§ 3.5 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELMy Lords, I understand that it would be for the convenience of the Foreign Secretary if I were to put now a question of which notice was given in the course of the discussion yesterday, and my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has been good enough to agree to that being done. I desire to ask the Foreign Secretary if he can state what answer was given by the German Government to President Roosevelt's appeal on the subject of the bombing of civilian populations and the use of gas and bacteriological methods of warfare.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Viscount opposite and to the noble Lord who leads the Opposition for giving me this opportunity to supplement what I was able to say yesterday. On the question of gas, if I may deal with that first, the position is that our Ambassador in Berlin, when asking for his passports from the German Government, presented a Note inquiring whether Germany would observe the terms of the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925, which prohibits the use of poisonous and asphyxiating gases and bacteriological methods of warfare. The German Government have now replied in the affirmative to this inquiry, through the Swiss Minister in London who is in charge of their interests. With your Lordships' permission I will read a translation of this answer, which is quite short:
The German Government will observe for the duration of the war the prohibitions which form the subject of the Geneva Protocol of June 17, 1925, and are mentioned in Lord Halifax's Note of September 3, 1939. It reserves full liberty of action in the event of the provisions of the Protocol being infringed by the enemy.On the other question of President Roosevelt's appeal, I find that in addition 1059 to his words in the Reichstag on September 1, which I quoted yesterday, Herr Hitler did in fact send a reply to the President through the United States Chargé d'Affaires in Berlin. Your Lordships will no doubt be glad to hear its terms, although I understand it has already been published. These are the words:The view, expressed in the message of President Roosevelt, that it is a humanitarian principle to refrain from the bombing of nonmilitary objectives under all circumstances in connection with military operations corresponds completely with my own point of view and has been assumed by me before. I therefore unconditionally endorse the request that the Governments taking part in the hostilities now in progress may publicly make a declaration in this sense. For my own part I assume that you have noticed in my Reichstag speech of to-day that the German Air Force has received the order to restrict its operations to military objectives. It is a self-evident prerequisite for the maintenance of this order that opposing Air Forces adhere to the same rule.
§ 3.9 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGIMy Lords, before we leave this question I would like to ask the Foreign Secretary a question, but as I have not given him notice if he does not wish to answer it I will immediately accept what he says, but I think he will be able to reply and it is not a question which should embarrass him in any way. Does he understand from the German Declarations which he has read to your Lordships that this applies to all fronts or only to a war which might, at the moment those declarations were made, be expected between the German Government and ourselves? I ask that because I understand that not even now has there been a formal declaration of war by the German Government on Poland. I think it might be useful if the noble Viscount could inform your Lordships whether he reads into those declarations that the war, so to speak, is indivisible, and that the same rule should apply to all fronts, even if there has been no formal declaration of war, as in the case of Poland. I apologise for putting this question at short notice, but I also spoke at short notice and briefly yesterday, and some of my noble friends and some supporters of the noble Viscount pointed out to me that I had appeared to suggest that we should not engage in reprisals unless we were attacked, and that this might be misinterpreted abroad among our Allies as seeking to humanise 1060 the war on our own front, and being indifferent to what was happening on their fronts; whereas I need hardly tell your Lordships that, like every one of your Lordships, I regard an attack on any of our Allies by illegal methods as an attack upon ourselves.
§ VISCOUNT HALIFAXMy Lords, I cannot, I am afraid, claim to have any more information or knowledge as to the precise meaning of this Note than is available to any one of your Lordships as appearing on the surface of the terms of the Note. But, so far as I can form a judgment, in reply to the noble Lord, there is certainly no limitation expressed or, I would have thought, implied in the terms of the Note; and indeed the wording makes reference to "the Governments taking part in the hostilities now in progress." I would have thought, reading the Note as a layman, if any restriction of area had been in the mind of the speaker, it would almost certainly have been expressed.