INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AFTER THE WAR.

HL Deb 14 April 1943 vol 127 cc171-222

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government, whether they have reached any decision as to the nature of the International Authority which it would be desirable to set up after the war with a view to the maintenance of peace and the encouragement of international co-operation; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I rise to put the Motion that stands in my name. I ought perhaps to explain that the Motion was put down originally some weeks ago, and though events have taken place since then which undoubtedly have changed the aspect of it, I think it right to submit the matter to your Lordships. Indeed, in some respects the changes that have taken place have made my task easier. I hope I need not assure my noble friends opposite that this is not in any sense a hostile Motion. This is a Motion merely to call attention to these particular things and, even if I have to make any comment on anything that has been said or done by the Government, it will be in the most friendly way.

At the outset I should like to say that I am very grateful to the Government for the declarations they have made recently on this subject. It is not with a view to challenging them in any way that I am going to speak to your Lordships. I may ask for an explanation here and there, but the main purpose is to draw attention, as far as one can, to the subject so that it shall not come upon the people of this country as an entire novelty when the matter has to be discussed at the international conference. I am quite sure that in a matter of this kind it is of the utmost importance that the policy which is to be pursued shall be a policy which is understood and supported by the people of this country and indeed by the people of all the other countries who will be affected by a policy of that kind.

Three speeches by very important members of the Government have been made recently. One by the Home Secretary, Mr. Morrison, was a very important utterance, and all the more important because he went out of his way to say that he represented the views not only of himself but the whole of his colleagues. Then, of course, there have been more than one speech by the Foreign Secretary; and, above all, there was the very important broadcast by the Prime Minister. With your Lordships' permission I should like to make an attempt out of these utterances to put together certain propositions which seem to me to represent the policy of the Government in this matter. I shall be corrected if I am wrong. Very likely I shall leave out things which ought to be included. Taking it in that way, I think the first proposition would be that the Government say once again, as they have constantly said, that the first essential is victory and that there must be no relaxation in our efforts to secure that at the earliest possible moment. The first and main object we have in view is to defeat the German conceptions of world government and to establish in their place a lasting and just peace. That seems to me to be the first item of the Government policy in this matter. From that follows the second point which has been laid down very clearly, that in some way or another international aggression must be stopped. It must be treated as an international crime, and any actual aggression, or any preparation for aggression, must be nipped in the bud. It has been very well put by the Foreign Secretary in a speech he made in America, I think to the Legislature of Maryland, in which he said this: Our common safety demands that overwhelming force be brought to bear against the aggressor wherever he may be.

That is the second policy, that arrangements be made by which overwhelming force can be brought against the aggressor. That in its turn involves some form of international organization, the creation of some kind of International Authority, because it is quite obvious that if you are to have overwhelming force no single State can possibly provide that force by itself. It must be the work of several States, and for that purpose there must be some kind of international organization to collect and utilize that force. Here again I will quote the Foreign Secretary, speaking this time in the House of Commons: We recognize the need for some authority to ensure by force that neither Germany, Italy nor Japan should be able to repeat their aggression. It is quite plain that whatever is true of these three lawless Powers may become true, if we are to trust history, of other Powers in the future. Therefore there must be some kind of organization which will be able to utilize overwhelming force against any aggression that may be threatened or may take place.

Then you come to what the International Authority is to be. Here again I think we have some indication. The International Authority, the new authority which I observed the Prime Minister called with his usual felicity "a world institution," is to be based in the first place on the United Nations, led, as I think appears from his speech, by the four great Powers among the United Nations, America, Russia, China and ourselves, but ultimately, as the Prime Minister was careful to point out, designed to embrace all nations. I will say only one word on a matter which has been the subject of comment—namely, that in the Prime Minister's broadcast, some people thought, there was an intention to treat China on different lines, though not essentially different, from the other three Powers. I think that was a misreading of the broadcast. In any case it was absolutely disposed of by the Maryland speech of the Foreign Secretary, who made it perfectly clear that China was to be treated on an absolute equality with the other three Powers, and indeed with all the United Nations, because it is a clear part of the policy of the Government that all nations are to be treated on a footing of equality.

That being the nature of the new authority, the next item I would mention is the proposal for the lasting disarmament of the Axis Powers—not merely just their disarmament but their disarmament to be maintained for a period afterwards. I do not remember that, in these three speeches, any definite term was put to the period of disarmament. I think that the Lord Chancellor, in another connexion, stated what I have always understood to be the policy of the Government in that matter—namely, that disarmament should last until there was satisfactory evidence that the whole policy on which aggression has been based had been abandoned. You cannot define the term because, as he I think said, it is for them to say how long the period is to be. That is the third item, and the Prime Minister adds, as part of that, the punishment of war criminals. I was very glad indeed to see that he put that matter in the forefront of his broadcast. Certainly, it really belongs to the same conception; you must make it quite clear that the kind of national procedure of which the Axis Powers have been guilty is utterly intolerable to the civilized world.

The next and the last item to which I shall refer is a little less absolutely clear, I think, than the others, but it was most definitely stated, I believe, by the Home Secretary that that disarmament and the punishment of war criminals would be followed by the creation of an International Police Force and a general reduction all round—when that force has been created—of armaments. The Home Secretary went quite a long way in defining what he meant by an International Police Force. I understand him to have meant this, that there would be, as it were, a common pool of forces and armaments belonging to some or all of the Powers who should take part in the new authority, and that in addition to that there would be a comparatively small body who would be something between police and inspectors. That body would be stationed particularly in the countries which we have reason to believe belong to the aggressive group, and would be charged with the duty of reporting to the International Authority any symptom of growing aggressive policy, so that the Authority should take action upon it.

I do not know, and I hope that my noble friend, when he replies on behalf of the Government, will be able to make it quite clear, where the Government stand about this. I am not quite sure that that conception which I have just mentioned is definitely adopted by the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister. The only allusion by the Foreign Secretary to the matter, which I have come across, was one in which he said that he thought that in order to keep peace you would want all the strength of all the United Nations, including—for I rather think he included them expressly—the Big Four. The Prime Minister, making it even more widespread, said that we would have to rely on national or international force or a combination of the two. I shall be glad if my noble friend finds himself able to make it more clear and more definite. Certainly it seems to me to be perfectly clear and most essential that there should be ready, in some form or another, an international force capable of preventing aggression. That must be one of the most essential features of any new organization of peace. On the actual form which it might take, no doubt differing views will be expressed. I see that my noble friend Lord Davies has a Motion dealing with this matter on the Paper, and he, no doubt, will explain his views, which we all respect and admire.

Broadly speaking, the line which I have attempted to define seems to me to be the line of policy. You are to have excommunication of aggression, if that is a permissible phrase. You are to have a new authority which is to provide the strength necessary to make excommunication effective. You are to have a lasting disarmament of the Axis. You are to have, in some form or another, the creation of a peace force, an International Peace Force—whether you call it a police force or not does not seem to me to matter very much. I need not say that I am entirely in agreement with every one of the items which I have recited. I think it is of the greatest possible importance that these views should be well understood in this country and abroad, so that when they come to be discussed in the Peace Conference, in whatever form the proposal may take, there may be an intelligent understanding not only of what is proposed, but of what is really involved in these propositions.

I should like to add a personal word of deep appreciation concerning the reference that the Prime Minister made to the League of Nations. I confess that I was both gratified and, in a way, surprised, that he should have been moved to make so very definite a statement as to the value of the efforts of the League of Nations, and as to the work that it had accomplished, and to profess that any reorganization must ultimately be rested upon the principle of what I think he called freedom, law and morality. And he said that that was really the principle upon which the League of Nations was based. Mr. Morrison, when he was discussing the distinction between the new authority and the old League, said that the new authority would differ from the old League in three respects. In the first place, he said, it would be fully representative, which the old League was not. I am not quite sure whether I understood exactly what he meant. I think it must have been that he meant that the new authority must include representation of the United States and of Russia, which certainly the League of Nations did not include at its inception. I do not think he could have meant that the new authority must be representative of the Axis Powers as well, because, evidently, that would mean postponing any action by the new authority—it might be for a great many years to come. If he meant what I think that he meant, then I entirely agree that that would be a big improvement. He also said that it must have a positive policy, which the League had not. I am not quite sure, again, whether I know what he meant by that. I should have thought that the League had a fairly positive policy. It may be, however, that he had in mind a policy of reorganizing frontiers, reconsidering treaties and so on, work which no doubt the League did not in fact undertake, although it had power to do so. Finally, he said that it should have an armed force. I have already said all that I need say about that.

If that is the policy of the Government, I come now to the strict point of my question: What is the machinery that they contemplate for carrying this into effect? I venture to submit that, as a matter of business, there is a great deal to be said for the view that you might take the existing League—it still exists, of course, and is actually functioning to some extent—and reconstitute it, making amendments and, if so desired, changing the name. There is a great deal to be said for the term used by the Prime Minister—"World Institution"—but there are many other names which could be invented for it. In point of fact, most of the powers which the League possesses would seem to me to be necessary for the new authority; what you would want to do is to clarify some of them and to add to them. I am not going into detail on that, because it seems to me that it would be premature to do so until we know more definitely than we do at present what the policy of the Government in its details is.

In the first place, you have to settle what is to be the nature of the authority, what is to be its fundamental constitution. As to that,. there are, as far as I can make out, three schools of thought, and only three. First of all, there are some people who think that it is a great mistake to have any definite constitution at all. They think that it is far better to have a general understanding that the Peace Powers will in fact stand for peace. They think that the more the constitution is made definite, the more difficult it may be to get it carried out. I am afraid that I wholly disagree with that view. I think it is just conceivable that in past ages some such plan as that might have worked, though I know of no instance in which it did work, and there have been many cases, of course, where at the conclusion of a great war the Powers concerned have sworn that they will never fight again, and that their only object in future is peace.

Such a proposal, however, seems to me to be quite out of the question at the present time. You are threatened, let us say, with an aggression, organized secretly, no doubt, and bursting suddenly, very much as this one did, on the Powers of Europe and of the world. If you have no kind of organization and no kind of document to rely upon, you have then to begin the elaborate discussion of what ought to be done, whether this does really amount to a breach of the peace, and what steps you are to take to organize the forces of peace. I cannot think that that would really be an efficient protection. It must be remembered, moreover, that one of the most important functions of any organization for peace is to give confidence, particularly to the smaller Powers, but also to the larger Powers, so that they may not be afraid of sudden aggression by an over-whelming neighbouring Power. You must therefore show them clearly, somehow or other, what provisions are made for their protection, and how far it is right for them to rely upon those provisions. I think that a general understanding would not give them any kind of satisfaction; it would be regarded by them, I am convinced, as a kind of advertisement that once again, as they would think, the British Empire was going to withdraw from all share in maintaining the peace of the world.

The second school of thought takes exactly the opposite view. They say that the great defect of the League was that it was not nearly definite enough, and that nothing short of something in the nature of a new Federal State or Federal Union is any use. I do not propose to argue that at any length, because it seems to me that, whether you like the idea or dislike it, it is so obviously premature that I cannot believe that there would be any possibility of acceptance by the Powers of an organization which would include a representative body voting by majority, having power to direct their foreign policy and their armament policy and the necessary finance attaching to it —an organization the component parts of which would always in the nature of things be in a minority. That seems to me to be an impossible policy at the present time. Some day we may reach it, but I think it is a long way off.

We are therefore driven back, as it seems to me, on the other policy, the policy which we have so far pursued—namely, the policy of an organization—a Confederation, if you like to call it so—of really independent States, who have agreed for certain purposes to act together in order to preserve peace and promote international co-operation. If you look at the state of the world at this moment, I think you will agree that there are two great international passions. One is for peace. I have not the slightest doubt that if it were possible to have a referendum all over the civilized world on the general proposition: "Do you desire peace and that all international differences should be settled by pacific means?" there would be a prodigiously overwhelming majority in favour of peace. That is not simply an academic opinion; everybody who reads the newspapers must know that the passion for peace and the hatred of war and all its horrors are widespread over the whole world.

Some people may dislike and regret it, but I think we must accept it as a fact that there is also still, and perhaps more than ever, a strong feeling of nationality, a strong desire that the nationalities shall be independent and not under the control of any other nationality. That was recognized, of course, in the Atlantic Charter, which definitely says—I am not quoting the exact words—that each nation is entitled to its own independence. That is a very strong feeling. It is only necessary to look at the prodigious sacrifices which are being made in country after country, where everything is being given up in order to destroy the foreign rule of the Germans—almost always it is the Germans—and to recover complete independence, to see that this is so. Those two feelings seem to me to dominate the international world at the moment, and I venture to submit to your Lordships that no organization which does not fully recognize the existence of those two feelings and those two passions will have any chance of success. Whatever organization is adopted, therefore, must have regard to that fact.

There is one matter which I ought to mention, although it is not part of my argument. I mention it merely to show that I have not altogether forgotten it. There are some people who say: "You are beginning entirely at the wrong end. The first thing to do is to establish a much more progressive and just system, both social and economic, and, if you can do that all over the world, then the desire for war will die out and you need not bother about what particular machinery you are going to adopt in order to keep the peace." I will not argue that because it would involve a much more elaborate discussion than even I have the courage to inflict upon your Lordships. I will only say that I believe it is entirely untrue; that there is no prospect of reaching peace merely by social and economic reforms; that my experience is that, conferences that have met to establish some reform, particularly economic reform, have generally failed. I do not think that you will ever succeed in establishing peace by such means alone. That does not mean that I am against them. On the contrary, I fully support and recommend that considerable changes, both social and economic, should be made, and that some of them require international action to make them effective, and if that is done they will be an important lever for keeping peace. But if you do not have, in addition to that, at the back of all, the resort to force to which the Foreign Minister alluded so emphatically in his Maryland speech, I do not believe that there is any prospect of setting up any organization which will maintain the peace.

I am bound to recognize that the great answer that is made to any argument on those lines is, "Well, but this is merely a repetition of that which you have tried before, and which failed." It would involve a long argument in order to discuss that properly, but I would like to make three observations about it. In the first place, I listened the other day to what I believe is called a "Brains Trust" on this subject, and one of the speakers said that he thought one of the great difficulties of the League was that people went into it without really appreciating what it was, that there was no real agreement about the obligations that it imposed. I believe that is true. I believe it is true to say that, broadly speaking, the nations who composed the League were not really in earnest in the matter—not all of them. Some of them were profoundly, but a great many of them were not. If I am not impertinent in saying it, I have a very distinct recollection of the kind of speeches that were often made even in this country: that the League was a kind of altruistic organization, not having any particular advantage for us but being at any rate an effort by this country to save the poor, blind foreigner. As long as that kind of view prevails—and it was not peculiar to this country—it is evident that you are not really likely to make any arrangement succeed. I am satisfied that the remedy for that state of things is to get the first principle of international organization understood and accepted before you proceed to the Peace Conference.

Another reason was a curious one. I heard a Swiss speaker say he thought it was the love of peace that destroyed the League, and of course I know what he meant. We all remember the kind of phrases, such as "We have kept you out of war," "No commitments," and things of that kind, which no doubt appeal to a very strong feeling in the country. The great thing was to avoid anything that might lead you into war even if that was the only way ultimately to secure peace, which was generally denied; but, even if it was, the first thing was to avoid war, and therefore nothing should be done which could possibly lead you immediately into war, though ultimately that was the only way to peace. That is being now very distinctly repudiated by the Foreign Secretary and other Government speakers, and I need not dwell on it any more, except as an explanation, or part explanation, of why the League ultimately failed. The third reason is one which is very often heard—namely, that the whole machinery of the League was too elaborate and too cumbrous to work, that you had to get the unanimous consent of all the members of the League before you could do anything. I think that was founded on a slight misapprehension of what was intended by the Covenant of the League, but I will not go into that. There was, no doubt, an element of great truth in the criticism and I think that you will have to face that great difficulty, that whereas the League must normally be a deliberative body working for long-term improvement, and dealing, from a strictly peace point of view, with the various questions and controversies that are brought before it, when you come to the threat of war you want something which will act with vigorous, administrative decision.

I quite admit that, as the League was constituted, there was not such a body in existence. It will be a matter for consideration whether you will not have to have in your world institution a section embracing the four great Powers—the Big Four—who will be positively pledged to use the whole strength of their respective countries in order to prevent aggression, and it may well be that they will have to have a certain amount of administrative machinery to help them in discharging that very important duty. Something in the nature of a General Staff would no doubt be desirable, but in addition to that I think the Secretariat of the new authority, whatever it may be, ought to have as one of its duties to represent to this section any threatening appearance in any part of the world, for them to consider it and deal with it as they think right. The advantage of that particular procedure is that it removes the necessity of any single Power appearing as the hostile critic of any other Power. That would be done as a matter of routine by the Secretariat, and it would be for the peace section of the League that I have tried to describe to take action which might be necessary in order to deal with the emergency. That is all I shall trouble your Lordships with at this moment. I am more than conscious that I have only dealt with a very small part of this tremendous question—this "stupendous question "as the Prime Minister called it. I am delighted to know that it is occupying, as he told us, the attention of the Government. They are bending the whole of their energies to solving the difficulties and problems which will arise, and I very much hope we may hear something from the Government as to the actual methods and action they are taking.

That is what I wanted to say about machinery, but I would add this. I do not want it to be thought that I or any other rational being thinks that machinery is a vital thing; it is not, of course. You may have the most admirable machinery in the world, but unless there is the will to work it, it is obviously quite useless. Conversely, if you have a real desire to work the machinery in order to preserve peace, then this or that defect in it will probably not be of great importance. I boldly say that, as far as I can see, the machinery of the League might have been used to preserve peace, but there was a lack of the spirit and desire to do that. After the speech which the Foreign Secretary made in Maryland, the Legislature there passed a resolution which was read out in another place. It was of the most laudatory character, and was very gratifying and, indeed, touching to any British subject. It contained one sentence which I venture to repeat to your Lordships. It praised our "noble effort to cling to the paths of honour despite the indecencies of the enemy. "That is a tribute of which any country may be proud. But it is not enough. We must "cling to the paths of honour, "but we must do more than that. We must make it clear to ourselves and the world that we have an unfaltering devotion to freedom, truth, and justice, and a determination to spare no expense and to be ready to submit to any sacrifice in order to establish peace on the basis of those principles. If we really put peace in that position—which is far more important than what are called British interests since peace is far and away the most important of all British interests—and say we shall he ready and willing, as we have always been, to resist any attack on our territory, on our commerce, on our finances, and on the liberty of our subjects, we must be still more ready to resist any attack that is made on that system of peace without which none of our other interests can be preserved. I beg to move.

Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty for Papers relating to the nature of the International Authority which it would be desirable to set up after the war with a view to the maintenance of peace and the encouragement of international co-operation.—(Viscount Cecil of Chelwood.)

LORD DAVIES had given Notice that he would call attention to the implications of the Atlantic Charter and the Anglo-Soviet Treaty; urge the necessity of establishing an Inter-Allied Commission before the conclusion of hostilities to consider these implications, and to submit proposals for the closest collaboration of the United Nations in post-war reconstruction through the establishment of an International Authority; and move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion which is down on the Paper in my name is complementary to the one which has been moved by the noble Viscount. What I want to plead for is that the subject we are discussing here this afternoon should be investigated by representatives of all the United Nations in order that this tremendously important matter which has been raised by the noble Viscount may not be the subject merely of unilateral declarations, but may be expounded by an Inter-Allied Commission representing all the United Nations.

In the last few days your Lordships will have read a most important document issued by the Treasury. It is called "Proposals for an International Clearing Union." I cannot help feeling that it is one of the most important documents we have yet received from any Government Department dealing with post-war reconstruction, but it is, after all, a unilateral pronouncement. One cannot help feeling that if we had had consultations with representatives of the Allied Governments an agreed document might have been prepared which would probably have received universal approval. Therefore, I put forward again to-day the suggestion which we discussed during a debate last August—namely, that the implications of the Atlantic Charter and the Soviet Treaty should be thoroughly investigated by an Inter-Allied Commission. The noble Viscount on the Woolsack on that occasion pointed out that the Soviet Treaty and the Atlantic Charter were both historic documents. He will also agree that they enunciate general principles. As the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, has pointed out, principles are not enough. There have to be also the institutions through which these aims and principles can find practical expression. I cannot help feeling that the Atlantic Charter is a skeleton which has to be clothed with flesh and blood, and the sooner the United Nations get to work preparing the ground for the carrying out of its provisions the better.

What has happened since our debate last August? There has been a general improvement in the war situation. At that time Rommel was threatening to attack Egypt, and the situation in Russia was very critical. Since then the Allies have seized the initiative, and our prospects are very much brighter than they Were then. I mention that only because the noble Viscount who sits on the Woolsack made a point that it was no time to consider the implications of the Atlantic Charter when the military situation was so critical. The time is now much more propitious than it was a few months ago. My noble friend Viscount Cecil of Chelwood has already alluded to the speeches which have been made by leaders in the United States by Mr. Wallace, Mr. Sumner Welles, and others, and on the last occasion we discussed the speech which had been delivered by Mr. Cordell Hull. The Lord Chancellor promised that the full text of that speech should be distributed by the Ministry of Information. The text that was available up to that time was an abbreviated one. I have been making some inquiries and, so far as I can understand, that proposal was not actually carried out. So far as I know, there has been no full text of the speech delivered by Mr. Cordell Hull. Unfortunately, therefore, unless we were able to consult the American newspapers we were not able to read the whole of the text of that most important and historic speech.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON)

Will my noble friend forgive me for intervening? His recollection, I think, is quite right. I did say on the occasion to which he refers that I would make that suggestion; indeed, I took upon myself to express the hope that it would be done, but I had not then been able to communicate with others. I did, however, carry out my promise. The view that was taken was that if there was to be a publication it would really have to be of a number of documents and that it would be difficult for the Ministry of Information to undertake to publish one particular speech of one particular statesman. I only interpose to say I did not forget my promise and I did my best to carry it out.

LORD DAVIES

I hope the noble and learned Viscount will be more successful the next time an historic speech is made in the United States of which it is very important that we should have the full text. As the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, pointed out, a number of speeches have been made by statesmen in this country. He alluded to the speech of the Home Secretary, the speech of the Minister of Aircraft Production, speeches of the Foreign Secretary, and also the important broadcast of the Prime Minister, in which he reiterated the opinion that he held at the end of the last war that it would he essential that the International Authority should be equipped with an adequate and effective police force. He also referred, I think, to what he described as a Council of Europe. Some of us perhaps would prefer to be associated with a Council of the English-speaking peoples within the structure of the World Institution through which these Councils would be able to co-operate in the general interest. But I still feel that there is a great need for an objective investigation and that that should be undertaken not unilaterally, as apparently it has been up to now, but by some body that represents all the United Nations. If they could work out a plan, that plan could be finally submitted to the Governments which they represent without committing those Governments in advance.

This principle, as far as I can see, has already been adopted in at least two cases. There is a Conference on Refugees, which is to be held in Bermuda in the immediate future, and there is another Commission which is to be set up and which, I believe, is to meet at Hot Springs in America. This, we are told, has to do with the provision of relief and with the food situation that will arise at the end of the war. It seems to me, therefore, that the principle of collaboration has already been agreed to, at any rate in regard to these two particular subjects. It may be said that they are immediate questions and that in regard to them there is a pressing need for some immediate action. I cannot help feeling, however, that in fact the same principle should apply to other subjects, and that there should be a comprehensive survey of those subjects, referred to by my noble friend in his speech, which impinge upon each other. It is impossible to deal with them entirely and completely separately.

I have already alluded to the White Paper dealing with the Proposals for an International Clearing Union. That is obviously the main subject of this Paper, but on page 18, in Chapter IX, subsection (2) of paragraph 39 alludes to an adequate sanction for the proposals which are put forward in the memorandum. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote to the House what this subsection says: The Union might set up an account in favour of any super-national policing body which may be charged with the duty of preserving the peace and maintaining international order. If any country were to infringe its properly authorized orders, the policing body might be entitled to request the Governors of the Clearing Union to hold the clearing account of the delinquent country to its order and permit no further transactions on the account except by its authority. This would provide an excellent machinery for enforcing a financial blockade. I merely quote that to show that these things are all mixed up together and how difficult it is to deal with them piecemeal because one subject leads to another as they are all interdependent. Another instance of this, which we discussed a few days ago, is the connexion between civil aviation and military aviation. I do not think that problem can be satisfactorily dealt with until it is first of all decided what is to happen to military aviation. Once that has been decided I think it will be much easier to promote a plan for the co-ordination of civil aviation. I have already suggested that there are several subjects which might be dealt with in this consultative way.

Then, as has been pointed out in the last debate, there are the implications of the Atlantic Charter and the Soviet Treaty. I do not intend to go into that matter again except very briefly. For instance, there is the question of frontiers and that has to do, of course, with the procedure of plebiscites and referendums. Up to now no properly constituted plan has been drawn up for carrying out the plebiscites so that instead of becoming shams, as they have been in the past, they should really represent the views and the desires of the peoples who undertake them.

LORD STRABOLGI

May I point out that at least in regard to one of them, the plebiscite in Schleswig-Holstein, that was undertaken under British auspices and was regarded as successful and fair?

LORD DAVIES

I think my noble friend would agree that this subject deserves consideration, and that there should be an agreed plan in order that whatever is done should be acquiesced in by all the countries who are responsible for carrying it out. Then there is the question of self-government. How are we to ensure that in future the peoples in the occupied countries, when they have been rescued, are able to set up institutions necessary to self-government? There are also economic questions, and another point in the Atlantic Charter is the freedom of the seas. Again I say that I cannot feel that there is anything to prevent the Governments of the United Nations investigating these problems at the earliest possible moment. We have had the declaration of the Soviet Union which was embodied in the Treaty. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote the article in the Treaty that deals with that point: The High Contracting Parties declare their desire to unite with other like-minded States in adopting proposals for common action to preserve peace and resist aggression in the postwar period. That is a categorical declaration on the part of the Soviet Union of readiness to collaborate in any plan of this kind.

We have also the declaration of the United States, and quite recently, as your Lordships no doubt will have observed, a resolution was introduced into the Senate of the United States by Senator Ball, who is a Republican, urging that the United States should take the lead in the organization of the United Nations for five functions—first, to make full utilizations of all their military and economic resources in carrying on the war; second; to establish temporary administrations in reoccupied territories; third, to assist in the rehabilitation of areas now dominated by the Nazis; fourth, to set up machinery for the peaceful adjustment of international disputes; and fifth, to create a United Nations military force to quell any future attempt at aggression. It is interesting to note that that motion was put down by a member of the Republican Party, not by a member of the Democratic Party, and that he has been supported by, I think, twenty-six Republicans out of fifty-five who were elected at the last Election. Therefore there seems to be in the Senate of the United States a desire that these questions should be discussed by a United Nations Commission. What is the procedure which we adopt in this country when some new legislation is suggested? The usual procedure, I believe, is to appoint a Royal Commission of persons who are asked to investigate the whole subject and report to the Government. Here we propose to legislate for the future peace of the world, and I should have thought it was tremendously important that some body of persons, who could approach the whole subject objectively, should be asked to go into the whole matter and report to the Governments concerned. As I have said before, that would not commit the Government. In the last debate somebody suggested that this was not the time for an international conference or for a conference of the United Nations. I quite agree this is not the time for a conference. The conference is bound to come at the end of the war. But what I do venture to suggest is that the preparatory work for such a conference could be most usefully carried out now.

One other point I would like to stress is the necessity for bringing about a common measure of agreement before such a conference starts its discussions about what Senator Ball's motion describes as "the organization of the United Nations." As to the terms of reference, obviously the Commission might be invited to report upon the implications of the Atlantic Charter. The Commission might take as their terms of reference the motion which Senator Ball and his friends have already proposed to Congress. In the last war we had, as your Lordships will remember, the Phillimore Committee who investigated a number of problems and were able to submit the result of their researches when the Covenant was being discussed and settled in Paris. If it had not been for the intervention of President Wilson at that time, the Foreign Office here were anxious that these matters should be discussed before the Peace Commission in order that there might be an agreed plan.

I entirely agree with my noble friend when he said that at the end of the war there will be a tremendous reaction against war and the peoples will demand international legislation in order to prevent future catastrophes. All leaders in democratic countries depend in the last resort upon public opinion and it is vitally important, as I think your Lordships will agree, that that public opinion should be an informed public opinion. The preparatory work and recommendations of a Commission which I regard as so essential would help to mould and guide public opinion in these matters. Therefore I venture to appeal once again to the Government to approach the other Governments of the United Nations and suggest to them that perhaps the time has now come when some definite machinery should be set up, in order that these subjects, and especially the matters alluded to by my noble friend, should be thoroughly gone into, and that a Commission of the United Nations should, as soon as possible, set to work upon these important matters.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

My Lords, the subject embodied in the Motion now before your Lordships' House is exceedingly wide and my noble friend who opened this debate surveyed in his admirably comprehensive speech the greater part of its vast extent. I do not propose to attempt to follow him in any such general survey. It would be more appropriate for me to select a few particular points and to submit them to your Lordships. I propose to deal only with four specific points and to do so with the brevity which I am sure your Lordships would desire. I agree, I need hardly say, with the purpose of the question and Motion which have been placed upon the Paper, except in one word. The one word from which I dissent is the humble little word "the." The noble Viscount refers to the nature of "the International Authority which it would be desirable to set up after the war," and my noble friend Lord Davies, in the terms of his Motion, speaks of the "collaboration of the United Nations in post-war reconstruction through the establishment of an International Authority." Well these articles, the definite article and the indefinite article, seem to me to be out of place, and my first point is to submit to your Lordships that the problem is much more complicated than that.

At the end of the last war it was thought that if a neat and tidy written constitution was drawn up for the League of Nations, beginning with Article 1 and going on to Article 26, all would be well. And it is the error which has been fallen into by our friends who advocate federal union of the nations. They say the world is in a bad way—owing to what cause? Owing to international anarchy, to a state of chaos—and we all agree. What is the cure? Obviously, instead of anarchy, to have some definite federal constitution of the world to which all States would adhere. Then you would have the alternative, and the only alternative, to the present state of chaos. On that I think they are making the same mistake as was made after the last war, in thinking that it is possible to create an International Authority to establish the international authority which is necessary. As for federalism, I am in agreement with my noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood. It appears to me, in the present state of the world, to be wholly impossible. Its proposal is that the existing Parliaments should remain in being. If many of the great and small States were to join we must imagine that in Washington, Paris, Brussels, The Hague, Stockholm, Oslo, and wherever it may be, and here in Westminster, the present Parliaments would remain, elected as now, and dealing, as now, with industry, trade and taxation, but having nothing to say with respect to their foreign politics, with' respect to their armaments, with respect to their entering into any war or abstaining from any war, and with respect to so much of their finances as might be required for purposes of defence. All these matters are to be withdrawn from their hands, and entrusted to a Federal Parliament and a Federal Government. I feel convinced that not one of these States would agree to such a change, and I am quite certain that not one of the British Dominions would agree to such a change. There I am wholly with my noble friend Lord Cecil.

Now confederation, as he has stated, is quite a different thing. Confederation does not supersede existing Parliaments, but combines the existing Parliaments in a co-ordinating union for purposes of foreign policy and national defence. Already we know that some of the European Powers, whose Governments have been resident in this country, have agreed to confederations. We know, for instance, that Poland and Czechoslovakia have signed a preliminary convention for a confederation between them. Yugoslavia and Greece have done the same thing, and these Powers hope that these two confederations may be linked together and that other adjoining States may adhere. That is an entirely different proposition, though one of a more complicated character, than a uniform federal system. The Prime Minister, in his admirable and outstanding broadcast a few weeks ago, adumbrated further that there should be a Council of Europe and a Council of Asia, each of them consisting of great Powers together with confederations or groups of Powers. And over that would be a world institution. As my noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood has said, in that world institution, you will have some body which will necessarily be analogous to the League of Nations as it has hitherto existed, perhaps with a change of name and perhaps with a different constitution and powers, but substantially embodying the same idea and pursuing the same purpose.

There you may see part of the world pattern of the future—this world institution with a Council of Europe and a Council of Asia, confederations in various regions, and great Powers co-operating. And even that could not be the whole of the pattern, for it is clear that there must he some body exercising force to maintain peace, and it is obvious that that body must be dominated by the four greatest Powers—the British Commonwealth of Nations, the United States of America, Russia and China. That is a further complexity in the pattern. And even that is not all, for the economic regulation of the world's affairs must require authorities of its own. We have had two great schemes proposed for dealing with the formidable problem that has arisen owing to the collapse of the gold standard and the automatic adjustment of currency values and international exchanges, which was of the essence of the classical economics but which has broken down in the present state of the world. These two schemes have been put forward; one by the British Treasury—owing much to my noble friend Lord Keynes, who by the part which he has played in this matter has rendered yet another great service to his country and indeed to the world—and the other proposed under the auspices of the American Treasury. But whichever of these schemes is adopted, or, what is more probable, if there is some combination or variation of the two, another international organization will be required to make the necessary arrangements and to carry out the work that has to be done. The British scheme calls for an International Clearing Union, the American scheme for an International Stabilization Fund with an authority to control it.

Furthermore, there has been connected with the League of Nations an International Labour Office, the I.L.O., which has rendered most valuable service and which is still functioning. It would certainly have to continue to function in the post-war world. Although connected with the League of Nations, the I.L.O. has its own constitution. It is governed by a representative body of Governments, Employers' Associations, and Labour Associations, and it exercises almost complete independence. Also there has got to be an International Court of Law to deal with juridical questions, which must from the very essence of its purpose be an independent body. Your Lordships will see, therefore, that you cannot have an International Authority or the International Authority to govern the post-war world; the comity of nations will possibly prove to be almost as complex as the organization of a national society itself. That is my first point.

My second point is that I submit that this can be brought about only by stages. We must accustom ourselves to the idea that we shall not have a repetition of the Versailles Conference, a body of statesmen meeting from all over the world and in a few months dealing with all the problems which vex mankind. Some urgent matters will, indeed, have to be dealt with at once—the feeding of Europe, arid other important economic questions, such as the supply of raw materials and so forth. No doubt some questions of frontiers will have to be dealt with immediately. Someone has said recently that nowadays there is no line on the map which is stable or permanent except the equator, and that is imaginary. We must proceed, then, stage by stage.

My noble friend Lord Davies has just said something about the need for having some formal constitution. I believe, looking back over the history of this country, we may see that such measure of success as the British people have achieved in the course of the centuries over which their history extends, has been very largely due to the fact that they have been free from the incubus of a written Constitution. The casualness with which this nation is endowed, the wise scepticism of intellectualism and dogma, has led it to be very chary of formularizing its institutions too much, and its haphazard, illogical system of government has proved a very great blessing; it has allowed the Constitution to adapt itself to unforeseen contingencies, and has thereby contributed very greatly to such political success as it has won.

After the last war, the League of Nations was set up in accordance with the practice to which all the other countries of the world, or almost all of them, had been accustomed. American influence—the Constitution of the United States is regarded there with great veneration—and Continental practice, which is almost universal, led the statesmen of Versailles, almost as a matter of course, to think that the first thing to be done was to frame a definite, rigid constitution for the League of Nations. If I may once more refer to our friends of Federal Union, they are actively engaged in the interesting parlour game of drafting constitutions on paper; with their electorates and constituencies, and two chambers and their powers—all of them in all probability, destined to be quite futile. Some constitution there must be; here I agree with my noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood. We cannot leave the whole matter to a kind of "gentleman's agreement." I submit, however, that the influence of this country should be devoted to persuading our Allies and future colleagues that that constitution should be as little elaborate as possible, and should be as little rigid as possible. It must deal with membership and general objects; but our aim should be to plant a tree and let it grow rather than to decide beforehand how we are going to meet all the contingencies which may arise in the future.

My third point is that this country will not be able to avoid considering, in the very near future, the question of the administration of Colonies. The Atlantic Charter lays down certain principles, and the Prime Minister, if I may venture respectfully to say so, made one of his very rare lapses when he indicated, in perhaps a not very well-considered observation, that those who framed the Atlantic Charter were not thinking especially of countries such as India, and of British or other Colonial possessions, but rather of the relations between independent States. That is not an attitude which I think on reflection ought to be maintained, especially in view of the present state of the war, particularly in the Pacific. There, owing to the aggression of Japan, we have been ousted from Malaya, Singapore and Burma, and those countries will have to be reconquered very largely through the might and the valour of the American Navy, Air Force and Army. The American people may well feel that they will have a certain moral responsibility for the future of those countries which their arms will have helped to rescue; and for other reasons I think that the other countries of the world at large, if they are to consent to certain countries retaining possession as the dominating Power of large portions of the earth, will need to be assured that the principles embodied in the Atlantic Charter will be applied there as elsewhere.

Some have suggested that the only proper solution of the question of the Colonial Empires is to pool them all, and to place them under some international government. That, as I ventured to submit in a previous debate on this subject—I need not elaborate it now—is not a course which history shows is likely to be successful. International administration of any territory is usually unprogressive and dilatory. The administrators are drawn from different countries, with different backgrounds and traditions, accustomed to different systems of law and obedient to different loyalties, and the team-work which is essential to good administration anywhere is likely to be lacking. I do not believe that the peoples of those territories are likely to demand that their present Governments should be superseded by some mixed International Commission.

On the other hand, the opposite suggestion, that all these territories should be set free to pursue in independence their own fortunes, is not likely to conduce to their own welfare or to the well-being of mankind. Many of them are small in population and have not the political ability and experience or the financial resources which would enable them to maintain a high level of well-being. Furthermore, the world is now divided into something like sixty-six Sovereign States. There is almost universal agreement that that is too many, and that the movement in future should be rather towards the integration of countries than towards the breaking up of such unions as have come into existence historically and now prevail. If the solution of the Colonial question for the British Empire were to be that of breaking it up into its several parts, and if that were to be followed in the case of the French Empire, the Dutch, the Belgian and others, we should have perhaps 100 or 120 Sovereign States in the world, and certainly the task of its good government would be far more difficult even than it is to-day. I believe that if the twentieth century were to dissolve the British Empire, the twenty-first century would be obliged in some form to recreate it.

The pooling of Colonies and the disintegration of Empires are not, however, the only alternatives. If there were, after the war, a general desire in the United States of America and elsewhere for some international supervision of all Colonies, in the nature of the Mandates system that was established after the last war under the League of Nations for the mandated countries, I see no reason why the British Empire should not welcome it. It would be applied equally to all Empires—those that I have mentioned, the French, the Dutch, the Belgian and the Portuguese as well as our own. I had experience myself as High Commissioner for Palestine of the working of that mandatory system, and was filled with admiration for the impartiality and the painstaking care with which the Mandates Commission at Geneva performed the duties entrusted to it. I would add, so far as our own Colonies are concerned, a suggestion I made in a previous debate but which is not relevant to this one, that there ought to be a Joint Select Committee of the two Houses of Parliament dealing with Colonial affairs, so that Parliament should be much more closely and normally linked with the administration of the Colonies, and thereby the nation put in closer touch with the affairs of peoples for which it is responsible. That, however, is a matter which I hope may again be the subject of a separate debate.

My last point is this. If, surveying the whole field of public affairs, political and economic, national and international, one were asked to choose one particular point as more important than any other, my answer would be Anglo-American co-operation. It is not the only point to be pursued, but if that is attained then all else may follow; but if that is not attained all else may be lost. Happily we hear from the United States now voices, powerful and influential voices, in favour of a policy of collaboration. President Roosevelt, in one of those striking homely phrases for which he has been famous, said in a recent broadcast, "It is useless to win a war unless it stays won." And after having won this war it is essential that we should see that it stays won. That can only be attained, I believe, if there is whole-hearted, active cc-operation, especially between the British Commonwealth and the United States. Many other American statesmen have spoken in the same sense recently: Vice-President Wallace, Mr. Cordell Hull, Mr. Sumner Welles, Mr. Wendell Wilikie and others. Those speeches have been noted in this country and in this Parliament, and have been most cordially welcomed.

Yet we know that the spirit of isolation is strong in the United States, partly from historical causes, partly owing to the uncertainties of the future, partly owing to requirements of domestic politics. The United States has a written Constitution, with a strong bias in favour of isolation from international obligations, a Constitution which was deliberately designed with that purpose and to have that effect. We know that the Executive of the United States can make no treaty without the assent of the Senate; and not only that, but the Senate must assent by a majority of two-thirds. If after this war there were a question of a treaty into which the United States Government was desirous of entering in order to assure such international collaboration, and if the ninety-six members of the Senate were divided sixty-three in favour and thirty-three against, it is the thirty-three who would carry the day.

That is the eighteenth century constitutional provision of the United States. In that century isolation seemed obviously to be right, in the nineteenth century it was doubtful, in the twentieth century it may be regarded as plainly injurious; yet it is the hand of the eighteenth century which now grips the present situation. For this reason there is in this country—it is useless to conceal it—a deep anxiety as to whether the United States will, or will not, take her leading place in helping to maintain the peaceful order of the world. Anglo-American co-operation is of primary importance, but, as I said, it is not sufficient in itself. Nothing could be worse than that these two great Powers should agree on a cut-and-dried scheme for action before the voices of Russia and China could be heard—and not only of them but of the smaller States. My noble friend Lord Davies suggests an Inter-Allied Commission. I have some doubts about that as a method of pro- cedure. I am not sure that the Governments themselves will not have to come together in some form or other, first perhaps by informal negotiation, and afterwards by formal negotiation, to deal with these weighty matters. Furthermore, we should be departing from the principles for which we are fighting if behind the backs of the smaller Powers we were to endeavour to reach conclusions on these matters.

Your Lordships will have been amused at the statement issued after the last meeting between Hitler and Mussolini, which included this paragraph: The common aims which the Axis Powers are pursuing to defend European civilization and to preserve the rights of nations to free development and co-operation were reaffirmed. That has not been received by the world with respectful admiration but with a shout of laughter at its impudence, for countries which have invaded and overrun all their neighbours and carried fire and slaughter everywhere, and now control them by the methods of the pressgang and the firing squad—for them to speak of preserving "the rights of nations to free development and co-operation," is a piece of impertinence which has seldom been equalled in international history. On the other hand, the United Nations have given proof that they do care for such free development and co-operation, and that must be maintained in the successive stages of the evolution of the new organization of the world, which cannot be simple and uniform, which must have its aspects, political, military and economic, and which must be established in its several regions, in its continents and over the planet as a whole.

LORD LANG OF LAMBETH

My Lords, I am sure we are most grateful to my noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood for introducing this subject and for the very comprehensive and constructive speech in which he did so. I think we all agree that it is waste of time at present for even amateurs—much more, statesmen—to attempt to formulate large schemes for the possible future of world organization, and therefore I do not propose to enter at any length into those particular schemes. At the same time it is worth noting that the Prime Minister himself, with all his caution and his sense, as he described it, of the mystery and peril of this vast subject, should have gone out of his way to indi- cate his own outlines of a world institution. I must confess, speaking very diffidently, that what he said about that caused me some perplexity. He proposed, as it appeared, to divide his world organization or world institution into two Councils, a Council of Europe and a Council of Asia. I must assume that he meant only a division for purely administrative purposes because, surely, the one thing we have learnt is that the world is one, and that peace as well as war is indivisible. Plainly both the United States of America and this country must -be essential members of each of these Councils because each of them has essential interests in both the Continents. Therefore I was a little perplexed to know exactly what the Prime Minister meant by that division. However, that is by the way.

Agreeing that it is impossible at present to envisage the distant scene, what is all the more essential is that we should be quite clear as to the first steps that are to be taken immediately this war is over. When that happy event will come none of us can tell. It may come more quickly than perhaps we anticipate; but at any rate it is vital that at that moment, and not a moment later, there should be an established agreement as to what immediate steps should be taken to secure and maintain the peace. There an immediate question naturally arises—it can hardly help arising—what is to be the use made of the existing League of Nations? Are we to conceive that when that moment arrives the League of Nations is at once to step into being and act as the agency which will be necessary? Here I must say something which my noble friend Lord Cecil himself could not say. It is that however much we may feel, as I do, that that is not a practicable plan, we must be more eager to acknowledge our debt to the men who conceived and constructed the League of Nations with such high ideals and great ability. I do not think that debt has been acknowledged as it ought to have been because of the rather unfortunate recent history of the League. These men, of whom my noble friend was one, were pioneers. Perhaps they had to suffer the fate of most pioneers, and discover by hard facts that many of their hopes could not be attained. But pioneers they were, and they have blazed a trail which we have all, in one way or another, to follow, for the League of Nations, or something akin to it, is the goal which must govern all our efforts.

But I repeat that I am convinced it would be quite impossible to expect the League, even if it were modified in certain respects and tightened in certain other respects, to step in and function as soon as this war is over. For one thing, what would be the attitude of the United States of America? The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has just called our attention to the ingrained isolationist tradition of the United States. A mere change of name, which left the League of Nations in substance what it was in 1920, is not likely to induce the United States to change the decision they took then and to enter such a League now. Apart from that, it must be admitted—I do not think my noble friend would disagree—that in the course of its history certain defects in the League were revealed which no mere minor amendments or changes can possibly remedy. The chief, of course, was its inadequate provision for meeting any serious military challenge by prompt and effective military action. To put it in another way, the League established an international authority, but it did not succeed in establishing international power.

No doubt my noble friend is well entitled to say that the chief reason for such measure of failure as there was in the League in its later years, was the fact that so many of its Member States were either afraid or unwilling to accept the obligations of the Covenant; but that alone would not account for the measure of failure. The truth is that the League either never had, or was not able to lay hold of, any such overwhelming strength as was capable of convincing aggressive Powers like Japan or Italy that it was vain for them to pursue their aggressive designs. It was that defect really, as I see it, which lay at the root of the inability of the League of Nations, certainly on two conspicuous occasions—Manchuria and Abyssinia—to carry out its own declared views and judgments. Therefore I am sorry I do not think that any minor amendments can possibly overcome these conspicuous defects.

That only leaves the question what shall be—I do not like to use the word "organization"; but what shall be the steps taken so as to be ready the very moment the war comes to an end. Here I follow what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. It seems to me clear that the four great victorious Powers in which, of course, I assume China will sooner or later be included, must have agreed beforehand to step in and be ready to assume a two-fold responsibility. The first, as is agreed by us all, would be to effect a complete and immediate disarmament of the Axis nations and to maintain that disarmament at least until there is convincing proof that the Axis nations have abandoned their aggressive instincts. None of us knows how long that will be. In the second place, they must be ready to exercise such united force as they possess in the immediate future whenever any occasion for it should arise. Something has been said, and very rightly, about the smaller States, but at this preliminary stage I doubt whither it is possible to expect more than that they should, either singly or in groups or confederations, associate themselves with the four great Powers and be willing to leave the main determination of policy in their hands. It is a fundamental proposition that policy in the long run must depend on power, and in these critical stages immediately after the war it is essential that those who have the power should determine the policy, unhampered at that stage by any difficult requirements as to consents. That is the only way—I say so diffidently—in which we can hope to steer safely through the currents as soon as the war is over.

But that is only a short-term policy. It appears to be agreed from what was said this afternoon, and indeed from what has been said by the Prime Minister and Mr. Eden, that sooner or later a long-term policy must be adopted. There must be a large association of nations—as large as possible—which is able to lay down some plan for collective security in the future. I suggest that this might be done when the proper stage comes—and nothing could be more true than what was said by Lord Samuel, that in this matter we must proceed by stages—when that stage comes, there should be summoned an international convention. It is here that I see the chance of reviving and restoring the League of Nations. I should imagine that such a convention might take the League as it is as a basis, and after many and drastic amendments proceed on that basis to evolve a plan of collective security. I say that the amendments must be drastic, particularly in that respect of seeing that in the future the International Authority is possessed of power. If any of your Lordships had been Archbishops of Canterbury you would know the futility of possessing authority without power; and that must not become an international situation.

Such a convention as that which I suggest would be able to take the League and mould it in accordance with the light of past experience. Moreover, surely still the League so modified and constituted is the natural centre and focus for all that international co-operation in matters of trade and social economy of which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was speaking. Still there must not be a series of organs but so far as possible a united organ to exercise all international co-operation. I suggest, moreover, that much of the existing work of the League must be continued in the future, for example, the work, to which Lord Samuel referred, of mandates, very largely extended, the work of controlling such despicable traffics as those in drugs and white slaves, the work of supervising and watching over the standard of living in different countries and, not least, the invaluable work of its labour bureau. In all this I can see that provided we do not put upon the League at once more than it is able to carry it may still have a great function in the history of world united effort. But I return to my main point, which is that we must be ready, and I am sure will be ready when the war ends, to lay down a firm foundation of sufficient military force such as will be able to support any structure which may ultimately be built upon it. I feel sure that the Government will be able to give us every assurance that the ground for that foundation is being prepared now.

VISCOUNT SANKEY

My Lords, I am sure every member of your Lordships' House will be grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, for his speech this afternoon and also for his labours in the cause of peace for so many years, and we all hope that they will be long continued. We are constantly hearing suggestions as to the necessity for national planning after the war, but the question of international planning, the maintenance of peace and the encouragement of international co- operation are equally important and present more difficulty and for several reasons. We shall have to take into account the views and wishes of our Allies. We shall also have to deal with nations who have been our enemies and whose present system of government we have determined to destroy. I find myself in accord with the Motion proposed by the noble Viscount. He has dealt with the nature of the International Authority which it is desirable to set up after the war. Permit me to discuss briefly the course to be pursued in order to achieve this purpose.

The war will not end with an immediate treaty of peace; it will end with an armistice and the appointment of an armistice commission. The conclusion of a final treaty of peace had better be delayed for some considerable time, and during the period of waiting certainly, and probably for longer, an Army of Occupation will have to be maintained in Germany. Meanwhile the armistice commission will be sitting. On it the victorious Allies, the four great Powers, together with sonic representatives of the oppressed nations, will naturally have a commanding voice. It is doubtful whether it will ever be possible entirely to abolish war. Evil can never pass away, for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good; but to prevent war breaking out nine times out of ten and to obtain a lasting peace is worth while, even if the deliberations to ensure it do take prolonged examination. As to the armistice commission, what should be the duties of the armistice commission? I suggest two: first, to settle questions arising immediately out of the war; and, secondly, to pave the way for some world organization with the aims and ideals of the League of Nations but with different machinery for their accomplishment. Let me purposely use the words "world organization" because the words "League" and "Federation" have come to signify objects and methods which may either be impossible or at any rate undesirable.

In such a world organization the victorious Powers would be units of major influence, and federations of smaller nations in one unit would enable them to exert more influence than if they stayed alone. Now Great Britain will occupy a pivotal position in such an organization, but we must not forget that we are part of the European family and we must not forget that we are allied to the United States of America as victorious partners in the war, and united by the close affection which grows from common aims, from kindred blood and from similar traditions. Above all, we must not forget the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, not only for those reasons but because they are of us. The armistice commission should prepare the fundamental features of the peace itself. It is impossible to foresee every situation and settle every detail at once, but we must even now begin to think about some of the main conditions.

Let me immediately pass over two items because our policy with regard to them seems to be settled, whatever be the methods by which that policy is to be maintained. It will be recollected that the Covenant of the League of Nations, by Article 23, gathered up and provided for many international, social activities, as, for example, fair and human labour conditions throughout the world, just treatment of the native inhabitants, general supervision over agreements as to the traffic in women and children and opium and other dangerous drugs, freedom of communication and transit, equitable treatment for the commerce of all nations, and the prevention and control of disease. Many of these items were dealt with satisfactorily by the International Labour Office and should undoubtedly be the care of the future world organization. I also pass over the question of the treatment of war criminals, because the policy with regard to that has already been made clear and is determined. In laying down the principles which the armistice commission should prepare for adoption by the subsequent world organization, the aim for which we have been fighting must not be overlooked. We are fighting for certain moral values; we are fighting for the democratic way of life, which is fundamentally opposed to the Nazi creed; we are fighting for a guarantee that a future peace shall be made more or less permanent; and we are fighting also for the reorganization of Europe.

The topics to be discussed may be put into two categories, the first containing matters of local and national interest and the second matters of worldwide and international interest. In the first we should include the peculiar contribution which every nation, either great or small, can make to the general benefit of the world in art, literature, and science. The second category is a larger one. Above all, an effort should be made to prevent war and to mitigate its horrors if it should arise, to promote the general well-being of mankind and to facilitate intercourse between the nations. The likelihood of war may be diminished by removing its causes, by providing the means of settling disputes either by arbitration or some international court and compelling the nations to observe the terms of settlement. As to the prevention of war, two questions immediately suggest themselves—how to deal with defence and how to deal with disarmament. With regard to defence, it would be foolish in the present circumstances to suggest a large measure of disarmament until we can be sure that Prussian militarism is not likely to disturb the peace of Europe again. What is to be done if, out of zoo voters, two-thirds will give their vote one way but will not fight, and the remainder will not only vote but will fight if the vote goes against them? Any measure for disarmament must be accompanied by a right to inspect. It has always been a stumbling block in the past, and I suggest it will be necessary to examine the question how far it is possible to create a force to defend the world organization and to make it effective for preventing aggression by any one of its members.

With regard to the removal of the causes of war, the chief diifficulty is how to deal with the smaller nations and how far nations, particularly the great Powers, will be content to surrender any portion of their national sovereignty, and how far it is possible to confer in some respects international sovereignty on the world organization. The rights of minorities will also come up for discussion. The Germans came late into the overseas Colonial field and long ago they established landlocked Colonies in various parts of the American and European continents. Granted that some members of these pockets of Germans are hard working and industrious, they are apt to be led astray either by Prussian militarism or Nazi ideology, and these pockets become a malignant growth in the event of war between Germany and the countries in which they are situated. How far this question can be dealt with by a transfer of population is extremely difficult to decide, but a rearrangement of boundaries or a cession of territory under conditions might offer some solution. There are several other questions which ought to be placed in the category of these matters which are world-wide and international—the question of airways, the question of currencies, the question of raw materials, and the question of rare metals necessary for the production of munitions of war.

If the whole armistice commission were to sit to consider all these questions, its labours would last for many years. It is suggested, therefore, that they should be reported on by committees of the commission and, although for membership of the commission you must have regard to the claims of the victorious Allies, as far as the committees are concerned more attention should be paid to getting the best brains on every one of them. This is not the occasion to weary your Lordships with further details, but in the world organization to be set up there is no reason why groups of nations—say, for example, Great Britain and the United States or Great Britain, Russia, China and the United States—should not act together for the purpose of supplying mutual information for the removal of causes of misunderstanding and for economic collaboration, especially with regard to common currency control and free migration. If these matters are discussed and attended to, the sooner a satisfactory solution is reached the better. The horrors of war will not be forgotten for a while and the recollection of them will be the best incentive to people to come to an agreement. Do not let us leave to the youth of the country, in addition to a crushing burden of debt, the certainty of another total war in the not distant future.

THE EARL OF LYTTON

My Lords, my noble friend Viscount Cecil, in the speech with which he introduced this subject, covered the ground comprehensively, and as I agree with everything that he said and with much that has been said by other noble Lords, I do not propose to traverse again the ground which they have already covered. Indeed, I will be even more moderate than the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and confine myself to one point—the point of security, the problem of the authority with power which the noble and most reverend Lord, Lord Lang, rightly described as a paramount question whether you are considering the past or whether you are considering the future.

But before I come to that let me say this in passing. In asking His Majesty's Government to elucidate as far as they can their post-war plans, we are not asking them to do anything which is an interference with, or an interruption of, the prosecution of the war. On the contrary, we are asking for something which may help them in the prosecution of the war, because to make known to the whole world what you propose to do with victory when you have got it, if those objects are also acceptable to other nations, may help you to achieve victory. I can understand, of course, the views of those who think it is undesirable for the Government to make commitments while fighting is still going on, which may prove embarrassing to them when the fighting ceases. I understand that and I quite agree with that point of view. I do not ask His Majesty's Government for any promises, least of all the kind of promises that have to be explained differently to different people. We had some of those promises during the last war and I hope they will not be repeated. I think we and our Allies in this war are strong enough not to have to buy any other support by promises of that kind, and we do not require to make any promises to each other except the promise to use the whole of our resources for the prosecution of the war.

Again, I do not ask His Majesty's Government to make any pledges which it may be possible for them to give, without consultation with our Allies. I only hope that they will not wait until the end of the war before entering into such consultation. I mention that because one passage of the Prime Minister's speech seemed to make that suggestion. The noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, will no doubt remember the point. The Prime Minister was envisaging that the war in Europe might be finished and the war in the Far East still continue. He said that on this assumption it would be our hope that the United Nations, headed by the three great victorious Powers, should immediately begin to confer upon the future world organization which is to be our safeguard against further wars. That seemed to suggest, though I feel sure that it is not the policy of His Majesty's Government, that only when that moment was reached would discussions begin. I hope that when my noble friend comes to reply he will clear up that point.

Now I come to the matter with which I wish to deal. Those people who think that victory is the only end make a very great mistake. Victory, like war itself, is not an end but a means, and the only end, the only war aim, is peace. But by peace I do not, of course, mean the merely negative condition of non-belligerency. By peace I mean freedom from the recurrence of war, and that is the only thing worth fighting for. People are apt to say: "We are fighting for freedom, we are fighting for justice, we are fighting for a good many things of that sort." But those are all illusions. France had freedom and justice before the war; so had Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Poland and Greece. All those countries had freedom then. It is true that they have lost it, but if all that we are hoping to do is to restore to them what they have lost, to give them back their independence and their freedom as insecure as those things were before, then our victory would be but a barren one. What I mean in speaking of "peace" is a condition in which all those things, freedom and justice together with industry, social welfare and life itself, are made secure; and what we want to know from His Majesty's Government is how they intend to use their victory in order to obtain that kind of security.

I do not think it is realized in this country how great is the anxiety of all the peoples of Europe on this subject. It has been my privilege to meet representatives of all the countries now occupied by Germany, and to have discussions with them. I find that this is the one subject on which they all feel intensely anxious. This is the one thing which they wish to have elucidated if possible. These are the kind of questions they put to me: "What is your country going to do after this war? Are you going to be good Europeans, or are you going to wash your hands of Europe and leave us alone? Are you going to say, as you said before, that the Armed Forces of your country will never be used except for British interests? Is that the attitude you are going to take up when the war is over? Are you going to help us economically, and, above all, are you going to protect us?" I know how would answer those questions if I had any authority to answer them. What I cannot tell these people now for certain is what the answer of His Majesty's Government would be. We have no authority which enables us to answer quite clearly questions of this kind. What I hope is that, as the result of the debate raised by my noble friend, we may get some assurance which will enable us to speak with more authority to our friends who put these questions.

We know, and they know, quite well, how, in the event of an Axis victory, Hitler will supply security. He will give them security behind the Armed Forces of the German Reich, and that is the only attractive feature in his New Order. It may perhaps surprise your Lordships to hear that there is any attractive feature in the Hitler New Order. But believe me that feature is very attractive now. Its attraction for the peoples of Europe is much greater than we are apt to believe. Under that New Order there would not, perhaps, be very march freedom. All the countries concerned would be dependent upon Germany, but many of them would even prefer dependence with security to a freedom which entails insecurity. And they say to us: "We know, of course, what kind of peace would follow an Axis victory; what we do not know, and what we want to know, is what kind of peace would follow an Allied victory." I think that they have a right to know that. It is, therefore, on that point only that I would press His Majesty's Government to give us as much help as they can.

Hitherto we have had the Atlantic Charter, to which my noble friend Lord Davies has referred, and we have had many speeches from important statesmen, both in this country and in the United States of America, to which my noble friend Viscount Cecil referred in his opening speech. Lastly, we have had that great broadcast speech by the Prime Minister in which he went a great deal further than lie had ever gone before. But none of these things answers specifically the point which I wish to press upon the attention of His Majesty's Government. We heard from the Prime Minister about a Council of Europe and a possible Council of Asia. I agree entirely with what the noble and most reverend Lord Lang said on that point. We heard about the four great Powers, and we heard also that those Powers would be prepared to respect the rights of the smaller nations. All that is very good as far as it goes, but the first right is the right to exist, and what these nations want to know is how that right is going to be secured to them by the four great Powers. I do not want to press my noble friend for any details about machinery. I entirely agree with my noble friend Viscount Cecil that it is not the machinery that matters; it is the will behind the machinery. The machinery that we have set up in this war has worked well, because it was machinery set up to carry out a will and a purpose which already existed. We wanted to pool our resources, and the Lease-Lend agreements were invented as machinery for doing so; therefore they have worked. No machinery will work effectively unless there is the will to use it. I ask my noble friend, therefore, to give us any assurances which he is able to give that the will exists amongst those who at the end of the war will have predominant power that they will use it not selfishly, not for the promotion of their own interests alone, but cooperatively, in order to provide that security under which all nations can live and develop.

Milton once said that "None can love freedom heartily but good men; all others love not freedom but licence." That, I think, is true also of nations. Only those nations can love freedom heartily who are prepared to be good neighbours. Before any international machinery can work, nations must give proof that they are prepared to accept a general standard of conduct and behaviour, the same kind of standard which is accepted by individuals in a civilized State. In any society the freedom of an individual is necessarily restricted by consideration for the interests of his neighbours. A man may get drunk, if he pleases, in his own house; but, if his drunkenness takes the form of brawling in the streets, and interferes with the welfare of others, his freedom is restricted. That is something which is perfectly understood in any society of individuals, and not only understood but accepted; but it is not yet understood and accepted in the society of nations. I repeat that I do not ask His Majesty's Government to plunge into details, to prescribe the exact grouping of States, or to lay down precise machinery for their co-operation. I quote from the speech of the Prime Minister; those are things which he deprecated. What I do ask is that they will remember the intense anxiety of all nations on this question of security, and that they will tell us as often and as clearly as they can—because these things bear repeating—how they intend to use the power which they and their Allies will possess when this war is over.

Let me conclude by putting my point in the form of five specific questions to my noble friend the Leader of the House. First of all, can be give us an assurance that, having restored their independence to the occupied countries, we intend to collaborate with them to secure the economic conditions which will enable them to thrive? Secondly, if the international society which we hope to establish—whether it be the or whether it be a, whether it be an authority or a group of authorities—is set up, if it gives greater freedom to its members than would Hitler's New Order, will it afford them equal security? Thirdly, what contribution are His Majesty's Government prepared to make to the provision of that security? Are they prepared to abandon finally that policy, which was so often and so disastrously reiterated in the years immediately preceding this war, that the Armed Forces of this country would never be used except for the defence of British interests? I should like to know whether His Majesty's Government are prepared finally to abandon that policy. Lastly, at the end of this war we and our Allies will possess almost a monopoly of physical force. We shall have that power which Hitler aimed at obtaining for the benefit of Germany alone. Are we going to use it as he would have used it, selfishly? If so, we shall most certainly lose it, just as he is losing it. Or are we going to use it, not for the protection of national interests alone, but as the starting-point of a system of general security, for the benefit of peace and freedom in the whole world?

THE EARL OF PERTH

My Lords, public opinion in the United Nations seems happily to be very largely agreed that acts of aggression such as have been committed by Germany and by Japan shall never happen again. It is also agreed that the best method of preventing such happenings, or even aspirations towards such happenings, is he establishment of an International Authority sufficiently powerful to maintain peace, and, above all, willing to do so should the occasion arise. I too, like the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, was rather troubled by that passage in the remarkable broadcast of the Prime Minister on March 21 in which he said that our hope was that, once Hitler had been defeated, the United Nations, headed by the three great victorious Powers, would immediately confer about the future world organization which was to be our safeguard against further wars. Clearly the Prime Minister was speaking on the assumption that the war with Japan was still being prosecuted, and I assume that it was for that very logical reason that he made no specific mention of China.

Naturally, we all share the Prime Minister's opinion that our supreme task is the defeat of Hitler, followed by the punishment of Japan and the rescue of China, and that nothing should be allowed to divert our energies from those purposes. Nevertheless, I do wonder whether the United Nations would not be wise to begin consultations among themselves at a rather earlier date than that suggested by the Prime Minister in his broadcast. The problem is very complicated, and it seems to me that it would be highly desirable that the ground should be cleared by at least preliminary talks, even if a final and definite scheme cannot yet emerge. I was, therefore, particularly glad to learn from the statement made by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in another place that considerable progress had been made and important steps had already been taken in that direction. I hope that in any event His Majesty's Government are preparing, and indeed have completed, their own studies of this matter, so that they will have a solid foundation on which to build.

There can be no doubt that the Report of the Phillimore Committee, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was of extreme value to those who drafted the constitution of the League of Nations. I should like to say with what great pleasure I listened to the Prime Minister's tribute to the League, to the work which it had done and, above all, to the spirit in which that work was undertaken. With all due deference I fear I do not agree with noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, as to the omission of the definite or indefinite article. In my view there must be an or the International Authority if you really mean to preserve peace, and I believe that to be the primary international objective. I do not intend to go into the question of the nature of the International Authority, which was dealt with by Lord Cecil of Chelwood. I agree with him that a simple gentleman's agreement is insufficient, and that you cannot go as far as federation—that is not practical politics. Therefore you come back to the third course, which is a written constitution. But I would also beg His Majesty's Government to bear in mind that such a written constitution ought not to be over-elaborate. It ought to be of a kind which would enable you to deal with each case on its merits, and not to be so enchained by hard-and-fast rules that you simply have to deal with every case according to those rules.

The Motion which the noble Viscount has on the Paper refers to an International Authority set up "with a view to the maintenance of peace and the encouragement of international co-operation." I assume that by the latter phrase he means the international pursuit of the objectives laid down in the Atlantic Charter and in the Anglo-Soviet Treaty. I am very glad that he has linked the two aims together, as I cannot imagine the establishment of an international organization for the sole purpose of preserving peace, because this would imply intervention by the institution only on the, I hope, rare occasions when peace was threatened. I feel that such an organization would be likely to suffer very seriously from atrophy, and when the testing time arrived, if it ever did arrive, then the machinery might be too rusty to function adequately. With the combination of the two objects you get a living and active organization, capable, I hope, of fulfilling the desires and objects of its founders.

If I venture on some reflections on certain of the observations made in the Prime Minister's broadcast, it is not from any desire to criticize. Indeed, I greatly admired the general thesis, though I seem to recognize in it rather the broad sweep of the brush of the painter than the meticulous handicraft of the bricklayer. But I have had experiences which may be of some interest to your Lordships, and indeed of some use to His Majesty's Government when they come formally to consider their future policy. The Prime Minister remarked that … under a world institution embodying or representing the United Nations, and some day all nations, there should come into being a Council of Europe and a Council of Asia. I fully agree, but it is to my mind essential that the world institution should be firmly established before either or both of those branches are set up. The central organization is vital because questions of political, economic, and even social importance affect the whole world, and not one continent alone.

Your Lordships may remember that in 1930, on the initiative of M. Briand, that great European statesman, a European Federal Union was established with its headquarters in Geneva. The Union consisted of twenty-seven European Nations, and these nations agreed that close co-operation in all international activities was of capital importance for the maintenance of peace. The Union, of which I had the honour to be appointed secretary, was very closely linked to the League. But it became evident in a comparatively short time that the Union was hardly likely to become an effective body, as compared with the Assembly and Council of the League itself. There were various reasons for the declension of the Union. In the first place experience showed, as I have already pointed out, that important questions of policy or of economics did not affect Europe alone. They affected the world as a whole, and the preservation of peace is not of continental, but of universal, concern.

But there was another factor. When a political dispute occurred between European States—and by political disputes I mean disputes which are not suitable for submission to a purely legal tribunal—we found that the presence of representatives of completely disinterested Powers proved to be of particular value. We had the greatest difficulty in a dispute in which a great Power was involved to persuade the representative of any other great Power to sit on a committee for the purpose of adjudicating on the dispute. One great Power was unwilling to run the risk of offending another great Power by giving an opinion which might be resented, or which might be attributed to jealousy or to a desire to obtain some political advantage. This was particularly the case as regards Europe, and it is a danger which must be foreseen. Unhappily, similar apprehensions prevailed among the smaller European Powers, though honourable exceptions must be made in favour, for instance, of some of the Scandinavian countries and of Holland. Therefore, the experience I have had in this connexion tells heavily in favour of a wide range of disinterested Powers who can be drawn upon to advise how a particular dispute should be settled, and whose verdict is likely to be acceptable not only because it will be based solely on the merits of the case, but also—and this is even more important—because it will be generally recognized to be so based. I must not be thought to imply that I would not wish to see European and Asiatic Councils set up in due course and that they will not find much useful work to do; but I hold strongly that there must be in cases of importance an easy recourse to a universal and central institution.

The other point on which I desire to make a few comments, which was also referred to in the Prime Minister's broadcast, is the grouping or confederation of certain States inside the European Council. The theory is certainly attractive and it has worked well in certain instances in the past. The Little Entente used to have one member on the Council of the League, chosen, if I remember rightly, by rotation, and the Scandinavian States pursued a very similar policy. A word of warning is necessary. Such groupings are not easy to define. In any group the interests of the participating Powers must be very similar. Unhappily, as we know too well, it is often between neighbours that disputes arise. Therefore I personally doubt whether any such groupings can be effected on a considerable scale. Nevertheless the smaller States have a very important part to play in world organization. Their very diversity gives them a peculiar value. It is a question of striking a balance. My experience has been that when the great Powers are united, things go easily. When they disagree, things become difficult. It is in this latter case that the presence of the smaller Powers can be very beneficial. The smaller Powers do not wish to lead the world. What they wish is to be helpful, and we should allow them to be so. It is true that, occasionally, some of their representatives have suffered from what I may call Great Power phobia, but that illness is usually transient and not very serious.

It is clear that the establishment of an International Authority necessitates some surrender of sovereignty on the part of the States that form that Authority. But such surrender is implicit in every treaty made by this country or any other country, and surely it is very desirable that every State should make this very small surrender of authority in order that the remainder of its sovereignty, which is by far the greater part of it, should be preserved and secured. That is why I like the name "United Nations" particularly. It recognizes that nations are individual in character, and it also recognizes that there must be a unity between them. If we can achieve the ideal which is implied in the name United Nations, then we can regard the future of the world with hope.

THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER

My Lords, I rise for a moment to call attention to one matter only, but a matter of principle which arises directly out of the international situation which led to the war. When planning the establishment of a proper International Authority we shall come to grief again unless there is a moral standard for international conduct which the nations composing that Authority agree to accept. Reference to the League of Nations has necessarily been made during this debate, which was so splendidly opened by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil. I am sure we have learnt much from the illuminating contribution made by the noble Earl, Lord Perth, who knows so very much, from inside experience, of the working of the League. Max Huber, who is known to some of your Lordships as a former President of the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague and a great student of International Law, makes a profound remark on this point. In one of his writings, after praising the greatness of the idea of the League of Nations, and its uniqueness and audacity bearing in mind the obstacles produced by the concept of the sovereignty of the State, asks "whether such a broad and comprehensive community of law and peace as the League of Nations desires to be is possible, or at least is permanently possible, without a common ethos to support this legal system." In other words, he declares that there must be not only a legal system, but a sincere belief in law and justice above the separate States.

I should like to quote the Pope in his fifth Peace Point on Christmas Eve, 1939, when he said Even the best and most detailed regulations will be imperfect and foredoomed to failure unless the peoples and those who govern them submit willingly to the influence of that spirit which alone can give life, authority, and binding force to the dead-letter of international agreements. They must develop that sense of deep and keen responsibility which measures and weighs human statutes according to the sacred and inviolable standards of the law of God. These are pregnant and significant words, and I am quite sure that, somehow or other, the acceptance of such an absolute law with a common ethos—an absolute law possibly embodying the rights of man—has got to be secured in the dealings of nations with one another if any reasonable civilization is to survive. There is hardly any clearer lesson to be learnt from history, including all our pre-war experience, than this. The question of how to secure its acceptance by the nations composing the International Authority is a very difficult one. It might be by the drawing up of a code of common rules clearly inspired by the principle of justice. It might be by some association between the International Authority and the representatives of the living religions of the world which agree in worshipping a Sovereign Creator—an association which would give the representatives of these religions a right of access to the International Authority on matters concerning international morality; or it might be by some other way. I know—I speak humbly—it is very difficult; but I hope that the whole notion of some spiritual and moral authority which the nations ought to acknowledge will not be ruled out of all consideration as it was ruled out twenty-four years ago.

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, I rise for a very few minutes only to give general support, as far as I can, to the noble Viscount who is responsible for the Motion before the House. I am sure that all your Lordships will agree that this House, as has been proved to-day, is singularly capable of making an invaluable contribution to the consideration of this series of problems. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said that the outstanding inquiry in the minds of the smaller nations is, in the first place, "How are we going to be secured against future aggression or danger?" When the war ends, no doubt, the sense of danger being very near, it will be common for the nations to be willing to accept the protection, on paper, of the victorious Powers, but we are all painfully aware of how soon these first impressions wear off and how soon national and narrower considerations come to the front. I shall have a word to say about that in referring to economic questions in a moment.

I think that the noble Lord has stressed the first point of importance in urging that His Majesty's Government, in concert with the Allied Nations, shall make the most rapid progress possible (without precise definition) in agreeing upon the general form of machinery which will secure peace. That system, however, will clearly have to be developed later on into something more long-standing. I cannot imagine any Europe being secure whilst the German youth is possessed of the mind that it now possesses, and it will be a long time before that disposition is altered or eradicated. Therefore not only must we secure the immediate disarmament of Germany, but there must be a system sufficiently agreed upon which will lead to a long-continued control of the capacity of nations to prepare to make war on their neighbours. I have not yet seen any suggestion of approach to a consideration of what that international organization is going to be.

I am afraid I do not agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, in his objection to the definite article. I cannot imagine that peace—I am not now speaking of economic matters—can be safeguarded in the world unless there is an International Authority of some kind. It cannot be left at large. Therefore I think, so far as the maintenance of peace and the safeguarding of nations from war is concerned, we must have an authority, and in that respect I share the disappointment of other noble Lords regarding the Prime Minister's broadcast, though I was pleased with it in many other respects. I could not see that a Council of Europe or a Council of Asia or the other suggestions made in that broadcast gave us any method of approach to the formation of the authority that will be necessary to secure the maintenance of peace, not only in Europe, but in the world.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

May I interrupt the noble Lord to remind him that the Prime Minister said his Council of Europe must work under a world institution, a view that I would myself support, but the world organization must be something more than a single centralized authority?

LORD ADDISON

Yes, I would accept that correction, but I am speaking now purely of the authority which would safeguard the world from war. I am speaking solely of that function and not of others. I think that is in many respects, and will have to be, a separate function. It will have to be a separate authority from the authority that deals with many other matters. I return to the expression of disappointment I recorded, but I think we might quite properly ask the noble Viscount opposite to help us a little with regard to the second part of the Motion. I think we have to fear at the end of hostilities an immediate resurrection of nationalism. That would be an imminent danger.

I shall never forget what happened at the end of the last war. Notwithstanding all the lip service that had been given to the common responsibilities of nations to one another, there was immediately a rush to give expression to narrow, national considerations and it is greatly to be feared that will recur. It is natural, just as within twenty-four hours—a correct statement in time—of the signing of the armistice we had people waiting on the stairs in Whitehall Gardens to demand the removal of this Control or that Control simply because they wanted to get busy buying cotton or whatever it was. It is quite legitimate and quite natural that in regard to a particular trade and business, that instinct comes to the top at once. They clamoured for the removal, and in many cases obtained the removal, of national and international Controls which we were very short-sighted in removing. That is literally what happened and I am afraid it will happen again. And what happens in the personal sphere may also happen in the national sphere.

We know that the different nations, especially the smaller nations, will be very hungry and that they will want their food needs ministered to as promptly as possible. There will also be a clamour for the restoration of their industries and for the supply of materials. That is only natural; it is indeed, I think, inevitable that narrow, nationalistic considerations will emerge and become exceedingly vocal quite soon after the conclusion of hostilities. What are we to infer from that? I think we are to infer that it is essential, if the world is to be safeguarded against the dangers that will arise from the too precipitate assertion of nationalist considerations, that we must be provided in advance with an adequate form of authority which will guide and control these things internationally. We shall otherwise, I am afraid, be precipitated into great disorder.

We have been greatly encouraged lately by the disposition which His Majesty's Government have shown, and very actively shown, in taking account of some of these things beforehand. The Leith-Ross Committee is exceedingly active, as we know, and is, I believe, promoting not only an understanding but arrangements whereby the feeding of hungry nations may be dealt with at an early stage. But as yet, I believe, these discussions practically lie between the United States and ourselves. One cannot but think, if one views the tremendous needs for food, restoration, machinery, material and everything else that will be insistent in those immense tracts of country which have been completely laid bare, that it is most urgent that these Powers should be brought into active counsel as soon as possible to discuss the ways and means agreed between the Allied Nations for dealing with them. I cannot but think that there would have to be international authorities, perhaps under one general direction or superintendence, but international authorities of quite a number of kinds.

I entirely associate myself there with the noble Viscount below the gangway. It would be a first-class blunder at this time to anticipate any hard-and-fast organization. Clearly it will have to be a developing organization and it will have to be in diverse forms. I do not know what is going to be done about finance. I am quite unable to discuss the somewhat bewildering White Paper that has already been issued, and I have not had the advantage of seeing the one issued in the United States. It is certain, however, in my opinion that arrangements will have to be made beforehand with regard to the control of exchanges and the facilitating of international transactions either by a common international currency or in some other workable fashion. Clamour from the devastated nations, through the whole of Asia as well as Europe, will be so insistent that there must be prepared in advance a sufficiency of machinery for dealing with it fairly rapidly. One welcomes most heartily the activities of Sir Frederick Leith-Ross and others, inspired I know by the Foreign Office and the Government. But there is this to be said also. Apart from safeguarding against future wars, I hope that the latter part of the noble Viscount's Motion, with regard to the encouragement of international cooperation, will be worked on so far as it is practicable during war-time to get the Allied Nations together to work upon it, because unless some International Authority is set up to relieve the poverty which oppresses hundreds of millions of the world's primary producers, you will never have begun to remove the biggest cause of discontent.

That is a great subject by itself and I will not do more now than indicate it. But I cannot imagine that in the time before us there will be anything more difficult for statesmen than to keep in its proper place the assertion of nationality, and to fashion a series of instruments which will both help to secure peace and supply the immediate needs of the desolated countries as well as establish an economic international system which will have for its chief objective the lifting of the poverty of the world's primary producers. Most of all I would like to express one's hearty concurrence with the statement of the noble Viscount that it depends more than all upon the mobilization of good will. It is easier to mobilize good will in time of danger than it is when the danger is past. Therefore I hope, realizing how vast and difficult these problems are, that His Majesty's Government will lose no opportunity of mobilizing all the good will they possibly can to help them and the Allied nations to make some progress in these immensely difficult matters. As the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said, we have mobilized good will to enable us to fight for victory. It will need an inspiring international leadership of a continued kind to mobilize the same measure of good will to achieve the victory of peace.

VISCOUNT MAUGHAM

My Lords, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned.

Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Viscount Maugham.)

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