Lords Sitting of 2 June 1942

Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLER on the Woolsack.

COAL POLICY.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, may I ask His Majesty's Government whether they can make any statement about the coal policy?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil): My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord's question I have to say that the proposals of His Majesty's Government in regard to coal will be available to noble Lords in the form of a White Paper before the House rises on the next sitting day. The Government will invite your Lordships to approve of the proposals by means of a Motion which will be put down for debate on the third sitting day of next week.

POST-WAR SETTLEMENT.
LORD ADDISON LORD ADDISON rose to move to resolve, That it is of urgent importance both for the successful prosecution of the war and for the establishment of a satisfactory and lasting peace, that the Government should prepare without delay the proposals they intend to make for world settlement after the war. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion before us is concerned with questions and with
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hopes that are in the minds of free peoples all over the world. I believe that if they are courageously dealt with they will greatly strengthen the resolve of the United Nations. That resolve is utterly to destroy the hateful German military system. It has desolated the world; it plans slaughter, and it can exist only by oppression. The determination of people to fight and to fight on, to obstruct and thwart the enemy by every means possible, to endure until deliverance comes, grows ever stronger the more certain it is that victory will not again be an interlude between wars, but the bringer-in of a real peace wherein those freedoms from fears that President Roosevelt so dramatically described will be in fact attainable.
The Atlantic Charter, to which the noble Earl, Lord Perth, will especially refer, is a very great testament, and all honour to the statesmen who framed it. None know better than they, however, how immense and how complicated will be the difficulties before the nations as soon as victory is obtained. Unless thought is given to these difficulties beforehand, and sufficient agreement obtained upon the main lines of action to be taken, the United Nations at the moment of victory may well be precipitated into a confusion that will make resolute and definite action impossible upon those measures which are essential to an enduring settlement. There is at this time, moreover, a further important reason for timely action in this regard. We have now in our midst the leaders of many of those nations which have been subjugated for the time being. The opportunity for conference with them

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is altogether exceptional; it cannot possibly be so favourable when, at the time of victory, they will inevitably find themselves beset by the day-to-day problems of restoration in their own homelands. The fullest use should be made of this priceless opportunity. The hopes of hundreds of millions of freedom-loving people are fixed on the future for which they fight, and I believe that there are overwhelming reasons for our striving with might and main to reach a sufficient measure of international agreement beforehand upon how their longings can be satisfied. Unless this is done we may find that victory is merely the forerunner of divided counsels and disappointments.
There are three outstanding questions only of which I would remind your Lord-ships, and around which many others can be grouped. They arc the immediate post-war emergency, the means whereby peace may be made secure, and the sort of life that will be open to the people afterwards. As to the first of these, the post-war emergency, it is certain what that will be, at any rate in some respects. There will be millions of homeless people in Europe, taken away from their homes into strange lands, from Greece, from Yugoslavia, from Czecho-Slovakia, from the Netherlands, from Norway and from France, not knowing where their friends are and whether their homes still exist or not. There will be forced labourers in enemy munition camps, prisoners, and all manner of exiles. The very fact that their war oppressors are vanquished may even exacerbate the miseries of those who are working for our enemies, for a tyrant must at least feed his slaves. There will be in Europe hungry, homeless, penniless multitudes—above ail, hungry multitudes—and there must therefore be already-concerted arrangements for dealing with them.
The tasks involved will have to be undertaken very largely by the United States and the British Empire. We shall have the ships and the food. The feeding and sustenance of these scattered millions, however, necessitates understanding in advance with the leaders of the nations as to the provision of food, as to its transport and distribution, and as to who is to pay for it, if anyone is to pay for it, and as regards a multitude of other practical but inevitable questions. I know that
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some preliminary work has been done on this matter and has been carried out by Mr. Greenwood, and I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to tell us something about it.
The second subject is the security for future peace—a vast topic at which it is impossible to do more than glance. I imagine that there is agreement everywhere that, if we are to secure peace in the future, there must be, over a long term, control in Germany. I should think that, if they dare to say what they think by then, even the people of Italy will be almost as unanimous as the people of the United Nations on that matter. It must mean, I think, at least three things. I put it at no less than the destruction of the German military system. The militarists are the strongest caste in Germany by far, deeply rooted in German traditions, and they will ever strive after the things they love. It will be a long but an essential business, I believe, to destroy that system. There will, I think, have to be a long-term control of German education. Think what they have done in ten years, or less than ten years—transformed the mind of all the young people in Germany by an organized system of so-called education. And I believe that will have to be undone before there is any hope of rest in the world. It will take a long time. There is one other part of control of Germany which will be essential: the control of the German financial system. Unless it is controlled we may be sure that it will be capable of use, and will be used, for the dissemination of discord among the United Nations, for the instilling of insidious and destructive propaganda in every part of the world. I do not always agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, but I was greatly impressed by the preface which he wrote to a book the other day which is called The Greatest Swindle in the World, as to how Reparations were dealt with by the German financial authorities, and how-even the loans mistakenly made to them were used for the preparation of another war. I cannot imagine any security unless some adequate system of control over that engine is provided.
But does any one imagine that any system of military control in Germany can be undertaken without preliminary agreements, at least in principle, with the United States and with Russia? That is

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completely essential and not to be left to the last moment. What sort of military occupation must there be? Is it to be an international force? Who is to control it? Not agreement on details, but agreement on principles must be arrived at in advance. And beyond this, what are we to look to in the future with respect to the smaller nations in Europe? Is there to be a Defence Union, or are we to try to build something upon the League of Nations? I think, in any case, we shall have to recognize that the future of Europe, if there is to be security, must entail some surrender of sovereign rights by smaller nations. It is easy to say that, but how difficult it will be to negotiate it. One almost trembles to think of it; but it must be faced, and it must be faced in advance. Every man with knowledge of the realities, of the responsibilities that must be thrust upon the Governments at the conclusion of hostilities, must know that, whilst many details must be left to be settled according to the circumstances of the time, there must be in advance sufficient agreement upon the main principles affecting the actions to which I have referred.
Now it is necessary to look at the third group of issues which require preliminary discussion. What sort of life may people look forward to after the war? On this subject we have had a number of very notable speeches lately. We had one from the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden, at Leeds. I found it greatly heartening, with real vision. We have had equally striking speeches from Mr. Cordell Hull and from Mr. Wallace, the Vice-President of the United States; and on Monday of last week, we had a most remarkable speech from Mr. Perkins, who is the Director of the American Board of Economic Warfare. I would like, if I may, to read one or two short extracts from his speech. He said that the battle to avoid this war was lost because men had not yet learnt how to distribute what they produced. Civilization broke down after the last war because it was "commodity-rich and consumption-poor "—a remarkably accurate summary of what happened. Then he went on to say that the plain people of the world know what they want—a chance to work, to be useful, an income which will give them enough food, clothing and shelter to drive fear and want from the fireside, and all this within a
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society that guaranteed their civil liberties. Then he made what was to me—even me, a Socialist—a staggering statement. Let me read it to your Lordships:
" If we take all that can be produced at the end of this war, and divide it among all the peoples who will then be alive to share it, we shall be within reach of a very good standard of living for the first time in all history."
Well, it was a Utopia; I confess it dazzled me. It was what one was almost afraid to think of in definite terms.
What has been said in this country is mild beside what Mr. Perkins said. I see that Mr. Harold Laski, in a speech at the recent conference of the Labour Party, for which he was castigated by the Daily Telegraph, said:
" We seek in this war for victory, not to return to the old world, but to build a new-world. We have done once and for all with the mad competitive system which spells poverty for all peoples and war as the outcome of poverty."
That did not seem to me to be a very extravagant hope; but I shall depart from my usual custom by referring to the criticisms made in the very important organ of Conservative opinion, the Daily Telegraph. It said that others might
" postpone putting the cart of domestic controversy before the horse of military triumph. They might indeed ask what the Labour Party would have said if a Conservative or Liberal Conference had called for striking off the shackles of bureaucracy ' after the final victory is won; ' but in fact no other Party is likely to waste its time on crying for academic moons That does not mean that they would accept for a moment the idea that the Labour Party's policy alone can ensure a better world or that they are barren of ideas of their own."
I would say that if the Conservative or Liberal Conference, or anybody else, has any useful ideas or suggestions to make as to how these terrible questions can be dealt with, for God's sake produce them. There never was a time when humanity was in greater need of good ideas as to how to deal with these terrible issues that must arise. We all agree, I am sure, that poverty is the main cause of unemployment—the inability to buy. If the millions of China or India could buy a little more, how much it would mean for our productive industries. It is the major problem before us—to enable people to obtain from the plenty that we can produce, sufficient for their needs, and to do it, if we can, under a system

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which will preserve indvidual initiative and individuality.
It is deplorable to suggest that we should be debarred from discussing these great matters which are stirring the minds of people everywhere by what I can only describe as Pecksniffian stupidity. Just look at one or two of these post-war issues. What will happen? You will have millions of people stopping work away from their homes before industries can be reassembled—bewildered. Are we not to think about what we should do in their case? I had some concern in these matters last time, and I hope we shall be readier this time than we were then. There is this too—the great matter of prices and control. There will of a certainty be a clamour to be released from control. We shall have headlines, not of a quarter of an inch, but an inch or, may be, two inches demanding release from "The New Despotism" and from controls. These demands will certainly arise. They will be shrieked at us every day, and if all controls are relaxed or, at all events, unless there is some well-conceived scheme of dealing with them, there will be soaring prices as there were at the end of the last war—a temporary boom, perhaps, and then ghastly unemployment.
If we can avoid it, I am sure there is not one of us who wishes to return to what, to me anyhow, is a disgusting scramble under a system which is based upon the existence of millions of people who are unemployed, a reservoir which can be called upon. We want something better than that, and unless there can be sufficient agreement between the Parties beforehand as to the main lines of action, we may well find that victory is the precursor of disorder. There will be astronomical debts—if they are to be regarded as debts—and there will be such debts that if they are sought to be paid, the operation will ruin both the debtor and the creditor. The creditor nation will find its products not required, and the debtor nation will be unable to buy what it needs for its own life. What is to be done about that? Some understanding in regard to finance and debts will be at the very foundation of recovery. If we look at these things at which I have only glanced, thongh I have taken longer indeed than I meant, it is clear that there
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is an urgent necessity for the consideration of some of these great issues and for as much agreement as possible beforehand. Instead of decrying discussion on these matters, I suggest that it is overwhelmingly desirable that we should as far as possible project into the period of peace as much as we can of the glorious unity that now possesses us. It is worth a great sacrifice by men of all Parties. It is, I suggest, the way of statesmanship; it is the leadership for which the people long, and moreover and finally, it is the only way whereby mankind can obtain that more secure peace and fuller life upon which our hearts are set. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That it is of urgent importance both for the successful prosecution of the war and for the establishment of a satisfactory and lasting peace, that the Government should prepare without delay the proposals they intend to make for world settlement after the war.—(Lord Addison.)
THE EARL OF PERTH—in whose name stood the following Notice: To ask His Majesty's Government whether satisfactory progress is being made with the study as to how the articles of the Atlantic Charter can best be put into practical effect when the time comes; and to move for Papers—said: My Lords, you will have noted that I have a Motion of my own on the Order Paper for to-day, but the words of the Motion so eloquently introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Addison, are such that it would be more convenient if I made on it the observations I should have made had I introduced the Motion standing in my own name. I hope your Lordships will not object to the withdrawal of my Motion when the time comes for it formally to be moved—that is, when we have finished the discussion on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Addison, on which we are now engaged.
When I saw that Motion on the Order Paper—and it has been there for a considerable time—I frankly confess I was somewhat puzzled. It seems to me that the general principles of post-war settlement had been admirably set out in that great declaration known as the Atlantic Charter. That Charter has become of even greater importance than when its provisions were last discussed in your

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Lordships' House. At that time it had been endorsed by various nations, including the U.S.S.R. Now it has received the formal assent of twenty-six Allied Nations, and the approval of the States of Latin America. I think, therefore, that we can regard its principles as firmly established and as constituting the lines on which all those who are fighting Hitlerism and the German and Japanese idea of the New Order would wish to see the post-war world constituted.
The Leader of this House, in a speech which he made on November 18, told us that His Majesty's Government, and no doubt the Governments of the Dominions and the Allied Powers, and the Government in the United States of America, were already actively engaged in its study in order that they might be in a position to put all the provisions of the Atlantic Charter into effect when the time came. Now if we can receive an assurance—and I hope we may—that those studies, which are the preliminary work necessary to the application of the provisions of the Atlantic Charter, are proceeding satisfactorily, then I suggest that we should rest content. I know His Majesty's Government are often being urged in influential quarters to set out immediately a detailed programme of post-war settlement, but I suggest that to do so would be a great error. For any single Government at this time to set out proposals of their own would surely tend to create dissension rather than promote unity, that unity which has been so happily achieved and which it is so vital to maintain. I think that the next: stage should be, when the studies are completed, that the Governments of the various countries concerned should exchange views and information, and we should rest content till that happens.
Now, in regard to those studies, I trust that His Majesty's Government will not be influenced by the scornful references which are so often made to the failure of the League of Nations. It is true that the League of Nations did not succeed in fulfilling the high purposes for which it was created. I do not intend to try to analyse the causes of that failure. Some of them have been explained in a most interesting book written by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, although I must not be held as agreeing with all his arguments and all his conclusions, but neither the
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noble Viscount nor the other writers whose works I have read on this subject have paid sufficient attention to the fundamental cause of the League's failure—namely, the absence of the United States of America. I would ask your Lordships to remember that the League which failed was not the League envisaged by President Wilson, by General Smuts, by the noble Viscount himself, and by other statesmen. That League was based on the intimate participation in its inner councils of the United States of America. That League has never been tried, and has never failed.
I want to emphasize the point because, some little time ago, in one of those brilliant performances of the Brains Trust, the earlier performances, I heard Professor Joad tell his vast audience: "We have tried the League, it has failed; we must try something else unless civilization is to perish." I think a statement of that kind might well mislead the millions of listeners unless it was accompanied by some such qualification as I have suggested. The League without America failed. I am profoundly convinced that had the League as originally conceived come into being it would have fulfilled all the hopes and all the aspirations of its founders, and the present calamities would have been averted. I could adduce solid and compelling grounds for my belief from the historic happenings following the years after the last war, but I doubt whether it would be expedient and opportune to do so at the present time. I have no wish to awaken the echoes of old, unhappy controversies, or to cast the slightest reflection on those whose actions lay entirely within their rights and was, I feel sure, inspired by what they then held to be their highest interests. But if it is wrong and harmful to search the records of the past for purposes of recrimination it is right and beneficial to examine them to see whether we can obtain guidance for the future. I think that when the various Governments study the application of the provisions of the Atlantic Charter they will find that it is desirable, if not indeed essential, that some international organization should be set up analagous to that of the League of Nations, and with a Charter on general lines similar to that of the Covenant, though I, personally, earnestly hope that some of the provisions will be less absolute.

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The lesson which I think we should learn from the past is that no such international organization will succeed unless it has in some form or other the closest co-operation with the United States. An international organization including the United States—I say "in some form or other" —is the ideal at which I think we should aim. If we can attain it, and I pray that we may, then I think we can look forward to the future of the world not only with hope but with confidence. Meanwhile, I think we can receive much encouragement from the fact that President Roosevelt is the co-author of the Atlantic Charter, from the fact that the Allied Declaration has been signed by the United States of America, and from statements such as that made by the American Ambassador in a speech which he delivered at Liverpool in November last, when he said that the United States and Great Britain would have to co-operate in the maintenance of international security if they were to co-operate in the maintenance of more satisfactory economic relations.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I feel sure His Majesty's Government will have no complaint to make of the action of either of the noble Lords who put Notices on the Paper for debate this afternoon. Both are most eminently qualified to initiate a debate of this kind—the noble Lord who leads the Opposition from his long Parliamentary and administrative experience, in which he has not many equals in this country, and the noble Earl behind me from his long experience at the Foreign Office and at Geneva in the League of Nations, concerning which he has given us such a very illuminating and convincing account, and from his experience afterwards as Ambassador at Rome. But in addition to their personal qualifications, both noble Lords are undoubtedly the spokesmen of no little national anxiety on these matters.
It is, I think, obvious from what we see in the Press and hear in public speeches, that the country would be thoroughly uneasy if people believed that the experience of the last war and 1919 is to be in any way repeated when hostilities end. Undoubtedly at that time there was a general belief—by no means universal, but a largely-held belief—that when the "Cease fire" came, everything would go
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well, that the war was going to end war, that the various difficulties could be settled by conferences, and that something like a millenium would arrive. Some of your Lordships may remember a musical play which amused London many years ago, in which a party of amateurs were preparing to take part in a pantomime. One of the amusing things about that play was the series of frequent mishaps in the rehearsals. One of the rather lackadaisical members of the company consoled himself and his friends by repeating "It will be all right on the night." That phrase became a popular catchword applied to people who did not make preparations but supposed that everything would be easy to settle when the day came. Now everybody knows that everything will not be ail right; that on the contrary the difficulties which have been to some extent foreshadowed by the noble Lord who leads the Opposition, are exceedingly grave and exceedingly numerous.
The noble Lord, Lord Addison, worded his Resolution most carefully and he fully carried out his intention in his speech. He asked for immediate preparations by His Majesty's Government, but not for an immediate announcement. There, I am sure, he will receive the concurrence of your Lordships. In the first instance, to attempt to announce the details of world settlement now is altogether impossible because, though we not only believe but know that our victory is certain, yet the precise circumstances of that victory cannot be foreseen. In the second place, it would be absolutely impossible for His Majesty's Government to make any form of public announcement without complete co-operation and general agreement with the Allied Powers and all the countries concerned. Obviously that must be a matter of time and, I should trust, of continuous consultation.
The general world settlement divides itself under several heads. In the first place there is what may be described as the territorial, or in one sense political settlement—that is, what is going to happen to the aggressor countries, and how are the countries which have been the victims of aggression to be restored so far as can be to prosperity after peace. It is obvious that it would be altogether impossible to attempt now to rearrange the boundaries of Europe. What the precise future, in the geographical sense, of Poland will be, or what will be the

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precise area of Yugoslavia, it surely would be i utile now to discuss. On the other hand, there are some definitely hopeful facts of which I think we can take note. One of the most hopeful to my mind is the fact that already Poland has achieved a measure of agreement both with Russia and with Czecho-Slovakia, altogether obliterating the memory of past differences. That is surely a most hopeful sign. We can also look with complete confidence to the restoration to prosperity of the people of Greece, the sufferings of whom have been so much in our minds. There is one further fact which we have to bear in mind—namely, the attitude of Turkey; and that, as compared with the attitude of Turkey five and twenty years ago is a matter upon which we can look with deep satisfaction.
On the other hand, we have to remember that the world settlement now presents an infinitely more complicated problem than it did in 1919. Then Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey were the only hostile countries. Now we have Germany, Italy and Japan—three Great Powers—arrayed against us, and, again, the unhappy little community of Bulgaria. I am not going to dwell at all upon the prospects of the just treatment which we, and our Allies, will have to mete out to Germany because I find myself in very complete agreement on that point with what fell from the lips of the noble Lord, Lord Addison. It seems to me that as regards the necessary occupation of Germany it will have to be continued for a certain time. He expressed what I believe to be the absolute common-sense view of the situation. Nor shall I attempt to offer any opinion as to what the future geographical settlement ought to be in the Pacific Ocean and what penalty Japan will have to pay. It will be, I am sure, a severe penalty for the absolutely unpardonable aggression of which she has been guilty.
That is one aspect of the circumstances which have to be considered in relation to the world settlement. The other division is that mentioned in the last five Articles of the Atlantic Charter—that is to say, questions of economic and moral settlement, including of course the abolition of resort to force as an instrument of policy. I shall not attempt to elaborate any opinions on the last five Articles of the Atlantic Charter which cover questions
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of trade and currency. But, speaking from these Benches, I cannot help saying one word of satisfaction regarding the terms implied in the Atlantic Charter which indicate a desire for greater freedom of trade and the absence of restriction. As we know, there have' been, and are, Free Traders in all political Parties, but, at the same time, I think that we on these Benches are entitled to claim that we have been the principal evangelists of that creed simply because we believe more in it and less in regulation than either of the two great Parties of the State.
At the same time we do not seek to deny that any attempt to return to or to institute a system of universal Free Trade and free exchange of goods would be altogether an impossibility, and would cause such a complete dislocation of industry in so many countries of the world that it would be almost disastrous if it were brought in. But in view of the sentiment which we have always held—namely, that all departures from the free exchange of goods are unfortunate and should be avoided so far as possible—in contradistinction to those who have always believed that each country ought to be, so far as possible, self-supporting and produce all that it can and take as few goods as possible from its neighbours, we do regard the phrases in the Atlantic Charter to which I have referred with feelings of considerable hope.
Also, of course, one matter which His Majesty's Government will have to bear closely in mind concerns questions of exchange and currency. Some of your Lordships will have noticed in The Times to-day a most interesting article setting forth the views of a well-known economist in the United States on the question of exchange. I shall not attempt to discuss that question; I would rather leave it to the experts to do so. Your Lordships may have noted, however, that in this article the suggestion is that some form of blocked credits should be substituted for Government debts between nations. How far that may be possible I do not pretend to state; but it is quite clear that unless national currencies can be stabilized internationally in some form or other, it will be impossible for commerce in a large sense altogether to revive.
There is one final consideration which I wish to put before the Government. Although it is impossible now for them

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to offer us a detailed statement of what they believe to be a proper world settlement, I think that they should, as far as possible and as soon as they can, take the country into their confidence; and my final reason for saying this is the fact, which has already been announced, that it is not proposed that when hostilities are concluded a General Election should follow immediately. That decision was, I believe, generally applauded, because the General Elections of 1900 and 1919 are not regarded by those who are familiar with their history with great favour. It must be remembered, however, that, when the time comes, it is not likely that the postponement of a General Election will be welcomed by everybody. There is a general feeling—we frequently see it stated—that Parliament cannot now be said to be exactly representative of the nation. Into the causes of that it is not necessary to enter; but it seems to me that the only way in which His Majesty's Government will be able to satisfy the country when the war ends is by being able to state as fully as possible what their beliefs are and what their intentions are, and to announce them, so far as they can, when they have been decided in concert with our friends and Allies.
I feel sure that that is important, and will tend to keep the country contented during the interval, an interval which may extend over two years, or possibly longer; because the mere relief questions of which the noble Lord, Lord Addison, spoke—that is to say, bringing the necessary relief to those who have suffered from the war all over the world—will take a considerable time to carry out. Those of us seniors who lag more or less superfluously on the stage cannot expect to see the reaping of that harvest; but we can offer our warmest hopes that it will be well and fairly reaped, and we can do so with the confidence which we feel in the spirit of the nation, which we believe will meet, as in the past, the extreme difficulties of such a settlement.
LORD LANG OF LAMBETH: My Lords, you will not be surprised if I say that I find it somewhat strange to be addressing your Lordships in a position very different from that which I have held and from a part of the House very different from that which I have occupied for thirty-four years. I confess that, as I have sometimes said, I
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feel rather like a schoolboy who, having been at the top of the school, returns to it as a member of the junior form. My object in rising—and I do so with very great diffidence—is to give what support I can to the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Addison, and to the very interesting speech, if I may say so, of the noble Earl, Lord Perth. I do not propose to say a single word about possible terms of peace, for obviously it is completely premature to attempt to do so; I wish only to make some observations about the social and economic settlement which must ensue after the war.
We are all agreed—there is no need to waste time in speaking about it—that the first essential is victory. There is no possible security of any kind which is worth having unless and until the principles and the policies of the Axis Powers have been fully and finally destroyed. It does not seem to me to follow, however, that we ought therefore to acquiesce in any postponement of a really responsible consideration of the great problems which must arise when the war is over, because, if we wait until then, it will be impossible to give them the consideration which they demand. There are two special reasons for that. In the first place, let me remind your Lordships that the process of economic reconstruction is going on in the midst of the stress of war. Steps are being taken now of a somewhat fundamental character, some of which at any rate must remain, and it is of vital importance even now that consideration should be given to the question which of these somewhat drastic steps are to be continued in the future. But secondly, and perhaps more important, I know that I am speaking for a great multitude of people in this country when I say that it would bring fresh hope, and therefore fresh enthusiasm, and some relief from strain, if they were more satisfied that out of the obviously vast ruination of the world at the present time the building-up of something better was the fixed intention of our rulers.
No one knows better than I do how gravely we have suffered from what happened at the end of the last war. All this talk about "a better world" makes us really impatient. I happened the other day to be reading over the notes of many addresses which I gave all along the front in the summer of 1917 in France

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and Flanders, and I must say I read them with real sickening of the heart, to realize that the hopes and aspirations, which then were perfectly genuine, not least among the officers and men of the Army, came to so little. And the reason was, of course, that there was so little preparation beforehand, ready to be put in action at once. There were Committees—the noble Lord, Lord Addison, presided over one of the most useful—but most of the plans for dealing with the situation were narrow in scope and not sufficiently matured to be applied just when they were most needed. At the present time surely the ruination is vaster than was even conceivable at the time of the last war—greater perhaps than at any period of history. Therefore, the possibilities of chaos after the war are infinitely greater, and in the wake of chaos, unless it is controlled, there is bound to come another war.
For these reasons I am quite sure that it is of vital importance that we should be better prepared now than we were at the end of the last war, to deal with a far graver situation, and that there should be some clear knowledge, not kept in the bosoms of His Majesty's Government but given in confidence to the people, as to the general principles upon which a social and economic policy after the war should be framed. We are also agreed—and it does not need much discussion—that it would be futile at the present time to attempt to do more; than indicate possibilities, and in the most general way, in the form of genera] principles, and that anything like details would be out of the question—" blue-prints of the future "I understand that they are now called in the language of the day. That is obvious; but there ought to be, steadily and definitely framing in the minds of responsible authorities, and gradually coming into such shape that it can be communicated to the nation, a clear conception of what is proposed, so that it may be adjusted readily to the actual situations as they arise.
Now I know that there have been many most valuable speeches—the noble Lord, Lord Addison, called attention to them—made by individual Ministers. I agree particularly that we owe much gratitude to the Foreign Secretary for several speeches which he has made of a more illuminating kind than have come always from all of his colleagues. There
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have been speeches quite recently by Mr. Bevin, by Mr. Lyttelton, and by Sir Stafford Cripps, and I am very glad that the noble Lord called special attention to the declarations quite recently made in the United States by Mr. Cordell Hull, by Mr. Wallace, the Vice-President, and by Mr. Perkins, the Director of Economic Warfare. No doubt, it might be said, Why should not these suffice? Also there are, thank God, the declarations of the Atlantic Charter, and the value of these declarations is difficult to exaggerate. They represent the agreement, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, told us, of some 28 nations, and, most of all, that agreement, on which so much of the future of the world depends, between the British Empire and the United States of America.
And yet there are three things still needed. One is a more authoritative statement from the Government of the general principles which they conceive should regulate economic policy after the war—again I stress the word "principles," because anything like detail is impossible. Secondly, some further interpretation of the Atlantic Charter. At present it is so general that it can easily be misconceived. It might have been said there is a great danger if you attempt too much interpretation of breaking up the unity which the original Charter secured, but if there are any chances of misunderstanding it is better that they should be faced now, when we are in a position of co-operation, than that they should occur later on. And, thirdly and chiefly, I think what is needed is a very definite assurance on the part of the Government that they have committed to responsible Committees or individual men the task of seeing how these general principles can best be put into effect when the actual needs arise. I submit that in these ways there is real need of settling the principles of long-term policies, which can be applied at once to short-term expedients.
The task, I think, ought to be the easier because of the really remarkable agreement as to the ends that must be kept in view. Here I would allude not only to the speeches to which I have referred, but to some remarkable reports which have just been issued. There is the report on the one side of the Labour Party—very

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full, more drastic than most of your Lordships would agree with, but covering the ground with considerable ability. On the other hand, there are the reports of the Federation of British Industries, and quite recently, of the London Chamber of Commerce. And it is really remarkable what a consensus there is among all these different bodies as to the main outlines of any economic settlement after the war.
I think that is seen particularly in three respects. First of all, in the need of protecting common folk in all countries from fear and want, and of course the two go together. It is the fear of unemployment that haunts the common people in every country, and the fear of those impersonal forces which they cannot control, and which seem to produce situations which it is impossible for them to understand, such, for example, as the situation, which surely brands with a certain absurdity the hitherto existing system, by which foodstuffs were actually being burnt in order to maintain world prices, while there was widespread need for them elsewhere. And that is why I am very glad that Lord Addison called attention to that terse and vivid phrase of Mr. Perkins in which he said that the reason why there was this collapse after the last war was because we were a civilization which was "commodity-rich and consumption-poor." There is most remarkable agreement that what we need to aim at is the increase, not so much of production as of consumption, or rather the increase of production only in relation to the increase of consumption. And that increase of consumption, coming as it must from increase of purchasing power, must be brought about by raising the standard of living in every country.
Secondly, there is agreement that there must be some control and regulation of production by the State. That is one of the ways in which, manifestly, the State's responsibilities must grow. I notice that even the Federation of British Industries agree that that regulation by the State must continue—they hope only for a certain time, but they regard it as imperative that it should be in operation when the war has come to an end. This is only one sphere of that enormous problem which governs the whole future—how we are to combine the planning and ordering which is so obviously necessary with the proper place of individual enterprise
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and initiative. Thirdly, and above all, there is common agreement as to the imperative need of international co-operation in the economic sphere. Mr. Cordell Hull frankly said that the whole aim of the Atlantic Charter would be defeated if, after the war, we were to return to the old condition of narrow economic nationalism. We must somehow, by international co-operation, bring to an end the old scramble for markets and all that is implied in the sinister phrase "capture of markets," the cut-throat competition which brought such great evils in its train. So only can the true functions of international trade be realized that it should be an interchange of goods for the mutual benefit of all countries.
I submit that, when there is so much agreement upon the general principles, it ought not to be difficult for His Majesty's Government to give some indication of the degree in which these matters of general agreement are, in their own minds, those which ought to determine the outlines of future policy. But once more I would submit that long-term policies are necessary for the control of the immediate expedients which will be required when the war is over. If I do not weary your Lordships I would speak very briefly on three of them. There is, first, that huge problem that is involved in the word "demobilization," to which the noble Lord, Lord Addison, has referred. He spoke of it with great clearness, but I find it difficult to imagine the situation in which not only all these men will come back from the Forces to civil employment, but hundreds of thousands of men and women will almost immediately leave their munition works and other branches of national service and require some civil employment. No doubt the problem was dealt with last time to some extent, though there was great confusion. It will be even more necessary to deal with it now, and it is very difficult to see how that adjustment can take place unless there are in hand carefully prepared plans to deal with the situation not only ad hoc, but with reference to the future organization of industry.
Secondly, there is the problem of the countries which have been destroyed in their economic life, even in their means of existence, by the enemy. I was very much impressed by the forcible eloquence with which the noble Lord described that situation Our Government have given a

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pledge that when the war is over these countries will be provided with foodstuffs, but that alone is not enough. It is almost like expecting people to continue to live upon the "dole." There must be, as soon as possible, through such international co-operation as already exists, the beginning of some economic system by which all countries—and, I would add, including Germany—may benefit and be saved from economic collapse. Lastly, there is the old and ever-present problem of housing in our own country. Here again let us realize the problem that will face us when the war is over—the rehousing of all those destroyed or damaged areas. We shall all agree that rebuilding is not enough. What is quite as essential is replanning. Nobody wants just to put up so many houses as may be wanted. What we desire more than ever is that when the houses are put up there should be due regard given to light and air and, above all, space. We hope to get rid of the overcrowding of people. We do not want any more the overcrowding of houses. For that purpose there must be, as we all admit, very careful planning.
There are the kindred problems to which I only allude as I pass—the problem of localization of industry, the problem of how expansion of industry is to be related to the preservation of agricultural land. There is plenty of information on these issues. There are the Reports of the Barlow Commission and the Committee of Lord Justice Scott; and with so much good material it ought to be possible to have very definite plans in hand. But they will need, as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has so often insisted in this House, a Central Planning Authority. It is almost impossible for any such Central Planning Authority to work unless it has definite principles and plans upon which to move. We had great hopes in this House, from a speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, that this Central Planning Authority was coming immediately into being. I do not know what has happened to it. Lord Reith himself, for some strange reason, has become one of those "transient phantoms" with which we have been too familiar of late in this country in the Government, and I do not in the least know how matters stand. His successor was able to assure your Lordships that the Central Planning Authority would continue, but we should
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all agree that these matters cannot be left to the local authorities. They must be taken in hand and carried through by plans which have been carefully thought out and are thoroughly prepared.
I have spoken longer than I intended. That is one of the evils of speaking from this place, where my back is turned to the clock, instead of from where I used to speak, where I was always confronted by it. But will your Lordships forgive me if I cannot close without giving expression to a conviction which is to me far deeper than any of the others I have mentioned. Let us make no mistake that even the carrying out of these matters upon which there is so much rather surprising agreement will make a very great moral as well as intellectual demand. It will mean—let us make no mistake about it—that many vested interests, sectional interests, strongly entrenched, many temptations to make Party advantage, will have to be resisted. It will mean for most of us a change in our accustomed ways of thinking, acting, and living which we cannot now imagine. I am sure that to carry through any kind of social and economic resettlement after the war will need some inward constraining motive and inspiration.
What is that to be? I would not venture to express it in my own words because in so doing I might be misunderstood. It might be that some of your Lordships would go away and say, like Tennyson's northern farmer: "He said what I thought he ought to have said, and so I coomed away." So I use the words of one to whom the whole Empire always listens with the greatest respect, that distinguished soldier-statesman, General Smuts. He said, the other day:
" Speaking from longer and wider experience than perhaps has been the lot of most others. I want to say this. Fundamentally the world has no need of a new order, of a new plan, but only of the honest and courageous application of the historic Christian idea. Our Christian civilization is based on eternal order, an endless plan, the message of Christ. Let us hold to the eternal message. Let us follow the greatest light that has ever arisen on the human horizon, and which can surely lead to that better world for which the peoples everywhere are longing."
I believe that those words really go to the root of the matter.
But I return, as I close, to my main object in making these too lengthy observations. It is simply to suggest that

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the time has come when the Government might make a more authoritative statement than has hitherto been made, apart from individual speeches, as to the general principles which they envisage for the future economic settlement, that there should be in co-operation with the United States, some attempt to make explicit what is implicit in the Atlantic Charter, and some assurance that all these matters are receiving the most careful, constant and thorough attention of His Majesty's Government. We had a great chance at the end of the last war and we largely lost it. We have a greater chance before us at the end of the present war. Let us see to it that no lack of preparation now brings upon us the guilt of losing the chance again.
VISCOUNT SANKEY: My Lords, I rise to support the Motion proposed by my noble friend Lord Addison. It is the experience of most nations that from time to time in their history changes take place in their customs, habits and outlook on life. As population increases, isolation becomes impossible; men live nearer and nearer to one another, are more and more dependent upon one another, and it is necessary to define their mutual rights and relationships. This has led them to state their ambitions and their policy in a public document, and there are time-honoured precedents for an issue of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Our own Bill of Rights is a well-known example, possibly even better known is the Declaration of the Rights of Man published by the French Assembly in 1789. When we consider the sentiments expressed in such documents in the light of subsequent developments, although we see that some of them fail to distinguish between the ideally perfect and the practically possible, we cannot help wondering why others should ever have been a subject of dispute.
We are witnessing to-day another of the great changes from era to era. Nations are no longer isolated from one another. Paris and Berlin are much nearer to London than Bristol was a century ago. One of the greatest inventions, the internal combustion engine of the aeroplane, has shattered isolation, and nations formerly separated from one another by intervals of time and space are now next-door neighbours. It seems, therefore, that as in former years we had time-honoured precedents
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for Declarations. of the Rights of Man, so to-day we must endeavour to frame an agreed Declaration of the Rights of Nations. No doubt after the war an attempt will be made to lessen the chances of future conflict by the creation of some such tribunal as was devised by the League of Nations for the settlement of international disputes, but before providing any machinery we must adopt some code or system of law which the Court will be called upon to administer. To set up a tribunal without establishing the principles it has to follow is like putting the cart before the horse. An effort should now be made to think out not only the method of settling disputes, but the principles which are to be employed in doing so.
Something more than the germ of such an idea has been laid down in this Atlantic Charter. At present the Charter seems to be drawn up as an example of the aims and ambitions of those who were parties to it. They say that they "seek no aggrandisement," that they "desire to see no territorial changes that do not agree with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned," that they "respect the rights of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they will live," and that they will endeavour…to further enjoyment by all States…of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity." Would it not be possible to translate some of these aims and some of these ambitions into a more definite statement of the rights of each nation, so that in any future dispute those who have to decide it can find in such a declaration the principles upon which they should come to a just conclusion?
The subject on which I would claim your Lordships' attention this afternoon is the first Article, that the signatories to the Charter "seek no aggrandisement, territorial or other"; but before doing so permit me to call attention to one other point. Article 4 provides for the access of all nations to the raw materials of the world, and I should like, if I may, to adopt the argument of the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, in the speech which he made earlier to-day. Will it be necessary in the light of this statement to reconsider in some degree our Ottawa Agreements? Free trade has removed many of the

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causes of friction between European nations. It would have been unthinkable in the earlier days of English history that one part of our country should not trade with another, and if the nations of the world have become so near one another by modern development it may be necessary to reconsider some of the regulations made at Ottawa.
In a book recently published by the Oxford University Press on the British Commonwealth of the future, an account is given of the proceedings of the second unofficial conference on British Commonwealth relations at Sydney in 1938. It was suggested that Ottawa had had extraordinary political as well as economic repercussions and that, while a critical examination of the results showed little evidence of the establishment of an economic bloc, Ottawa had undoubtedly convinced much of the outside world that an exclusive economic bloc was in the making. War is not our national industry. A peaceful and prosperous Europe is a fundamental interest of the United Kingdom. This is not a subject for argument to-day, but it is a matter which should be considered with a view to what is to happen after the war. There is one small point, the only point of detail to which I desire to refer, and that is how you are going to deal with those rare metals found in different parts of the world which are necessary for the provision of munitions of war. It is not a subject that can be wholly neglected. Is anybody to have as much as he likes of them?
Let me turn now to the first Article, that the signatories to the Atlantic Charter seek "no aggrandisement, territorial or other." Probably the great difficulty after the war will be the territorial one. There can, however, be no territorial aggrandisement for anyone as a result of the war. We have promised to restore prosperity to all the German occupied countries; but do not let us forget the conduct of the Nazis. Their policy has been that the powerful exact what they can and the weak grant what they must. No nation should act, or ought to be allowed to act, on these principles, but they must be resisted to the death. When, therefore, the war comes to an end, no question of territorial aggrandisement is admissible at the peace table. To entertain such a claim would be to acknowledge that aggression pays. There is
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yet another reason for refusing any such suggestion. In addition to their many other misdeeds, the Nazis have corrupted the youth of Germany and weaned them from the principles of European civilization. We shall be confronted for some years after the war with a rising generation in Germany whose views and outlook on life, until they are changed, will prevent the permanent establishment of peace on the Continent. This is a danger against which adequate precautions must be taken. It is a danger which will gradually pass away but which may postpone for a period the final war settlement. There must be a period of control and a period for consideration.
I look forward to the future with no misgiving, but meanwhile it would be foolish to ignore the history of the past few years. Peace and the Nazis cannot exist together. This does not mean that we should isolate Germany after the war, continue to blockade her and have no dealings with her. The sooner the wheels of international trade and commerce begin to revolve again the better. The sooner international barriers are broken down the sooner a real peace will be established. The sooner peaceful employment is provided the sooner the happiness of millions will be restored. But the safety of mankind demands that Germany shall show unmistakable signs of a change of policy and that the nations are sure that she neither can nor will attempt to interrupt the peaceful progress of Europe. But what about a more distant future and a more permanent settlement? National boundaries are not stabilized for ever. Changes must come. They are achieved not by conquest only but by agreement, by arbitration, even by purchase. Lousiana was bought from France by the United States in 1803. Florida was ceded by Spain in 1819, Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. Can we not begin now, or cannot the Government begin now to work out some system not only for disarmament, but for the settlement of international disputes without recourse to the horrors of modern war? We can, if you like, adopt the verse which runs:
" The good old rule …the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."
This, my Lords, would mean a war in every generation for the next century. Whether war will ever be abolished

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altogether is open to doubt, but it is worth while attempting to make it the exception and not the rule for the future.
Let us examine for a brief moment the question of alteration of boundaries and of ownership. No man and no nation has a right to Naboth's vineyard merely from motives of jealousy or because he craves for it. But can any remedy be found apart from war where a densely populated country seeks expansion into a new territory in a sparsely inhabited area? To begin with, is such a claim ever to be admitted as a right? By agreement such a change could be effected. Will it ever be possible at some later date, subject to conditions, to submit such a claim to the arbitrament of some independent tribunal to prevent war? Many things would have to be considered—the extent of the territory claimed, its position, its present and potential value, its natural resources, whether mineral or agricultural. Are you not to consider the acquired rights of settlers in the territory, of the natives and of others? Are you not to consider the views of the people affected by the transfer? Are you not to consider the future rights of trading or settling in the territory? Are you not to consider how the present holders of the territory have behaved with regard to it, how they have developed it, and how they have treated the natives and other inhabitants? Are you not to consider in such matters the record of the country which seeks the transfer? Are you not to consider any strategic points in case of future war? Is it possible to consider anything in the nature of a condominium or an international mandate or a purchase, and if so how and when?
Those are some only of the questions involved and I do not endeavour to answer them this afternoon, but I propose them to guard against the dangerous delusion in some quarters that the difficulties affecting transfer are no greater than those of a man who, having a cake too large for himself, is ready to cut off a slice to sell or give way. Do not let us forget that those entrusted with Empire are entrusted with a mission. Great Britain is not without the reproach incidental to all human work, but we have not neglected our trust. Our mission is not over, our Empire is not drawing to a close. Let our aim and our ambition
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still be to uphold freedom and justice and to contribute our share to the peaceful progress of the world. If the old rule of taking and keeping by force is abandoned, some Declaration of the Rights of Nations and of the methods by which they can be realized will become necessary. Let us therefore with the noble Lord urge the Government to begin to prepare plans as soon as possible for a wise settlement of these difficult points after the war.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, we have had a very interesting debate to-day and in one respect I think the Government are to be congratulated on the extreme unanimity of the point of view of those noble Lords who have spoken, that this Motion is well founded and in principle ought to be accepted. There are, of course, two entirely different aspects in the expression "world settlement." There is first the domestic aspect—what we shall do at the end and what other nations will do at the end of the war to set right what they believe to be the evils under which they are at present labouring. I fully recognize the enormous importance of that, and in his very interesting maiden speech the most reverend and noble Lord, Lord Lang, dealt with a good deal of that subject. Nor do I doubt that it has a considerable bearing on the ultimate world settlement. But I feel that I must not attempt to deal with that subject if I wish to deal with the other aspect—namely, the international aspect—of the situation.
This Resolution which my noble friend Lord Addison has proposed urges, fundamentally, a preparation for peace. No doubt, apart from the observations, the very forcible observations, which have been made here, he has in his mind the statement of M. Clemenceau a year or two after the last war that he had come to the conclusion that it was much more difficult to make peace than to make war. I believe that is true. At any rate, he found it so, and I believe that the Government will find it abundantly true when we come to the end of this war. There are, therefore, on the face of it, reasons why every preparation should be made. But the Resolution draws attention to particular aspects of the question. One aspect is the effect on public opinion in foreign countries. The Resolution suggests that the preparation of proposals is of urgent importance "both for the successful

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prosecution of the war and for the establishment of a satisfactory and lasting peace." I believe that is a very important aspect, though very little has been said about: it to-day. I think it is of the utmost possible importance to satisfy the world, even to satisfy the German public, as to what the United Nations really propose to do with their victory when they have obtained it.
Undoubtedly, German opinion is considerably agitated, unless all the reports which are published arc mistaken, and the Germans seem now to be abandoning very much their belief in the necessity of German domination. They are being urged by their Government to consider what will be the effect of a German defeat. The German Government are trying to create that kind of "backs to the wall" sentiment in Germany which will enable them to call for further efforts and further sacrifices from their people. So far as other peoples, and not the Germans, are concerned, there is no doubt that the great argument that the Germans are using—you see it continually coining up in various forms in reports giving account of the state of feeling in other countries—is that the victory of Germany and her Allies is the only way of obtaining a settled world, a world in which the arts of peace can again flourish and in which the individual will be able to live in comfort and security. To us that may seem a very fantastic and absurd prophecy as to the result of German victory. But no doubt it is what they are trying to make people believe. A: one time it had very considerable effect but that effect is lessened now.
I think that we must, somehow or other, get before the world a really vivid impression of our determination not to be satisfied with mere victory (not to treat war just as a. game in which you win or lose), but to treat it for what indeed it is, as the first step to something far larger and far better even than victory in the war. That is the aspect of the thing which I think we ought to have in our minds, and which, if I may say so with respect, the Government ought to have in their minds. I agree with the broad answer made in the Atlantic Charter. It can be summarized in the two words "justice" and "security." That is quite right so far as it goes. In order to impress men you must not deal in abstracts, you
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must deal in concrete, definite proposals which they can understand and grasp.
The second reason why I support this Resolution that we ought to devote our attention to the preparation of peace, lies in the immense responsibility that seems to me to rest upon this country. We have borne so far—at any rate for the first two years of the war until Russia came in—by far the greatest part of the burden of the war, and our interests are involved in every part of the war. We share with Russia the greatest interest in the settlement in Europe. We share with China, perhaps, the greatest interest in the settlement of the world in Asia and the South Pacific. And even as regards America, though we fully recognize, of course, the great, the immense position of the United States in that Continent, still we, too, have great national interests both in North and in South America. So that we and our chief Allies may be said to be profoundly interested in the settlement that is to result' from the war, and we, ourselves, for the reasons to which I have just alluded and for other reasons as well, must have the largest share in that interest when the moment comes.
I do not propose to enlarge upon it, but it must be in all our minds that the settlement after the war will be a settlement which will determine the history of the world—so far as one can presume to foresee it—for many years. It will be, as far as one can see, a tremendous turning point in the whole of civilization and in the fortunes of all the countries which have been involved. Not only is our responsibility great, but the difficulties with which we shall have to deal—as previous speakers have constantly insisted—will be enormous. Much has been said about economic difficulties, and they will be very great. The mere task of feeding and reestablishing the suffering populations of Europe will be prodigious. Very great territorial questions are sure to arise, though I earnestly hope that the territorial changes made after the war will be as little as possible, provided, of course, that you set aside every change that has been made as part of the policy of aggression of the Axis Powers. Beyond that, I hope that we shall not set out on the fascinating, but I think almost always pernicious, task of re-drawing the map of Europe or of the world, and that we shall do as little as we can in that direction

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consistently with the urgent claims of justice. Still, those questions will be very difficult.
Then there are the broad political questions of how we are going to establish permanent peace and how we are going to help the world back to normal conditions of life, morally and materially. We shall have to face all those difficulties, and I certainly do very earnestly hope that we shall not, as the noble Marquess said earlier, trust to the doctrine that "it will be all right on the night." I hope we shall remember that if we have suffered, as we have suffered, in the present war, from beginning the war without sufficient preparation, we may well suffer more severely and more permanently if we go into the Peace Conference without having made sufficient preparations for peace.
I am not going to ask your Lordships, on this occasion at least, to listen to my views as to what shall be the detailed proposals for that peace; I want simply to say a few words about things which I think ought not to be done. I am quite sure that the idea of a peace of revenge is quite futile and purposeless. It has not been advocated this afternoon, and I do not suppose that it will be advocated in this debate. I have, as we all have, the greatest possible sympathy for the unhappy populations who have been subjected to the horrors of German rule, but you will not make those horrors any less if you create fresh subjects of difficulty and controversy by your terms of peace. I am satisfied that revenge would be both wrong and foolish. But I am, of course, equally satisfied that precautions against any further aggression are absolutely essential. In this matter I have long come to the conclusion that you may be ever so right, and your reasons may be unassailable, but, unless there is some force to back up those reasons, they will not, as things stand in the world at present, be effective. Conversely, if you take the German view and say that it is only force that matters, you will find that a disregard for morality and reason will be fatal to any settlement that you may attempt to make. You must have a combination of the two; Might must back up Right. If you attempt to ignore the proper place of force and the proper place of reason, your settlement will be a failure.
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It is for that reason that, personally, I very strongly hope—though I admit that there are many difficulties which will have to be faced—that those who have been personally guilty of the horrors which have been committed in this war shall be tried and adequately punished. I think that that is essential; I do not believe that the public opinion of the world will be satisfied unless that is done. I understand that that is part of the policy of the Government. I hope that they will stick to it, and that they are working out, with their advisers, how to deal with the very great difficulties which will arise in giving effect to it.
In the same way, I cannot doubt that we must enforce the disarmament of the Axis Powers, and particularly of Germany. I think that that is essential. I know that that also will be difficult, but it must be enforced until we can be satisfied, not only by what they say but by what they do, that they have abandoned the pernicious doctrines on which their present action is founded. I do not think that it is right to put any particular term—five years, ten years, or whatever it may be—to that. It will be necessary to see how the German people react to it. I have the greatest sympathy with what fell from my noble friend Lord Addison about the necessity of remodelling German education. I should certainly like to see that done. Whether that is one of the things that arc practicable by outside effort, I am not quite so sure. The Germans are making a most awful mess of their attempt to remodel Norwegian education, and the difficulties are undoubtedly very great. Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable to me than the extra-ordinary folly of the German Government and of the German directing authorities. They seem to me always to do the wrong thing, and to do it in the worst possible way. Therefore, although I should like to see the reform of education, even that seems to be a matter which ought to come of itself from Germany, rather than be imposed from outside.
In any case, however, whatever they may do and whatever steps they may take, we must have security given to us by the possession of some international strength—for I do not think that any single nation is strong enough to wield it—which will see that any attempt at aggression is so instantly corrected that it

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will become an impossible policy for the Chancelleries of Europe. What the machinery for that purpose may be is, I agree, a very difficult question. I have great sympathy there with what fell from my noble friend Lord Perth. He and I have collaborated for many years on the thesis which he recommended, and I hope that it may be possible to do something on those lines. I agree most heartily with him that a great deal depends on the attitude which the United States may decide to take in this matter. However it is done, our objective is, and must be, two-fold. One object is security. We must have, even if we call it an Alliance for Peace, overwhelming force available against the aggressor. That is essential. How to secure it is a different matter, and I agree requires grave consideration; but it must be done, or all our plans of economic; reform and social justice and all the rest of it, admirable though they may be, will turn out to be perfectly futile, and will be blown away by the first gust of international passion.
I do not deny that it is necessary to promote international co-operation and friendship for progress and advance as closely and as continually as possible. I regard security and co-operation as two causes closely locked together. They are the only road, as I see it, towards the peace and prosperity of the world. Whatever the machinery you aim at—and as to that I will not say more than I have already said—you must take account not only of the events of the war, though that would be an important matter, but of the great currents of opinion and feeling which are sweeping through the world at the present time. You cannot ignore, for instance, the tremendous force of nationalism, not only, or even mainly, in the Axis countries, but in those countries where you find the population ready to endure every hardship and suffering in order to assert the independence and sovereignty of their own country. You cannot ignore the feeling that is driving these men women and children into the mountains of Serbia or into the deserts of other places. Those feelings are prodigiously strong, they are as strong as any feelings in the world. And in any attempt at international organization—and, as I have said, I am confident you will have to have some international organization—you trust not forget the strength of that feeling. Nor must you
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forget that great factor, to which we heard eloquent allusion by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, the Prussian tradition of aggression. That represents a very real truth, and a very important truth, now very much sunk into the consciousness of the great mass of the world's population. You have to take account of that in any organization you set up. Nor must you forget the great political currents, the current of Communism, the passionate devotion to Democracy, and other currents of that kind, which we find to-day so much in different countries.
All these things mean a mass of difficulties and problems, which I do not think have ever been exceeded in the history of the world. I earnestly hope that the Government are giving every attention that they can possibly spare from the actual conduct of the war—of course, I admit that that must take precedence of everything else—in order to prepare themselves for dealing with these questions. When they go into the conference, whenever it meets and wherever it meets, if they have got a definite policy—a policy, I trust, discussed and agreed to with some of our great Allies—they will be able in all human probability to obtain, if not the whole of it, a large part. There is nothing peculiar about international conferences; they are just the same as conferences or meetings in this country among our fellow-countrymen. The man who goes into them, having thought out the subject and having a definite policy to propose, always has a prodigious advantage in dealing with the difficulties which arise. And we must have that advantage, but it means preparation. I can only say that in my judgment the broad principle we shall have to insist upon internationally is the greatest amount of national independence consistent with peace and economic progress. I do very earnestly and profoundly beg the Government not merely to tell us—I am sure they will not—that everything has been done that ought to be done and that every avenue is being explored, but that they really will devote themselves to this subject, because it is on the right solution of these tremendous problems that the future of this country and of the Empire and of the world at large may well depend.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, though I think it is likely that this debate will now carry on until a later day, it may

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be for the convenience of the House that there should be some statement on behalf of the Government at an early stage in the debate. The Motion which is before your Lordships' House to-day states that it is of urgent importance that the Government should prepare without delay the proposals they intend to make for world settlement after the war. When I read the terms of the Motion I felt, like the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, how very wise Lord Addison had been to confine himself to urging His Majesty's Government to "prepare," rather than declare, their peace aims. And the sincere and very moving speech which the noble Lord made in opening the debate this afternoon certainly confirms that impression. The wisdom and the restraint which he showed, and which has been imitated by all other speakers this afternoon, might well serve as a model for some others outside.
There are indeed, as we all know, some in this country who press for an immediate and detailed declaration of war aims, or peace aims—for they are in effect the same thing—by His Majesty's Government. But while I think we must all sympathize with their desire to know what progress is being made in the formulation of a post-war policy in the international sphere, there are, I think, overwhelming reasons against a unilateral declaration of policy at the present stage. We have already put our names, as has already been said this afternoon, to the Atlantic Charter. This lays down the fundamental principles on which the peace settlement must be based, and I do not think there is any one—certainly there has been no one this afternoon—who dissents from those principles. As I tried to explain in a debate we had in this House a few days ago, His Majesty's Government regard themselves as absolutely pledged to carry out the Atlantic Charter—all the Articles of the Atlantic Charter. I would emphasize this in view of certain doubts which I think the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Sankey, expressed earlier in the debate. But what the Government are now being asked to do by the people outside to whom I have referred would be something quite different, and that is to apply those principles to certain detailed aspects of a post-war settlement now, in other words to define the details of it.
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The noble Lord will perhaps remember a debate which took place in this House on the 18th November of last year. I think it was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sempill. On that occasion I explained the difficulties involved in any unilateral statement of allied policy, and I recalled some words which had been spoken by the Prime Minister in another place on his return from the Atlantic meeting. I would like to quote those words again, because, though I think there is a general view in this House that there should not be an early declaration of peace aims, there is still in various parts of the country a pressure in that direction. My right honourable friend said:
" Questions have been asked, and will no doubt be asked, as to what exactly is implied by this or that point, and explanations have been invited. It is a wise rule that when two parties have agreed to a statement, one of them should not thereafter, without consultation with the other, seek to put special or strained interpretations on this or that passage."
Those words are profoundly true. Clearly the application of the principles of the Atlantic Charter must be a matter not for His Majesty's Government alone; it must be the joint task of all the nations who have adhered to the Atlantic Charter. When peace comes, that will be the time for the inclusion of those principles in a legal document, such as I think the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Sankey, suggested. Anything I said to-day would be, I think, not merely useless, but would be far more likely to do harm than good.
The noble Lord, Lord Lang, whose return to our debates all of us welcome so very warmly, did I think urge a certain further clarification of the Atlantic Charter. But he will I am sure be well aware of the dangers attaching to any premature declaration of peace aims. I feel it is almost impertinence on my part to remind him and also the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, who also in his heart of hearts, I think, hankers for some statement of peace aims—at any rate before the end of the war—that there was of this an outstanding example before the end of the last war, the Fourteen Points of President Wilson. The House will remember that on January 8, 1918, President Wilson proclaimed his famous Fourteen Points as a basis for a world settlement. When in the following year the Peace Treaty was signed the Germans loudly complained, and continued to complain, that the

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settlement eventually reached differed widely from the Fourteen Points. How far there was truth in their contention has always been a matter of dispute. Some authorities have taken one view, some have taken another; but at any rate the discrepancies which the Germans affected to have discovered served them, as the House knows, as a basis for a charge of breach of faith against the Allies and played a considerable part in embittering the feelings between victors and vanquished in the years that followed.
What is the moral that we can draw from this episode of history? I suggest it is this, that it is a great mistake, during a war, to anticipate the terms of the future peace settlement. The conditions which obtained in 1919 were not the same conditions that obtained in January, 1918, and it was inevitably on the basis of the conditions obtaining in 1919 that the peace settlement was made. There is another moral which has to be drawn. It was very clearly defined in a pamphlet by Mr. Gathorne-Hardy entitled "The Fourteen Points and the Treaty of Versailles." This is what he said, and it has application to all of us who are engaged in politics:
" The real moral of these discrepancies between the opinions of highly qualified authorities may well be that political oratory is incapable of exact interpretation, and therefore forms a very unsatisfactory basis for a binding international agreement. The politician, particularly in the fluctuating circumstances of a great war, is necessarily alive to the dangers of committing himself irrevocably by his utterances."
It is a slightly satirical quotation, but it has a measure of truth in it.
" It is characteristic of his art to use language capable of various explanations. Legal or diplomatic draftsmanship, on the other hand, calls for a precision that leaves no doubt in the minds of the parties as to the nature and extent of their obligations. The two forms of expression stand at opposite poles. Any one who attempts to construe the Fourteen Points is at once confronted with a series of highly debatable questions."
That is the view of Mr. Gathorne-Hardy, and there is a great deal of truth in it. It is most important that representative spokesmen of the Government should not now fall into that error. For all the reasons I have quoted, I believe that the arguments against His Majesty's Government being drawn, at the present stage, into a detailed declaration of peace aims during the war are unanswerable, and I do not propose to make one to-day.
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We have the Atlantic Charter, and surely that guarantees us against those dangers of misrepresentation to which the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, referred during his speech.
But if it is a mistake to make a declaration of war aims, that is not to say it is a mistake for a nation to prepare war aims. That is a very different thing. Clearly, any responsible Government ought, to the full extent that is possible, to make preparations for the situation which will arise when peace comes, or rather when the war is over—for there is likely to be an interim period between war and peace. To neglect that, we should all agree, would be a deplorable dereliction of duty. The very fact that last time, as the noble Lord, Lord Lang, said, the Government were perhaps not wholly ready, makes it all the more incumbent on us on this occasion not to repeat that error. In preparing proposals for peace there are two different lines of approach, which are not inconsistent with each other but are, on the contrary, complementary. There is, first of all, what I would describe as the "exclusive approach"—that is to say, studying recent history, attempting to find out what errors we made last time, with a view to avoiding them this time. Of that aproach the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Perth, is a very good example indeed.
It is a remarkable feature of this House, if I may say so, that whatever subject is raised, it is almost certain that we shall find among the speakers one of the greatest experts on that subject in the world; and this debate has certainly been no exception to that rule. No one can speak on what I may call the experiments in international co-operation which were made after the last war with such authority as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, and the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil. It is exceedingly valuable to this House and to the Government, and to the country as a whole, that we should have the benefit of their experienced advice at a time like this, and I am certain the House will have listened with the greatest interest to their speeches.
The noble Earl, Lord Perth, spoke in particular of the League of Nations. I know it is the fashion to-day, principally among those who never had any practical experience of Geneva, to decry the League. We are told that it was useless

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and that, instead of being an instrument for peace, it had within it the seeds of war. I do not believe that anybody who ever went to Geneva would accept that very superficial assumption. The League had undoubtedly severe defects which we all recognize, but I still believe—and I think any one who went to Geneva would agree—it represented a very great step forward in international machinery in a world which was no longer composed of nations that were independent and self-sufficing, but interdependent and bound to each other by many links of commerce and mutual interest. At the same time, I do not suppose that the warmest advocate of the League would pretend that it achieved all that its founders expected. Unfortunately, after a brilliant start, it became gradually less and less effective from the political point of view, although even now its organization is doing very good work in the social, economic, and humanitarian sphere.
This is not the moment to go into the long history of the League, and I should find myself on very controversial ground indeed if I did. But the noble Earl, Lord Perth, himself suggested some of the reasons for its failure, and it is essential for us, if we are considering the future, to take these things into account. There was one main reason to which the noble Earl referred, and he dealt with it so fully and authoritatively that I do not propose to add anything on that subject. But there were one or two other reasons about which I should like to say something. I suggest that a second main cause of its failure was that it did not have behind it the sanction of preponderant military force. Strange though it may seem to all of us now, it does not appear to have occurred to the statesmen and peoples of the Member-States that "collective security," as it was called, was not an alternative to armaments, but that the two were complementary and must go hand in hand; otherwise you may get indeed collectivity, but you get no security.
We would, I suggest, do well in future to govern our conduct in the international sphere by the principles which apply in our own national life. I suppose we here in England are about the most law-abiding nation in the world. But we still maintain a large and efficient police force. We do this, not because we want to be able to quell disorder when it has arisen; we
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do it because we want to show that the forces of law and order are so strong that it is not worth while for lawless people to attempt to break the peace. As I think the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, has already said, we must apply the same principles in international affairs. For law-abiding nations to disarm their Army or their Navy because they have won one war is really just as foolish as it would be for a law-abiding community to disband its police force because it has quelled one riot. The forces of order—and this principle is incorporated in the Atlantic Charter itself—must be stronger than the forces of disorder if peace is to be preserved. Criminals, whether they be nations or whether they be individuals, must be fully disarmed. As a noble Lord said this afternoon, a time may come when all men will be naturally law-abiding, but that time certainly is not yet, and in any settlement that we are going to reach at the end of this war we must take account of human imperfections.
The third reason to which I suggest was due the failure of the League—and this was referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Sankey—was that there was no adequate provision for peaceful change. The framers of the Covenant thought indeed they had solved this problem by Article 19 of the Covenant. But in practice. Article 19 turned out to be a complete dead-letter. It was found on every occasion—I think without exception—that nations were unwilling to refer problems affecting their sovereignty to the arbitrament of third parties, and so Article 19 was in fact never operated. This question of peaceful change clearly presents, as I think has already been said, one of the most complex and difficult problems with which the world is likely to be faced. No nation, whether it is big or small, will willingly or easily submit to the derogation of its sovereignty, the sense of sovereignty is so deeply ingrained in us all. But we must face the fact, that the world will not stand still, and sooner or later changes will be inevitable. I know this problem is going to be very difficult, but unless we can devise some machinery for making changes peacefully, ultimately they will always be made by war. That is a fact we must face. These considerations, which I put forward with very great diffidence to your Lordships, are, I suggest, some of the main lessons that we may draw from the failures of

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international co-operation in the period between the two wars. They must, I think, be taken fully into account by all those statesmen who may, and should, be already beginning to prepare proposals for the coming world peace system.
So much for what I have described as the "exclusive approach" to the problem of preparing for a new world system. But clearly that is not in itself enough. Evidently it is not. We need not only to learn the lessons but to apply them and to incorporate them in some new and positive scheme. We need also to discuss that scheme, even at the present early stage, with other nations, so that when war comes to an end it may be ready to be put into operation. I think there have been certain suggestions—not, I am glad to say, very strongly expressed—in speeches that have been made this afternoon, that this has not yet been done, that preparations are not being made, that schemes are not being considered, and so on. But it would be a great mistake for noble Lords to assume this. I can assure all those noble Lords who expressed anxiety, Lord Perth, Lord Cecil of Chel-wood and others, that plans are being hammered out, that exchanges of view are already taking place, and that various aspects of the post-war problem are being considered with the Dominions, with the United States, with Russia, and with the other United Nations. Noble Lords will fully appreciate that these exchanges are still at a confidential stage, and certainly they have not reached a point when either His Majesty's Government or any other Government could make a general declaration. But there are certain matters about which I can already give the House some information, and this I am very glad to do, because it may help to show the sort of lines on which we are working.
There are indeed certain questions which have been referred to this afternoon on which in any case consideration could not possibly be postponed, for they deal with the situation which will arise immediately upon the conclusion of hostilities. The noble Lord, Lord Addison, in particular I think, referred to the feeding of European people. Clearly that is a matter of the most urgent and immediate importance. The first step in reconstruction is what may be called relief. At the end of the last war no preparation had been made in advance—I think this is a point
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which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Lang—to meet the needs of the war-stricken countries; and it was not, I think until January, 1919, that a relief organization was set up; and although in fact it distributed a very substantial volume of relief supplies, mainly from the United States, many of your Lordships will remember the widespread economic dislocation and the tragic amount of human suffering, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, which could not adequately be dealt with.
This time, as has already been pointed out, the areas devastated by the war will be far greater, and the problem of postwar relief will be correspondingly vaster. As the noble Lord, Lord Addison, said, the greater part of Europe will emerge from the war denuded of stocks of food" as well as of raw materials, and with few financial resources. Not only must food be provided in order to prevent starvation, but agriculture and industry must be revived, so that the peoples of each country may, as soon as possible, be able to support themselves. Unless steps can be taken rapidly to ensure supplies to the necessitous areas, a process of disintegration may set in which will create further dangers and political strain. Nor will this problem be confined to Europe. It may be equally necessary to provide relief for countries in the Near East and in the Far East. Steps will have to be taken on the basis of needs, and effective machinery for distribution will have to be organized. It is an immense problem and the planning of the arrangements for these purposes cannot be left to settlement when the war is ended.
Happily, there is to-day, both in the Government and outside, a general appreciation that immediate action must be' taken to provide for post-war needs and to ensure that economic recovery will be restarted as soon as possible. I think His Majesty's Government can claim to have taken the lead in this matter. As your Lordships will be aware, as far back as August, 1940, at the very lowest moment in the war, the Prime Minister pointed to the need for arranging in advance for the speedy entry of food into the enslaved areas of Europe when they had been cleared of German forces and had genuinely regained their freedom. Following on this declaration, His Majesty's Government took the initiative

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of convening a meeting of Allied Governments at St. James's Palace in September, 1941. At this meeting, as your Lordships will remember, a resolution was proposed by the Foreign Secretary, setting out that it was the common aim of the Allied Governments to secure that supplies of food, raw materials and articles of prime necessity should be made available for the post-war needs of the liberated countries.
The resolution provided that each of the Allied Governments and authorities should be primarily responsible for making provision for the needs of its own people, but that their respective plans should be co-ordinated in a spirit of interallied co-operation. Accordingly, each of the Allied Governments and authorities should prepare estimates of their requirements and of the order of priority in which supplies should be delivered. It was further agreed that the re-provisioning of Europe would require the most efficient employment after the war of shipping resources, and that plans to this end should be worked out as soon as possible. Finally, a small bureau, which for the time being consists of a few British officials, was set up to co-ordinate the estimates of requirements and present proposals to the Allied Governments. In accordance with this resolution the preparation of the estimates of requirements is going forward. The work is being undertaken by the representatives of the Allied Governments in London who are in daily touch with the officials of the bureau engaged in collating these estimates.
Various technical problems have arisen which are the subject of general discussion, and a Committee on which agricultural experts sit under the Chairmanship of Sir John Russell, whom your Lordships know very well, is making the survey of post-war agricultural requirements such as the produce of the special qualities of seed required and the position of livestock, agricultural machinery and fertilizers. Experts from the United States as well as the Dominions are collaborating in this work. Estimates of requirements having been ascertained, the next step will be to organize the provision of supplies. It was expected that in many parts of the world there would be excessive production which could not be absorbed during the
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war and would be available for post-war requirements. That applied to such foodstuffs as wheat and maize and coffee and also the supplies of some raw materials, particularly cotton and wool which would also be adequate to meet all demands, so that it might be possible to organize the supply of some of the most important primary commodities. In the case of other commodities, however, the extension of the war to the Far East has resulted in available supplies being fully absorbed by the war requirements of the United Nations. Therefore, there is no longer a question of laying up stocks of these commodities and making them available, and arrangements will be needed to co-ordinate world production and allocate it according to need, as happens with all commodities with regard to which there is a shortage.
If the extension of the war has aggravated the problem of securing supplies, it has also brought about a new alliance of the free nations. The problem of postwar relief is no longer the concern merely of the Allied Nations. It is a world-wide problem which can be dealt with only by concerted action between the United Nations. His Majesty's Government are in close touch with the United States Government on this subject, for no policy and no programme can be formulated in the near future without such collaboration if it is to assure as far as is humanly possible that effective measures are organized to meet the events of the postwar world. I cannot say more at this moment, but I hope that the plans made between all the Governments concerned will be sufficiently acceptable to meet any emergencies that may arise. I have dealt at some length with this particular point. It has been most urgently raised in the debate and I hope your Lordships will therefore forgive me.
Then there are economic questions to which many noble Lords have devoted considerable portions of their speeches. It would not be possible for me to go at very great length into these exceedingly difficult questions, but I would say this. The Atlantic Charter outlines the objective which the United Nations have set before themselves. To give practical effect to this objective, the fullest and frankest consultation between the United Nations is called for. We hope the Conference held recently will be a new step

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in such consultations not only between this country and the United States, but between all like minded countries. This Conference will necessarily deal with many of the matters referred to in this debate, especially with international monetary arrangements to which the noble Lord, Lord Addison, referred, and in general international co-operation to provide security against unemployment and to provide the maximum possible prosperity for all countries. So far as His Majesty's Government are concerned, we shall be ready to consider with an open mind—with a very open mind in fact—all proposals put forward either from the American side or by others of the United Nations, and we shall be ready to put forward constructive proposals of our own.
In the immediate post-war period it is reasonable to expect that shortage of supplies and transport difficulties will continue, and measures to prevent inflation will be as necessary or even more necessary than during the continuance of the war. War-time measures, such as rationing and control and guidance of investments, must remain national needs and will necessarily continue for some time. Willingness to make sacrifices for the general good will be as important in the post-war period as in the war period. That I can assure your Lordships will be the spirit which will actuate His Majesty's Government and the Governments of the United Nations as a whole.
I would like now to say a word or two about what is being done on a rather different plane. Considerable progress is being made in the discussion of post-war problems under the auspices of the International Labour Organization. A meeting of the Emergency Committee of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organization was recently held in London. The purpose of this meeting was to carry further the work begun by the New York Conference on post-war prosperity and reconstruction. The nature of the work which was to be carried out by the International Labour Organization was not closely defined by the Conference, nor was it indeed possible for the Conference to do more than indicate its general character. The part which the Organization can play will depend on the circumstances and the use which the Governments continue to make of it when
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the time comes. One of the main tasks was, therefore, to decide on what subject and in what way the International Labour Organization should take up certain economic studies which are necessary for the preparation of post-war planning and measures of long-term reconstruction. It is intended that this Committee should serve as a link between the Allied Governments and responsible agencies who are planning post-war reconstruction. Its main function will be to keep itself informed of financial and economic plans and to scrutinize them in relation to the International Labour Organization. The meeting of the Committee also provided arrangements for co-operation between the International Labour Organization and the economic and International Department of the League of Nations and other international agencies. Preparations were made with regard to the programme of studies of the International Labour Organization with special reference to public work policy, immigration and textiles. Perhaps it is hardly necessary to add that His Majesty's Government, as a member of the International Labour Organization, will continue to give it every assistance in their power.
I hope that I have said enough to show the House that steps are being taken on the official plane. But that is not all. Supplementary to these formal negotiations, there are informal contacts too, equally close exchanges of views, going on between His Majesty's Ministers here and Allied Ministers in London. The Foreign Secretary, in the normal course of his daily duties, is in close and regular touch with the Allied Foreign Ministers in London, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary of the Treasury are in constant touch with the Allied Finance Ministers. Opportunity is thus afforded for exchanges of views not only on current affairs but on the financial aspects of post-war reconstruction. Particular attention is being paid at the moment to problems which arise in connexion with inflation and currency difficulties which will have to be faced when the occupied territories are freed from enemy domination. The President of the Board of Trade equally maintains touch with the Allies.
One medium of discussion is provided through the agency of a Sub-Committee set up for the purpose of exploring the

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post-war needs of South-Eastern Europe. In form, this is a Sub-Committee of the Post-War Export Trade Committee, but in practice its scope is very wide, since discussion of post-war conditions in that part of the world involves questions of a fundamental kind. Such questions cannot indeed be answered adequately until there are more definite signs of what post-war conditions are to be and what commercial policy is to be followed. The Sub-Committee's work should, however, contribute something to these very questions, since it involves a study of the means of raising the standard of life in South-Eastern Europe and putting those countries in a prosperous and tranquil state. The method adopted by the Sub-Committee is to hold a series of conferences, which are tentative and semi-official in character, without commitment to any particular policy on either side, with representatives of the countries concerned and with the people in this country who have made a study of the subject. This matter has also been discussed with members of the United States Administration visiting London, and an exchange of views has taken place on the scope of the problem. Finally, though I do not propose to go fully into this, apart altogether from official and semi-official contacts, there are other contacts between the Allied experts here in London. These go on the whole time. They are blessed by His Majesty's Government and are of the greatest assistance, because we have been fortunate to have within our shores some of the greatest authorities on these many and difficult problems.
I have tried briefly, and I am sure imperfectly, to enumerate some of the steps which are being taken by His Majesty's Government to prepare plans for the post-war world. I am afraid I have kept the House rather long over it, but it is only possible in the course of a single speech to touch the fringe of this vast and complicated problem. At any rate, I hope that I have said enough to make clear to the House that His Majesty's Government are not being backward or supine in this matter, and the Allied Governments are equally working, and equally working along the same lines. Noble Lords will have read with appreciation a remarkable series of speeches—they have been referred to, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Addison—which
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have been delivered recently in the United States by members of President Roosevelt's Administration. There have been speeches by Mr. Cordell Hull, by Vice-President Wallace and Mr. Perkins, his very able assistant, and finally by Mr. Sumner Welles. I would in particular commend to your Lordships' attention the very remarkable and moving declaration made by Mr. Welles within the last few days. In all these speeches, the statesmen concerned have stressed their country's readiness to shoulder full responsibility for building a better world. Our outlook, as we believe, is the same as theirs; our aims are the same as theirs; and we can assure them that we propose to face these post-war problems with the same breadth of outlook as themselves.
Equally, we seek the closest co-operation with our Allies in Soviet Russia. Noble Lords will remember that during the visit of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary to Moscow last year he had exchanges of views with M. Stalin and members of the Soviet Government on questions of the post-war organization of peace and security. These exchanges of views have provided important and useful material for further elaboration of concrete proposals on this subject, and since that visit we have kept, and shall continue to keep, in close touch with a nation which is playing so very great a part in winning this war and has an equally large part to play in winning the peace. Finally, there is the great, ancient, and indomitable people of China. I suppose that never has the star of China shone as brightly as it shines to-day. Never has the world owed her so much. So aged in wisdom, so young in spirit, she has a great contribution to make to the future of humanity. We welcome her co-operation in the task of world settlement which lies before us.
And noble Lords should make no mistake; it is no easy task. The edifice which we seek to build must have its foundations deeply grounded in the past, and yet it must be susceptible to constant adaptation and improvement to meet changing conditions. Its windows must lie wide open to the keen fresh air of the future. We have already the broad design of this edifice in the Atlantic Charter, but we have not yet at our disposal the materials for completing the edifice, nor can we yet know, until the war comes to an end, exactly what those

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materials will be. What we can do and must do is to prepare the preliminary plans. On that task His Majesty's Government and the Allied Governments are at present engaged. I hope that no one will underestimate—no one can overestimate—the importance of this work. For on its success or on its failure must depend the whole future peace, happiness and prosperity of the world.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, it is a little difficult for me to follow the speeches which have been delivered to-day as they have examined so many different points in connexion with the Motion moved by Lord Addison. I think that Lord Addison is to be congratulated on having put down this Motion, and also, if I may say so, on the speech which he made upon it. Certainly I found very little to disagree with in that speech. Indeed, I would have supported most of it on any occasion. He is also to be congratulated upon having extracted—because it is extraction, after many requests—the very full statement, having regard to the times, from our Leader the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne. The fact that such a speech has been made by the noble Viscount to-day will be of very great encouragement to this country and to the conquered territories.
I was a little puzzled when I first read this Motion because, like some other noble Lords, I was not clear whether the intention was that these plans" should be disclosed at once or not. The noble Lord, Lord Addison, informed us that he did not intend them to be disclosed at once, and I do not see how it is possible that they should be, with the war in its present stage. We do not know how or when or where the war is going to end, where it will end so far as we ourselves are concerned, where it will end so far as the United States are concerned, and where it will end so far as Russia and China are concerned; so that to suggest that the Government can prepare full proposals to-day for a world settlement seems to me quite impossible, and I was not at all surprised that the noble Viscount in his reply was not able to go further than he did.
The whole of this debate has been concerned principally with the restoration of the peoples of the conquered territories and with the social and economic conditions to which we hope to lead them after
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the war. It is quite right that that should be so. After all, there is no one in this country or amongst those peoples in Europe to-day who is not yearning for a better order than that which has been imposed by Hitler, and who does not seek for some relief of the sufferings and the starvation which the peoples' of the occupied countries are undergoing at the present time. I fully support everything which has been said in this debate in that regard. At the same time, however, I think that perhaps too little has been said about the aggressor nations and about how we are going to prevent them in the future from once more launching the world into the abject misery in which it finds itself to-day. I should have liked to hear that side of the world settlement stressed with rather more emphasis than it has been. It is perfectly true that the noble Lord, Lord Addison, did refer to the question of the prolonged occupation of Berlin, and to the question of the reeducation of the German people, and he also referred to the destruction of German militarism. This was supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, in so far as he said that Germany should be disarmed after the war, and that we ourselves should remain fully armed.
I want to emphasize that that was one of the great mistakes which we made after the last war. We made a number of mistakes at that time, and those mistakes should not be repeated. First of all, we did not occupy Berlin at all. This time we must occupy Berlin, and we must have a prolonged occupation not only of Berlin but of many other centres in Germany, in order to achieve the re-education of the people of Germany. Secondly, we must not ourselves disarm; we must remain sufficiently strong not only to see that our measures of disarmament and security in Germany are complied with, but to secure the strength of our Empire as a whole. The next point is one on which I should like to lay great emphasis. It is that after the war we failed to recognize that, since the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, Prussian militarism, with all its egregious faults, had been gradually infiltrated by Prussia throughout the length and breadth of Germany. By not appreciating that, we failed to apply the only obvious method calculated to combat this aggressive cult and calculated to have prevented Germany, under the leadership of Prussia, once more entering into war.

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How are we going to loosen that stranglehold? How can this be done effectively? I venture to submit that the only possible way of effectually accomplishing this is by separating Prussia after this war from the rest of Germany, and by making her into an entirely separate entity, so that in future she will have no sort of control over the rest of Germany. I am not prepared to-day to enter into the question of what should constitute the boundaries of Prussia in the future, but that must be one of the matters to be arranged between ourselves and our Allies when the time comes, and in the meantime it requires very careful study not only by our own Government but with our Allies and with the Dominions. It will be said that this will not be acceptable to Prussia. Of course it will not be acceptable to Prussia; but, as far as the jest of Germany is concerned, she is likely to view it with very little regret or difficulty. We must not forget that in 1923 Bavaria, because of her dislike of Prussia, attempted to secede from Germany, but was not allowed to do so by the Allies. I believe that only by the separation of Prussia can we cut out this cancerous sore of Prussia in Europe which for so long has disturbed the peace of Europe and of the world.
Let me remind your Lordships of the number of wars in the last 75 years instigated by Prussia either with Germany or as a principal part of Germany. She has attacked France three times; Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Poland, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Russia, twice; Norway, Holland, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, once. So that practically no part of Europe has escaped from the brutal attentions of this savage and infamous aggressor. These four points all are of the utmost gravity, and I suggest should be borne prominently in mind when the Government are considering the question of the world settlement.
Now I want to pass to another question. Notwithstanding past and present acts of aggression and atrocities, there are still many people in this country who apparently have not studied German history, and fail to understand the true character of Germany and what she might do again if she had another opportunity. Such people—credulous sentimentalists, as I described them in your Lordships' House not long ago—are
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foolishly urging wholesale appeasement and conciliation of Germany as a means of securing Germany's good will and of settling Europe peacefully after the war. Only a week or so ago I listened to a speech in your Lordships' House which, to quote the description of a noble Lord, gave me neither indigestion nor nausea, but made me sad—I might say almost ashamed—to think that a member of your Lordships' House should at this time give expression to the sentiments and views which he had the audacity to state here. If the Duke of Bedford had made that statement outside I should not have been surprised if the Home Secretary, in spite of the friendly support that he was given in his speech, had taken a very serious view of it. For myself, I should have been glad had he done so. All history and all the facts of Germany's former and present actions are against the belief that general appeasement and conciliation, as advocated by the noble Duke; as advocated by Lord Ponsonby, as advocated by quite a number of people outside this House, would ever secure a satisfactory and lasting peace.
Nevertheless we cannot unfortunately afford to disregard these noble appeasers, who, through their insidious writings and speeches and propaganda, and aided by German refugee propagandists resident in this country, are trying hard in every way possible to secure the adoption of the policy of total appeasement, a policy which, as I think all noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon will agree, would be of lasting detriment to our country and our Empire, and indeed to the whole world. It is for this reason that I ask your Lordships to bear with me a little longer whilst I bring to your notice a recently published book which is having a wide circulation. It is called Conditions of Peace, and the author is Professor E. H. Carr, who, judging from his book, is a total appeaser of the first water. Now let us look for a moment at the record of this gentleman. He was originally for a good many years in our Diplomatic Service. Subsequently, in the early stages of this war, he held the responsible office of Director of Foreign Publicity in the Ministry of Information. He then became Professor of International Politics at University College, South Wales. He is now, I understand, being employed in an influential position by the

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most important daily newspaper and leader of public opinion in this country, The Times. He is therefore a man whose views are bound to carry weight and to be listened to.
If your Lordships will bear with me, I will read some short passages from his book. Whilst Professor Carr admits that the military occupation of Germany is necessary, and must be completed by some immediate measures of disarmament, he goes on to say:
" but the process of disarmament should be limited to what can be achieved within a year of the laying down of arms."
That, as your Lordships know, is quite contrary to Article 8 of the Atlantic Charter. It has been denied to-day, I think, by the noble Lord. Lord Addison, who in his speech said that however long disarmament takes it must be fully accomplished. The noble Viscount, our Leader, in his reply, gave expression to the same opinion. Professor Carr, on the other hand, Suggests that, whether disarmament be complete or not, it should be abandoned after one year. Then, writing on another page about the ecomonic position of Germany, Professor Carr says:
" We cannot put back the clock by breaking up the economic unity of Germany; we must help to build up the economic system into a larger unit under different forms of control."
That policy seems to me disastrous, especially for our European Allies, and it is a policy which we should all live to regret if we pursued it.
But when Professor Carr comes to deal with the question of our Colonies he is staggering, because his proposal would have no other result than to break up our Colonial Empire, and inferentially the British Empire. This is what he says:
" A way will thus be open to treat the administration and management of Colonial territories as a matter of international concern."
I wonder what our loyal Colonies would say to that. I can well imagine their bitter sense of frustration and betrayal. And what would be the position of this country if the British Empire were broken up? Do these people ever stop to think about this when devising their theoretical paper plans?
Finally, let me give your Lordships one more quotation from this mischievous book:
" Hitler, Mussolini, and many of the other Nazi and Fascist leaders may suffer vengeance
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at the hands of the German and Italian peoples. If they escape they should be subjected to no indictment save that of history, and suffer no penalty save that of permanent isolation in some remote and secure place."
This proposal is monstrous, in view of what has happened and what is happening to-day, and of the barbarous brutalities and atrocities for which these people and others are responsible. And it is quite contrary to the public statements of our Prime Minister, who has more than once told us that these people will suffer retribution, not vengeance. Professor Carr is indeed an active danger to this country and its future in the position which he holds, and if we were so foolish as to be guided by his views, we should certainly lose the peace, and all our sacrifices would be in vain.
In conclusion, I should like to say this. It is obviously very important that in any proposals for world settlement we should have every consideration for the views and wishes of our Allies who are fighting so valiantly beside us in our titanic struggle for freedom and liberty. We have heard this afternoon from the noble Viscount the Leader of the House that this will be the case, and we have heard to what extent the various matters are being-tied up; but I confess I was disappointed in the speech because of its failure to mention our Dominions. I am not quite clear—and I should like to know from the Government—to what extent the overseas Dominions are taking part in these discussions which are going on between the United Kingdom Government and the foreign Allied Governments in this country. The noble Viscount made no mention of anything of the sort, and I have felt for some time that we in this country are apt, owing perhaps to the difficult position in which we are placed, and the many matters which have to be dealt with urgently and otherwise, to overlook the assistance and the part which the Dominions are playing in the war.
I was somewhat disturbed this afternoon not to hear that they, through their representatives, were taking part in these discussions. I have no doubt that when the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, replies later to the debate he will be able to tell us that there is no reason for my anxiety, but I do feel that at this moment it is very important that we should take the Dominions into full consultation in whatever we do. I feel it is also most important—and it ought to be possible—that any proposals

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for world settlement put forward from this country should find full acceptance in the Dominions, and that in relation to any such proposals put forward now or after the war this country and the Dominions should march together in full accord just as we are doing at the present time.
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD: My Lords, as I seem fated for the time being, at any rate, to play in your Lordships' House the joint part of a Socrates, a Jeremiah, and an enfant terrible, to the disgust of the noble Viscount who has just' spoken, I am glad to say that this afternoon I find myself in a considerable measure of agreement with some of the speeches to which we have listened. From the standpoint of reconstruction, there is no issue so important as the reform of the financial and foreign trade system, because in the material sphere, at any rate, you can do very little without money and goods. As we were reminded, some months ago the noble Lord, Lord Sempill, delivered a very able speech on this question, but I am afraid that I found the reply made on behalf of the Government by the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, by no means satisfying, nor indeed can I say I have been entirely satisfied by his further remarks this afternoon. What he said was a little too reminiscent of what is often said in another place by representatives of the Treasury who, by their persistent evasiveness, would often be ludicrous if, by reason of the importance of the issues at stake, their attitude were not completely reprehensible. I do not for a moment suggest that the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, descended to the same depths of evasiveness that one sometimes observes in another place, but I did find his reply unsatisfactory.
If my memory is not at fault, he said on the earlier occasion that no definite action could be taken until the end of the war. He said that by the terms of the Atlantic Charter we could do nothing without the consent of Allied Nations, and he also, I think, said that further time was needed for the consideration of problems which, by their complexity, have baffled economists for the past hundred years. It may be perfectly true that we cannot hope to secure the full advantage of financial reforms as long as hostilities continue, but it is vitally necessary that the Government should put into operation measures
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of reform here and now, partly as an earnest of good faith to our own people and the people of other countries, and partly also to relieve the nation from the burden of further and unnecessary debt. There is no more common delusion than the idea that nothing can be done in the way of financial reform unless you get international co-operation. Money, however, is national and not international, and no injury would be done to the Allied Nations if our Government were to give a lead to the progressive sections in those nations by instituting reforms of the financial system which, subject of course to unavoidable war restrictions, enabled the people of the country to buy at a price fair to sellers all that their industries and commerce, working to full capacity, could produce or import. With regard to the suggestion that more time is needed for the study of complex problems, the solution of most of these problems was discovered quite twenty years ago. It is not more time for further study that is needed, but rather a greater willingness to adopt the measures already known, by those persons with financial interests and their economists, who unfortunately so largely control the Government of this country and of the United States; who also control the Press; and who in pre-war years, by their policy, were responsible for the paradox of poverty in the midst of potential abundance.
I can see no reason why the Government without delay should not put into operation measures of the following kind, or why they should not announce their recognition of certain factors of vital importance in the financial situation. They should declare their intention to regulate the country's money supply in the interests of consumers and producers and not of moneylenders. They should, as I have already said, declare their intention to adjust the supply of the nation's money to the things which money is needed to buy—namely, the country's maximum output and import of desired goods and services. They should also declare their intention permanently to abandon the use of gold, either in connexion with the creation and issue of money or in connexion with foreign trade. They should announce their intention to earmark for the use of the State whatever percentage of an adequate annual creation of money it is in the public interest that the

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State should spend, using taxation only as a means of preventing inflation. They should declare their intention, as rapidly as possible (with due regard to the need for preventing inflation), of liquidating the National Debt and of ceasing entirely from further borrowing by the State either from the banking system or from private individuals. They should also announce their recognition of the fact that in a labour-destroying age you cannot permanently expect to provide paid work for everyone, for which reason the great problem to be tackled in the future is rather a problem of "unempayment" "than a problem of unemployment.
With regard to foreign trade, the Government should announce their intention permanently to prohibit the buying and selling of currencies by private individuals and organizations. Such supplies of foreign currency as are obtained by the nation as a result of the trading operations of its merchants should be held by the Central Bank for the nation, and should be administered solely in the interests of trade. Currency rates of exchange should be fixed, either permanently or for the longest possible periods, by agreement with countries willing to trade on a sensible basis. Last, but not least, the Government should announce their recognition of the fact that international payments must be made with goods or services, and that on no account should a debt be settled by the borrowing of a further sum of money.
May I very briefly be allowed to say just a word or two in explanation of some of these points? Under the existing system, as your Lordships may be aware, money may only be created for three purposes—to enable banks to make loans, to enable them to buy securities, and to enable the Central Bank, the Bank of England, to buy gold. Only the first two of these purposes are of great practical importance. They mean that hardly any money may come into existence unless it brings in a tribute of interest to the banking system, or a tribute of dividends, and in the case of Government securities the dividends are obtained from the taxpayer. When the war is over there will be need for the payment of very large sums in compensation to those who have suffered war damage either as the result of enemy action or as the result of agents of the Government who have taken possession of their premises or land for war purposes, and it is extremely important,
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first, that this compensation should be adequate; and second, that it should not fall on the taxpayer. Part of it should be provided by the remission of taxation, and part of it by new money created not in the form of debt.
We are so accustomed by long-established practice to the idea of the Government obtaining its revenue largely from taxation, that we are all apt to overlook the clumsy and unbusinesslike character of this operation. It may, indeed, be compared to the action of a man who directs his cook to throw his breakfast every morning to the chickens, and then sends out his other servants to pursue the chickens and recapture from them such portions of the food as he requires for his own use. In this analogy the man represents the State; the chickens represent the people of the country; and the cook represents the banking system which creates and issues to the people of the country the whole of the nation's money supply with the exception of that portion which it creates and issues to the Government in the form of loans. Obviously it would be a much better arrangement for the man to direct his cook to send him his breakfast up direct, and to give the chickens their food direct.
If this plan were adopted in conjunction with sufficient taxation to prevent inflation, it would be possible to do away with the financial humbug of Warships Weeks and War Weapons Weeks. I call these financial devices "humbug" for these reasons. The general public are deceived into believing that the sums they subscribe increase the output of warships. In point of fact they do nothing of the kind, for when in time of war the State needs money for some war purpose, if it cannot obtain enough by taxation or by borrowing from ordinary citizens, it asks the bankers,, by a bank loan, to create new money for the purpose. Warships Weeks, therefore, are merely anti-inflation taxes, called by another name, to make people more willing to pay them. Some of the largest subscribers are banks, and when banks buy Government securities in connexion with Warships Weeks they create new money for the purpose, so that even the anti-inflation object is defeated. Alternatively, they and insurance companies may sell older holdings of Government securities and buy the new issues associated with Warships Weeks for the sake

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of the higher rate of interest. Here, it is true, there is no alteration in the total amount of money in existence. All that has happened has been that there has been no limitation to luxury spending, but the banks and insurance companies have secured for themselves a higher rate of interest at the expense of the taxpayer.
With regard to foreign trade, it is true that under the exigencies of war-time, currency speculation and the buying and selling of currency by private individuals has been prohibited; but there are many important people in financial circles who are longing for the time when what they euphemistically decribe as the "freedom of the exchanges" shall be restored. Indeed, a prominent official of the Bank of Montreal went so far as to say that one of the principal purposes for which the war is being waged is to restore the freedom of the exchanges. By this he meant that when the war had been won he hoped that the very sensible veto imposed by the German Government on the buying and selling of currency before the war would be removed. When I use the term "very sensible veto" some of your Lordships may think: "There goes Bedford again with his pro-Nazi propaganda." Unfortunately, however, it is a fact that the economic, system of the Axis Governments in peace-time, though not above criticism, is in many respects inconveniently superior to our own, and perhaps the explanation is this: undoubtedly there is very good evidence that some of the fundamental principles of finance which they have accepted were originally obtained from certain English progressive economists, notably from the late Mr. Arthur Kitson, who were derided in their own country and in America. Indeed Mr. Arthur Kitson in America was offered a bribe by financiers of £30,000 to keep his mouth shut about his ideas. As he would not accept the bribe, they ruined the business with which he was connected.
There is, however, another exceedingly important aspect of this whole question. It is not enough for the Government to have a fine programme of post-war reconstruction. It is extremely necessary that that programme should be put into operation while there is still something left to reconstruct with, and by the wise handling of the whole economic situation it is possible to bring nearer the day of peace.
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May I draw your Lordships' attention to some of the factors in the situation which at first sight may appear irrelevant and disconnected but in reality fit into the whole picture? Britain is a thickly populated, indeed I would say, an over-populated island, and is very dependent upon imports for its standard of life. Every day that the war continues, more and more of our foreign investments are being lost, sold, or rendered worthless, and more and more of our shipping is being sunk. More countries become self-supporting and no longer need our exports, and more and more of our export markets are being captured by America. It is by means of our exports and our foreign investments that we obtain the right to secure imports. Even if we adopt the most ideal political, social and financial system which the mind of man can devise, and therefore develop our own resources to maximum capacity and distribute fairly the burden of poverty, still, if we cannot get enough imports, we shall not be able to support our population even on the most meagre standards.
It is well to remember that this war, apart from the ideological reasons for which it is supposed to be fought, has other reasons by no means ideological. In one of its aspects it is a war between the Haves and the Have Nots, the Haves being represented by Britain, America, Russia and formerly France, and the Have Nots by Germany, Italy and Japan. Dr. Salter, in an article written in 1938, pointed out that Britain, France, Russia and the United States of America, owned or controlled more than 30,000,000 square miles of the surface of the world, including much of the richest, the most fertile and mineral-producing land. Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Austria, Hungary, possessed less than one million square miles, much of it of poor quality and remarkably deficient in minerals and raw materials. Britain, France, Russia and the United States owned 85 per cent. of the world's total minerals and raw materials. He went on to point out at the same time that Japan had issued a manifesto to the British people in which she complained that starvation and literal death were the results of the economic policy of Great Britain, and she added that if, and when, Great Britain decided to open her surplus resources to others, a possible solution of the world's problem could be arrived at.

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The answer is sometimes made that these countries could have got all they wanted through trade, but that is not an adequate answer. A country cannot import more than it can pay for by means of its exports. If exports are kept out by tariffs, it cannot get all the imports it requires. It is sometimes said, also, that Germany used some of her limited foreign currency for paying, not for ordinary goods, but for armaments. Here again there are two sides to the question. If she came to the conclusion that by peaceful means she would never be allowed by the financiers of the Democracies to get her fair share of the world's economic resources, she might therefore decide that by victory in war she would get a fair share of such ordinary goods.
Then, in another of its aspects, this war represents an attempt by the money-lending financiers, currency speculators and big business monopolists to destroy the relatively sane financial system of the Axis Powers. These financiers do not care two hoots about Liberty and Democracy, but they are very willing to exploit the generous emotions of those who do.
The plain fact is that we want a breath of fresh air let into the whole war situation. We need some statesman whose mind is not clouded by war hatred and who is still able to realize that the people of other nations are fundamentally very like our own, being a mixture of good, bad and indifferent individuals, the majority of whom can be reached by an appeal to their good sense and good feeling.';, if words are accompanied by deeds. Such a statesman needs to make to the people of the warring nations and their Governments an appeal of the following kind.
" Look here," he should say, "this mass murder in which we are all engaged is sheer madness and is getting us nowhere. It is unworthy of human beings claiming to be civilized. Why not stop killing one another and, for the first time in history, with an economic system which enables us to realize our aim, get together and plan, so mat we can develop the world's resources for the benefit of the people of the world, having regard for their needs and numbers, but without any regard to race, colour or political opinions? We realize that the wealthy nations must help the poorer ones, if need be, with actual gifts of goods and
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not by an economy which gets them into debt. (That is the new economic need of the world: gifts of goods by wealthy nations to poorer ones.) We realize also that Governments must restrain the antisocial activities of their big business monopolists which limit production for selfish ends or political reasons. The Governments of the Axis Powers, with which we are at war, have often said that their chief enemy is international finance. We have come to realize that international finance has been the enemy of our people also. We therefore offer a fair bargain. We are prepared, as our contribution to the new world, to abandon the tyranny of international finance and its anti-social practices. We invite the Axis Powers on their part to restore freedom to nations and individuals."
If peace can be secured on some such basis as this, each side could then claim to have secured victory. The Axis Powers could claim that they had secured victory over international finance, and we could claim that we had gained victory over tyranny. Objections may be raised to the policy which I have just outlined. I may be told that the Axis Governments would not agree to it. My reply to that is, "Try it and see." If it is rejected, our military position will be no worse, but we shall for the first time have something for our propagandists to talk about that is really worth talking about. Then it is well to remember that there is some reason to suppose that such a proposal would not be turned down. Hitler is probably impatient to get on with the work of post-war reconstruction and may be willing to pay a good price in the matter of restoring liberty to non-German people in order to be free of the hindrances of war. Again, a great and growing percentage of people in every nation are sick to death of the war and the war effort, and he would be indeed a rash man who deprived them of the chance of peace on anything approaching reasonable terms.
If we are told that Hitler cannot be trusted, I would reply that the chance of a lasting peace will not depend on the personal trustworthiness of Hitler or of any other statesman, It will depend on the good sense of the arrangements made, particularly in the economic field. It will depend on the honesty, openness and unselfishness of the foreign policy of the future-, and, most important of all, it will

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be guaranteed up to the hilt by the bitter experience which people have had of modern war. Any one who underestimates these factors shows a grave lack of imagination, and undoubtedly if our great Empire should fall in ruins as the result of this conflict "Lack of imagination" should be written on its tombstone. It is interesting to remember that in a recent speech even Stalin, while he said that he hoped that the war would result in the downfall of the Nazi Government, made it fairly plain that he did not make this an essential war aim or peace condition. If he can take this statesmanlike view of the situation there is no reason why our Government cannot do the same.
It would be far better to save the country, to save what is still left of the Empire—if we put it to better use in the future than we have done in the past—and, most of all, to save the people of the world and particularly those of the famine-stricken areas from further suffering, than it would be to save the faces of those politicians who have promised by the method of war to change the government of other countries, and who, in spite of the sacrifices which have been made, seem further than ever from achieving their aim, if only because the natural and normal tendency of war is to consolidate the position of any Government which does not prove hopelessly incompetent. I may be told that if we ended this war now we should have another war twenty-five years hence. To that I would reply that any one who thinks the danger of war twenty-five years hence, when we should have had twenty-five years' opportunity to benefit by the mistakes of the past, is a worse evil and a worse danger than the war at present in progress, is a fit inmate of a lunatic asylum.
Finally, I might be told that great difficulties and dangers would attend the course of action which I have suggested. In a time of crisis like the present any course of action will be attended by great difficulties and great dangers, but one thing is certain and that is that the difficulties and dangers of this course would be infinitely less than those which must attend a further plunge down the Gadarene slope of total war. A cynical observer has described the attitude of a good many people towards war in these lines:
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" We've lost so much, we'd better lose the lot,
Let's throw the rest into the melting-pot! "
That is not the counsel of patriots but of fools. Our country, unfortunately, has made grave mistakes both before and during the war. Let her now atone for those mistakes and regain the respect of other nations which she has lost, by showing plainly the way of escape from this morass of slaughter and suffering. Let her show the way out from destruction to construction; from hatred to co-operation; from increasing poverty to increasing prosperity; and, since she claims to be a Christian nation, let her show the way out from death to life, and from hell to God.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, when the noble Duke first rose to-day I had the hope—admittedly a somewhat slender one—that he might be prepared to appear in a white sheet of expiation for his remarks of about a fortnight ago. However, in company with the rest of your Lordships, I was speedily disillusioned for he first of all appeared to be wearing the green shirt of a Social Creditor, which garment he speedily changed for a brown shirt complete with Swastika and jack boots. It is rather difficult to understand, if I may so put it, how the woolly humanitarianism of the noble Duke seems to be able entirely to overlook the appalling atrocities, appalling both in number and in character, committed by the German Forces all over the world, and committed, so far as one can see, not only with the approval but at the direct order of the monster who controls their nation. In these circumstances I do not think that the appeal that the noble Duke made to His Majesty's Government to consider the advisability of putting forward tentative proposals for peace will be thought worthy of a moment's consideration, at a time when it is obvious that were they ever made they could not be accepted even if the German people were willing to accept them, for the German Government is much too strong to allow it. Secondly, apart from anything else, the effect throughout the whole world—on our own country, on our Allies and on the neutrals—would be a moral disaster greater than the greatest military calamity could possibly be. I think it is not necessary to pursue the noble Duke in his arguments further;

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particularly as he has seen fit to leave the Chamber within two minutes of resuming his seat.
In view of the lateness of the hour your Lordships will be relieved to hear that it is not my intention to make the speech which I had intended to make. I desire only to allude very briefly to one or two points of considerable importance which have arisen in the course of the debate, but which to my mind have not had adequate attention. The first is the observation made by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, to the effect that he hoped that in the various schemes for world settlement the map of Europe would be altered as little as possible from the state in which it was before: the commencement of the present war, or, rather, before the commencement of German aggression. I submit that in this point the noble Viscount —with whose speech I was more in agreement then I usually am—was grievously in error because some of the main causes of the war were undoubtedly the serious mistakes made at the end of the last war in drawing up the boundaries of the various States of Europe. If we are to have in future an Austria reduced to the size, metaphorically, of a postage stamp with an unwieldy capital and hardly any ground around it, a Hungary truncated of territory which had belonged to her for many centuries, and a monstrosity like the Polish Corridor and other similar errors, I submit that there can be no satisfactory and final peace. I would earnestly beg His Majesty's Government to consider—it would have to be very vaguely, in view of the problems now facing us—how the map of Europe can best be redrawn so that States now existing and States that may be set up will have boundaries of such a character that they will be ethnographically, economically and, in some cases, strategically sound. If not, we are heading once more for severe trouble.
Here I would like to express my agreement with the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, when he said that he would like to see Prussia separated from the rest of Germany. I would repeat what I said to your Lordships about a fortnight ago, that I myself go much further than that. It is my belief that the whole German nation—a very modern creation, after all—has been so impregnated with the spirit
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of militarism, of aggression, of heathenism and of bloodshed that to leave that nation as a political entity is to invite another war in a few years' time. It might not come for a considerable number of years, but come it would. For that reason, Germany should be broken up into a number of States, a sufficiently large number to be sure that no one of them would be able to be effectively aggressive by itself, and each of them large enough in extent to ensure that it could have an economic existence of a sufficiently satisfactory character to prevent economic causes and poverty causing its inhabitants to desire to create trouble again in Europe.
At the same time, all the States to be set up or at present existing should have their boundaries so arranged that there are no large blocks of other races within their boundaries. To accomplish this, it is true, might be a task of a very considerable difficulty. It would certainly mean the compulsory transference of hundreds of thousands of people—possibly of several millions—from one part of Europe to another; but I submit that, whatever trouble that might cause, it would be well worth doing if in that way we could avoid these racial causes of conflict which have contributed so much to the last war and to the present war.
My last point concerns what is to happen with regard to international control after the war. Whilst it is possible, and may be desirable, that something resembling the League of Nations should arise again after a time, it seems to me that the responsibility for maintaining the peace of the world must rest for a very considerable number of years, if it is to be effective, upon the shoulders of Britain, our Dominions and the United States of America. It is quite true that, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said, the main cause of the failure of the League of Nations was the fact that the United States, which had given it birth, was unwilling afterwards to assume responsibility for it. In the future I think we shall probably find that the United States will be willing to co-operate with ourselves and our Dominions in ensuring world peace.
LORD WEDGWOOD: Would not the noble Earl include Russia?
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: I was going on to say that Russia might or might not be in a state afterwards to be an efficient partner in such policing. China also might or might not be able to take part. That depends on the internal condition in which those countries find themselves at the end of the war. If China is in a state to look after the external affairs of Japan, so much the better; but Japan is not likely to be the same danger that Germany could be, owing to the fact that, once we have entirely destroyed or confiscated the Japanese Fleet, she will not be in a position to be much of a menace, whereas Germany, being a land power, is a much more formidable proposition. If we and our Dominions and the United States were in such a position of supremacy that, aided by our other Allies in this war, including the smaller Allies, we were able to dominate the policy of the world for some years to come, then there is no reason why we should not be able, unfettered by the difficulties of having to look over our shoulder lest another war should arise, to get on with the great and appalling task of reconstruction which must face us throughout Europe.
Those are all the observations that I wish to put before your Lordships on this occasion; but the problems which have been raised and briefly alluded to in the course of this debate have been so numerous that your Lordships could consider each one of them and devote a whole day to it with advantage, and sit continuously for some weeks. I agree with the Government, however, that at the present time public discussion on many of these problems is extremely undesirable, and I cannot share the indignation of the noble Lord, Lord Addison, at the mild castigation which the Daily Telegraph gave to various policies which were adumbrated. To produce various cut-and-dried schemes at the present time is likely to cause disunity among our own people and friction with our Allies, and to do so at a time when it is vitally necessary that, in order to bring this war to a complete and satisfactory conclusion, which can only be by total victory, we should have unity both at home and abroad.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned—(Viscount Samuel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
THE ACTING CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD STAN MORE): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in the name of the Chairman of Committees.
Moved, That the Earl of Perth and the Lord Rushcliffe be added to the Select Committee on House of Lords Offices.—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SPECIAL ORDERS COMMITTEE.
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in the name of the Chairman of Committees.
Moved, That the Earl of Perth and the Lord Rushcliffe be added to the Special Orders Committee.—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PALESTINE TERRORISM.
LORD WEDGWOOD: My Lords, I beg to ask the first question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government when and under what circumstances a Palestinian Jew named Stein or Stern was killed while attempting to escape.]
LORD SNELL: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Cranborne has had to leave the House, and he has asked me to make the following statement on his behalf. Abraham Stern, to whom the noble Lord's question presumably refers, was the leader of a secret terrorist organization of Jewish extremists formed in Palestine about the middle of 1940. The Stern group included persons known to have been responsible for the murder of two British police inspectors in 1939, but against whom nothing could be proved, and others concerned in cases either of murder or robbery with violence who have subsequently been convicted. Soon after the group was formed, its members entered upon a campaign of organized terrorism, primarily with the object of obtaining funds for the furtherance of their

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so-called political programme, which was Fascist in character. In the furtherance of their objectives, they sought to enlist the help of Italy after Italy had entered the war. Steps were taken by the authorities to round up the gang, and the activities of these Jewish terrorists reached their climax in the cold-blooded murder at Tel Aviv in January last of three police officers and the wounding of four others. Vigorous action has since been taken by the police in rounding up members of the gang, and this resulted in the death, while attempting to escape, of Stern himself and of two other terrorists in February last, and in the detention of the principal members of the gang.
LORD WEDGWOOD: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord realizes that the connotation of the words "killed while attempting to escape" is unfortunate. They have a very unfortunate background and, indeed, come from Germany. I hope that that sort of thing is not going to develop in Palestine.

MR. WINTRINGHAM.
LORD WEDGWOOD: My Lords, I beg to ask the second question standing in my name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether Major Wintringham is proceeding to India to assist in the formation or training of Home Guards.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, some ten weeks ago the Commander-in-Chief, India, asked for the services of MY. Wintringham as an instructor in guerrilla warfare. Mr. Wintringham was not at that time able to accept the offer, and the post for which he was required was filled by an officer of exceptional experience whose name was, in fact, suggested by Mr. Wintringham himself. The possibility of finding some other scope in India for Mr. Wintringham's special qualifications is at present the subject of discussion with the Government of India.
LORD WEDGWOOD: There is still a possibility of his going to India?
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: It is still under discussion with the Government of India.

MINISTER OF WORKS AND PLANNING BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.
PENSIONS (MERCANTILE MARINE) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.
COVENTRY CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLER The LORD CHANCELLER acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders have not been complied with in respect of the Petition for additional provision in the following Bill: Coventry Corporation, [H.L.]

SWINDON GAS ORDER, 1942.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Swindon United Gas Company:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution, and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

SOUTH WALES ELECTRIC POWER BILL, [H.L.]
Report from the Standing Orders Committee that the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Petition for the Bill ought to be dispensed with and leave given to introduce the Bill. Read, and agreed to.
Bill presented (pursuant to leave given this day), read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
House adjourned.