of settling differences has been effective?

I should like to be informed, in language which a wayfaring man might understand, precisely why a war should have resulted from giving Spain her legal rights to purchase arms for her defence. And let me test that with another thought. We at the present time are trying to buy armaments from America. Well, if it is right for us to purchase arms from America when we are not attacked, why is it wrong for Spain to purchase arms wherever she can find them when she is engaged in fighting for her life and liberty against an aggressor? Senor del Vayo, the Spanish Foreign Minister, has put this in plain language: If, irrespective of the Anglo-Italian Agreement, Italy and Germany continue to intervene in Spain, and neither France nor the United Kingdom undertakes to prevent this continued intervention, in the name of what morality and justice can you go on depriving the legal Spanish Government of its rights under International Law? That question was not answered at Geneva. It has not been answered since. It cannot be answered, because no answer is possible.

Take the case of Abyssinia. There, again, I understand that action has to be taken because of alleged facts. What are the facts in relation to Abyssinia? The facts are that the people are not subdued, and that the hold of the invader over that country is at least precarious. We are conniving at their subjection to a new form of slavery. I ask in regard to Abyssinia whether, in any settlement that may have been arrived at, the question has been faced as to whether some tiny corner of Abyssinia could not remain under the rule, even if under Italian suzerainty, of the Emperor Haile Selassie? I believe our own conduct in this Abyssinian tragedy has throughout been deplorable. If we did not intend that Abyssinia should have a square deal when she entered the League of Nations, why did we not encourage her to purchase arms for her own defence? Why did we allow her to believe that membership of the League would give to her security? As things are to-day, whatever has happened in the past, by this compact, or whatever it is, we become accomplices in her subjugation. And all this is to be done, I understand, in the name of realism.

If that is to be the case, let us examine it. Let us test this alleged realism by reality. What precisely have been the gains of the understanding reached? What, in terms of increased security for the British Empire, has been achieved? Can it be said of the noble Viscount, as was said of Cæsar, "He hath brought many captives home from Rome and Geneva whose ransom will the general coffers fill"? What precisely will be the gain in security and prosperity of the British Empire? I am speaking in terms of reality. Will the British Empire be strengthened if, as His Majesty's Government apparently desire, Franco should win in the Spanish war? Then in regard to Palestine, what is the position there? It was mentioned in no document. We only have the word of the chief figure in Italy, and we are asked to accept that word as being satisfactory. Well, I am no business man, but I believe in the City the rule is that if a man offers you his word or his bond it is not a bad thing to take his bond rather than his word. I should like to know precisely what the position is in regard to Palestine as we pass.

I must hurry on. I merely want to say before I close that there would appear to me to be one way out of this situation, and that is to try at once to rebuild he League on lines which experience has taught us will be most fruitful, most helpful for the end desired. There was a time when that was the policy of His Majesty's Government. They won the Election on that issue. They issued a brave manifesto in which they pledged themselves to uphold the Covenant and to maintain and increase the efficiency of the League; and they said this was dictated by the firm conviction that collective security by collective action alone can save us from a return to the old system which resulted in the Great War. Millions of our fellow-countrymen voted for the National Government because of those words and in belief of that policy. Did the National Government believe those words at the time they issued them? If they did not, then they deceived the people. If they did believe in them, then how can we account for the long stray of their betrayal of the League and their tacit encouragement of aggression? I plead, therefore, that we should try to get back to the League and renew our efforts to build up a system of public security before things drift too far.

Let me try to summarise. This inconvenient reminder of differences between most excellent precept and deplorable practice is not pleasant for His Majesty's Government to hear. But it is not my business to provide them with pleasant feelings on an occasion of this kind. I have no doubt that what I have said will be met with obedient and half-frightened sneers by Government supporters. That is their business. We are only a handful in your Lordships' House, but we represent a great Party outside, and there are millions of people in the country by whom the main protest of my speech will be accepted. I believe, while again not wishing to pose as a self-righteous person, that the nation distrusts and resents these tainted bargains that are being made in its name, not because it is wrong to confer with nations whose theories we may all reject, but because they offend its sense of what is right, and represent a return to a system which statesmen of greater stature than those with whom we are blessed at the present time tried to supersede by the creation of the League of Nations—a system which produced the last War and will produce the next.

At no time in our recent history has there been such a conflict between the State and the national conscience as at the present time. Our ordinary political differences are always met and settled with an ordered decency and good feeling which is the envy of the world; but today we are faced with something deep: a mostly inarticulate but very potent resentment and difference between the people and the State. This betrayal of Abyssinia finds no support in the soul of our people. The heart of our people, so far as I know them, is with the brave loyalists of Spain and with the outraged people of Abyssinia. Finally, this is not the first time that a bargain of realism has been made. Faust made such a bargain with Mephistopheles. He, too, violated eternal principles for temporary advantages, and the sequel was not comforting. I venture, with humble sincerity, to remind His Majesty's Government of the retribution which overtook him. I beg to move.

Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government, which includes the acceptance of the sacrifice of Abyssinian independence, and is detrimental to the democratic Government of Spain, offers no certainty of any corresponding gain to the principles of peace and democracy.—(Lord Snell.)

LORD BROCKET had an Amendment on the Paper, to leave out all the words after "That" for the purpose of inserting the following words: "this House approves the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government, including the proposed Anglo-Italian Agreement and the maintenance of the policy of non-intervention in Spain, both of which the House recognises as making substantial contributions to the peace of the world without any sacrifice of democratic principles."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I feel very diffident on such an important occasion at being in the position of moving an Amendment to the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Snell. But, feeling as I do that it is most necessary at this time that not only our country but also the rest of the world should know that His Majesty's Government have the support of our country, I regarded it as my duty to put down this Amendment. During the first part of the noble Lord's speech I was wondering what he would do if he found himself in the position of the noble Viscount, the Foreign Secretary; and towards the latter part of the speech he told us what he would do, which was to rebuild the League. I have always agreed with the theory of the League, but I have always thought that the League must be based on having all the nations of the world, at any rate the most powerful majority of those nations, within it. In Europe at the present time the League of Nations is bereft of Italy and Germany, and America has never been a Member of the League. Therefore, if you are going to split up Europe into two camps and to make no agreement with Italy or Germany, you will always have half a League and not a whole League. If we can agree that in order to get all the nations of Europe into the League we have to start afresh, then we must start with the most important nations of Europe in the League, and the small ones will follow. It is no good splitting up Europe into two armed camps and just saying that we must rebuild the League.

To take the noble Lord's Motion; he says that in the opinion of this House the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government, which includes the acceptance of the sacrifice of Abyssinian independence, and is detrimental and so on. I do not suppose anyone representing a country which imposed sanctions on Italy would feel very pleased to have to state the position as it is today regarding Abyssinia. I think, however, that the noble Viscount, the Foreign Secretary, spoke the absolute truth at Geneva when he said that virtually the whole of the former territory of Ethiopia is in Italian hands; and he then went on to ask what method we could use to give that territory back to the Ethiopians. The only way, he said, is by going to war. Such action is unthinkable, and would be proposed by no responsible person in any country. I am sure your Lordships entirely agree with that statement, and I believe the noble Lord, Lord Snell, would not propose that we should go to war to try to return Abyssinia to the Emperor Haile Selassie.

The noble Viscount also said at Geneva: Nothing is gained and much may be lost by refusal to face facts. Great as is the League of Nations, the ends that it exists to serve are greater than itself, and the greatest of those ends is peace. That, I am sure, is the view of all of us. The greatest end which we have to serve is peace, and I am quite certain that representatives of a democracy owe the duty to the people of their country to preserve peace. They must take every opportunity they can to preserve peace, and at the same time, as His Majesty's Government are doing, they must build up armaments in order to stave off war or, if by some evil chance that war may come, to be victorious in that war. In my opinion the only policy which His Majesty's Government can possibly adopt at the present time is the policy which they are pursuing, and I am quite certain that the peace of Europe is far more important than any question about who should be on the throne of Abyssinia. I do not say that in any facetious way, but the position being what it is I am quite certain that you cannot put the clock back.

Now, in his Motion the noble Lord, Lord Snell, says that the Government's foreign policy is "detrimental to the democratic Government of Spain." I do not wish to argue with the noble Lord, but I think it is very questionable whether the present Government of Spain is a democratic Government at all, and I think that at the present it is most questionable whether it would not be more accurate to call the Government of General Franco the Government of the greater part of Spain. I am not a member of any of the societies which are comprised of friends of what is called National Spain nor am I a member of any organisation which supports what my noble friend calls the Government of Spain, but I feel that I must take your Lordships back to the last Elections there in 1936. Although I have read a great many books written by partisans, I have here a book written by Dr. van Vollenhoven, formerly Dutch Ambassador to Madrid, and he goes through the various practices which the then Government, before the Elections of 1936, took to see that the voting should be in the right way. Amongst those practices he says: In order to prepare for the Elections, the Government had replaced all high officials by its own creatures, and on February 1 it had dismissed in addition one thousand urban councils and replaced them by others, which were to 'assist' the Government, and this although the Minister Portela Valladores had distinctly forbidden all provincial governors to change the urban councils, since such a change was against the law. That does not appear to me really to be democracy.

The result of the Election was even as Dr. van Vollenhoven says: In spite of all the fraudulent practices of the Left, the Right secured a majority of votes! The Right and Central parties received 4,910,000 votes, the Frente Popular or 'People's Front' only 4,356,000. Then, again, voting urns were destroyed because they contained too many votes for the Right and Centre, and the book says: It was calculated that in this way about 600,000 votes for the Right were made of no avail. That was the Government in Spain before General Franco started his war. And I have a quotation here which says that at present there are in the Spanish Parliament only fifty members of the Government, and that of the other members over 470 have been either murdered or executed, or have fled for their lives to other countries. I only bring that in because, when we talk of the democratic Government of Spain and the legally constituted Government in Spain, I think it is quite true to say that the present Government, which I believe is at Barcelona, is not the legally constituted Government of Spain.

The book continues: In these and other fraudulent ways a clear and substantial majority for the moderate parties of the Right and Centre was reduced to a minority; 256 candidates were declared elected for the Left and only 217 for the Right. No re-elections took place anywhere owing to the terrorism of the Reds. Even so, the Right was still considered by the Popular Front to have too many seats. The end of it all was that the Popular Front had 295 members and the other parties only 177. I only want to make one more quotation from this book because I think it shows us the position. Mr. van Vollenhoven says: Thirty-six thousand two hundred persons were murdered in Madrid between July 18, 1936, and May 1, 1937. The documentation of all these cases is to be found in the Edificio de la Maternidad. He then goes on to say that various other people were murdered and he puts the figure of these at 1oo,ooo. I only tell your Lordships these; things because when we find that there are air raids against Barcelona—and I am as much against air raids as anyone can be—we have a great deal of publicity given to the enormous numbers killed. Bur those numbers killed—and this is the place, after all, where munitions are made, and which is a real objective of war—they are of very small moment as compared with the numbers killed by this very democratic Government.

Now, in the Motion which stands in my name I move that this House is in favour of the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government, including the proposed Anglo-Italian Agreement and the maintenance of non-intervention in Spain. If I may take the second first, I am quite sure, as many of your Lordships will be, that this policy is the only policy that we could have pursued. The only regret which I have is that all the other members of the Non-intervention Committee have not non-intervened as well as we have. It is very easy to say that Italy and Germany have intervened in Spain, but I think we have to go back further and to find that Russia has been intervening in one way or another in Spain at any rate since 1924. In 1920 the beginning of the Russian intervention in Spain took place, and at different times since then Russia has intervened in Spain. Latterly she has intervened to an enormous extent.

I am afraid I have to quote from another book because, if I did not quote, your Lordships would not consider any opinion of mine worth very much: In October, 1934, twenty-one months before any German or Italian airmen had landed in the Peninsula, the Comintern and its Government had organised, armed, let loose, the revolutionary army of the Asturias, landed 70 consignments of arms, supplied tanks and machine guns.… In August and September, 1932, the twelfth plenary meeting of the Komintern; in July and August, 1935, the seventh Congress of the Russian international—sent plans and orders from Moscow. If the Spanish Republic is dead, it has not been killed by Hitler and even less by Mussolini, but by Stalin. He is the grave-digger of the West. It is the book of an eminent Frenchman called Jacques Bondoux. He goes on to say that Spain should be an example to France of what would surely happen in France if what was planned by Russia in Spain had succeeded. I think therefore it is proved, at any rate to my satisfaction if not to that of any other noble Lords, that Russia is the cause of the Spanish war.

LORD STRABOLGI

May I ask the noble Lord one question? He has quoted these persons as authorities. What guarantee has he of their accuracy?

LORD BROCKET

The authorities whom I have quoted are people who have gone to Spain. One authority is the Ambassador of Holland in Spain and that should be sufficient guarantee of the accuracy of what he says. I would like to read one other extract which bears the stamp of accuracy from this book by Dr. van Vollenhoven, in which he talks about murders. He says: A conservative estimate of the number of persons murdered in Red territory is six hundred thousand. Does the reader wish for a few cases in my own intimate circle, about which there can be no doubt? With regard to the family of my wife, who is Spanish by birth, I have been able to obtain definite information concerning the murder of ten persons at least. Amongst them were my nephew, whose ears and nose were cut off before the murder, and a niece, whose body was ripped open. Of the members of a club to which I belonged twenty-eight were murdered. Therefore Dr. van Vollenhoven has had what you might call domestic experience of Spain.

Regarding intervention, it may interest your Lordships if I give a few more figures. Many of the aeroplanes which are being used by the Barcelona Government have been brought down behind General Franco's lines. Thirteen out of a total of 436 aeroplanes were manufactured in Spain before or after the outbreak of the war; 83 aeroplanes were of French design and 84 of American design—the Boeing aeroplanes; 9 aeroplanes only were of British design— Vickers—which I think is very creditable to this country; and 243 aeroplanes were of Russian design or manufactured in Russia. I only give those figures because it is usually supposed that Germany and Italy are the chief countries which are intervening in Spain. At present a large quantity of munitions is going into Red Spain, as we may call it, by the French frontier and other ways from Russia. I will not bother your Lordships with this list, but I have a list of the summary of armaments which have passed over the Franco-Catalan frontier in the week from March 16 to March 22, 1938. Putting it quite shortly, a total of 466 trucks containing 850 tons of war material went in during that week, and this tonnage does not include 402 trucks the contents of which were not ascertainable. The tonnage which is given is that taken from the trucks themselves. There are many other instances, with which I will not trouble your Lordships, and I only give these in order to express the opinion that I hope that non-intervention can really be made non-intervention, and that this country's lead in that respect will be followed by other countries of Europe.

If I may come to the Anglo-Italian Agreement, I personally regard it as the greatest step forward which has been taken towards the pacification of Europe during the last few years. There is only one alternative to agreement by negotiation, and that is war. It is a very serious thing to say, but if we cannot agree with the other countries in Europe, and if there is not enough room for all of us to exist and follow our own devices in Europe, then there will be war. And any war which may occur, and which occurs in the West of Europe, is bound to be a conflagration of all the great countries of the West of Europe, and the four greatest countries in the West of Europe are ourselves, France, Germany and Italy. It is often suggested by people in responsible positions in this country that Europe should be divided into two camps, that a new League of Nations should be formed around France and ourselves, and that Germany and Italy should not be brought into any combination of European nations because their form of government does not happen to coincide with our own.

Your Lordships may notice that at the end of my Amendment I say that these two policies make "substantial contributions to the peace of the world without any sacrifice of democratic principles." I put that in because I regard it as the duty of a democracy to look after the interests of the people. The interests of the people are to preserve peace, and I am quite certain that the Government of a democracy would not be doing its duty if it regarded its own political ideas as being of the first importance and declined to have agreements with countries whose ideas differed from its own. When you have a country such as Russia, which has tried to look after everyone else's business as well as its own, I think it is impossible to have an agreement with it because you are never sure when it will start trying to put the ideas of its Government into other countries and even into our own country. But so long as a Government such as that of Italy or of Germany looks after its own country and its own people, such as those people of German descent or German blood whom the Fuehrer wishes to look after, and so long as that country does not interfere with our country, there is room for both, and we should have peace with that country.

As regards the Anglo-Italian Agreement, the Mediterranean is of vital importance to Italy and to ourselves. If a war broke out owing to the policy of some eminent politicians in this country—not in the Government—and we then found ourselves on the opposite side to Italy and Germany, the Mediterranean would be a very difficult place—even with our Fleet—for our ships to go through to our Empire. I therefore think that the Agreement with Italy is of very far-reaching consequence, and I notice that Signor Mussolini intends it to be scrupulously observed. If there was bad will between this country and Italy an Agreement might be of no use, but ever since the noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, became Foreign Secretary and started the negotiations with Italy, I think it is true to say that not only the atmosphere but the acts and the words of Italy have been entirety different from what they were before. It is quite impossible, as some would have done, to lay down conditions for an agreement before you start trying to agree. I am very gild indeed that conditions were not laid down, and that the Agreement was negotiated with good will on both sides, and I hope that it may last for many, many years.

Since then the Government have made an Agreement with Ireland. I am not bringing the Agreement with Ireland into a speech on foreign policy, but the conclusion of that Agreement shows that the Government has the will to agreement. After Italy I hope that in due course there will be agreements with other countries. One's mind of course goes to the occupation of Austria. I am not going to talk about that this afternoon, save to say that a great many citizens of Austria appear to welcome that occupation; and at any rate Germany's action in Austria is now a thing of the past and has not to be considered in the future. We then think of Czechoslovakia, and I feel sure that the solution of the difficulties of the Sudeten Germans in that country will be overcome by peaceful means. A country of 14,000,000 inhabitants, where Czechs number 6,000,000, Germans 3,500,000, Slovaks 2,500,000, and various other nationalities make up the remainder, is a country where the minorities compose the majority; and I think it is true to say that the Germans in Czechoslovakia have not always been treated equally or at all well. I heard it stated the other day by an eminent man who has been in Czechoslovakia for some years that if a Czech was unemployed he got the equivalent of 30s. a week, whereas if a German was unemployed he got the equivalent of 8s. a month. It is obviously quite impossible for that to go on.

I hope in due course we shall have an agreement with Germany. Whether it is a Four-Power Pact, or whatever number of Pact it is, I do not mind; but in order to preserve the peace of Western Europe it is absolutely essential to have an agreement with Germany. Whether it is possible to have an agreement with Germany, and also at the same time to have Russia in that agreement, I do not know, but I am very doubtful about it. In my opinion, it is far more important that the West of Europe should look after itself than to try to bring in a country which is largely Eastern European and largely Asiatic. The burden of building up armaments, which all of us deplore, is a mad race towards war, and will take from the people of this country those liberties which, during the centuries, they have won. These liberties and that position will go, not only through war, but through the crushing taxation which is necessary to build up these armaments; and I consider it is absolutely necessary for the Government to work for peace as the second half of their foreign policy at the same time as making ourselves strong. This country wants peace, and I am sure it stands four-square behind the Government in their policy for peace by negotiation. The only alternative is war, and, speaking on behalf of ordinary people in this country, I can say that we are behind the Government in any endeavour which they may make to bring peace to Europe by negotiation and that war should only be a possibility in the very last resort.

Amendment moved— Leave out all the words after ("That") and insert ("this House approves the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government, including the proposed Anglo-Italian Agreement and the maintenance of the policy of non-intervention in Spain, both of which the House recognises as making substantial contributions to the peace of the world without any sacrifice of democratic principles.").—(Lord Brocket.)

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

My Lords, the Motion of the noble Lord who leads the Opposition presents a very clear issue of foreign policy, and that has been made even more clear by the speech of the noble Lord opposite, to which I am sure we all listened with close attention and in which he stated his unqualified approval of the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government. I cannot help thinking that, apart from those who sit on this side of the House, there must be some of your Lordships who are not prepared to express an approval quite so unqualified of the entire foreign policy of His Majesty's Government. At the same time none of us, I am sure, would desire to underrate the extreme difficulty of the task which the noble Viscount opposite has to undertake. We all appreciate the observations of Lord Snell when he said that he by no means desired to take up a self-righteous attitude in this matter or, I might add, to adopt the very complacent attitude which we have seen taken in some quarters by speakers who have implied that if only some of their friends had been in Downing Street instead of its present occupants, the whole affair of the League of Nations would have gone with the utmost smoothness and the different dictator rulers of Europe would, so to speak, have been prepared to eat out of the hand of our Foreign Secretary.

The position of Europe is, no doubt, a very strange and new one. This generation has had to realise that it is not only old-fashioned Emperors and Kings who … wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind. Taking the population of Europe at something like 500,000,000, and leaving the population of Spain for a moment, you would find that there are about 150,000,000 of Europeans who enjoy some form of popular government as against some 350,000,000 who exist under the rule of tyrants, using the word in its proper old Greek sense. On the other hand, looking at the position from the point of view of the League of Nations, the aspect of Europe is somewhat more favourable. I make out that some 350,000,000 of people look with favour on the principle of the League of Nations, and that there are not more than 100,000,000 who can be said to be positively opposed. When I say the principle of the League of Nations I mean, speaking generally, the principle of non-aggression. The difference in figures is, of course, accounted for largely by placing Russia on one side in the first calculation and on the other in the second. Whatever may be said of the Russian Government, whatever anybody may think of it, we should probably hear from the noble Viscount opposite that he would be disposed to include Russia among the non-aggressive Powers of the world.

When we are asked to approve the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government we are obliged to state that good intentions are not enough in this direction: they must be followed by some positive signs of success. Well, the sign of success which His Majesty's Government could no doubt claim, and which was so strongly put forward by the noble Lord who has just spoken, is that they have assisted so far as lay in their power to keep the peace of Europe. And that brings us to the subject which was treated on in both previous speeches, that of what occurred at Geneva with relation to Abyssinia. I think it is not unjust to say that the position of His Majesty's Government as between Italy and Abyssinia can be epitomised in the statement that they feel that a serious wrong was inflicted on Abyssinia, of which they do not desire to offer any condonation or excuse, but that, things being in the position they are, it would be impossible to attempt to right those wrongs without endangering the greater and more important cause of peace. That seems to come perilously near the phrase of which we have always been taught to think ill—that of peace at any price.

In one of the Psalms there is a poetic metaphor that righteousness and peace have kissed each other. In this particular connection it cannot be said that righteousness and peace are embracing; it would seem rather that they are barely on speaking terms; peace occupies the whole foreground of the picture and righteousness sinks almost invisibly into the background. I do not think anybody supposes that the League of Nations, or any Powers acting on behalf of the League of Nations, should attempt to compel Italy to leave Abyssinia. That means that something like the existing situation has to be accepted. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, alluded to a proposition in this matter which was made by my noble friend Lord Lugard, who speaks on any subject affecting the African races with greater authority than anybody in your Lordships' House, or indeed, I think, out of your Lordships' House. And I confess that, things having reached this pass, I for one should be very glad if some solution could be arrived at on the lines which Lord Lugard developed some time ago. But even if that could be brought about, that does not involve approval of the policy of His Majesty's Government about Abyssinia.

I am sure there is no public man here or in any country to whom the ideals of justice and humanity mean more than they do to the noble Viscount opposite, and I share the opinion which was expressed by Lord Snell that it must have been a painful moment for the noble Viscount at Geneva to see there the forlorn and dignified figure of the former Ruler of Abyssinia making his protest to united Europe; and we cannot but feel, without going back into the whole history of this business, that there certainly was one occasion, and perhaps more than one occasion, when the chance was missed, definitely missed, by His Majesty's Government, as it then was, of arriving at a happier solution of this question. It is undoubtedly true that if Abyssinia is occupied by Italy, sooner or later the fact will have to be recognised. I have no special knowledge of International Law, but I believe that the distinction between recognition of a de facto occupation and one which is de jure does not mean that the latter implies approval of the means by which that occupation was brought about. It is a purely juridical term and whenever a de jure recognition is made it is no more than recognition of a legal fact. It has no reference to the circumstances in which that fact has come into existence.

I trust there will be no attempt to offer any kind of recognition of this occupation until it has been proved more clearly than from all accounts can be proved at present that it is a real conquest and occupation of the country. One sees it stated that, except within a radius of twenty or thirty miles from certain towns, the country cannot for hundreds of square miles be said even to be under military occupation. I hope, therefore, that we may hear from His Majesty's Government some detailed confirmation of the general statement which I think was made in another place, that His Majesty's Government had no reason to suppose that the Italian Government are not in full possession of the country. It is stated that both in the north and north-west and also in the south-west of Abyssinia there are large tracts of country which cannot be said to be under Italian control at all. On that I have no doubt His Majesty's Government will be able to give us some assurances.

I pass to only one other point which is mentioned both in the Motion and the Amendment, that of Spain, and I will deal with it very briefly. It has remained extremely difficult to get at the real facts of the case as between the two opposing sides of Spain. On the one hand the Spanish Republican Government claim to be a duly and fairly elected Government, and according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister to have in view a Republican régime of the most orderly and liberal character, with respect for the ordinary rights of property, with a land policy involving the creation of a peasant proprietary, and with freedom for everybody to exercise any form of worship or apparently to express any form of political opinion. That Government, it is claimed, is confronted by a purely military revolt, arousing no enthusiasm or agreement among any part of the real Spanish population, supported only by large forces of Moorish troops and by still larger forces manned and commanded by Italians and Germans. That is the one picture. The claim on the other side is that of an organised rising, inspired by the genius of the people of a very large part of Spain, and opposed to revolutionaries of the most bloodthirsty and savage character, whose favourite occupation is the destruction of churches and the murder of priests and nuns, being likely to eventuate in a form of Government whose atrocities would exceed anything we have heard of as being perpetrated in Russia.

Well, my Lords, it is quite clear that both these stories cannot be true, and I greatly doubt if either of them is at all true. I have never—as those of your Lordships who listened to me in a former debate may remember I said—taken a strong line of agreement with either of the parties to what I think, although it is unquestionably a revolt, can properly be described as a civil war. There again, when we are invited to express complete approval of the policy of His Majesty's Government, I quite understand and appreciate the object with which they started and continued to press as long as they could the policy of non-intervention. But it has to be admitted that that policy has broken down. I think it was stated in a tone of great moderation by one of the supporters of the insurgents that, after all, only something like two divisions of Italians were actually fighting on the front, and that no doubt in time those two divisions would disappear. It is undoubtedly true that the intervention has not been all on one side. The noble Lord, Lord Brocket, gave a number of figures showing how formidable the Russian intervention on the side of the Spanish Government has been. Whatever the facts may be—and we have heard almost grotesquely different figures for the assistance given to both sides—it has to be admitted that the policy of non-intervention has broken down.

It can, of course, be argued that if it had never been introduced at all there would have been a general system of intervention in favour of both sides, and that therefore, even though it has not entirely succeeded, it has produced a somewhat better state of things than if it had never been tried at all. I do not attempt to argue that point, but I cannot help asking whether, in the course of the Italian conversations, some stronger pressure might not have been put upon the representatives of the Italian Government for an earlier cessation of that intervention which they do not now pretend to conceal, even though they have remained for so long members of the Non-intervention Committee. It would have been a valuable prize to bring back if public opinion in this country could have been somewhat more reassured as to the reality of the withdrawal of Italian troops. At the same time, I frankly admit that the withdrawal would have to be accompanied by a reciprocal reduction of foreign assistance to the Government forces. Still, it does not appear why some such transaction should not have been carried out.

My Lords, I do not propose to touch on any other subjects connected with foreign affairs beyond these two which are specifically mentioned in the Motion. What I have said on those two matters makes it clear that it would be altogether impossible for me, and also, I think, for my friends on these Benches, to give unqualified approval to the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government which is expressed in the terms of the Amendment.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

My Lords, my constant interest in the welfare of the people of Abyssinia and my personal relations with the Emperor Haile Selassie make it impossible for me to be silent during this debate on the Anglo-Italian Agreement. I am sorry that an unavoidable public engagement will prevent me from remaining during the course of the debate, and hope your Lordships will allow me to speak thus early. There is one preliminary point to which I feel bound to allude with regard to that Agreement, because it has given rise to much natural misgiving. It is contained in Annex 7 of the Agreement, which concerns missionary activities in Abyssinia.

In British territory such as Kenya, in our mandated territories, and in the Sudan, no restriction is placed upon missionary activities of any kind. Here, however, in this Agreement it appears to be conceded that the Italian Government will be justified in allowing such activities only if they can be described as of a "humanitarian and benevolent" character. I presume that means that directly religious purposes, which are the main concern of missionary policy, shall be excluded. Certainly there are British missionaries who, with the very full assent and approval of the Emperor Haile Selassie, have been long engaged in endeavouring to revitalise the ancient Coptic Church of Abyssinia by teaching, by the circulation of the Scriptures in the Amharic languages, and in other ways. It is a very unfortunate and unfair distinction which has been drawn between British and Italian East Africa. I much regret that it has been drawn in this form, and I hope that His Majesty's Government may give some assurance that, if British missionaries make application to the Italian Government and are creditable people, His Majesty's Government will be ready to use their influence in securing for them a fair and impartial consideration.

Now I pass to the main question, this most vexed question of the recognition of Italian sovereignty in Abyssinia. It was right that the matter should be referred to the League of Nations. The Council of the League of Nations, as we know, has left it free to its Members to act upon their discretion. It is therefore a very anxious question how far those who are greatly concerned about Abyssinia and the Emperor Haile Selassie, and about the credit of the League of Nations, ought in any sort of way to countenance any such recognition. I know of few public questions that have ever given me greater anxiety. For myself, if I may be permitted to say so, no one viewed with greater repugnance the invasion of Abyssinia by Italy; no one agreed more heartily with the condemnation passed upon it by the League of Nations. No one felt more bitterly the humiliation when the League of Nations, of which we were Members, failed to protect an ancient Christian State which had enjoyed more than 1,400 years of independence. I suppose there is no humiliation more bitter than the humiliation of proved impotence.

But I doubt whether any good purpose is served now by recriminations and lamentations over that lamentable failure. Facts are facts, and their consequences will be what they will be. There are two very clear facts. One is that in July, 1936, the League of Nations admitted its failure, and abandoned its collective action. The other is that at least a very great part of Abyssinia is now in the possession of Italy. How far it is an effective possession I would not undertake to say. I think it is quite clear that there are still large parts of that country that can hardly be described as in the possession of Italy at all. But while that may be uncertain, what is quite certain is that Italy cannot be dislodged from Abyssinia without either its own withdrawal, which is most improbable, or by war, which is quite unthinkable. In view of those quite patent facts is it the duty of the friends of Abyssinia, or even of the League of Nations, to continue to protest against any sort of acquiescence in the recognition of Italian sovereignty? If this were merely a question of the recognition of Italian sovereignty I should be prepared to continue to protest against it most strongly, in loyalty to one's conscientious convictions. But it is not the only question. There is another consideration which has since emerged, and which seems to me to dominate the problem. It is, of course, that some recognition of Italian sovereignty is an essential part, to be made when other conditions have been fulfilled, of this Agreement with Italy.

There is a great deal in that Agreement which many of us dislike, but must we not admit that it is at least a step towards lessening fear and increasing confidence in Europe? I have always thought that it would have been disastrous to allow Germany and Italy to draw further and further apart from Great Britain and France. It seemed to me right that an attempt should be made to build a bridge across the gulf, before it became too wide. It seemed to me right that every effort should be made to remove obstacles to good understanding which, if they had remained, would have increased the friction and thereby intensified the existing tension in Europe. It seemed to me at least possible that any such attempt might lead to other useful and fruitful attempts. For instance, I, and I have no doubt others of your Lordships, have noticed some words recently spoken by Signor Mussolini, and I do not know why we should doubt their sincerity. He said that Germany and Italy would seek between them and with others a régime of international comity, which may restore equally for all more effective guarantees of security and peace. I ask, and I want to ask noble Lords opposite, what is really the alternative to taking any such step? The continuance of tension and fear means the indefinite continuance of this appalling race of armaments. This country has been compelled to join in it; but the Prime Minister has never ceased to describe it as in itself insensate and deplorable. What may be the end of it if it is not restrained? My Lords, nothing can stop it except an increase of appeasement in Europe.

Nothing else can bring about a situation in which the peoples of Europe will be set free from this intolerable burden, and enabled to live their lives in peace. Nothing else can bring about a situation in which it may be possible to fulfil that ideal, which I cordially share with the noble Lord, Lord Snell, the rebuilding of the League of Nations. If that is so are we to scrap, are we to advocate the scrapping, of these immense advantages, even although they may involve some recognition of Italian sovereignty in Abyssinia? I must confess that I find it very difficult to bring myself to any such position. I cannot doubt but that it is of enormous advantage that this Agreement should go through, and, if so, is it any use our continuing a rather futile protest against it? I cannot but remind your Lordships of the words which were used by my noble friend Lord Halifax at Geneva: Great as is the League of Nations the ends that it exists to serve are greater than itself, and the greatest of these ends is peace. Surely, then, it is better to secure some relief of this existing tension in Europe than to secure some relief of one's own feelings, however natural and strong they may be.

It is with the utmost reluctance I have felt driven to this position; reluctance amounting almost to pain. I do not think I ever made a speech in this House with more distaste than that which I am now making, but I cannot believe it is a sacrifice of principle for expediency. I can assure Lord Snell that I am not conscious of having made any bargain in my conscience with Mephistopheles, because it seems to me that the cause of general peace is something greater than mere expediency. It seems to me in existing conditions to be in itself a high and commanding principle.

But, my Lords, so great is my sympathy with the Abyssinian people, and particularly with the Emperor Haile Selassie—a sympathy which I know is shared by multitudes of people in this country, and I may add a sympathy greatly enhanced by his dignity of bearing during this time of trial—that I cannot possibly leave the matter there. I have often wondered whether some way could not be found by which his present painful position might be mitigated, by which he might be set free from the prospect of perpetual exile, and by which we might get some small scrap of compensation out of what the noble Lord has rightly called the tragedy of Abyssinia. It was therefore with very great interest that I read the letter to The Times by the noble Lord, Lord Lugard, at the end of April, to which both the noble Lord and the noble Marquess have referred. I am very sorry that indisposition has prevented Lord Lugard from being present at this debate, which he had wished to be, and I know that your Lordships will agree with what the noble Marquess said, that there is no living man who speaks with greater weight and authority on any matters pertaining to Africa than Lord Lugard.

I feel therefore bound to give some greater emphasis to his proposals than has been given by the allusions already made by noble Lords. Your Lordships will remember the general effect of that proposal. It was that Signor Mussolini might conceivably be induced to offer Haile Selassie some limited area in Abyssinia in which he might be granted internal autonomy under the suzerainty of Italy. The suggestion was the province of Go jam, which has this advantage that, being entirely encircled by the Blue Nile, it has a very natural boundary; and, lest there should be any apprehensions in the matter, I may say that the suggestion is made without any thought of British interests with regard to Lake Tsana or the like. At first it seemed to me, as I dare say it seemed to many of your Lordships, almost certainly impracticable; but further inquiry and further information have made me think that it is well worthy of consideration. Is it inconceivable that it might not be unwelcome to Signor Mussolini himself? It would be a condition of any such offer that the Emperor would be prepared to forgo his title and undertake to do his utmost to prevent, or at any rate restrain, organised fighting under recognised chiefs. That fighting is going on. It is going on continually and with ever-recurrent intensity. It must impose a very severe strain upon the nerves of the Italian troops. The maintenance of the large forces needed to deal with it must be an increasing burden upon the resources of the Italian Government. If it could be made to cease, or even be greatly reduced, then the Italian Government would be set free to consolidate that large part of Abyssinia which would then be in its effective possession.

But is it conceivable that Haile Selassie himself would entertain such a proposal, with all the sacrifice that it would involve? I have not thought it right to consult him directly, because I thought it would not be fair to ask him to commit himself at this stage to a purely tentative suggestion. But I may say that I am not without hope that he might be willing to consent. A strong motive would be to prevent the continuance of that appalling loss of life which is now being inflicted upon his people. It was the same motive which led him to leave his country after the conquest of his capital by Italian arms. He would have a place, even if restricted, of service still for the good of the people for whom he cares. It is obvious that any such offer must come from Italy. It might be, as I have suggested, in the interests of the Italian Government; certainly it would be an act of very striking magnanimity which, as I think Lord Lugard said, would go far to cement friendship with this country and to obliterate bitter and continuing hostility in Abyssinia.

At any rate I feel that it is only right to ventilate the proposal in your Lordships' House, and at least to ask His Majesty's Government whether they would be willing to intimate, at such times and in such ways as they might think advisable, that they looked with favour upon the proposal, and that they would be ready, if the opportunity arose, to use their good offices to facilitate it. It may prove to be quite impracticable, but if we are compelled by the stress of facts and by the claim of the cause of general peace to give any sort of recognition of Italian sovereignty in Abyssinia, then I submit we are the more bound in honour to do what we can on behalf of a Ruler who put his trust in the League of Nations, and whom we as Members of that League failed to protect.

LORD ELTON

My Lords, it will not of course have escaped your Lordships' notice that when the Leader of the Opposition moves a Vote of Censure on His Majesty's Government he must, by implication at least, be taken to be submitting an alternative foreign policy. Now I have listened—I always listen—with the closest attention to the admonitions, the varied admonitions, which my noble friend Lord Snell addresses to His Majesty's Government; and I listened, if possible, this afternoon with even closer attention in the hope that behind the altogether negative phraseology of the noble Lord's Motion there might appear from his speech some shadow of a constructive alternative foreign policy which the noble Lord was representing. I am bound to say that I was not able to extract very much in the way of an alternative. One function of an Opposition is admittedly to oppose, and that function, I think most of your Lordships will agree, the noble Lord and his friends very admirably discharge. But another function, and I think in such critical days as those we live in an even more important function, is to represent a constructive alternative policy to that of the Government; and there, with all due respect for the talents of the noble Lord for which I have the greatest admiration, I do not think that he and his friends so conspicuously succeed.

We know the foreign policies of several noble Lords who sit in proximity to the noble Lord, Lord Snell. We know the foreign policy of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby: the noble Lord is a pacifist and he has dissociated himself from his Party. We know the foreign policy of the noble Lord, Lord Arnold: the noble Lord is an isolationist, I think, and has dissociated himself from the foreign policy of his Party. We know the policy of the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, who has not only dissociated himself from his Party but has gone so far as to say that he would regard its advent to power as a menace to the peace of the world. But I am not so clear that we know the foreign policy of the noble Lord, Lord Snell. The noble Lord did something—a rather transient something—to dissociate himself from the more bellicose utterances of his colleagues in the country and in another place, utterances from which for my part, I think I may claim, with the best will in the world, I have been able to derive nothing more than that they stand for perpetual enmity with every totalitarian State except Russia and some form of half-disguised intervention in Spain.

The noble Lord asks us to condemn the understanding with Italy, and I do hope that your Lordships will remember that behind the suave phrases of the noble Lord himself there have been such incidents as that which occurred in another place the other day. The Prime Minister was concluding his speech on the introduction of the Italian Treaty when there leapt from the front Opposition Bench a leader of the Opposition Party who exclaimed "Never!" He made that exclamation in comment on the expression by the Prime Minister of the hope that this Treaty would lead to a long period of peace between Italy and England. It was in comment on that phrase that a leader of the Opposition Party ejaculated "Never!" "Never"—that is surely a significant and a memorable comment upon an expression of a desire to see permanent peace between two great countries. I cannot fail to remember, if I may venture to give a personal reminiscence, how not long ago I found myself on the platform, as a speaker, at a meeting organised by the League of Nations Union in company with a distinguished ornament of another wing of the Opposition. To my astonishment he used the phrase, in so many words—"We must never come to any agreement with Herr Hitler."

When I think of these, to me at any rate, extraordinary utterances in favour of perpetual enmity in the heart of Europe, I cannot help recollecting, if your Lordships will forgive one further personal reminiscence, the General Election of 1924, when I had the honour of cooperating with noble Lords opposite and of being a Labour candidate. The chief issue at that Election, I think I am right in saying, was the Trade Agreement with Russia which the then outgoing Labour Government had been in process of negotiating and which was described by its opponents as "shaking hands with murder." From every platform which the Labour Party could then command, it replied with one voice that the internal politics of a country were irrelevant; that the Labour Party itself perhaps did not look with too favourable an eye on the internal politics of Russia, but that that was irrelevant, and what did matter was that it was not only immoral but dangerous to exclude any one great Power from the international comity of nations, to which some of the speakers added that "all men are brothers" or, in a rather less attractive variant, "all working men are brothers." To-day, so far from maintaining that all men are brothers, so far from maintaining that it would be dangerous to exclude one great nation from the international comity of nations, as far as I can follow the arguments of the Party opposite they argue, and argue with passion, that it is necessary permanently to exclude two great nations from the comity of nations. I do not think it is too much to say that behind the characteristically moderate and persuasive phrases of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, lies this hopeless doctrine of perpetual enmity festering at the heart of Europe.

Sometimes that extraordinary contradiction in the Party which the noble Lord so ably represents here receives curious pictorial emphasis. I remember on May 1 I was driving through my home town, and was surprised to see approaching a straggling procession of persons in mackintoshes, preceded by a large banner emblazoned with the admirable slogan, "Labour's Great Peace March." Behind that admirable device on a succession of horse-drawn lorries, there followed a series of hostile and provocative tableaux vivants insulting and deriding the methods, morals and constitutions of two great Powers with whom we are at complete peace, and with whom His Majesty's Government are endeavouring to come to terms. After these there followed a straggle of men and women carrying various more or less bellicose slogans, while up and down the ranks ran a stout gentleman in a mackintosh who, obviously susceptible to the military atmosphere in which he found himself, was despairingly crying, "Keep the step please—left, right—pick it up." But "Labour's Great Peace March" was unfortunately unable to keep step. It did come home to me how very remarkably strange it is that the Party of Peace, the Party of International Brotherhood, as it undoubtedly once was, should now lend itself to these extraordinary internal contradictions.

The policy which the noble Lord asks your Lordships to condemn appears to me to be an eminently realistic, if piecemeal, process of building bridges across the hostile chasms which the noble Lord's policy, as far as I can understand it, would perpetuate and indeed probably widen. The one vestige in the noble Lord's speech which he devoted, not to his very telling, very searching criticism of His Majesty's Government, but to a constructive suggestion of his own, did refer naturally to the League of Nations, but it was so short, there was so little substance to it, that I could not help wondering whether the noble Lord may not fall into the well-marked category of those who believe that by merely uttering the phrase, "Refer it to the League," they offer a solution, and a specially moral solution, for all the ills from which the world at any moment may suffer. As I understand the utterances of the Prime Minister, he has made it quite clear that what we may call the long-term policy of His Majesty's Government is the League; but does the noble Lord opposite seriously suggest that the League can possibly be a short-term policy?

I cannot help feeling that when the long-term policy of reconstruction of the League begins, we shall have to look back and learn a good deal of how it should be reconstructed from the situation in which we now find ourselves. Your Lordships will, for example, remember how the Sudeten German problem has been a problem almost exactly as it stands to-day, I suppose, for the last twenty years—ever since, indeed, the League came into existence, and yet it had not become headline news, indeed possibly it would not be too much to say it had never impressed itself on the awareness of the ordinary man in the street, until a threat of violence was occasioned by that problem. That seems to me an ironic commentary on the League régime during the last twenty years. I cannot help remembering also that, in listening to the devoted protagonists of the League in your Lordships' House and other places, for every reference to the peaceful adjustment of difficulties we have heard possibly twenty references to military sanctions, to repression of the aggressor; and one cannot help remembering that in the very first League Assembly an Italian delegate moved that consideration should be given to access to raw materials. It was, alas! a Canadian delegate who moved that that plea should be ruled out of order. That motion of the Canadian delegate was accepted, and ruled out of order it was.

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that a good deal of the difficulties in which we find ourselves to-day may be traced back to that first ominous example in that first League Assembly and to a number of similar incidents which have followed it. Indeed, when one remembers how soon after the conclusion of the South African War an Act of wise generosity by this country conciliated our very bitter and very recent enemies, one sometimes cannot help feeling that if we had had an opportunity of dealing with Germany on our own lines, without some of the advice which we have received from our colleagues at Geneva, we might possibly have made a better business of it. I yield to no man in my belief in the League as a long-term policy, but I deny that as a short-term policy there is anything to be gained by ingeminating as a sort of incantation the phrase, "Refer it to the League."

Finally, I should like very humbly to congratulate His Majesty's Government on the success of this piece-meal policy of bridge-building. Really the only words in the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, with which I can find myself in agreement are those in which he says that His Majesty's Government's policy offers no certainty of doing so-and-so. Clearly in human affairs there can be no certainty, least of all to-day, and the only certainty in foreign policy—and it is only with that that I concern myself at the moment—is that the policy for which the noble Lord himself stands in this House, though he does not voice it unequivocally, would be a quite invaluable recipe for bringing about an immediate European war. But although unfortunately in human affairs there is no certainty, I think we may at least claim that the policy of His Majesty's Government is conciliatory, realistic, and far more likely, to put it at it lowest, to preserve the peace of Europe than any other policy that has as yet been submitted to your Lordships.

THE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM

My Lords, there could have been no Englishman, whatever his denomination or political description, who did not read with a sense of dismay and humiliation the report of the recent proceedings at Geneva. Indeed, I think that has been conceded by almost every speaker who has addressed your Lordships' House. Every circumstance emphasizes the gravity and the humiliation of the episode. The representative of Great Britain was the noble Viscount, the Foreign Secretary, a man whose character stands so high and whose well earned reputation as a sagacious statesman is admitted in all quarters, and from his lips one heard the language—he must forgive me—the cold sophistry of a cynical opportunism. I cannot for my own part regard the noble Viscount's speech as other than the funeral oration of the League of Nations.

Now the League of Nations was in the opinion of masses of thoughtful people in every civilised community, and especially in our own, the one good and hopeful outcome of that fearful mass of suffering and consequent blundering which matured in the Treaty of Versailles. I hope I do your Lordships no injustice if I say that observations unfriendly or even contemptuous about the League were received with something more than your Lordships' ordinary indication of approval The League is referred to in terms of contempt and it is suggested that the sooner it is hustled into a dishonoured grave the better. Well, I cannot assume that view, and I am one of that great multitude who are cut to the heart with a lasting sorrow by seeing the collapse of this great combined effort to escape from the recurrent tragedy of war by the only conceivable means by which an alternative for war can be provided—namely, by organising the cooperation of people in common law and agreement. I say I cannot but view with absolute heartbreak the collapse and disappearance of that great effort.

It is not, however, without a precedent. My learned friend Professor George Trevelyan, in his great history of Queen Anne, has to record the proceedings that matured in the Treaty of Utrecht in the year 1713, and therein he has to include some reference to the base desertion of the Catalans who had fought bravely and nobly on our side during the long war. The name of the British Minister is different now but the sentiments he expressed are quite apposite to those of the present moment. This is what he said: Bolingbroke had a keener sense for his country's interests than for her faith and honour.… France had no wish and England no further power to plead their cause. If they had been wise they would have submitted; much to Bolingbroke's indignation; they preferred to be heroic and to die sword in hand.… And the whole world cried shame upon England when her over-zealous Secretary ordered the squadrons under Sir James Wishart to harass and threaten the defenders of the town (Barcelona). That was a gratuitous insult to the brave population who had fought so many years on our side, who were merely continuing to defend rights we had ourselves granted. A voice from the past, but a voice that tells with withering emphasis upon the latest efforts in British diplomacy.

Well, my Lords, on the 21st February, 1938, the present Prime Minister, speaking in the House of Commons, used these words: I have always taken the view that the question of the formal recognition of the Italian position in Abyssinia was one that could only be justified if it was found to be a factor, and an essential factor, in a general appeasement. I may in passing allow myself the observation that it is perhaps not altogether as clear as the Prime Minister seems to think that the general appeasement will be lasting if it is confessedly conditioned by acquiescence in a gross and acknowledged wrong. Now what is the broad consideration which appears to justify the strange, sudden and, I must beg leave to think, shameful volte face on the part of Great Britain? It is not three years since our then Foreign Secretary went to Geneva and delivered himself of a great oration which thrilled the world, and which was universally understood to mean that the honour and purpose of Great Britain were bound up inextricably with those ideas and ideals for which the League of Nations was organised. And now we send his successor in that office, my noble friend Viscount Halifax, to unsay what Sir Samuel Hoare said and to justify it by telling us to face the facts.

What facts? There are many facts. Some of the facts which are not being faced, some of the facts which I venture to suggest a self-respecting nation ought to face, such facts, for instance, as moral principles affirmed and national honour pledged and public commitments entered into. I shall dwell for a minute on this. This is the ultimate outcome of the policy of subordinating principles to what we are pleased to call interests. It is the great object of this Agreement with Italy to secure a general appeasement. That indeed is what is stated in the preamble of the Agreement. It is to be the prelude and first part of a general appeasement. It is to ensure a general peace by removing what it has been the fashion to call a war of idiosynocrasies.

Let us examine the phrase. The phrase is borrowed from the vocabulary of the Emperor Napoleon and he meant by it to pass a censure upon those windy theories of universal human rights which play a part, and are always likely to play a part, in revolutionary movements. Those he swept away with contempt and for his part declared himself content to fight for, or lay emphasis upon, not those idiosyncracies, but the more tangible considerations of material interest. But the phrase may mean two things, and I am quite sure that some noble Lords—certainly the noble Lord who asked the question—have not realised that. You may have no desire to press your distinctive constitution or distinctive conceptions upon others and therein assuredly we are all at one. But we must not forget the broad conditions under which we can tolerate a variety of system, of ideas, of educational methods, of religion, the broad factors which provide the structure upon which civilisation itself is built. If you have an idiosyncrasy which breaks up those fundamental conditions, which dissolves faith in treaties, which denies written signatures, which destroys personal liberty, which does not allow equality of treatment to Jews and non-Aryans and so on—if you get a power of that kind which embodies in its policy ideas, convictions end objects which are radically contrary to the very substructure of civilisation, then, my Lords, you may wish to avoid a war of idiosyncrasies, but I take leave to tell you that you are committing yourselves to something which it is not ultimately in your power to secure.

Let me just read a sentence or two spoken by a very great man whom we all hold in reverence, Abraham Lincoln. In the years preceding; the Civil War when the great tragedy was darkening the horizon, there were many excellent Americans who thought they could avoid a war of idiosyncrasies and effect some compromise whereby slavery could be limited to so many States, that its worst expression should be restrained, and so forth. Then, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln used words which I submit to your Lordships are words which may be applied without alteration, not to the Republic of America, but to civilised society itself within which these totalitarian States claim to be included. He said: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure half-slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall, but I expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. I am convinced, my Lords, that unless this conflict of fundamental idiosyncrasies, this dissidence in the elementary rights of our civilised world can be exorcised—and I doubt whether it can—unless it can be done, our civilisation will have to become totalitarian or remain free.

An enterprising publisher sent me last week a book which is about to appear and which I respectfully venture to commend to your Lordships' reading. It is called The War against the West. It is written by a Viennese Jew who by religion is a Roman Catholic. He has been at the pains ever since Hitler's Government came into existence to make himself master of the great mass of literature which has been pouring out from the Press of Germany, teaching the doctrines and ideas upon which the totalitarian State is rested. It is an exact analogy to the position created by the Encyclopaedists before the French Revolution, and the object of publishing it is that thoughtful English people may understand that we are not merely up against a system of government, not merely quarrelling with totalitarian States as such, but that we are up against a system under which there can be no assurances for freedom or religion, nor any justice. Therefore it is, speaking with the full responsibility of spiritual membership of your Lordships' House and speaking from this Bench, that I say—and I think it will carry immediate assent, because we are all filled with horror at the idea of a renewal of war—that you may attempt to avoid a war of idiosyncrasies, but you cannot do it. What you can do, by conceding now this point and now that point, is to put off the immediate conflict, but you are only making sure that when the inevitable strife does at last occur you have conceded the strategic points to your adversaries and made it as certain as you can that you and your civilisation will be destroyed. Your Lordships may think that I have spoken more vehemently than was fitting, but I do feel deeply about this. My profession puts me outside politics, but that does not mean that I am not intensely interested. I am a student as well as a Bishop and I say these things because, seeing them in the long light of history, I am convinced that we are merely playing with the question if we do not go to root principles and ask whereto these proposals are tending.

I turn to the Agreement itself. The most reverend Primate has already called attention to one or two serious matters. I want to emphasize a point which I do not think he mentioned. I am quite sure if the noble Lord, Lord Lugard, had been here he would have mentioned it. Do you realise that our credit in that great Continent of Africa to which we are bound so closely, not only by the memory of almost intolerable wrongs inflicted by our nation in the past but also by the fact that in the course of time so great a part of that Continent has come under the control of our country, is concerned? Do you realise what the effect of our betrayal of Abyssinia is going to be on that volume of educated African opinion which, largely as the result of our own generous policy, is growing up in all parts of the Continent? Only this morning I had a letter from which, with your Lordships' indulgence, I will read some passages. It comes to me from a young clergyman engaged in educational work in Nigeria. He was writing to me about another matter, but it struck me that part of his letter was relevant to our discussion to-day and I venture to read it. I know this young man. I know him as a very intelligent fellow who for years has been carrying on educational work in Nigeria. This is what he says: The latest developments concerning Abyssinia provide food for anxious thought. I cannot think that our prestige amongst the African people will be enhanced by the latest surrender of principle to expediency. Whilst we withheld recognition of the fruits of Italy's aggression, it was at least possible to maintain that we had done all that was actually practicable to prevent the victor from enjoying the fruits of his crime, but with the impending recognition of the conquest it seems difficult to attach much real meaning to the qualification that recognition does not necessarily imply approval. At any rate, it will be extremely difficult to persuade the average intelligent educated African that there is any difference. I wonder whether ultimately the repercussions on our African Empire may not be greater than any advantages which may be derived from the renewal of friendship with an unscrupulous dictator. When I look at this Agreement, the first thing that strikes me about it is this. Before the Agreement is to take effect, two great conditions have to be satisfied. First, the war is to be ended in Spain. Signor Mussolini has told us at Genoa that he will not tolerate any other solution than the victory of General Franco; that is to say, before anything else comes out of this Agreement, Spain is to be added to the Fascist Powers and the gateway of the Mediterranean is to be put in the hands of those who cannot by any stretch of imagination be called our friends. The next thing is this, which we have been talking about so much: we are to surrender our principles—I think the noble Viscount used the word "principles" himself—we have to sacrifice our principles in order to secure the peace which the Agreement sets out. But all the excellent provisions—at least many of them are excellent, not all—have one solitary security: the word of Signor Mussolini. He was at pains at Genoa the other day to assure the world that this time he did mean business, that he really sincerely meant this pact to be kept. I value neither the original promise nor the confirmation; they both come to the same effect.

My Lords, really, as practical people looking coldly at the world and weighing facts calmly in the scales of reason, is it reasonable to trust the words of these dictators? There is an excellent book which I was reading as I came up from my diocese this morning. Your Lordships also know it, or will know it very soon: it is by Professor Seton Watson, and in it he reviews with great justice and with extraordinary insight and wisdom the whole of British policy since the War. He says very much what I have been trying to say in my own way, that underneath all the agreements and discussions there are these cynical facts: that neither Herr Hitler nor Signor Mussolini—habemus confitentem reum—neither the one nor the other accepts the broad conditions of self-respecting and reasonable negotiation. They regard treaties as something which they can break at will. Their signatures they can disown when it suits them. You may say that this is severe, but it is only what they themselves have said. I ask you to read this book and to follow the course of this carefully-traced narrative, and you will, I am sure, come to this conclusion: that the mere word of Signor Mussolini or Herr Hitler, after they have succeeded in establishing their will in Spain and in abolishing Abyssinia, is worthless. The Rhineland was occupied against treaty, Austria has gone, Spain is going, we are asked to register the passing of Abyssinia, Czechoslovakia is now being talked about. Where are we going to stop? The whole programme of Mein Kampf, which Herr Hitler laid out with such cynical candour, is being followed with mathematical precision, and, except for the genius of the speaker, I feel very much like Demosthenes warning against Philip. It seems grotesque that our country, the guardian of these great human interests of liberty and justice, should really be led in this free and easy fashion.

One thing more I want to do is to associate myself very earnestly with what the most reverend Primate said. We cannot surely leave the Emperor Haile Selassie in the lurch. We cannot really be a society of gentlemen—I ought not to use the word, because "gentlemen's agreements" are now in ill fame; in any case you know what I mean. We are men of honour; we cannot let Mussolini's and Hitler's complacence be gained by merely dropping the victim of our own impotence and timidity. Something must be done. Look at this Treaty: nothing is provided in the Treaty for the ancient Church of Ethiopia. We do not think it necessary to stipulate that liberty should be preserved to it. As the most reverend Primate reminded us, this is a Church which stretches back over the centuries to the time of St. Athanasius himself, and this long ecclesiastical pedigree is jealously and very rightly valued by the Coptic Church itself. In Westminster Abbey, as you may see at any time in a function there, there is a quaint silver embossed cross which was presented to the Abbey—by whom? By Abyssinia. Now we are going to drop Abyssinia and let this immemorially free national Church of Ethiopia be coerced and forced under an iron dominion so odious to itself, the Church of Rome. Is that fair? The most reverend Primate called attention to the Annex to the Agreement in which religion is omitted and philantropy and so forth are mentioned. But we give freedom to religion in our Empire, and if we are guardians of religious liberty we must not put our signature to any Agreement which does not guarantee that ultimate freedom of religion. My Lords, I have kept you too long and I have spoken too long, but I have finished.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, I had no intention of intervening in to-day's debate, but I do so for a few moments now because there may not be another convenient and immediate opportunity to express my strong sympathy with and support of His Majesty's Government's present foreign policy. Before I deal with the main points at issue I must say that I feel unusually handicapped at speaking after the right reverend Prelate who has just sat down. He spoke with his usual eloquence but with almost unusual indignation about the abandonment of principles, as he termed them, of national honour and moral duty. Must we not go back a little further if we are to try to assess these very difficult matters? I have never defended the Italian occupation of Abyssinia, but I have tried to be perhaps a little more realist, if the right reverend Prelate will allow me to say so without discourtesy, than he has been in this matter.

Perhaps the right reverend Prelate would take his mind back for a moment to the period in which we pledged ourselves to the great moral principles to which he has just referred, when we pledged ourselves to the support of Abyssinia, when we gave the Emperor Haile Selassie every right to believe that we would see him through. Was not that the time to think of national honour and was it really honourable or wise of us to make such bold promises and to hold out great expectations while we were disarming and doing nothing to equip ourselves with the power to fulfil such obligations? I would have liked to have heard the same burning words spoken by some of the noble Lords at that end of the House on the dangers of disarmament in a troubled world, leaving the peacebreakers with the power and the peacemakers without power. That was the time to think of principles and honour. Was it not really a question of national honour that in the last ten years we should have concerned ourselves with the fact the Amhara rule subjected its people to the most terrible forms of slavery? That surely was the time to speak of principles and honour, when we had the power to force Abyssinia to abandon slavery. But I did not hear then the burning and eloquent words of the right reverend Prelate on these matters. It is easy to come back to the House to-day—it is not a laughing matter—

THE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM

I was not laughing; but I was not a member of the House at that time.

LORD LLOYD

Nor was I, but there were others who might have spoken from that Bench and urged with greater force than they did the terrible evils of slavery. I turn for a moment to what the most reverend Primate said about the possibilities of doing something for the Emperor Haile Selassie. I think everyone must have the deepest sympathy with His Majesty the late Emperor, but at least it is wise to see what is practicable and what is not, and I have had opportunity even in the last few weeks of hearing a great deal at first hand about the internal situation in Abyssinia. However desirable it might be to try to do something for the Emperor in the manner suggested by the most reverend Primate, I can assure the House that it is utterly impracticable. I do not believe there is any section of the Amhara people who would welcome back the Emperor to-day. I do not say it with any discourtesy to him, but the cirstances are against him, and I do not think it is of any use to endeavour to salve our consciences by trying to put the Emperor in any part of Abyssinia, where he would lead a life far more miserable and more dangerous than he lives here. When we talk of this matter in terms of principle and honour, let us consider our own position. There was once a people called the Assyrians who fought most gallantly and suffered most terribly on our behalf. No Government has ever succeeded in finding them a single yard of territory, where they can rest in peace, yet, forsooth, we are going to ask the Italians, against whom the Emperor fought, to find him a home in some part of Abyssinia.

I have just finished a tour round the Mediterranean where I visited practically all the Middle Eastern countries and saw most of their statesmen and politicians, and had thus an opportunity of getting a very effective purview of the general situation. The result of that I should like to tell your Lordships in a very few words. The change that has come over the Middle East and the Mediterranean as a result of this Agreement is something miraculous. Right through the countries that care for peace the democracies who have hitherto been frightened and huddled in their corner lest the peace-loving should be broken by the others, are at last holding their heads up again, and they rejoice to see the initiative in foreign policy restored to His Majesty's Government, who are certainly known to be in favour of peace. That is surely something. I have not always agreed with the Foreign Secretary. That is no secret to this House, but I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating him on his speech which was not only brave but sensible. I will not quote his words which have already been quoted by the most reverend Primate. But when I come here and hear noble Lords on the Socialist Benches talk about dictators, I would ask them to reflect that scarcely a month passes without one or other of the most vocal of their number telling us that the first thing they would do would be to rule by Order in Council. What is that but dictatorship? In those circumstances, all the talk about Fascism becomes fantastic and if it were not for the presence of noble Lords I would almost say foolish. They know, as we know, that a dictatorship has always been a proof of democracy's courage. At all moments of crisis great democracies have always had the courage to turn to dictatorships. Rome was the greatest democracy in the world as well as the greatest dictatorship. The noble Viscount makes a motion of indignation, but it is perfectly true.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

I was only protesting in the name of history at his assertion that the Romans were the greatest democracy in the world.

LORD LLOYD

I think that at least we can say that for several centuries they were the greatest Republic. I correct myself. I only wish to say this, I am not a defender of Fascism. I believe as strongly as anyone opposite in the freedom of our institutions, but I would like to see ourselves made strong enough to conserve them. We care for peace more than for prejudice, and I believe that the steps which the Government have taken in the last few weeks have made a strong and powerful platform, on which they can reasonably hope to build still greater steps for peace.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, I was afraid for a moment that I should not be able to disagree with the noble Lord who has just spoken, with that whole-hearted conviction which I usually find myself able to do, but I am glad to say that that fear was unnecessary. As to his last semi-apology for dictatorships, nobody but a lunatic would say that dictatorships are always and in all circumstances wrong. I certainly should not say so, but I say that the present dictatorships in Germany and Italy are gross tyrannies, and it is for that reason that I protest against them, and not because they are different forms of government from that which prevails here. Very respectfully I would say this to my noble friend, that I doubt very much whether this kind of tentative approval of the Governments of Italy and Germany is really wise.

LORD LLOYD

I do not want to interrupt my noble friend, but I do hope he will not fall into the same error as Mr. Herbert Morrison in another place fell into, of accusing me, as he was just about to do, of holding the view that because we defend this policy therefore we approve of the system in those countries. Nothing of the kind I must make that plain.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

No, I should never have thought of saying that. But there was certainly a passage at the end of the noble Lord's speech which appeared to be an apology for dictatorships that exist. There was also a similar passage in a speech of the Prime Minister the other day. I venture very respectfully to say to them both, if I may do so without impertinence, that I think it an extraordinarily unwise attitude for them to take if they desire to have the whole-hearted support of the people of this country for the policy of rearmament. It is just the kind of thing which terrifies—honestly terrifies—a very large number of our fellow countrymen.

I pass from that. It is not part of the speech that I desired to make, but I had to make that protest. I must be as brief as I can. We are debating this enormous subject under conditions which are inevitably difficult. We are, I understand, more or less bound to conclude the debate to-day, and therefore the time is short, and we have not had the advantage—that is also, I think, unfortunate—at an early stage in our discussion of knowing from the Government exactly what their policy is and what they propose to do in the future. We have had to collect it from other sources. I think that an unfortunate condition under which we have to discuss it. I want to call the attention of the House to the broad aspects of this question. It is impossible to deal in detail with all the aspects of the foreign policy of the Government. Nobody would expect or desire that I should attempt it. But I want just to call the attention of the House once again to this broad fact. We have now had the privilege of a National Government for six and a half years. If you go back to the condition of the world seven years ago no one can doubt that the deterioration has been prodigious. I am not going to go through country by country, though it is possible to do that and show how very much it has deteriorated. But take a broad test, which is a wonderful test, the amount the countries are spending on armaments to-day. That is a kind of barometer. People do not spend money on armaments unless they are afraid of war. The reason they are spending these vast sums of money on armaments is that they are infinitely more afraid of war than they were seven years ago.

I submit to the Government with all respect that, though of course it would be absurd and ridiculous to say that they are responsible for the whole of that deterioration—I would not dream of saying such a thing—their policy has contributed. There are two policies, and two only, that you can pursue, apart from that of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. It is not from want of respect to him that I do not deal with him, but it does not come into the structure of my speech. The two policies are the old policy and the League of Nations policy. There is no other. I remember hearing my noble friend the Foreign Secretary make an admirable speech in this House not many months ago, in which he repelled the suggestion made to him from behind him that we should abandon the League of Nations, and he did so on these grounds. He said that if you abandon the League of Nations the only thing you can do is to go back to the old policy of alliances and armaments. I have no doubt my noble friend will remember the speech. He said with great truth that that would be a very disastrous return. That is still true. You have got the two policies—the policy of the League of Nations and the policy of alliances and armaments. What I complain of is that the Government has never adopted either one policy or the other. They do not adopt a full League of Nations policy with a view of making it a success—and undoubtedly that would have required a great effort, because everyone knows that it was a very difficult and novel proposal. Or they could have adopted the other policy and have set about a great policy of rearmament. I should have bitterly regretted that, but it would have been an intelligible policy. They adopted neither.

I am not going to attempt to examine every detail of their policy since 1931. Broadly speaking, if their policy had been a policy of undermining the League without abandoning it they could scarcely have done differently or more effectively than they did. Let me give just one instance, one which I happen to know all about because at that time I was employed by the Government—the question of Manchuria. There undoubtedly they adopted this policy: protest, carried through up to the point of giving a definite time within which Japan must assent to a policy of abandoning the Man-churian adventure; then, when Japan did not do so, they took no further step at all. They made no further effort. They then sent out the Lytton Commission. The Lytton Commission, admirably conducted if I may say so, achieved the almost incredible result of getting an absolutely unanimous decision from representatives of Italy, Germany, France, America and this country. That was brought up at Geneva. The Japanese rejected it altogether. The Assembly unanimously accepted the view that the suggestions made by the Commission were right, and our Foreign Secretary went down and made a speech which was universally interpreted—whatever he may have intended—as an apology for Japanese action.

That kind of policy went on over and over again: protest against some breach of International Law, some breach of the Covenant of the League of Nations; ignored by the Covenant-breaker or rejected by him; protest—again no action, and statements that no action was possible. The result in the Far East—and that is the reason why I mention it—is the present disastrous war that is going on there. Undoubtedly if Japan could have been checked over Manchuria—I admit the difficulties; they were very great—but if she could have been checked there there would have been no war now. Just conceive what an addition to human happiness if that had been so. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are being killed under most awful conditions. Every kind of outrage apparently goes on, I dare say on both sides, though we hear most of the outrages by the Japanese. It is incredible, the amount of human suffering which is being caused in the Far East at this moment, and it is because there is no means of stopping it. Japan absolutely ignores all remonstrance, and it is thought that we can do no more to help China to defeat what seems to me a very grave international crime.

Now what is the reason why the Government do these things? I have the highest respect and admiration for the individual members of the Government. I am sure it is not incapacity; it is, even more certainly, not because they are worse than other men—on the contrary. Why is it? Of course the reason is perfectly clear: it is the normal working of a Coalition Government. I do not say that the Coalition in this case is divided by the ordinary Party lines—of that I know nothing—but it is perfectly plain that right through these years you have had two Parties in the Cabinet, one Party that desired a real, genuine, forward League of Nations policy, and the other that was afraid of that policy and was apparently drawing back and preventing effective action. The result has been, as has been shown over and over again in our Parliamentary history, though never perhaps with such disastrous results as on the present occasion, that you get this perpetual zig-zag of policy; when the moment comes for really decisive action that is abandoned, and you have a zig-zag back, with the ordinary accompaniments. We have already suffered the consequences of this policy in the loss of three Foreign Ministers. I do not pretend to have an unappeasable regret about some of them, but there they are. I do not know whether anyone at Lloyd's insures the continuance in office of a Foreign Minister, but I think my noble friend would find it difficult to get any insurance carried out under those terms.

If you look at each question the same thing has happened. Exactly the same policy was pursued in the Disarmament Conference—two currents perpetually contending with one another in the Government policy, and in the result nothing being done. I am not going to elaborate what the right reverend Prelate has said with such eloquence about Abyssinia, but it is the same thing in that case. He referred to the great speech of Sir Samuel Hoare on September 11, 1935, and your Lordships will remember that within two or three months—I think two months—there was the Hoare-Laval Agreement which was an absolute contradiction of the speech which had been delivered with such energy and vigour. So it was with the Rhine Provinces. There were the same conditions. I agree that the question was very difficult—all these questions are difficult—but we had the same conditions—a gross breach of the Treaty by Germany, protests, many meetings, many discussions as to exactly what protest should be made, in effect nothing done, and the present rulers of Germany being able to go back to their people and say: "You see how this policy succeeds. We have merely got to do what we want, and no one will stop us."

The same thing has happened over and over again in Spain. I cannot tell how surprised I am that the Government still believe in the good faith of the present Ruler of Italy. Just look at this speech at Genoa which he has just delivered and which has come out to-day. What does it amount to? I understand that the speech as reported on the wireless was different from the speech as reported in the newspapers, but it was far worse as reported on the wireless. I am told that the speech as reported on the wireless was not correct. I shall have to accept that, but I think it very unlikely. What did he say? I will not go into what he said about England, but, referring to France he said, "We are on two opposite sides of the barricade. France is trying to help the Government, I am trying to help Franco." And according to the wireless account, I believe—I did not hear it myself—he went on to say, "And I am going to take the necessary steps to secure Franco's victory and to send whatever munitions are necessary for that purpose." Not only that, but when he made his speech I understand he spoke from a kind of pulpit, and round it were a number of little statuettes or something of that kind recording the victories of Italian arms, and six out of the seven of them referred to victories obtained by Italian arms in the Spanish war.

All that is in absolute defiance of what he has undertaken to do, as I understand it, in the Agreement. If I am wrong, I shall be corrected. I understand he has said he would not increase his armaments in Spain and would withdraw them as soon as he could. I understand that is so. It is perfectly true to say, as my noble friend who initiated this debate said, that no doubt other countries have sent in arms and munitions, but there is no other country that I know which has openly avowed, by the chief Minister of that country, that the country is intervening, not as individuals who come from that country, but as a country. My noble friend gave some figures as to the number of aeroplanes belonging to each country which had been shot down by General Franco. I thought they were quite conclusive that there had been no such great effort to assist the Government Party by any foreign Government, because what did he show? He showed that no fewer than 50 of these aeroplanes came from America, and nothing can be more certain than that the American Government has had no kind of intention of doing anything to assist either party. There was some very small number from this country, and some from several other countries; but it was quite plain that that was the kind of assistance which, granted the violent passions that this miserable, wretched struggle has aroused, you will inevitably find dribbling in from both sides. That is inevitable, but the assistance of a Government as a Government is quite a different thing both internationally and morally, as I venture to think.

The only addition that the Government have made to this policy is that wretched slogan for which I do not think any noble Lords are personally responsible, "We have kept you out of war." Of all the miserable slogans that the necessities of Party politics have ever invented, that is probably the worst—at any rate one of the worst. That is all you can say—"We have kept you out of war." Without any regard to righteousness or justice, or what will ultimately occur, or the larger interests of humanity and of this country, merely, "We have kept you out of war." That has produced most unfortunate results, in my judgment, on different sections of the population who think that the only thing that matters is to keep out of war, and therefore that all this talk of rearmament is nonsense and should not be encouraged. It seems to me the fundamental cause of the difficulties in which we stand.

I am not going to say much as to this Anglo-Italian Agreement. It seems to me to be excellent in parts, like the curate's egg, but the parts which an excellent are unimportant and relatively small matters confirming Agreements already made. The two big things are the abandonment of Spain and the abandonment of Abyssinia. I will not say very much about the abandonment of Abyssinia, because the right reverend Prelate has said it much better than I can, but I do very respectfully protest against my noble friend's defence of it at Geneva. He said: Those who seek to establish a better world upon the basis of universal acknowledgment of League principles are clearly right to feel reluctance to countenance action, however desirable on other grounds, by which they may appear to be infringed. But when, as here, two ideals are in conflict—on the one hand the ideal of devotion, unflinching but unpractical, to some high purpose; on the other, the ideal of a practical victory for peace—I cannot doubt that the stronger claim is that of peace. And then my noble friend went on to certain considerations of a more general character.

I do not suppose that anyone will deny that occasions may arise when you have these conflicts—I would not say a conflict between principle and practical expediency, but between two principles; but as it is put by my noble friend it seems to me an exceedingly dangerous doctrine. It is the old doctrine of every tyrannical Government. I am sure no one would dislike a tyrannical Government more than my noble friend. Necessity—the tyrant's plea—raison d'être—always the same thing; but in order to obtain a great practical advantage we are going to do a minor injustice. It is a very dangerous doctrine. I will not say it has never been adopted, but I will say that it is a most dangerous doctrine on which to base your policy, and in this case, if my noble friend will forgive me, I think he has wholly misunderstood the real thing which makes some of us feel so bitterly on this question. It is not a doctrinaire adherance to League principles, though I entirely agree with all the right reverend Prelate said about that. That is not the point. The point is that we have made certain promises to the Abyssinians and the Abyssinian Government—the fact that some of them were given under the Covenant does not make them less promises—perfectly clear promises that we will respect and preserve the territorial integrity and political independence of their country.

We broke those promises against my earnest protests. We broke those promises when we abandoned the attempt to coerce the Italians into abandoning the invasion; but that is no reason for breaking them again. It comes back to a question of fact. As I understand the Government's case, they say the conquest is complete. They say: "We are not failing to respect an integrity or an independence because it does not exist." Surely if that is the case one ought to be extremely clear and certain about the facts. Here is the Emperor, with a great mass of apparent facts at his back. He says that in large parts of this country there is no such conquest, that no such conquest has taken place. He declares that in enormous sections of this enormous territory no Italians exist at all, that they exist only in relatively few towns, and that from those towns they have a power of controlling only a very restricted area. What has been said to me by others certainly bears out that on the face of it, and they are in a position to confirm those views.

I think my right reverend friend alluded, or somebody did, to the principles of International Law whereby, when you come to recognise a new Government over a territory which it did not have before, two things have usually been thought essential. In the first place, that the conquest of that territory has been complete, and, secondly, that it has lasted a sufficient time to make it tolerably certain that its conquest is going to be permanent. I see no evidence that either one or other of those conditions has been fulfilled in this case. That would not matter so very much if it was only a question of the ordinary practice of International Law, but it does surely emphasize tremendously the kind of duty that we owe to these unhappy people who were encouraged to fight the Italians by our assistance, and I am assured—my noble friend will tell me if I am wrong—that on more than one occasion the Government of the Emperor asked whether it should do this, that, or the other, and was told to rely upon the defence of the League of Nations. It is this kind of facts that make it so bitter to us to have to see that these solemn undertakings given by our Government are going to be ignored because that is in the interest of peace and in the interest of the safety of this country.

We are going to mike conditions about the withdrawal of troops from Libya, and about the re-affirmation of Agreements with regard to Lake Tsana, and we are to receive various advantages for our safety. In return for these, and on this doctrine of appeasement, about which I will say a word in a moment, we are going to abandon those who have trusted to our word. That is the thing. It is not, I beg your Lordships to believe, a mere doctrinaire adherence to the principles of the League. It is much more than that in this particular case. I quite agree that if and when the conquest of this country is really complete, when it has really been established, when a new Government has really been set up, and when there is no substantial effort to fight still for their independence, then it might be legitimate to change our attitude; but until that happens I feel very strongly that we ought to have stuck to our friends, even at some risk to ourselves.

I have already said what I have to say about Spain, and I need not repeat it. I can only say that in that case, too, I think it unfortunate that we have apparently abandoned those whom we have continually begged to confine their efforts to their own exertions and not to rely on foreign assistance. Now in regard to this Agreement with Italy, apparently we are not going to insist any longer on the old doctrines of nonintervention; all we are going to say is that at the conclusion of the war the Italians and other troops must be withdrawn. I feel that policy to be objectionable not only on the grounds I have put forward, but on one other ground. The conditions it seems to me are exceedingly unlikely to be fulfilled. Just look at what the situation is. Look at the situation in Italy. Everyone to whom I have spoken assures me that the Spanish expedition is profoundly unpopular in Italy, and bitterly resented by a very large number of the people of Italy. All you are going to ask the Ruler of Italy to say at the end is: "I am going to withdraw all my troops; I am going to take no advantage at all from this operation; I shall have the satisfaction of having prevented the establishment of a Left Government in Spain, but beyond that I want nothing. I am not going to occupy any territory, I am not going to ask for any special economic advantages, I am just going to make this wonderful gesture of self-renunciation." It may happen, because all sorts of extraordinary things are happening in the world, but I think if that does happen it will be among the most extraordinary of the incidents that have taken place.

That is the case which, it seems to me, may fairly be made against the Government's foreign policy. They have arrived at a conclusion. They are actively pursuing a policy of rearmament. I do not doubt that it is right, but it is a policy which they themselves are continually, I am sure, discovering to be a disastrous policy, a waste of money, a policy which they hate, and they have taken steps which, whatever they may have desired, have in fact resulted in the serious, I hope not fatal, injury to the League of Nations, which they are never tired of saying they believe in. They say they regard it as the ideal arrangement of international affairs, but unfortunately incapable of being operated at the present time. It is a melancholy conclusion of seven years of the National Government.

May I just in conclusion, in a very few words, so as not to leave myself open to the reproach that I have put forward no alternative, suggest the kind of policy which I think might possibly be carried out? Of course I am not in office, and if I were I should probably be incapable of doing anything. In Czechoslovakia we are not yet too late. I hope that Mr. Winston Churchill was right in what he said in the very remarkable speech he made on Monday at Bristol, and that there is a good prospect of the situation there being settled by agreement. I am quite sure that that settlement will simply be due to the fact that those who are threatening Czechoslovakia are afraid that they may have gone too far and will not carry that threat to the utmost. I beg the Government, as I have done on more than one occasion, to make their attitude to Czechoslovakia abundantly clear. There are many diplomatic phrases which could be used. They could say that they would regard an attack on Czechoslovakia as an unfriendly act, or something of that kind.

Then there is China. I have always said that the position there, particularly after our failure in Manchuria, was extremely difficult. Still it does seem to me that something might be done, and I recognise that the resolution accepted at Geneva is an advance on the previous resolution—but not much of an advance. I very respectfully urge that there too we should give what we are perfectly entitled to give, active support to China in her effort to defeat this attack upon her independence.

As for Spain, I assent to the view that the best thing to do now is to allow all arms to be imported, as we are evidently unable to prevent arms going to that country from certain countries. I do not pretend that I think that a satisfactory policy, but I must say—and I want to say it because I am afraid I have been very critical of the Government—how warmly I welcome the phrase my noble friend used about the possibility of mediation between the parties in Spain, and his suggestion that possibly the League might be brought in to help in that mediation. I do very earnestly hope that that will not be dropped and that the Government will make that an integral part of their policy and press it whenever they get the chance. I am quite sure there can be no real solution of the Spanish difficulty except peace in that unhappy peninsula.

As to Abyssinia, I should like, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd said, to see whether something cannot be done to make it possible for the Emperor honourably to go back to Abyssinia as Ruler over some parts of his own tribal section of that country. As to that I do not know. In the meantime I should certainly not do anything which would encourage and assist the completion of the Italian conquest in that country.

LORD ARNOLD

My Lords, in reference to the concluding part of the noble Viscount's speech I should like, from the opposite point of view, to express the strong hope that the Government will not go one inch further in support of Czechoslovakia than they have already gone. The noble Viscount lives in a world of his own, as I have said before and say again. It is, in my view, remote from reality. The noble Viscount, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, said in this House that it was quite clear that no British Government could take this country into war again unless there was an overwhelming majority of the British people in favour of that war and unless the Empire as well was in favour of that war. I think it is as certain as anything can be that you would never get those two conditions satisfied for a war on behalf of Czechoslovakia. The Prime Minister said in his careful speech when dealing with this matter that any further step really removes control of foreign policy from this country and puts it into other hands. That is an extremely dangerous thing to do.

The speeches of the noble Viscount and of the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Durham both require certain comments in the course of this debate. I am sorry that owing to shortage of time I can only say a few words about them, but I feel it my duty to say this. Whereas I hold no brief for the Government I think both those speeches were very unfair to the Government and very unfair to the Foreign Secretary. With the exception of one half-hearted qualification of a few words at one point in the noble Viscount's speech, both speeches would give anybody who does not know the facts to understand that it was the British Government who were responsible for the present position of the League, of Abyssinia, and so forth. That is quite opposite to the facts. In my humble view the Government went very much further than they should have done in the League to try to help Abyssinia. Sir Samuel Hoare pointed out in his resignation speech—I heard it myself—that we were the only country who had done anything active, the only country who had moved a gun or a ship, to fulfil our obligations under the Covenant. And when it came to sanctions it is well known that it was France who would not go further.

The British Government is only one Government in the League. We are told again and again—I come to that now because it was really the main purport of the speeches of the right reverend Prelate and the noble Viscount and also of the noble Lord who moved this Motion—that we must go back to the League. It is always back to the League. I am sick and tired of pointing out that there is no League to go back to in the ordinary sense. It does not exist any longer. If the noble Viscount would only face the facts he would know that for practical purposes the League only consists of Great Britain and France at the present time.

The right reverend Prelate in a speech which horrified me not only envisaged, but I think almost seemed to regard as inevitable, another war in Europe—a League war, between, I suppose, Britain and France and Russia, if Russia is to be counted a democratic Power, and Germany and Italy and possibly Japan, if Japan has any fighting power left. That is what is envisaged and that is what we have been brought to by the League. We are warned that we are following the policy which led to 1914, but you are there now and the League has brought it about. It is a tragedy that the League has brought into being that very balance of power which it was designed to prevent. But suppose the right reverend Prelate is right, and suppose that war came, is it conceivable that out of that war there could possibly come any settlement, that it could possibly result in peace and good will and the establishment of the rule of law? If there were sufficient civilisation left at the end of that war to make another treaty it would only be another Treaty of Versailles, or probably worse. You would not get anything approaching a fair treaty. But as a matter of fact, as the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, has told us, a war like that would be the end of civilisation. He said it would mean in all probability complete barbarous anarchy from one end of Europe to another. As against that prospect I prefer the policy of the Government. The Government see that they have responsibilities. The noble Viscount said rather scornfully that the Government's only claim was that they had kept us out of war. It is the duty of any Government to keep out of war, and so long as it does that it will deserve well of the people.

Much of the debate has centred round the Italian Agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, who opened the debate, was eloquent about the sacrifice of Abyssinian independence, and many of the critics of the Government, both in his Party and the Liberal Party, condemn any condonation, apparently, of the sacrifice of Abyssinian independence. Like everybody else, I am not defending the conquest of Abyssinia; but neither am I defending the means by which our country and France obtained many parts of their Empires. When the noble Lord, Lord Snell, and his friends—whatever he may say, they do this—put themselves on what I may call a peak of righteousness in this matter, I must remind them of the words, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone." Let us look at the facts, let us face the facts. Do not let the dictates of the heart blur our historical sense. Let me remind your Lordships first of all of the letter by Professor Trevelyan in The Times last month dealing with this very matter. Speaking of Great Britain, our own country, he says this: If we have no single thing as bad as Abyssinia to our book, we have over a long period of time effected the violent seizure of an enormous portion of the globe, and we participated in the most unwise forfeiture of all Germany's Colonies in 1919, an act without parallel in any previous terms with a beaten enemy. My Lords, those are the words of a man who speaks with unrivalled authority on these matters, and they ought to be pondered by those who say, as some say, that this Italian conquest must not, apparently, in any circumstances be condoned.

If that is to be so, why are all our conquests to be condoned? Have we got to go into the past? Have we, for instance, even to envisage the handing back of the Transvaal to the Boers? The Boer War was condemned by the united opinion of Europe, and if there had been a League of Nations then, I have no doubt that it would have been condemned by the League at that time. You may say that that was a long time ago. True, but where does that kind of defence bring you? Is there to be a time limit in these matters, and if so, what is it? In what year, on that principle, for instance, would the conquest of Abyssinia become moral? Let me put it in another way: at what stage does the conquest of a native territory become the white man's burden? These are the questions which have to be faced, and it is really no good to say that everything ought to be different now because we have a League of Nations. As Professor Trevelyan said in his letter: It was hoping too much to expect that all nations would suddenly begin behaving well. Of course Italy's breach of the Covenant was wrong and censurable. I will not vie with the noble Lord and other noble Lords in the use of adjectives in condemning Italy, though I should be quite willing to do so if time allowed. Nevertheless, it is only right to point out that Italy is not the only Power who has broken the Covenant or other engagements. Certainly not.

I will give one or two instances. Article 8 of the Covenant has never been kept. It was never kept by the Allies in the sense in which it was intended. Germany was disarmed on the understanding that there should be a very large measure of disarmament, and the Council was to formulate plans for such reduction. That has never been done; never. Again, when we come to the Locarno Treaty, under the Protocol of that Treaty there was a solemn undertaking. The Powers concerned said that they would give their sincere co-operation to this work of disarmament. That was not done. France did not take the smallest notice of it, not the slightest notice. She went on rearming as fast as she could and to a greater extent than she could afford. If we are to go into these matters, I must remind your Lordships that the invasion of the Ruhr by France was not only a breach of the Covenant but also a breach of the Treaty of Versailles. It was a shocking thing. Is France therefore to be ostracised? Are we to say that we are never to have anything more to do with France, and that she is a country which is not fit to talk to? Lastly, as Professor Trevelyan points out in his letter to The Times, we participated in this forfeiture of all the German Colonies although the Armistice was concluded on the basis of President Wilson's points, No. 5 of which said that there was to be a free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all Colonial claims. Whatever else those words might mean, they could not possibly mean that all her Colonies were to be taken away from Germany. If we were in Germany's position now we should feel, as she does, that we had been very wrongly treated.

If it is said that these instances are not altogether on all fours with what Italy has done, with her breach of the Covenant, I say that there is not sufficient difference between them and what Italy did to entitle us to take up a position of great moral superiority in regard to Italy. If these happenings of which I have been speaking have not the same degree of moral obliquity as Italy's deeds, or misdeeds, the difference is not sufficient to justify us in putting on a cloak of very superior virtue. The difference is certainly not sufficient to entitle us to lecture Italy and lecture Germany about what they should do and what they should not do. We have had that attitude exemplified, I am sorry to say, this afternoon in some speeches which have caused me the greatest pain. One of the most serious obstacles to a European settlement is the offensive and provocative language used by many people in this country, and by some noble Lords in this House, of foreign nations of whose government they do not approve.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

An offence which you would never commit.

LORD ARNOLD

I should like in this connection to read to the House one of the principles of foreign policy laid down by Mr. Gladstone. He said this: You may sympathise with one nation more than another. You must sympathise in certain circumstances with one nation more than another. You sympathise most with those nations, as a rule, with which you have the nearest connection in language, in blood, in religion or other circumstances which at the time seem to give the strongest claims to sympathy. But in point of right all are equal, and you have no right to set up a system under which one is to be placed under moral suspicion or espionage, or made the constant subject of invective. If you do that, and especially if you claim for yourself a pharisaical superiority, then I say you may talk about your patriotism as you please, but you are a most misjudging friend of your country. You are, in reality, inflicting serious injury upon it. Those are Mr. Gladstone's words. It is quite true, I agree, that later on, actuated by religious passion, he did not altogether live up to the principles he had laid down. But there they are, and I commend them to the notice of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, who opened the debate, and to other noble Lords.

Time presses. I want to pass on to say one word about the particular verbiage of the Motion of the noble Lord. I would point out that he himself, as regards Abyssinia, is prepared to recognise the conquest on terms. He does not regard it as immutably immoral; not at all. What he complains of is that the sacrifice of Abyssinian independence does not, in his view, bring corresponding gains to the cause of peace and democracy. So, according to his Motion, there is no question of a refusal to recognise Abyssinian independence. It is merely a question of terms. It becomes a matter of debit and credit. That really is the position of the Government as I understand it. It is a question of terms with them. They do not like the conquest of Abyssinia. They have condemned it, and, I should have thought, in sufficiently strong language, and made their position quite clear. In fact, they incurred considerable risks in trying to stop it from taking place. But they are prepared, as the Prime Minister said, in certain circumstances to recognise the conquest as part of a general appeasement. That is the position. It must be recognised in this matter that there is no perfect policy—there is no hundred per cent, policy. There are objections to every course. I know that that is what Lord Snell would call shallow casuistry. I think it is facing facts in the only way statesmen can face them. Statesmanship is the art of what is possible, and I say that the noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, has throughout had to work within the limits of that maxim, and he has in my view, in all the circumstances, done his work well.

Just a word about the matter of non-intervention in Spain. It is surely clear that if that policy had been abandoned there would have been grave risk of this country becoming involved in a general European war. Let me put one question to Lord Snell. He referred to the Germans in Spain, and to the Italians in Spain, but I did not hear him say a single word about the Russians in Spain.

LORD SNELL

I beg the noble Lord's pardon. To the best of my belief I mentioned neither Italians nor Germans, and certainly not Germans.

LORD ARNOLD

We shall see the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow. Certainly the noble Lord did not mention the Russians, and when we are discussing serious affairs does he think it right to put the question in that way? There are several other European countries in which civil war might break out. Are we in each case, when that happens, to become active partisans—probably we should have to come to that later on—of the supposed democracies? Does the noble Lord mean that? Is it not perfectly clear that any such course would be fraught with the utmost danger to European peace, and very perilous for this country. What we can do is this. We can keep this country out of war—if we do not follow the policy of Lord Snell. We can maintain democracy in this country, if we keep it out of war. If we keep out of war democracy is safe. I do not think there will be much dispute about that, and therefore again, in contradistinction to the noble Viscount, I hold that it is the primary and overwhelming duty of British statesmen to keep this country out of war.

The Prime Minister in a recent speech said that if the time should ever come when it is the duty of a British Government again to plunge this country into war, those responsible for that decision must feel that they had done everything possible to avoid war—or words to that effect. Could any Government say honestly that it had done everything possible to avoid war if it had abandoned the policy of non-intervention in Spain? Could any Government say that it had done everything possible to avoid war if it had rejected the overtures made by the Italian Government to enter into negotiations?—negotiations which have now happily ended in this Agreement. Whatever may be said, it has enormously relieved the tension in Europe, and improved the international situation. These are very great services both to peace and democracy, and I find it hard to believe that any Government charged with the appalling responsibility of these days would have rejected the Italian overtures, just as I find it very difficult to believe that the Labour Party, if in office, would carry out the policy which it advocates in opposition.

LORD ALLEN OF HURTWOOD

My Lords, I am sure I shall have the sympathy of all your Lordships in having to rise and speak at this particular hour, when I am sure every member of this House must be longing for non-intervention in this debate, in order that your Lordships may depart elsewhere. None the less I do think it is, perhaps, of some value that one of those who have been associated with the peace movement of this country for nearly thirty years, should venture in this debate to offer support to the Government in the policy which they are at present pursuing. I feel it would be a profound mistake for it to be supposed that the peace movement of this country is united in opposition to the Government at this moment, and I myself would like to pay my tribute to the courage of the Prime Minister in having initiated a policy of appeasement at this difficult time in the history of Europe. I feel that particularly because the Prime Minister is compelled, as indeed is the Foreign Secretary, to lay himself open to the accusations which have been made in this House to-day of having betrayed the principles of morality for the sake of political expediency.

I listened to the very remarkable speech of the Bishop of Durham—I only wish I had the capacity for making speeches so notable and brilliant—but so far as its sentiments were concerned, far from them moving me deeply they horrified me. I wonder how often in history we have had these appeals made to high standards of morality in international affairs, the only consequence of which was to plunge men into war, sometimes, as at present, at moments when they were ill-equipped for that war. If I may say so, it is these pleadings for righteousness which have sometimes been the prelude to the most terrible catastrophies.

If I may, in the few moments which I have at my disposal, I will just put the position as I see it at this time. The problem, to-day, which is concerning us in this House, and which is in fact concerning the Government, is a practical problem. I speak as a devoted adherent of the League of Nations. I see no reason to modify my faith in the League. I believe it is the only method by which the safety of this country can be sustained, and the peace of the world can be promoted. I profoundly regret the situation in which we find ourselves now. I do not believe that had opportunities been seized at the right moment and courage and faith displayed when they could have been fruitful, that the present disastrous situation need have occurred. But the present is the present, and I cannot see what value there is, in this difficult position—not even for those of us who believe in the League—in dwelling all the time on the mistakes of the past. We have now an immediate problem to face, and, as I conceive it, it would be disastrous for the cause of peace and disastrous to the League, about which I care, if we attempted in the present circumstances to apply the League of Nations rigidly and inflexibly. It seems to me that the need of the moment is for a transitional policy, a transitional policy capable of achieving two objects. The first object is to meet the immediate danger. The second object is to reconstruct the League system itself. And that transitional policy is, so far as I understand it, the policy which the Government in the present period of danger is trying to pursue.

Now what are the practical problems that surely must be in the mind of the noble Viscount, the Foreign Secretary, and in the mind of the Government as it attempts to apply that policy now? May I just mention what those problems would seem to me to be? The first problem, of over-riding importance, is the problem of armed power. If you are going to sustain law you must be able to sustain it with victory. And we are confronted in this country, as we are confronted in all the countries still loyal to the League, with a question-mark so far as armaments are concerned. We are called upon to-day to clarify our commitments so as to avoid the mistake that we made in the year 1914. In the year 1914 there was no question-mark of aviation hanging over the policies of Europe. To-day you have a new invention, with incalculable new problems arising from that invention, and His Majesty's Government, as it looks out over the present position, trying to devise a transitional policy, cannot disregard the state of armaments, both of this country and of the Powers that are loyal to the League. I have no doubt whatever that if a test were to come the Powers that are loyal to the League and believe in peaceful procedure would win that war. Dictators may be those who start wars. Democracies are those who win wars. And I have no doubt, despite all the difficulties, that in an armed world, even as it is to-day, victory could be won. But what I do feel uncertain about is whether the state of armaments at the present moment is sufficient to enable us to deter the aggressor and prevent aggression, even if we can win the victory, as I believe we can. And it is that problem which seems to me the first problem which His Majesty's Government has to face.

The second problem is allied to it—the depleted membership of the League of Nations. That problem is intimately associated with the first I have mentioned, the question of armaments. The third problem arises from the position of Russia, and I do crave your Lordships' permission to say one word with regard to Russia in connection with this transitional policy. Is Russia politically reliable? And is she reliable so far as armed equipment is concerned? I for my part desire that this country should promote the closest and friendliest relationships with Russia. I detest her internal régime, as I deplore the internal régime of Germany and Italy, but I desire that there should be friendly co-operation with all those nations, irrespective of their internal régime. But the difficulty with regard to Russia is a unique difficulty when it comes to the problem of reliability. Russia not only co-operates round the League table as a, foreign Power working with other sovereign Powers, but simultaneously with that she is developing the technique across frontiers of revolutionary activity, which is disturbing to the peace of the nations with which she should be co-operating.

I can speak with first-hand knowledge of this subject, because it was my duty to go to Russia in 1920 as an emissary from the Labour movement, in order to discuss with Lenin personally the actual intentions of Russia, so far as the Comintern and the Third International were concerned. It may be argued that Russia has to-day ceased from a belief in the carrying on of external revolutionary activity. I hope that is the case. If it is, there is one easy way to prove it—Russia should now close down her Comintern, now that she has become a Member of the League of Nations. It may be true that there has been a most illegitimate intervention in Spain by the Fascist Powers, but no one can deny that in terms of chronology the technique of intervention across frontiers began with Russia, and with no other Power in Europe. And I do believe that it would add enormously to the value of international co-operation if Russia, with whom we desire to be friendly, would terminate this particular form of activity.

The last of the immediate problems, which seems to me a practical one, that must be confronting His Majesty's Government as they devise this policy, is the fact that at the moment they are called upon to protect the law the moral foundations of that law are not what we would all desire. The moral unsatisfactoriness of the law which we are called upon to protect arises from the failure of the League to develop within its institutions efforts to promote economic co-operation and to bring about a greater degree of equality of fortune between the nations that are co-operating round the League table. If we were in those circumstances to be called upon now to use the League rigidly, with that problem of armaments in our mind, with the unreliability of Russia in our mind, with the depleted membership of the League-in our mind, and with this question of the moral unsatisfactoriness of the foundations of the law we are called upon to protect in our mind, to use the League rigidly would not prevent aggression; it might easily provoke catastrophe. I have put that position as frankly as I can.

What therefore does the Government say? The Government say: "We intend to pursue a policy which begins with strength, proceeds through prudence, and terminates with conciliation." Strength, prudence, conciliation: prudence because it may be that we are passing through a temporary phase in European history, when evil tempers have been aroused, when legitimate grievances have become illegitimate ambitions, and when, if we can keep the peace through strength and conciliation for a period of time, those tempers may lower and that danger may pass.

It is for these reasons that I support the Italian Agreement. I remain unmoved by appeals principally founded upon an appeal to morality. If we are to make peace with the nations who either have grievances or have committed misdeeds we must make a new start, and you cannot begin to promote a new peace arrangement if your starting point is going to be the last angry debating squabble you had in the previous week. The time may come when you must cut right across all that dialectical wrangling and arguing, and see if you cannot make a new start. If you first say that every misdeed in Europe must be put right before you can start on a new road to appeasement, you will never begin. It would mean calling upon Germany to evacuate Austria. I would say that the facts have become deplorable, that we have failed in our honourable obligations to Abyssinia, but to-day I do not count it to be a craven slogan to win peace, to start a new process of conciliation, and to keep out of war. It may well be that to keep out of a war at a moment when evil tempers have been aroused which can be assuaged, even if you have to pay a bitter price for it, will in the end be something which history will record as a notable event in the progress of the world.

There is only one other thing I would like to say. It is true that in the course of appeasement by the means I have outlined we are lowering the flag of morality between nations. I cannot see how we can deny it. It may be that all our efforts will fail, and then, having lowered the flag of morality, we shall find the capacity of this country to act diminished because its prestige will have been tarnished. It will then be said that we bought the peace of Europe, not by something which was our property, but by paying the price in somebody else's land—the black races of Abyssinia. I believe we could diminish the dangers of that possible evil if we would at this moment take the initiative as a British Commonwealth with regard to the administration of non-self-governing areas of tropical Africa where we ourselves are responsible. I do plead with the noble Viscount, whose difficulties I have tried to understand and for whose efforts at Geneva I have had the deepest admiration. Is there not possibly something which this nation could do before the eyes of the world with regard to the native races of Africa which would prove our bona fides even at a moment when we are having to accept a fact which we deplore? I think there is.

If we could offer with other Colonial Powers to extend international trusteeship in certain of the African tropical areas, in non-self-governing territories, we could prove that we were doing something in a sphere where our own property and our own interests were concerned, and by doing it there we might perhaps prove our bona fides at a time when these bona fides are doubted. That is a highly difficult subject and a highly complicated one. The last debate that took place in your Lordships' House on the development of Colonies produced, as I think, from the Government Bench a far from satisfactory reply. If now, faced by this difficult transitional problem, including, as it must include, a deep concern for backward races, we could alter British policy with regard to international trusteeship in connection with our own Commonwealth, I believe it would be to the benefit of the whole world and of our own power for peace in the future. This policy which the Government is pursuing may fail. I, personally, believe it will succeed; but if it should fail, by having proved our longing to heal the wounds of the past, and to make peace even at a moment of danger so grave as this, we shall have mobilised the good will of public opinion in America, public opinion even inside the dictator States, and, above all, public opinion in our own country. For these reasons I, for one, despite my sorrow at the situation which I see, beg to offer my support to His Majesty's Government at the present moment.

LORD STONEHAVEN

My Lords, the noble Lord has given us the luxury of the usual thoughtful speech we are accustomed to hear from him. There was only one point towards the end of his speech with regard to which I hoped he would have given some more explanation. Without doubt, if the co-operation of America could be secured, it would be the greatest thing for the promotion of peace, and that undoubtedly was the intention of the framers of the original League of Nations. It is the lack of the co-operation of America that has prevented the machine from working, so far as I can see. When the noble Lord refers to the possibility of securing the moral support of America, I am afraid we want a good deal more than that. What we want is to be sure, for example, in a case such as occurred in Manchuria, not only that we should collaborate with America in making speeches and passing resolutions, but, if it became necessary, should use our Fleet with the American Fleet. Until America faces up to that reality, I am afraid that we are liable to have great disappointments as we have had over the League.

I frankly have never believed in the League, and as an ex-diplomatist I do not believe in the League because it is based on wrong principles. The present Minister of Agriculture used a very wise phrase in another place a short time ago when he said that he had always thought foreign affairs would be a simple matter if it were not for the foreigner. It seems to me that the whole of this League idea is based on an Anglo-Saxon outlook on life in general. My noble friend Lord Cecil is no longer here, and perhaps it is just as well, because I am afraid that what I am going to say would have pained him considerably; but if you come to think of it the authors of the League were distinguished English and American politicians, lawyers, and professors, and foreigners had little or nothing to do with it. If America had joined in, and the League had functioned as intended, you might possibly have had for a short time—I do not think the world would have tolerated it for long—a predominant Anglo-Saxon combination keeping the peace in general.

Although the present League contains fifty-eight nations, and comprises rather over 75 per cent, of the population of the world, the failure that has to be recorded in every Continent in the world does seem to indicate that the principle is wrong, that the plan is wrong, and what I have failed to understand is what reason those who advocate the rebuilding of the League can advance to justify the idea that a rebuilt League will be any less a failure than the League we have been suffering from for so many years. It seems to me that my noble friend Lord Cecil made a determined attempt to secure the best of both worlds. He said that we were at present living in a world controlled by the League and at the same time that the world had never been so uncomfortable or so unsafe. That does not seem to me to be much of a tribute to the system which he advocates. Then as to the accusation that we in Great Britain have not supported the League, we must remember that we have exactly one-fifty-eighth responsibility for the successes and failures of the League. I must say that I felt as much indignation as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham did, but from the exactly opposite direction, when he kept on saying how we have let down Abyssinia, how we have done this and we have done that. That to my mind is one of the great defects of the League, when it comes to the question of upholding the moral standard— and it would be a bad day if we ceased to do that.

Under the League system we are not master in our own house. We only have a joint responsibility for the moral standard of the world, and I agree with the noble Lord profoundly that in regard to black nations in particular it is a deplorable thing that we should have had to go through the experience my noble friend went through at Geneva the other day. But so far from finding it a heart-rending affair, as the right reverend Prelate did, that the League has failed to work, I am disposed to put up a prayer of thankfulness that the fallacies of the League have at last become apparent, and that we shall no longer have to face the world with that millstone round our neck. What is the League? It is talked about as a great idea. Well it is a dangerous matter when an idea is suddenly converted into an ideal. After all, it was an idea that occurred to a certain number of perfectly ordinary individuals who were collected at Versailles with the object of making peace, and a very bad job they made of that. What justification is there for attaching or attributing almost divine inspiration and origin to a particular part of a Treaty which is singularly rich in foolish provisions?

And I think personally that the League of Nations organisation is perhaps the most foolish part of many of those foolish provisions, for the reason that the League of Nations refuses to accept realities. It starts off with a rather ambitious idea of laying down a new world order. What justification is there for saying you can impose a new world order unless you have the force to prevent people kicking over the traces who do not like that world order? We have not that force. We are being driven away from the old principle of living well with our neighbour. Why should that be so? Why, the world has been carried on with very few wars all through history, certainly during the last century, by means other than those of utilising the machinery of the League. And what is the machinery of the League? The machinery of the League, I suggest, is a cosmopolitan committee of politicians and lawyers who go to Geneva and wrangle instead of leaving the affairs of the world to be dealt with by trained diplomatists whose business it is not to wrangle but to keep their countries out of wrangling. You may go on with a system such as the League, but you cannot get away from the fact that politicians and lawyers are the last people who ought to put their fingers into foreign affairs. They are not trained for the purpose. They do not know each other's language. They have to speak to each other through interpreters. The whole thing is a system which no sane man would attempt to employ in his business. If he did he would be "broke" in no time.

The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, feels very strongly in favour of the League. If he were here I would assure him that I feel just as strongly that the League is a great disaster, and that until we can face up to that fact we are not going to get out of the difficulties of the country. Foreigners do not admire us for having created what we call a great ideal, and foreigners have some justification. They take the view that, having acquired the greatest Empire in the world, the greatest collection of territory and people that has ever been seen in the world, entirely by war—there is not one part of the Empire that we have not got by war—we then say: "War must be abolished," and we expect the rest of the world to acquiesce in that view and with the League of Nations, which could only work if all were disarmed. We have the further advantage that we have achieved security and a large Empire without having to take out a reasonable insurance policy. This is a place where everybody speaks his mind very freely. It is probably the only place in the world where that is done, and I am glad of the opportunity of putting the opposite point of view to the one put by my noble friend Lord Cecil.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD

My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, early in his speech complained that no representative of the Government had spoken at an earlier period in order that your Lordships might know what the policy of the Government was. Well, for my part I believe the foreign policy of the Government is based upon one ideal only, and that is the achievement of a universal, satisfactory and lasting peace. I believe that the great majority of the people of this country firmly support the Government's foreign policy as it is to-day. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, seemed to me positively annoyed that our foreign policy had not run us into war. There is no one so dangerous as the professional pacifist, nor indeed so bloodthirsty.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, who I regret is not in his place, seems to have such a hatred for the totalitarian forms of government that he is convinced that not only must we have war with those Governments sooner or later but that the sooner the better. The right reverend Prelate's attitude is, I think, well summed up by lines written by one of our greatest satirists several centuries ago: Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun; Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery; And prove their doctrine orthodox, By Apostolic blows and knocks. This doctrine, I suggest, is a doctrine of despair. It seems to postulate that war is inevitable and that therefore we may as well have it over and done with as soon as possible. And indeed the gloomy attitude of the right reverend Prelate was only a reflection of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, in moving his Motion. Having, I presume to his own satisfaction, castigated the Government for their iniquitous policy, he proceeded to produce as an alternative only a reaffirmation of and return to the principles of collective security and the League of Nations. No more idle phantasmagoria could be dangled before your Lordships at the present time. If there is one thing that is quite certain it is that whatever may or may not become of the League of Nations in the future, at the present time and for a considerable number of years it is not going to be in a position to put collective security into operation, even if it were ever again decided that it were desirable to do so.

Various speakers have blamed this country for not supporting the principles of the League of Nations. They should be reminded, as they have already been by the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, in one of those cold douches of common sense which he fortunately often pours over his former colleagues, that only this country took any steps to make sanctions effective, and that we abandoned sanctions only when it became too evident that we were not going to get any support at all from the fifty-one or fifty-two nations who had agreed with us to put sanctions into operation. In those circumstances, I feel that to day's debate, so far as the attack on the Government is concerned, has an air of complete unreality. There is nothing whatever in the attack that is capable of refutation because the attack is not a genuine one. One feels that the Socialist Party has come to the conclusion that the Government's foreign policy must be attacked and therefore attacked if should be, no matter how inefficient the arguments they found at their disposal.

Now I will turn for a moment to the two main points upon which the noble Lord, Lord Snell, based his Motion. The first is the Agreement which we have now happily come to with Italy, and here, although much has been said against that Agreement and a great deal for it, there is one point which has not been mentioned which I think is well worth consideration. That point is that had we found it impossible to come to an arrangement of some sort with Italy we should have been again in the position in which we were at the time when the sanctions crisis was at its worst. We should have been faced with the possibility of a coalition, express or implied, of the three totalitarian Powers which would have meant that, for the first time I think in our history, we should have been faced with the possibility of having to undertake naval action on three widely separated fronts, the North Sea, the Mediterranean and Eastern waters. It is quite obvious that our position in that case would have been utterly desperate.

That is not the worst of it. We come now to a point which possibly is like King Charles's head in politics, and that is the feeding of the people in this country. As your Lordships know, it is certain that for all time we have got to import the majority of the foodstuffs we consume. We can only do so by keeping our trade routes open and in the event of a simultaneous quarrel with all three totalitarian Powers it would be possible for them to detach, without weakening themselves to any noticeable extent, sufficient submarines to interfere with our food supply to an extent that would make the position of the civilian population and of the troops at home practically impossible. Even if it were possible to double the Naval Estimates and keep them doubled for some years we should never be in a position in which we could cope with submarine attacks upon our food ships and at the same time engage enemy fleets in three different parts of the world. Realism must be faced at this moment, and it is only a realistic view which can save us, because if we are led away by sentimentality and high morality at such a time we shall be faced with a situation not merely desperate but one which might well be described as hopeless.

On the question of Spain a great deal has been said about the intervention of Italian troops. Some people have tried to make out that Italian troops constitute a very large portion of the insurgent armies. As the highest estimate even in quarters bitterly hostile to General Franco has put the number of foreign troops at no more than 150,000, and as the total of the forces under General Franco is put at some 750,000, it is obvious that even if that estimate is correct only twenty per cent, of the insurgent forces would be foreigners. As a matter of fact, more reliable information puts the proportion at nearer five per cent. At the same time it must be borne in mind that intervention, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen, said, came in the first place not from Italy or Germany but from Russia. It was Russia that fomented the revolution in Spain in 1931. The Russian Ambassador in Spain was a member of the war council in the Spanish Government in the early stages of the war. The international brigades tens of thousands strong were defending Madrid long before the first Italian soldier set foot in Spain. In these circumstances to speak, as some noble Lords have done, as if the blame was entirely on Italy, seems to me hardly correct.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Brocket, I have never taken any open part in this dispute, but I confess straight away that I am not very anxious to see the Spanish Government win, because I regard that Government, as has been said already, not as a democratic Government but merely as an offshoot of Moscow. Moscow arranged the revolution and Moscow arranged the terror that has taken place in Spain. It would have suited Moscow very well indeed had intervention continued, because then war of a much more general character would have become a strong probability instead of a mere possibility. What the Comintern is endeavouring to achieve is war throughout Europe. There can be no doubt of that. They regard this country as the final objective because they know that as long as we remain sound universal war is not likely. That is why, according to information from what I believe is a very reliable source, they are at the present time pouring money into this country with the sole object of discrediting the present Government. The sums now lodged in one of the great banks amount, according to my information, to over £1,000,000. This is a very serious matter, and if we are going to achieve that peace of Europe which we would like it will be necessary for Russia, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen, said, to free itself from the tentacles of the Comintern. Until that is done we are not going to get peace, because until that is done the totalitarian States will remain not merely suspicious but actively hostile towards Russia, and no one can blame them.

There seems an unfortunate tendency among some noble Lords and among many people outside this House to regard the totalitarian States as something which can be wiped aside if we feel inclined. But after all they have a population of something like 120,000,000 with whom we have to live in Europe for all time to come. Can it be seriously suggested that we are going to contribute to the appeasement of Europe by giving a thorough thrashing to the totalitarian Powers? I do not think it can, and I do not believe that any sane person thinks so. Certainly the people of this country will not be prepared to go to war for the simple purpose of giving a good hiding to the totalitarians and teaching them a lesson. In a speech which I think he made last year the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, said a very trenchant thing. He said that under modern conditions it was useless to go to war unless you had the support of 90 per cent. or 95 per cent. of the population. That is certainly true. No war undertaken for the purpose of teaching totalitarianism a lesson, or even for the purpose of protecting Czechoslovakia, would have the approval of 50 per cent, of this country, let alone the 90 per cent, necessary to make the war a success.

The Government's policy has been one of universal appeasement. They have got an Agreement with Italy, and the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, asks whether you can trust the word of Signor Mussolini and says it ought to be put in writing. If you cannot trust the word of Signor Mussolini you equally cannot trust his signature upon paper. As regards the Spanish situation, I think the Government have handled the matter admirably, and if the Government's policy had been followed in other countries you could have a better atmosphere in Europe to-day. Unfortunately relations between France and Italy are not improving so rapidly as we could desire, largely because of the fact that even since the present French Government came into power a very large quantity of munitions has continued to pour into "Red" Spain from France. There was a possibility, I believe, that if that had not happened we should have had a considerable number of Italian troops repatriated, but that is not going to happen until this steady persistent supply of munitions to the "Red" troops on the part of France is brought to an end.

In all this policy of the Government they have nothing to be ashamed of. Not only this country but the whole of Europe owes them a very deep debt for the efforts they have made. To say that they will be successful is of course much too rash a statement to make at the present time, but there is no reason why they should not be successful. They have far more chance of achieving something permanent and worth while than the extraordinary manœuvres and attacks upon other nations which seem to be the sole stock in trade of the Socialist Party. If the Socialist Party were at this moment entrusted with the control of the destinies of this country, we should be at war, and we should have been at war for a very long time. If they are ever entrusted with the control of our country again and they do not change their minds and their policy, we shall certainly find ourselves at war very soon after they come into office. But as long as the present Government remain and carry out their present policy, so long will conditions in Europe continue to improve, and so long will the Government deserve and enjoy the confidence of the country. Those who now spend a good deal of time sniping the Government are doing a disservice not only to this country but also to the cause of universal peace. I hope that, should a Division be taken tonight, your Lordships will show by an overwhelming majority that you prefer the possibly unspectacular but nevertheless successful policy of the Government to the wild scheme of the Socialist Party, which would inevitably land us in a war, and in a universal war which would probably mean the destruction of civilisation.

LORD ADDINGTON

My Lords, the policy of His Majesty's Government which we are discussing is, I believe, based on appeasement. I should therefore be grateful if the noble Viscount, when he replies, could give us some assurance that we can really look for appeasement in the unhappy country of Abyssinia itself. Can we hope for magnanimity from the great and Christian nation of Italy, both towards the beliefs, very highly prized, of an ancient Church from which they may differ, and towards those who took a leading part in the organisation of national resistance, including political prisoners now in captivity? Regarding the missionary annex to which reference has been made, can we not hope to receive from our Italian friends some measures of reciprocity and facilities similar to those which they receive from the countries under our control?

Again, can we take any steps that may be in our power to see that, through the tragedies of these last months, there may emerge through wisdom and generosity a peace of unity and advancement? I fully recognize that we ourselves have acquired territory by conquest, and I am prepared to admit the need for repentance, both personally and as a nation. We have made many mistakes in the past few years, and it is too late to undo these things, but can we not draw from them fresh determination to lay the foundations of peace and a surer basis of true friendship between nations? I believe that peace can only be founded on some real sacrifice, a sacrifice of ourselves, our own narrow interest and material advantage. I heard a phrase a short time ago, which I will repeat to your Lordships: that in these days of world crisis our policy should be based on "sacrificial giving that will meet the true needs of other nations." No doubt there are nations in the world which are feeling that they hive no opportunity either for expansion or for obtaining the raw materials or the markets that they require, nor have they any opportunity to take their share in the development of the more backward nations of the world. I would urge that we should face these things with full knowledge of the facts and full determination to meet them as far as in us lies.

I would venture to support the suggestion just made by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, about meeting these Colonial claims. I believe that by so doing we shall really make a substantial contribution to the peace of the world by removing the causes of war and making it unnecessary as an instrument of policy. Let me again record my appreciation and gratitude of the action which His Majesty's Government have been taking with regard to the minorities in Czechoslovakia. I hope that by that means difficulties which might lead to war may be removed. I believe further that peace is based upon spiritual values. Love and service to God and our fellow-men, and the principle of trusteeship and stewardship to the younger nations of the world: I believe that it is on these principles that we have built up our British Empire in the past. Our task is in the future to give, in the ways I have ventured to suggest, what the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, called for last year and what the nations of the world are looking to us for: that is, spiritual leadership.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (EARL STANHOPE)

My Lords, I suggest that this might be a convenient moment for the House to adjourn, and that we should meet again at nine o'clock. I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned.

Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Earl Stanhope.)

On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

[The sitting was suspended at a quarter before eight o'clock and resumed at nine o'clock.]

LORD RENNELL

My Lords, I cannot help expressing my regret that at a moment when unity of support of the National Government would have been so valuable in the impression it would make on the Continent, there should have been so much diversity of opinion expressed in this House. I always have a certain misgiving about debates on foreign affairs in Parliament, because a long residence abroad has shown me how irresponsible utterances get put forward as representing the opinion prevailing in this country, and although this is less likely to happen here, where reserve and moderation prevail, certain things have been said to-day which I am afraid may be very considerably misunderstood on the Continent. I had it in mind to have explained at rather greater length why I whole-heartedly support the Amendment to the Resolution, to-day, but I know there are other noble Lords who are to speak, and I think I must cut my observations very short indeed.

I should have traced past history after the Treaty of Versailles, with which the Covenant was associated, and some of the results to us. I should have referred to what I think were the rather unfortunate results of a series of rebuffs administered to the advances made by Herr Hitler, and finally the time when he proposed a Round-Table Conference and we became, or allowed ourselves to become, the mouthpiece of a somewhat ungracious reply. I think that those who show such great animosity to our former enemy, in various places and in various speeches which I have read, should consider a little more the antecedents and how to some extent there is an explanation for the line which he has taken. It is true that when once a national momentum has received a certain impulse we cannot possibly ignore the consequences. Still, I should like to think that we should not allow preconceptions to prejudice our judgment in particular cases that may arise, and perhaps the one that has most preoccupied general opinion at the present moment is the imminent Czechoslovak question. Well, there I wish to express whole-heartedly my support of the attitude taken by the Prime Minister, and I feel that we are in no way committed towards Czechoslovakia beyond the fact that, as being jointly responsible for the creation of that State, we are bound to use all our influence to secure the postulated equal and equitable treatment of minorities.

The Abyssinian question, which has formed the principal subject of discussion to-day, I have been familiar with since a great many years ago. I do feel that in criticising others in what they have done we must not forget our own responsibilities regarding Abyssinia. When, more than forty years ago, Italy first invaded Ethiopia, not only did we raise no opposition, but after her defeat at Adowa, feeling the obligation to relieve the situation in that part of Africa, and especially at Kassala, which had been occupied by the Italians, we pushed on the Sudan campaign quite a long time—I should say two years—before we were really ready for it. When I was sent to Ethiopia on the first official mission since our war in 1838 I found there two exceptional men, the Emperor Menelik, for whom I conceived a very great regard, and with whom I was happily successful in negotiating what I believe to be a useful settlement, and his nephew Ras Makonnen, the father of Haile Selassie; but with the exception of those two men the country was very primitive, unprogressive, and recalcitrant to contact with foreigners. It was really only after the entry of Ethiopia into the League, which we had opposed, that we began to take any interest in her fate.

I have little doubt that a too exclusive preoccupation with preventing the rearmament of Germany was to some extent responsible for the failure of the League in regard to Abyssinia, inasmuch as the attitude of France appears to have constituted an obstacle to timely action, on which we did not insist. The intention to invade Abyssinia was clear from unmistakeable evidence quite a year before the act of aggression took place. Ethiopia was induced not to press her protest against that menace to the League, while a Conciliation Commission investigated the Wal-Wal incident, whereby four months were lost without any result whatever. When aggression did take place and was condemned by the League we were of course credited, and almost alone credited, with taking the leading part in imposing sanctions which, being only partial, had little effect beyond embittering feelings and weakening any confidence in collective security. After the actual invasion there might, I believe, still have been the possibility to preserve autonomy in some portion of the former territory of a Member of the League, but a wave of sentimental protest made us responsible for the rejection of the Hoare-Laval proposal. We who have remained in the League have allowed no doubt to exist, as we were bound to do, regarding our condemnation of aggression. But in any concrete results that condemnation was purely platonic. The only alternative would have lain in measures which we never contemplated.

Looking at the series of events—Japan's first and second aggression, largely due to dissensions among the Western Powers which gave her a favourable opportunity—is it not time that we ceased to delude ourselves with what are really becoming little more than clichés, repetitions of the phrases, "Collective security" and "The framework of the League"? We have got to face the logic of consequences. It is useless to maintain in perpetuity an attitude of censorious reprobation of action which we have been either unable or unwilling to prevent, and which, moreover, is likely to thwart our interests in other directions as well as those of general appeasement and good will. The Italian people have throughout their history, as I have read it, always been rather disposed to follow leaders than to act on principles. The remarkable leadership in recent years can undoubtedly claim conspicuous success in internal administration and reforms, but it has at the same time displayed ambitions and actions which have tended to isolate his country and throw it into the arms of another country that was also conscious of isolation. In the process which went on of mutual seduction, we have always been represented as jealous enemies of Italian expansion. Happily the traditional sympathy between the British and the Italian peoples has deeper roots, and the artificial character of that political antagonism is revealed by the sense of relief and satisfaction in Italy which has welcomed the negotiations initiated by the Prime Minister and the conclusion of the Mediterranean pact at Rome.

I have almost finished without saying many more things I should like to have said. In conclusion, however, let me only add that I hold firmly that all countries must decide for themselves on their own form of government. Our business is only to adjust our relations with whatever government they adopt to our own and, in so far as is possible, to reciprocal advantage. Non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries is the only sound line for us to adopt and advocate, even if we have failed altogether to prevent or to control the intervention of others. For these reasons and many more which I have no time to rehearse to-night, I cordially support the Amendment to the Resolution before your Lordships' House.

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

My Lords, in November last I was present at a debate on international affairs in your Lordships' House. At that time the outlook in Europe was not good, but since then the realistic policy of the Prime Minister has raised the cloud of apprehension from the people of this country and, as Lord Lloyd said, has eased the tension which was apparent at that time in many countries in Europe. Some people assert that before coming to any agreement with Italy in regard to this pact we should have insisted on the withdrawal of Italian troops from Spain. Why should we, when they have not yet carried out the work they were sent there to do?

NOBLE LORDS

Oh, oh, and Hear, hear!

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

It is often forgotten that directly after General Franco rose against the Spanish Government it was Russia, not Germany and Italy, which started to intervene. There is no question whatever about that. She did so by sending hundreds of aeroplanes, guns and men, with officers of high rank, to Barcelona, and I am sure that if Russia had refrained from doing that there would have been no Italian or German troops in Spain to-day. There is one point I particularly want to make. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, in his very interesting and able speech (from his point of view) brought up the question of support for rebel Spain. There have been meetings all over the country, and the same kind of thing has been advocated at those meetings—guns for Spain, help and support for Spain. What would it mean? Let us get down to bedrock about it. If you were to allow guns and men to go into Barcelona you would only induce the other side to send more guns and troops to Franco Spain. And what would be the result of that? It would mean a small war in Spain of the democratic countries against the dictator countries, and can any one say that a war of that kind would not result in a conflagration that would probably spread over the whole of Europe? It is obvious. I think, that the Government's policy of non-intervention is the right one.

Another point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Snell. If I remember aright he quoted from Faust, and he said that the terrible tragedy which happened to Faust was going to happen to His Majesty's Government. If your Lordships will allow me I will quote from a book which I borrowed from your Lordships' Library. The book is called The Oxford Companion to English Literature. I am going to quote what it says about the drama of Faust. It says: But Care attacks and blinds him. Finally, satisfied in the consciousness of a good work done, he cries to the fleeing moment, 'Ah, stay, thou art so fair,' and falls dead. Hell tries to seize his soul, but it is borne away by angels. That is probably what is going to happen to the Government.

To return to what I was saying, those two countries, Germany and Italy, are the bulwarks as we know against Bolshevism in Europe. Their Rulers have said over and over again that they would do all in their power to prevent the spread of Russian influence and Russian doctrines. Therefore, how could they set up at the gates of the Mediterranean a Red Spain dominated by their greatest enemies? I am quite sure your Lordships will agree that the action taken by Germany and Italy in sending troops to Spain to counteract the Russian menace there was justified and understandable. I believe myself—and I have spoken to many people in Spain in high office—that they have no ulterior object. You will find that they will keep their troops there only until all danger of Red domination of Spain is over. Now that the Italian conquest of Abyssinia is to be recognised I wish that the Government could see their way to recognise the Government of General Franco which now rules over three-quarters of Spain. I realise, of course, that it would be very difficult, because this is a political question, but from the point of view of our material interests and our security it seems to me that we ought soon to come to some understanding.

Two months ago I visited all the chief cities of Nationalist Spain—Burgos and all the other cities. I went there for the purpose of seeing what was going on from the social point of view behind the lines. I saw housing schemes, children's créches, orphan children's homes and children's dining halls, and I may say that all the children in the cities and towns have two meals a day provided by the Government. This is, of course, only a small beginning, but it is an earnest of what is to come. I saw no signs of what the enemies of General Franco call the false facade of charity. It was very real and functioning extremely well. How long is the man who is beginning to govern on these lines to be treated as a pariah? I hope that the Prime Minister's realistic policy with regard to Italy will be extended to Nationalist Spain, for it certainly would be foolish to estrange a man who rules a country an infinitesimal part of which is British territory. As long as we continue to recognise the Barcelona Government one of the chief complaints of General Franco will remain unredressed. As your Lordships know, many ships registered in Bilbao and other ports of Nationalist Spain have been seized by the British Government and are interned in various ports of this country. Those ships belong to Spaniards resident in Nationalist Spain. Of course it may be perfectly correct and good procedure according to International Law, but from the point of view of equity and of right and wrong it is extremely unfair and very unjust. With all respect to noble and learned Lords in this House I think it is one of the clearest cases on record of the law being "a ass."

These things are jeopardising the chances of friendship with the future ruler of Spain. I think the time has come for a realistic policy more in accord with the interest and security of the British Empire. I tried to get in on both sides of Spain, but in spite of many promises I was not allowed to go in on the Red side, so anything I say in your Lordships' House probably will not carry much weight, because I shall be looked on as a partisan, which I am not. One realises terribly strongly the tragedy of it all. Both sides are fighting for ideals; both sides are fighting bravely and gallantly for what they think is right. The horrors and the sufferings are appalling, and, of course, are not more appalling on one side than the other. Although His Majesty's Government cannot recognise Franco's Government for practical reasons, I hope that they are contemplating steps in the direction of mediation which might possibly offer some sort of plan for saving a courageous people from going on fighting each other to the bitter end.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, I am sorry to disturb the harmony of this mutual admiration society into which the House has resolved itself in the last few speeches! I particularly hope that the President of the Board of Education heard the remarks of the gallant and noble Earl who has just addressed you with regard to the treatment of school children in Franco Spain. I hope he particularly noticed the remarks about the two substantial meals a day. I should like to see him very soon introduce a measure for the extension of the feeding of school children in the same way in this country. The noble Earl who has just sat down has, as your Lordships know, had a very distinguished naval career and I am very surprised that he is so alarmed at the prospect of the Russian fleet being able to use the harbours of Spain and what he calls the gateways of the Mediterranean. I should have thought that there was a far greater danger, not from the Reds, as he calls them, being at the gates of the Mediterranean, but of the Blacks, the Blackshirts, the Fascists of Spain, in potential alliance with the Fascist Powers of Europe, being in that strategic position. I have tried to argue that matter in your Lordships' House before, and I will not repeat it.

I will, however, respectfully suggest to the noble Earl, who knows Spain as I know Spain, that the Spaniards are about the last people in Europe—perhaps the Irish would be last of all, but after them the Spaniards would be the last—to become Communists. Communism is totally alien to the whole Spanish mental character. The regimentation, the orderliness, the iron discipline of Communism is anathema in Spain. I am sorry that the noble Earl was not able to get into Red Spain. If he would join the Labour Party—and we certainly need reinforcements in your Lordships' House!—I dare say we could arrange it, because I am about the only member of my Party, apparently, who has not visited Spain since the trouble began. I do not think I could have resisted the temptation of doing what was correct in regard to the Spanish Navy if I had gone.

My noble friend Lord Snell has asked me to apologise for his unavoidable absence from the concluding part of the debate. He had a very long-standing engagement to fulfil, and he is, after all, not the only one of your Lordships who has addressed us to-day to be unable to return since the adjournment. I shall endeavour in a very few minutes, if I may, to re-state our case and to answer—very inadequately, partly because of lack of time—the criticisms that have been made of the Labour Party's case. The noble Lord, Lord Rennell, regretted the hostility, as he described it, that we are supposed to have for our former enemies—meaning, I presume, Germany. May I be allowed to remind the noble Lords of my personal record in that respect? He was engaged in his country's service abroad—much more usefully, no doubt—when I first entered Parliament. I was adopted for what was considered an absolutely safe Liberal seat in the 1918 Election, and, as some of my outraged supporters complained, I threw it away by pleading for justice and moderation in our treatment of Germany. I was howled down by the mobs, and overwhelmingly defeated in what should have been a cast-iron Liberal stronghold.

I had another chance three months later, and was returned. In another place, I am very proud to say, I moved the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, of the Treaty of Neuilly, and of the Treaty of Sévres, and of the other Treaties one after another. I moved the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles and I had five supporters. I moved the rejection of the Treaty of Sévres and by that time Mr. Asquith, as he then was, had been returned at a by-election and came to reinforce the Opposition, and we mustered sixty-three in the Lobby.

EARL STANHOPE

And now you have no one.

LORD STRABOLGI

I am talking of another place, and not of this House. After all, it is those we represent who count. Lord Elibank was himself in another place at the time. He will know that passions were running very high, and that I did plead for fair treatment for our former enemies. The Labour Party as a whole did so from the beginning. We were labelled pro-Germans in the General Election, and it is not fair to base attacks on our policy on the suggestion that we hate our old enemies of the War.

LORD RENNELL

I never suggested anything of the kind.

LORD STRABOLGI

I took down what the noble Lord said. He said that we showed hostility to our former enemies. It is not that which actuates our policy, but regard for the interest of our own country. The noble Lord mentioned the people of Czechoslovakia. That is a very serious matter indeed, and I should like to support what Lord Rennell said there. I am sure the Foreign Minister hears all sorts of reports from the Continent, as I do, but he has much better means of checking the importance of those reports. I hope that rumours of forthcoming trouble in Czechoslovakia are not true. I do not know what the Government propose to do, and I do not like to ask, because I should be treading on delicate ground, but do not let us be under any misapprehension in regard to the matter.

There are certain facts which are indisputable. If there is aggression against Czechoslovakia the Czechs will fight. There is no doubt as to that, and they have two of the strongest reasons for doing so. They are the strongest reasons in the world to-day. There is the strong Nationalist feeling. For centuries the Czechs have dreamed of having their nationality restored. We do not understand it, but Lord Stanhope, and others of Irish descent, know it very well. Combined with that feeling you have in Czechoslovakia a class feeling. For generations the Czechs were under the domination of their German overlords, and I do not expect that the Germans treated them any too well. When they had their revolution it created a new State. It meant an industrial revolution and gave them economic as well as political freedom. The Czechs have those two things to fight for and they say they would rather fight and die than go back under German domination. If they fight, I believe I am right in saying that France will mobilise, and if she does my information is that the Russians will mobilise and your Lordships know that that means war. As to whether we can keep out of that, however much this present Government may wish to or the country may wish to, I believe it will be extremely difficult to do so; and I do not see how in the long run we can avoid being drawn in. That is the awful situation which faces any Government that might hold office at the present time.

In this debate we have had certain assistance and we had very welcome support from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I hope he will not misunderstand me when I say that he upheld the traditions of the Prince-Bishops of Durham, who used to fight with maces so that they need not have to shed the blood of their enemies. It was very welcome support from our point of view, but it is necessary for me very respectfully to make a comment on the right reverend Prelate's remarks. What he said about the necessity of standing for moral right and ethical justice found the only echo in the House on this side of it, but when he supposes that this conflict between what he calls idiosyncrasies and ideologies—an expression I believe coined by Mr. Eden—will inevitably lead to war, speaking for my Party, we do not accept that thesis. We do not think a war is inevitable between the Fascist States because they are Fascist States and the democratic States because they are democratic States, and we believe that the Government's policy is more likely to lead to war than the policy we advocate. We believe that our policy is the policy of peace, and that their policy is hazarding the peace of the world. But, even so, we do not accept this inevitability of war, and we think that with a different policy on the part of His Majesty's Government—as far as we can understand it—war can be avoided.

As I am winding up for the Opposition it is only courteous for me to refer to the speech of the noble Lord who moved the Amendment to our Motion. The noble Lord made a very powerful case, which your Lordships recognised, for the same cause which the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, espouses, that is, what is known as Franco Spain, and he harrowed your Lordships with tales of atrocities, cutting off of people's noses and all that sort of thing. I have not been very long in active politics, but I have heard exactly the same thing about Russia in the past, and I heard the same thing about the Germans during the Great War, and I dare say our ancestors heard the same things about the Russians in the Crimean War. And so it goes back. You get nowhere by regaling us with atrocity stories.

LORD BROCKET

Does that make them any better?

LORD STRABOLGI

The noble Lord if he wished to be quite fair would have mentioned the atrocious shooting of prisoners by the people he supports in Spain. The murder of the Basque patriots and priests was a blot on the rebel cause in Spain that will not be wiped out for generations. They have behaved abominably. That is indisputable, and it has been regretted by His Majesty's representatives in Spain. The noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, with his great naval career behind him, might have made some protest against the abominable attacks on British merchant ships in the Spanish harbours, which are there on their lawful occasions. Since the signing of this Pact for which His Majesty's Government takes so much credit some of the most deliberate attacks have been made on our merchant shipping.

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

Those attacks on merchant shipping were probably shots that were not aimed at them at all. We all know that aims directed at certain places with bombs nearly all miss.

LORD STRABOLGI

The Earl of Glasgow, like myself, is familiar with the character of the masters of British merchant vessels, the men who command the Mercantile Marine of this country. He knows them very well, and he knows we do not get eight masters of British ships sending, without justification, a protest to the Foreign Secretary against what they describe as deliberate bombing of their vessels. His Majesty's Government have protested, and to that extent admit there is something in it. The most charitable thing we can suppose is that these aeroplanes were manned by Italian pilots sent by the Government's new friend.

VISCOUNT HEREFORD

What was the nationality of these masters?

LORD STRABOLGI

British.

VISCOUNT HEREFORD

How did they become British? Were they English, or had they taken refuge in British nationality?

LORD STRABOLGI

I saw their names. Some of their names were Welsh and some Scottish, but they were certainly British, and they were there perfectly legally. His Majesty's Government are encouraging trade with both sides in Spain. It is perfectly legal for British merchant ships to be there, and they at any rate have to pass through the net of the non-intervention organisation. One other comment, if I may. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, also gave us a little support. He said that the Government's slogan, "We have kept you out of war," was a dangerous one. We of the Labour Party do not complain of that slogan. It does not offend us—if it is true. We hope the Government can keep us out of war. We will give them all the praise they deserve if they can preserve the peace of Europe. There are higher questions at stake in that respect than any Party advantage or anything of that sort, but we do not believe their policy will keep us out of war. The reason is a very simple one. We do not think any good will come out of compromising with evil.

There are certain things in the world that are right and certain things that are wrong. May I respectfully support what fell with very much greater weight and force from the Bishop of Durham on that question? The attack on Abyssinia was a cowardly, murderous onslaught on a defenceless people, and it was carried through with atrocity, and it has not yet been successful, for great areas of Abyssinia are still under independent native rule. We do not approve, and we will not approve, the sacrifice of the principles involved for the sake of any present-day advantage. That is our quarrel with the Government. The former President of the United States, President Coolidge, had the reputation of being a man of very few words, though when I had the honour of meeting him I found him extremely talkative and interesting. A story is told of him that one day he went to church, and his wife, who had been unable to go, asked him what the sermon was about. His reply was, "Sin." His wife asked, "What was the attitude of the preacher?" His answer was, "Against." That is our attitude—we are against sin, and we are against compromising with sin. We consider the Government's policy of seeking temporary advantage, as they think, by overlooking these crimes against International Law will not in the long run bring peace or preserve democracy and freedom in the world.

VISCOUNT ELIBANK

Will the noble Lord say what the Labour Party's policy would be in regard to Abyssinia if they were in power?

LORD STRABOLGI

I will, as briefly as possible. The Lord Archbishop also asked the same question—what was the alternative? In the first place we would not have let it happen. We believe it could have been stopped, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, described, a year before the aggression. These events did not happen when Mr. Henderson was Foreign Minister and the Labour Government were in office. Our prestige in the world was then very high, and the situation had not deteriorated as it has now. But we would certainly not recognise the Italian conquest of Abyssinia, because, amongst other good reasons, it has not yet been completed. I was reading recently a most remarkable speech by the then Earl of Derby in your Lordships' House on July 17, 1878. I very respectfully suggest to the Foreign Secretary and other noble Lords interested that they should read that speech. If you substitute for the word "Russia" in it—Russia was then the bogey—the word "Germany" it could be made in your Lordships' House now, not only without comment but with admiration. I only wish to refer to one passage; he is describing the reasons why, three months before, he had left the Government owing to a disagreement with Lord Beaconsfield on the policy which led to the Treaty of Berlin. He is referring to the situation in the Balkans, and although he only refers to one country in this particular passage, I suggest to your Lordships there is a lesson in it, and a very useful lesson, for us.

As I have said in your Lordships' House before in these debates, I am not so sure that our ancestors were so wrong in the policy that they advocated at that time. It was, after all, very successful up to a point. But speaking about what he calls the new Bulgaria, which had not been treated fairly in the turmoil following revolts against the Turkish rule, he says: A great point has been made of the fact that this new Bulgaria is excluded from the sea. He then goes on to say: For my own part, I say distinctly that I think, on the whole, the balance of advantages undoubtedly preponderates in favour of the arrangement sanctioned in the Congress over that of the Russian Treaty. But the advantage is not all on one side. A large Bulgaria, reaching to the sea, would be necessarily much more independent of Russian influence. If we substitute Russia for Germany, to-day this speech could be made, probably with support, in your Lordships' House. He continues: It would contain a mixed population—a population not exclusively Slavs; and by the mere fact of its contact with the sea, it would be more open to English influence, for wherever a ship floats, there confessedly ours is the strongest power. Although, as I have said, I do not deny that, on the whole, the advantages of the limited Bulgaria preponderate; yet it is open to this disadvantage—that that small State north of the Balkans is absolutely inaccessible to you, and that the influence exercised over it will be exclusively Russian. There will be no port open through which you might put pressure on the people, and no commerce which, with a similar object, you can intercept in case of need. I have here a cutting from The Times newspaper of May 10, in which their correspondent in Sofia, referring to the Bulgarian fair of April 28, says this: Thanks to the preponderating German participation, the exhibition might well be said to have conveyed to the stranger the impression that Bulgaria had come entirely under the influence of Germany. This condition is indeed rather borne out infact. Then he goes on to speak of Bulgarian imports of which 82 per cent, originated in Germany, while Great Britain's share was 4.8 per cent. The exports are in very similar proportions. He adds: So long as these conditions prevail Bulgaria, by common consent, will continue in economic dependence on Germany. Baron Brandenstein, the Bulgarian Honorary Consul in Berlin, declared the other day that Germany was in a position to absorb up to three-quarters of Bulgaria's products. I particularly mention Bulgaria, because it is a country that is democratic. It has an elected Parliament and yet it is exposed to this economic pressure. Owing to the German domination of the Danube its trade is practically bound to pass through German territory. This is one of the countries which has been a loyal Member of the League.

It was an enemy of ours in the War and it should naturally be a friend of our's to-day if there should be further trouble because it is a democracy and there has never been a real quarrel between us and Bulgaria. In fact there is a history of friendship. Under the treaty of Neuilly, Article 48, Bulgaria was promised an outlet to the Aegean Sea. I am going to suggest that when the present difficulties are got over the Government should look into this question again. It is not necessary to antagonise Greece. Greece is a natural friend of ours in the Mediterranean and played a very satisfactory part during the sanction trouble of two years ago. Without antagonising Greece it is possible, I believe, to arrange a better outlet for Bulgarian trade through the Aegean Sea to our advantage. I have not time to develop this, but I cite it as an example of what we should be doing at the present time. We should be doing all we can to widen and strengthen our tics with the remaining independent countries of Europe before it is too late.

We all know the racial doctrines of Nazi Germany, but I do not think we always appreciate in this country the economic doctrines of Nazi Germany—the Drang nach Osten, the drive to the East, which aims at bringing the whole of the Balkans under the control of the Germanic power. In the past our ancestors in your Lordships' House who controlled foreign policy were faced with difficulties such as face us to-day and tried to find friends and allies. Collectively these small States have a great military value. How did they do it? They did it through diplomacy; they did it by subsidies; they did it in various ways, and usually very expensive ways. To-day you have all that machinery ready in the League of Nations. Many of these States are still loyal Members of the League. I do not know what effect the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had on the League on this last occasion. I hear very disturbing accounts of the results of his visit to Geneva. All his personal charm and his great adroitness in debate could not cover the fact that he was the, no doubt unwilling, instrument of a policy thoroughly hateful to these small nations.

But it is not too late, and just as in the past when we were threatened by the hegemony of a Power of overwhelming military strength, whether France or Spain or afterwards Germany, we tried to balance that power by our friendships and alliances, so to-day we should be using the machinery of the League, not for encircling one nation or dividing Europe into two camps of differing ideologies, but in trying to find a League of friendly States who believe in the same things that we do, things which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham described to us this afternoon. Then, if the peace is broken, in addition to our squadrons of aeroplanes and our vessels of war and the armaments we are piling up at such great expense, we can rely on the active support of a number of like-minded States. That is the policy which I suggest should be again examined by His Majesty's Government in this time of admitted danger to the peace of Europe.

We have no intention of allowing the Government to steam-roller us in this House by a Division.

A NOBLE LORD

Why put down a Vote of Censure?

LORD STRABOLGI

My instructions from my noble friend are that we will not oppose the Amendment, or anything else that any noble Lord cares to propose. As your Lordships know, I have the honour of being the Whip of my Party, and I have not even sent out a Whip for this Division! What could we do? We could muster perhaps eight or nine of my noble friends who would vote with us, and, I suppose, a few other noble Lords with the courage of their convictions. Against that we have the serried ranks of Tuscany, and the whole Division would be misunderstood, not in the country but certainly abroad. However inadequately, I have tried to explain Labour policy. It is the policy of the Labour Party, and it is the policy supported by a very large number of voters in the country, who, according to recent by-elections, are probably the majority of voters of this country. I repeat, according to recent by-elections the}' are probably the majority of voters of this country, and the next Election will show who is right. The fact that we are represented very inadequately in your Lordships' House, not at all in proportion to our voting strength in the country, is not generally understood, and therefore, if we do not resist the Amendment, it is not because we in any way agree with it or because we weaken in any way in our opposition to His Majesty's Government's policy explained in his opening speech by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)

My Lords, the purpose of these discussions on foreign policy is, I suppose, to clarify the issues before us and to endeavour to give some guidance to public opinion in the country. I am unable to discuss all the points that various noble Lords have raised in the course of this debate, and among those subjects that I may not discuss to-night, because it is not strictly, or at all events closely, within the terms of the Motion that is on your Lordships' Paper or covered by the Amendment of my noble friend, I would perhaps include the subject that the noble Lord raised last: that of Bulgaria. It is not because that subject, and many others to which reference has been made, are not very present indeed to my mind and the mind of His Majesty's Government, but rather because at this moment—and I think the noble Lord opposite would not disagree—I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by endeavouring to have a discussion when it is not possible, perhaps, to deal with those matters as fully as we should.

I doubt whether any of your Lordships who have sat in this House for a long time has often assisted at a debate that has been maintained at a higher level than that which the debate sustained to-day. It has been notable for the variety of approach made by all speakers to the great subjects that they have touched; by the force of argument with which the respective cases have been developed; and by the high quality of the contributions made from all parts of the House. Those of us who have heard the whole debate have, I think, derived profit and benefit from every speech that has been made: enjoyment as different, indeed, as the enjoyment we derived from the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and from the speech, also not without its literary flavour, of my noble friend the Earl of Glasgow behind me.

The noble Lord who leads the Opposition, and who made the first speech in our proceedings, was good enough to make a kind reference to myself, and to assure us that he had no desire to embarrass the Government in their responsibility. The noble Lord who spoke last also said, and his speech confirmed his intention, that he had no intention of in any way aggravating the difficulty of the task that must, to-day, rest upon the shoulders of any Government and any Foreign Secretary in this country. Also they both said, what every one of us here would do well to remember, that although their numbers are small in this House they do speak for a great volume of opinion, whether we think it well or ill informed, outside this House, which is deserving of your Lordships' respect. If it were without any great sense of relief that those of your Lordships who sit on this side of the House heard the announcement of the noble Lord opposite that he was going to spare us the dangers of a Division, I am able fully to agree with him that the force of electoral opinion, as it may at any time exist in this country, is not of necessity represented by the mathematical distribution of Parties in this House.

The noble Lord, Lord Snell, and the noble Marquess who leads the Liberal Party, both said that in the references they made to what appears on the Order Paper as "the sacrifice of Abyssinian independence," they had no desire to be self righteous, and it is indeed to the consideration of what we must all recognise to be a real problem, that we have to address ourselves. The mere fact that the most reverend Primate and the right reverend Prelate took fundamentally different views about the morality of this question serves to show a humble layman like myself what are the great difficulties of a sure discovery of objective truth, and I am not, therefore, greatly concerned with the fact that on a matter of that kind men of sincerity and more than ordinary intelligence (as I am bound to assume those two occupants of the Episcopal Bench are) take different views.

It may not be out of place if I remind your Lordships in a sentence or two what the history of this Abyssinian question has been, from an angle which I think has not been mentioned in the course of this debate. It is worth remembering that for this country the question has never been an individual question between ourselves and Italy. It has constantly been spoken of almost as if it were an Anglo-Italian dispute. It was never that. It was a dispute between the League of Nations, the collective assembly of nations, and Italy; and we on our side have always said—and we have never said more than this—that we were prepared to take our full part in collective action by all the nations who were willing to join with us in it. The League had taken that collective action which, as we all know, it brought to an end in July, 1936, and after that collective action had been brought to an end something like twenty States reached the conclusion that their collective obligation was at an end—as indeed it was—and those States in one way or another expressed their recognition of the Italian conquest over Ethiopia at a time when it suited them to do so. There were other States which considered that the question of recognition was a matter of concern to the League as a whole.

I am not for the moment arguing which were right and which were wrong. All that I am concerned at this point to stress is that the result of that was a situation which was thoroughly discreditable to the League, with nothing collective left, which was thoroughly anomalous, and which had in one way or the other to be cleared up. His Majesty's Government was one of the Governments who considered that, while no express obligation could perhaps be held to rest, yet the matter was one which concerned the League; and therefore we decided that at the appropriate time in our judgment we ought and we would take the matter to Geneva. And at Geneva, as here—the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, directed our attention to it—considerable thought was given to the actual question of the facts.

What are the facts at this moment—it has been asked again in this debate—with regard to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia to-day? No one as far as I know would deny that there is a degree of opposition which I am not precisely able to estimate—I see varying reports—in different parts of Abyssinia to the Italian conquest. I have no doubt that it is like a fire that flickers here and flames up there, and is making itself variously felt at different times. But while that is true, it is also true that as far as all our information goes there is no organised native authority at the present time, and there is no central administration with the slightest possible chance of reconquering the country and of disturbing the Italian occupation in its essentials. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil—and I am not sure whether this would have been the position of the noble Lord who spoke first or not—said that he would recognise if he was satisfied of the conquest, and he said that the ordinary tests of satisfaction of a conquest were the test of size and the test of duration of time. I think that the more true test is, What are in fact the effective chances of restoration of the sovereignty that has been dethroned? I say that for this reason, that I am quite convinced, at whatever level you put the weight of the opposition the Italian Government is there encountering, this at least is quite certain, that the only way in which the Italian position can be challenged to-day in Abyssinia would be by concerted military action, that is, by war. That action was deliberately excluded by implication by the Assembly Resolution of 1936 taking off sanctions and, as I said at Geneva, there would be no suggestion by any responsible person in any part of the world to revert to it.

All that, I think, rests upon a basis quite inexpugnable, and really I do not suppose greatly divides us. What does divide us, of course, is the question of principle on which I must say a word, and on which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham spoke with such convincing eloquence this afternoon. I quite understand, of course, the feeling that a great many people have in regard to anything that may be called recognition of the action of the Italian Government in regard to Ethiopia. I am bound to say, although one is constantly apt to deceive oneself, I did not recognise the argument I had endeavoured to address to the Council of the League of Nations the other day under the definition applied to it by the right reverend Prelate as being the "cold sophistry of a cynical opportunism." But, as I say, we are all apt to deceive ourselves. I respect the view of the Bishop of Durham, but I cannot share it, and that for this reason. As I tried to say the other day, I do think that all life is continually presenting every one of us with the perpetual difficulty of trying to reconcile what is ideally right with what is practically possible. Every one of us knows that, and I also think that the full contribution to the establishment of practical conditions on which alone progress depends will often be out of the question if we allow ourselves to be so blinded by the ideals we are right to cherish and keep as to lose sight of what at any particular moment may be within our power and possible.

I do think that in this matter, as the most reverend Primate said to-day, it is true that two ideals—righteousness and peace—are in conflict, and you have to choose between the unpractical devotion to the high purpose that you know you cannot achieve except by a war you do not mean to have, and the practical victory for peace that you can achieve. I cannot hesitate between these two when both my conscience and my duty to my fellow men impel me directly in the direction of peace. It is for that reason I say that, faced by that sort of situation, the elements of which I do not think anybody denies, the difference between those who would recognise sooner, like His Majesty's Government, and those who would recognise a little later, is really a question of political judgment, and is not a question of the eternal and immutable moralities. I do not think it is; it is a question of political judgment, and the task, as I conceive it, of the Foreign Secretary is so to endeavour to frame his policy that the fundamental ideals which are cherished by this country are not pushed to the extent that they outstrip and transcend the bounds of what it is practicable immediately to achieve.

Let me sum up this part of my argument as clearly and concisely as I can. I can understand perfectly well the position of people who say, as I heard Lord Lothian say in a debate some time ago, that we and others, or we alone, ought to have taken the strongest possible action at the beginning of all this business, and told the Italian Government it just was not going to happen, and we were going to block the Suez Canal, or do what you will, in order to prevent it. I can understand that. I can understand the position of people who would say that even when the first efforts of the League had failed the cause at stake was so great that no country, least of all our own country, ought to shrink even from the invocation of force to redress the wrong. I can understand either of those positions. I never heard the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham propose either of them at the time. He may have thought them, but, as my noble friend Lord Lloyd said, that would have been the time to propose them. But to admit, as we must, that the matter has in fact passed to a stage where only force could effect a change, to admit, as I think that we all do, that such use of force is unthinkable, and yet to say that you must go on for ever shutting your eyes to facts that you cannot alter, and thereby miss for no result whatever the chance of doing something practical for peace—I am bound to say all that seems to me simply not to make sense on any rules of this world or the next. Therefore, my Lords, my conclusion about that is a plea that we should not elevate matters on which, as I think, political judgment may legitimately vary, into high and venerable principles to which all men's allegiance must always stand pledged.

Having said that, may I make a few points clear regarding the action of His Majesty's Government? I could not but think it was somewhat of a caricature of their attitude when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Snell, saying that His Majesty's Government accepted with joy the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. He docs not really think that. He knows as well as the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, knows, who said it, that His Majesty's Government do not and never have and never will condone the Italian action, nor do they ask the League to condone methods by which the Italian sovereignty was established. We have not asked and we do not ask the League to modify any decisions or resolutions previously taken in the matter. The League's judgment has been plainly expressed, and there is no question whatever of going back on it. We did not ask any State to violate its own principles. We did not abandon any principles of the Covenant, nor our determination to do our utmost to strive for the settlement of all disputes by peaceable means. Accordingly we thought it right to lay the whole matter in complete frankness before the Council of the League last week at Geneva. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, said that we went to Geneva with this policy which he says was a thoroughly hateful policy to the nations of Europe assembled at Geneva.

LORD STRABOLGI

Some of them.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

The right reverend Prelate said in one of his delightful analogies that he gave us to-day with reference to the Treaty of Utrecht, that it was of application to-day to say that over this matter the whole world cried shame on England. And yet, my Lords, it was the case that without any pressure but merely by argument the large majority of the Council of the League of Nations expressed the definite and decided view that the question of the recognition of Italy's position in Ethiopia was one for each nation to decide for itself in the light of its own situation—exactly what we thought—and therefore to say that the attitude that we took was opposed to the majority of European nations is to assert what is flatly and demonstrably opposite to the facts. This does not mean that His Majesty's Government intend immediately to proceed to recognise the Italian conquest, for that step, as your Lordships know, depends upon other circumstances on which I want to say a word in a moment.

But before I leave Abyssinia I ought perhaps to say a word or two about the suggestion that was made by the noble Marquess, by the most reverend Primate and by the right reverend Prelate with regard to the possibility of the establishment of the Emperor of Ethiopia in an independent portion or a quasi-independent portion, of his former territory under Italian suzerainty. That suggestion, of course, has been at varying times and by different persons brought to the notice of His Majesty's Government. I need hardly say that so far as His Majesty's Government are concerned there would be no objection of any kind to such an arrangement being made. But your Lordships will recognise I think, as I must recognise, that this is not a matter in which decision rests with His Majesty's Government. It is clear to all of us that it is one which only the Italian Government and the Negus himself could decide in the light of their own interests and their own responsibilities.

I turn from Abyssinia to a rather wider field that is inevitably ploughed by this discussion. Reference has been made to the League of Nations and to the failure of the Powers, States Members of the League, to ensure respect for League principles. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, reminded us, as did the noble Lord who spoke last, of the prodigious deterioration in the last five years in the international position, and they were both good enough to attribute the major share of the credit for that result to the National Government, which of course did not surprise me at all. I am not sure myself that the major part of it does not perhaps attach to the fact that in this country at least for many of those years we were placing what turned out to be an excessive trust in the issue of the Disarmament Conference in which the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, played so distinguished a part, and I am quite sure the fact that this country was disarmed and weak has been an unsteadying factor in European politics. However that may be, it is said, of course, that the passage of these events has involved humiliation to all concerned, not least for this country, and that such a state of affairs can be to-day redressed by a bold appeal to all League Members, or at least to all European Members of the League, to rally themselves once more beneath the banner of the Covenant.

The noble Lord who moved the Motion spoke warmly of the betrayal of the League, and said that his policy still was to do by the methods he described what he called rebuilding general security. It is not necessary for me, as it was not necessary for the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, to travel over the ground, which is all too familiar, of the weaknesses, as we all know, imposed upon the League by abstentions from it of powerful States. His Majesty's Government are not less concerned to-day than they have ever been to make the fullest use they can of the League. They are anxious and will be ready at the appropriate time to lend all their influence to do whatever can be done to strengthen the foundations and restore the authority of the League. But, my Lords, no good in this respect, or any other, is done by refusal to face the hard fact—as, I think, my noble friend said who moved the Amendment—that if some of the greatest Powers are in fact outside the League, and refuse to be bound by League rules, then the only way by which respect for League rules can be enforced is the way of war.

The noble Viscount mentioned the Rhineland, Spain, and Austria. I would challenge him, or any other noble Lord who put forth a similar argument: Would he say that any one of these things could have been prevented without either the actuality or at least the grave risk of war? In spite of the noble Viscount's attack on the "We have kept you out of war" slogan, I think nothing would more effectively destroy the devotion of our people to the League as an instrument of peace than that they should once get the idea into their heads that it might be an instrument for involving them in war. I am quite certain of that. The noble Lord, Lord Allen, spoke of the weakness of the League, which he attributed in part, if I heard him aright, to the Treaty of Versailles and to the failure of the League to deal with economic and kindred problems during these recent years. I have no doubt that is largely true. But another reason, I think, is that the League has never yet been able to find adequate machinery for the solution of the problems of revision. It has never, I think I am right in saying, invoked Article 19, and if it invoked Article 19 I do not believe that Article 19 would be found to function satisfactorily for hypothetical problems which might from time to time claim the attention of the Members of the League.

Therefore, my Lords, my conclusion is—and I think it is one that many of your Lordships will share—that refusal to recognise a situation brought about in spite of the League may, of course, keep our principles intact on paper. If that were all that mattered, we might be well content with that satisfaction. But when we find that refusal to face facts does in fact keep resentments and antagonisms alive and threaten understanding, then we have to consider whether it is right to abandon the substance for the shadow. I well recognise that that may be held to be a cynical confession of failure. I think confession of failure is often the first step and the best step to better things. After all, most things produced by men throughout history have been evolved from a succession of failures—failures that have broken the hearts of men who have laboured in advance of their generation. But if the doctrine of non-recognition of failure had been adopted by our thinkers, or our inventors, or our reformers, or, I would add, by our statesmen and politicians, the advance of civilisation would not have been made so smooth, and indeed I doubt whether it would in fact have been secured at all.

Let me say a word or two upon some specific questions arising out of the Anglo-Italian Agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, asked me why the terms of the assurances in regard to Palestine had been oral and not written. The reason is, I think, a simple one: that the declarations concerning Palestine differed from the other matters that we dealt with in the Agreement in that they were general affirmations of what was now the policy of the Governments concerned, and did not relate specifically to any matters on which common agreement was necessary in the future, under changed conditions; these assurances which were formally and solemnly exchanged according to a pre-arranged formula, and have since been proclaimed publicly, are in no way less binding than the written part of the Agreement.

The most reverend Primate, or it may have been the right reverend Prelate, asked me a question with regard to the position of the Coptic Church in Ethiopia. Our Ambassador in Rome, Lord Perth, was directed some time ago to mention this matter, and the anxiety it caused in certain quarters, to the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs. He did so, and Count Ciano replied that the Italian Government had not the slightest intention of doing anything to interfere with the freedom of the Coptic Church. He added that it had now been established as the National Church, but with the relationship with Egypt severed, and apart from that the existing liberties of the Church would certainly continue.

I pass from that to deal if I may on broad lines—and I apologise for keeping your Lordships—with some of the more general criticisms that have been made upon the Anglo-Italian Agreement. The broad line of attack is, of course, that the Agreement is, for the reasons which we have been discussing—the question of principle—(a) wicked, immoral; and (b) stupid. I perhaps may have been held to have dealt sufficiently with the question of principle, and I will deal with the stupidity, of which the ground has been forcibly stated by the right reverend Prelate—namely, that the Agreement will not itself be observed, and is only a cover for the sinister designs of the Italian Government. I must frankly, of course, admit that here the difference is one of outlook and one of judgment. Lord Snell, no more than the right reverend Prelate, is disposed to believe the Italian assurances, and therefore quite naturally sees no merit whatever in the Agreement. We, however, strange as it may seem to the noble Lord, do accept these assurances and believe that they will be honourably carried out. Therefore, accepting those assurances, we think it is worth while to re-establish good relations between two great Powers, with all that follows in the direction of relief of world anxiety and in the diminishing of real dangers to world peace.

In saying that, it is not to say that I or we approve of Italian intervention in Spain, any more than we approve of Italian action in Ethiopia. We have always made it our purpose to get rid of all foreigners from Spain, and that without the qualification attached to that desire by the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, just now; but I must make it plain that we have never asked or expected that the Italians should withdraw unilaterally, on their own, and provided that we are satisfied, as we are, that the Italian Government do not mean to use Spain for the alteration of the Mediterranean status quo when the Spanish trouble is over, we do not see why the fact that the Italian Government take a strong view on one side, as against a strong view taken by large sections of opinion in this country on the other side, should preclude us from an attempt to improve our relations with them over the wider international field. Everybody, I suppose, must want to see conditions existing in the world that might with reasonable security promise peace. I am bound to say that I do not think that the kind of statement that the right reverend Prelate made with great conviction this afternoon, that neither the word of Signor Mussolini nor that of Herr Hitler was ever to be believed, is the kind of statement, coming from one in his position, that does assist the cause of European peace.

But we believe that by our Italian Agreement we have made a beginning, and we are resolved to seek every possibility of continuing and developing that action. And, highly as we value our existing friendships, and intimate as we happily are with France, we do not regard these friendships as by any means exclusive; and, whilst strengthening them, we seek always to increase their number and to extend their scope. We should, for example, like to see removed all causes of mistrust and suspicion that may be held to stand in the way of complete understanding between ourselves and Germany. That desire is shared, I believe, by the mass of the peoples in both countries, who have such close affinities of language and origin. The right reverend Prelate spoke this afternoon of the clash of idiosyncracies, and anyone who thinks at all about international problems to-day must of course be constantly conscious of the difficulty that is created by the absence of a common background of thought that used to exist when Christianity supplied it under the traditional forms in which it was accepted by all countries, and which no longer prevails to-day. We are all conscious of that. But when he invited us to follow him in the argument that all that we could do, faced by that clash of philosophy, was to put it off from year to year, and put it off only by conceding one strategic position after another until the inevitable war descended upon us after our position had been undermined, I am bound to say I think that that philosophy of his is one that I should be very sorry to see your Lordships generally accept, and that I for my part could never accept.

Many people think and speak to-day, as the noble Lord who spoke last reminded us, of the inevitability of war. I believe such talk to be both dangerous and essentially untrue, and that for this reason: I would far rather think and speak in terms of belief that there are enough sensible people in all countries who realise that war is conceivably the only alternative to an understanding, and that, as war cannot be regarded as other than the supreme disaster for civilisation, the more true conclusion is that it is peace through understanding, rather than war, which is inevitable. And those are the terms in which, I should hope, we should think and speak and act. But if we want that sort of end it will not come of itself, and we have to take positive steps to try to secure it.

The Labour Party, through the mouth of the noble Lord, really condemn the policy of His Majesty's Government in this matter on the ground of possible damage to the principles of democracy. Many of your Lordships will have heard of the strange freaks of nature by which some particular flavour or bouquet of wine is only associated with a tiny acreage of soil. In somewhat the same way the Labour Party constantly appear to me to believe that the pure vintage of democracy only matures in their cellars. Having that reflection in my thought, it has been significant to me to note the degree of support that has, in fact, been given to this Anglo-Italian Agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, talked pathetically about the small countries of Europe looking to this great country for inspiration and finding themselves bewildered by our action in regard to this Agreement. My noble friend Lord Lloyd supplied the answer when he said that in his travels through the smaller countries of Eastern Europe he had found a sense of almost magical relief. I found the other day, at the Council of the League of Nations, representatives speaking in the name of the French Government, the Powers of the Little Entente, the Balkan Entente, the Belgian Government, and the Polish Government, all testifying in warm terms to the significance of what we have done.

When I outlined what I conceived to be the advantages to be drawn from it, no voice at all was raised in criticism or in the sense that the Agreement was not a gain to the principles of peace and democracy that the Resolution of the noble Lord, Lord Snell, desired to serve. The only breath of doubt came—and perhaps we might have expected it—from the representative of the Soviet Union, who welcomed the Agreement, however, as he said his Government would welcome any agreement reached between various Governments removing misunderstandings and disputes, and it is worth while to quote his words: My Government, which takes particularly to heart everything which relates to international peace, quite naturally welcomes any agreement reached between various countries removing the misunderstandings and disputes existing between them. From this point of view, one cannot but welcome the British-Italian Agreement. But in dealing with bilateral pacts, we have to take into consideration not only their effect upon the relationship between the two parties concerned but also upon the relations between those parties and the rest of the world. We have also to take into consideration the effect which such agreements may have on those problems which are still before the League of Nations and which still remain to be dealt with. We, therefore, reserve our final judgment upon the importance of this Agreement from this point of view. We may still express the hope that these problems will certainly not suffer from that Agreement. I do not think that is too bad a judgment from the representative of the Soviet Union and it is, as I say, noteworthy that His Majesty's Opposition are in the whole of Europe almost alone in condemnation and dislike of what we have tried to do.

May I make one very pedestrian observation? I think we do well perhaps to remember that friendship is really very like health. As long as you have got it you take it for granted, and you do not really realise how much it means to live with it until you have to live without it. That is as true of friendship as it is of health, and therefore we have thought it worth while to do everything in our power to restore those feelings of mutual trust which are the foundation of international friendship. As I said just now, I think the estimate of Europe is on the whole worth more to me than the estimate of His Majesty's Opposition.

May I turn for a few moments to what is the other great subject that is in the minds of noble Lords, and that is the threat, as they see it, in all these doings to the democratic Government of Spain. Let me say quite clearly that I understand perfectly well the deep feeling of all who feel quite sincerely that the cause of democracy in Spain, and perhaps the cause of democracy generally, is threatened and endangered by foreign action. I understand that perfectly well. It rests upon the feeling that non-intervention is a sham and that non-intervention works to the detriment of the Spanish Government. The real point at issue, of course, is the feeling that in refusing to supply arms to what they hold to be the legitimate Government of Spain we are denying that Government its legitimate rights. All that depends upon what view you take about the unhappy war that is going on in Spain.

We have taken the view that from fairly early on it assumed in fact the character of a civil war, and I do not think that you can deny that. That being so two alternative courses presented themselves as possible. One was to recognise a state of belligerency in fact if not in name, and then the normal procedure would have been for States to be neutral and for them to recognise that the two parties to the civil war had the rights of belligerents. If that had been done each State would have been able to decide either to allow munitions to go to both belligerents, subject 1o the right of either belligerent to prevent or to forbid, if possible, such supply to the other. The other policy, which we have seen adopted, was the non-intervention plan on which general agreement was early secured, in which of course the participating Governments agreed to place themselves under a self-denying ordinance.

That was the position as regards the thing viewed from Spain. As regards the thing viewed from the wider angle of Europe, it was—and here I will answer a question the noble Lord asked me—held to be a source of great potential danger. I will answer his first question by asking him another. Supposing you had never had non-intervention, or supposing that you now denounced it so that we supplied arms freely to the Spanish Government, would not the inevitable result have been—and be to-day, as my noble friend Lord Glasgow indeed said just now—that others would have sent still more arms and would send more today to either side, whatever might be the side of their choice? And other people probably would have had more arms to send than we had. Supposing that to have been the consequence, as I think it certainly would have been, would it not then have been proposed that we alone or with others should stop by force the supply of arms to Franco? That indeed was the proposal that was made to the Council of the League last week by Senor del Vayo.

LORD STRABOLGI

That was the legal position.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

I am not concerned with the legal position in this argument. I am concerned with what would have been the immediate practical result if we had at this moment denounced non-intervention and started supplying arms to the Spanish Government. I think the practical result would have been as I have tried to outline it, and in the end either of these things would clearly, I think, have meant war. Therefore either of those courses that might be proposed would have meant a much larger degree of foreign intervention all round, or a European war between supporters of the respective sides. I am told that in the great demonstration in Hyde Park on May 1 one of the most distinctive of the banners had this strange device: "Arms for Spain are arms for peace." I am bound to say, making all allowance for the broad character of truth as portrayed on banners, that that demonstrably failed to fulfil the test.

Therefore His Majesty's Government were driven to support non-intervention, not because they thought it perfect, not because they did not think it open to objection, but because of all courses it seemed to them much the least dangerous, and they do not believe, as the noble Marquess said, that it has broken down. They will do their best to continue to work it and will continue to press all the Powers to try to work together to make it work better. They are not without hope of effecting progress in that direction. I agree, however, with those who have said that the only right solution of the Spanish trouble is to stop it, and if any opportunity of action in that direction by way of mediation were ever to be offered by the willingness of both sides in Spain to try it, I can assure your Lordships that His Majesty's Government would not be slow to render any help they could in that direction.

May I in a few words in conclusion say one or two things of rather wider import? I am anxious that in all these matters on which we obviously feel deeply, and must feel deeply, we should not if we can avoid it exaggerate our divisions. The Opposition, if I may with respect say so, is perfectly right of course to attack the Government for what they do if they think we are doing things in the wrong way or at the wrong time. Criticism is good for us all and I have no doubt is best for our characters when we deserve it least. I of course recognise that many people feel that over Abyssinia we were wrong to make a move now, but I also think, as I said just now, that no one who is not prepared to restore the Emperor by force can possibly say that he would not at some date have been prepared to recognise facts as we have now placed ourselves in a position to do. I recognise, of course, that you may not think British policy in Spain or in regard to the Italian Agreement is well judged to secure the ends that we seek. We disagree; and on us rests the responsibility for decision, which we are perfectly prepared to assume, though we may feel reasonably sure that were noble Lords opposite in our place they would be following a policy that would not, I think, greatly differ from our own.

But whatever may be our disagreement upon the actual policy of day to day, I do not believe that there is any deep difference in the foundations of our common thought. There are two things on which the great mass of English public opinion is solidly united. One is democracy, with all that it means to us, and the other, which is consequential I think, is the protection of those things on which democracy depends against external interference. The Socialist Party are most rightly resentful of any suggestion that they are, or would be if in office, less careful of national and Imperial interests than my noble friends behind me on this side of the House. It fell to me to serve as Viceroy in India under a Socialist Government when India passed through very disturbed times, and no Government could have given any Viceroy more loyal and whole-hearted support than I received from the Labour Government. Therefore it is both from that personal experience as from my general observation that I have never been tempted to think that the Socialist Party with responsibility of office would fail in their duty as custodians of the wider interests of the British Commonwealth.

Indeed, part of their concern over Spain I know is based on their anxiety about the effect that may be exerted by what is going on in Spain upon the vital interests of this country in the Mediterranean. All that I feel. If therefore it is wrong for my friends, as I think it would be, to impute carelessness to our Socialist opponents in this matter, I would ask our opponents to believe that it would be no less wrong for them to impute to us any lesser loyalty than their own to the cause of democracy and to all that that cause means. We, not less than they, recognise that democracy is the foundation on which nearly everything else in this country is built; so that, if anyone here ever sought to be disloyal to democracy, he would, I think, himself be surprised to find how much of the structure of English life would go down with it. By it, indeed, we live, for the spirit of democracy is far too deeply set in British nature to be overthrown either by pressure from without or by indifference from within. It is—is it not—part of that strange blend of thought, of instinct and of tradition which we call British character, and which none of us can any more shed than we can shed our own skin. Therefore, I would repeat that when we agree upon so much and upon what is so vital, do not, please, let us exaggerate our differences. This country needs all the unity that it can find and with respect I would say that in all our judgments the recognition of that necessity must constantly find place. That unity is essential to our influence abroad; it is not less essential to the accomplishment of those tasks that we have to accomplish at home. Therefore I would hope that, while we must expect to differ, perhaps, upon times and methods, with regard to which the responsibility for final decision must, of course, rest upon the executive Government, we might all be able to feel such confidence in one another about the broad basis of national policy as may enable this country to play the part, which only a united country can, in whatever circumstances the uncharted future may hold in store.

On Question, Amendment agreed to, and original Motion, as amended, agreed to.