HL Deb 28 October 1943 vol 129 cc447-58

VISCOUNT STANSGATE had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government whether their attention has been called to the resolu- tion of the United States Senate of the 18th June, and of the House of Representatives of the 22nd June, and to the further resolution of the Senate of the 3rd July, which deal with the visit of representatives of Congress to Ottawa; and whether they have any statement to make.

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, first of all I should like to beseech very earnestly the consideration and forebearance of your Lordships in what you must realize is the very formidable task of addressing your Lordships' House for the first time. Fortunately my subject is brief and quite uncontroversial. I have to ask two things. First, I wish to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are in a position to make a statement in reference to the recent Empire Parliamentary Conference in Canada and my second purpose is to express on behalf of the British. Delegation our sincere thanks for the boundless hospitality shown us at Ottawa, at Washington and in Bermuda on the occasion of our visit. I should add also our thanks to officers of the Empire Parliamentary Association and acknowledge the careful planning carried out by Sir Howard D'Egville. The Conference was the first of its kind ever attended by accredited representatives of the American Congress. The importance of this was pointed out by Mr. Mackenzie King in the Ottawa Parliament. His remarks were duly reported to Congress and, on the motion of Senator Austin were inscribed in the Congressional record. It is fitting therefore that His Majesty's Ministers in Parliament should add the authority of their comment to these significant events.

To the Conference itself came representatives of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda and the United Kingdom, and later we were joined by a distinguished Delegation from the United States Congress to which I shall refer later. But besides the Conference we had the pleasure of undertaking a very carefully planned and organized journey throughout the whole of Eastern Canada. Some of us went to Washington by invitation, and the Senate paid us the signal honour of adjourning to receive us. Some of us were able to go to Bermuda, and I myself, through the kindness of the American. Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, was able greatly to prolong the trip, flying through Chicago and Arizona to Los Angeles, thence up the west coast to Vancouver and across the Rockies to Edmonton. Thereafter I went north to Fairbanks in Alaska, and then across Canada to Montreal and home by Labrador and Iceland. We had far to go, and much to see and learn, and although this is no occasion for a debate I should be grateful if your Lordships would allow me to record briefly two impressions which I received in the course of this journey.

The first was the impression of the magnitude of Canada's war effort, and of the special place which Canada will hold in the post-war world. The second was the impression of the great value of these private and unofficial meetings for promoting good will among the English-speaking democracies. We saw many forms of Canada's war effort in all fields, men, munitions, shipbuilding, food and the like. Perhaps I may be excused if I make special reference to the Joint Air Training Plan. This is a plan conceived and carried out in the broadest and most generous spirit of Commonwealth unity. Its three well-known advantages are: first, it permits training to be carried out night and day without that risk of enemy air attack which is real in this country; second, it allows this country to be used for its proper purpose—namely, as an advanced air base in the war against Germany; third, by bringing together young men from Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the British Commonwealth, it enables them to gain some knowledge of the spirit and meaning of the Commonwealth and a just pride in our common traditions. This plan we saw being carried out under the admirable management of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and we learnt something also of Canada's air power. Canada is the fourth great air Power among the United Nations. This experience made it inevitable that we should review our conception of the post-war organization of the world. When, for example, we read in the newspaper of a Russian diplomat touching down at Edmonton in Alberta on his air journey from Moscow to Washington, or when we flew, as we did, over the thousand lakes and rivers and the boundless forests of Alaska to the air base of Fairbanks, or when we came home flying by Goose in Labrador, now open all the year round as an air port, but previously icebound for nine months of the year, it was impossible not to realize that isolation of the Western Hemisphere in this air age is a thing of the past.

Washington, in his farewell address, based his famous advice on detachment and distance. But in this air age distance is nothing. As for detachment, Washington was thinking in terms of the vast oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but we were made to see that, in fact, Canada and the United States and the Soviet Union are now close neighbours round the shores of the comparatively tiny Arctic Ocean Moreover, Canada is the air highway over which much of the American traffic both from Europe and Asia must pass. To put it simply, we were made to realize that the earth is round like an orange, and that the peace-makers will need to lay aside that strange diagram called Mercator's projection which has misled us for so many years, and become, like Miss Pinkerton's pupils, "proficient in the use of globes." That was the first impression.

The second point which impressed us was, as I have said, the value of these private and unofficial meetings. There we were, men and women of all Parties, Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives of the first water, and Socialists of the deepest dye, having no Governmental responsibility, talking freely in private, and representing, within the measure of our limited numbers, that broad foundation of public opinion upon which our leaders must rely when they make their abiding contracts. Moreover, the representatives of Congress came with the special warrant of a resolution, a concurrent resolution passed by both Houses, and they were led by Mr. Sol Bloom, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee—which, I was interested to notice, once employed Tom Paine as a clerk; but we have moved from those days—and Senator Connally, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, which, of course, has special constitutional rights in international affairs. We, of course, had with us Lord Marchwood, whose charm and talent were invaluable assets to us. He will, I am sure, bear out my observations.

We had to consider for what part we, as a British Delegation, were cast. We could, of course, by our work and conversation, strive to give a favourable impression of our country. We realized that the war alliance has produced a warm atmosphere; that we are comrades in arms. That comradeship sometimes takes strange forms. For example, in the Flying Patrol on the coast of Canada you will find ex-rum-runners and ex-preventive men joined in the same air crews, and, no doubt, exchanging interesting reminiscences of the past. But the most striking example, to my mind, was that of Bermuda, where war has flung the seventeenth and twentieth centuries right up against one another, and the most magnificent constructional triumphs, those two giant American airports, lie almost within sight of the Legislature where King George and his Queen—Queen Charlotte, I think—still smile down on the oldest Colonial Parliament.

But these are war emotions, and as Sir Wilmot Lewis, who is a great guide in American affairs, often reminds us in The Times, war friendships may be transient. There are more obdurate imponderables—if those terms are permitted in your Lordships' House. For example, our manner of speech is an offence to the Americans. They think it muffled and tepid, and that it shows a pretentious reserve. That is what they mean when they call us "stuffed shirts." I hope that Mr. Wendell Willkie, in the air raid shelter in Bethnal Green, may have learnt something of the general language of this country. Americans are much more Shakespearean than we, and, after all, it is Shakespeare that is the real common language. Perhaps we might do well to adopt ourselves a little more of the buoyancy of Falstaff and the direct speech of Juliet's nurse.

The second charge which was made against us was that we were feudal—that this country was feudal. I regret to say that the very existence of this House was mentioned as one of the obstacles to Anglo-American understanding. That is not unnatural among people who derive directly from those Colonists who passed the famous resolution that "The House of Peers in Parliament is useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished."

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

It was the House of Chatham—Lord Chatham.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

I was going to say, though I hardly dare do so in a maiden speech, that that is a resolution which has often attracted my favourable notice! What could we do? We could explain that behind a façade which was largely unchanged we had in fact erected in this country a social democracy which was not unworthy of America's own ideals. We asked them who it was who had had Labour Governments, and what country it was which had had old age pensions for a generation, which had wage regulation and the Beveridge Report. I thought the Republican members of the Conference looked a little wistful when we told them that the House of Commons in twenty-four hours could remove the Prime Minister from office! Then again, there is the persistent belief in America that our diplomacy is clever. I hope that we ourselves contributed nothing to that error, but I am convinced that a closer study of the foreign policy of this country, say for the last ten years, would completely correct it.

We were deeply grateful to our hosts, who bore us off to the Capitol to meet that interesting group of men known as the B 2 H 2 Group. We found them to be missionaries who were carrying out throughout the States a noble campaign for a better understanding, always in the American interest and always from their point of view. They have to meet the ingrained belief that the policy of this country has been, and still is, informed by the spirit of Lord North. I wish that the schoolbooks in America contained some reference to the opinions of Mr. Fox and of Lord Chatham, and to the unanimous resolution of the House of Commons denouncing the war. But there it is. Many Americans believe that our Indian policy and our Irish policy represent that same sort of oppression from which the thirteen Colonies escaped.

So many people came to America to be free. They are called Isolationists. There was a description of their attitude by Mr. Robert Waithman, who I think is the News Chronicle correspondent, which struck me, and which I will venture to read to your Lordships. He said: The preservation of the America they knew never ceased to be a personal anxiety. They have an underlying awareness of America, a deeply buried and often incoherent gratitude for their country. What could we do to allay their misgivings and to make our case? We could, and we did, cite the North America Act, the South African settlement, the Irish settlement and the Cripps Mission. We claim that the British Commonwealth is a temple of liberty, and that there are its title deeds. But we could do more. We had amongst us representatives of the Sovereign Dominions, men of pioneering courage and downright speech, cast in the American mould, each mindful of his national interest but all united under the common Crown and by a common belief in freedom. I believe that unity greatly impressed our American friends. In a moving speech at the end of the Conference Mr. Bloom, who is an experienced leader, objective and realist, but capable of touching deep heart-springs, asked that the hall in which we met should be forever commemorated as "a shrine of family reunion." I am deeply grateful, my Lords, for your patient hearing, and I hope that you will allow that some good has been done.

LORD MARCHWOOD

My Lords, we have listened with great pleasure to the words of the noble Viscount, and I should like to remind your Lordships that this is his maiden effort in this Chamber. As a Whip in the other House I listened to him on very many occasions. He always had the happy faculty of being able to tell a most interesting tale in the most witty fashion. Sometimes, at night, he was rather long-winded and we used to say "For heaven's sake, Wedgy, stop," but that would not deter him. He is a man full of determination. When I heard him arguing on historical matters with the Lord Chancellor, I thought that he is a braver man than I, because I should never dare to cross swords on matters of history with the noble and learned Viscount. We do congratulate Lord Stansgate most sincerely on all that he has said and I hope that we shall hear him on many occasions in the future, for i: will be to our advantage to do so.

As the other member of the Delegation from your Lordships' House, I wish to express my deep appreciation of having been invited, and to say how profoundly I was impressed by the great war effort of the Canadian people. Before I go further I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord Chancellor who, before I left, gave me much useful, very friendly and very helpful advice, which stood me in. good stead when I was there. I wish to convey to him messages from the many friends he made when he was there himself, and to say that some of the witticisms he gave me helped me to gain a laugh to my credit, and I pass that credit on to him to-day.

The praise voiced by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, for the infinite trouble taken by the officials of the Empire Parliamentary Association, which contributed so much to our comfort and pleasure, I endorse to the full. As he remarked, the Delegation was chosen from the three principal Parties and represented all shades of political opinion, but the members had a common ideal and a common purpose. They were determined to do everything possible to strengthen the war effort and to foster a spirit of good will amongst all parts of the British Commonwealth, whilst at the same time upholding the prestige of the British Houses of Parliament. Each delegate in his own way made his contribution to those aims and I think it can be truly claimed that the collective effort was not without success.

We learnt a great deal of the splendid spirit which inspires the Great Dominion in the mighty tasks she has undertaken and is carrying out with such impressive effect, and we were also able to give our Canadian friends a picture of war-time Britain in which they took an obvious pride. Before starting out we were presented at our preliminary meeting with an agenda which was formidable, and almost frightening, but the carrying out of it was a joy and satisfaction, for we were on a mission of good will to our blood-relations across the Atlantic.

At the informal Parliamentary Conferences held at the House of Commons in Ottawa, frank and outspoken views were exchanged which in my opinion were instrumental in bringing about a better understanding and mutual appreciation of each other's problems and helped to clear away many misconceptions previously held. Whilst these Conferences were taking place a distinguished Delegation of three Senators and four Congressmen appointed by a resolution of both Houses of the United States Congress arrived. It included the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, the Deputy Leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. We met them and talked together frankly and without restraint as members of the same family and spent a week-end with them as the guests of the Dominion Government at the Seignory Country Club just outside Ottawa, which provided a golden opportunity for a free and friendly exchange of views and everyone soon realized all had the same objectives in view.

Mr. Mackenzie King, Canada's great leader, played a very prominent part in creating an atmosphere of confidence and good will between the American representatives and ourselves. I feel indeed that we owe a great debt to him and to Canada that Anglo-American co-operation is so close and effective. At a dinner he gave to celebrate the visit of the members of the United States Delegation to the Conference, he made a most eloquent speech in which he stressed the importance of both nations working unitedly, each with absolute trust in the good faith of the other, if the best results were to be achieved. This friendly advice met with an immediate response from the American representatives, who made definite declarations that their country intended to march with the British Commonwealth of Nations in a united and unsparing effort to secure victory in the war and to continue with us in the postwar years, working to secure conditions under which the peoples of the world would be able to live a fuller and happier life free from tyranny and fear. Upon that occasion, to my mind and to the minds of many others, a new era of understanding and co-operation was born between the two countries, and we must see to it that the British Empire shall always stand throughout the world for good faith and honesty of purpose.

I wish to take this opportunity of placing on record my appreciation of the wonderful kindness and hospitality extended to us everywhere we went through the great Dominion of Canada. It was really tremendous, and we cannot thank them sufficiently. The people there were most anxious to hear of everything we were doing on this side to defeat and destroy Hitler and his band of murderous gangsters. I found the Canadians, who fortunately have been preserved from the horrors of bombing, particularly keen on hearing of how the morale of the people of Britain had stood up to aerial bombard- ment; and their expressions of admiration for and sympathy with the men, women and children of London, Coventry and other cities and towns which have been devastated, were heartfelt and sincere. The motto of the Canadian people seems to be "All out for victory" and we had the most convincing evidence that they are intent upon bringing this about as speedily as possible, leaving nothing whatever to chance.

We visited engineering and power plants; locomotive and ammunition plants; factories, workshops; foundries; shipbuilding and repair yards and some of their experimental farms. Every place we visited was a hive of industry. Everyone was striving his utmost to increase and improve output inspired by an affection and loyalty for this country which were most touching. Whatever the output they felt it must be increased and that they could never do enough to help the Mother Country. Feeling that it was their war as much as ours, they almost resented being thanked. They have expanded their Army, Air Force and Navy in a truly miraculous manner. The gigantic air-training scheme has been invaluable in providing pilots and crews for the ever-increasing number of aeroplanes operating in all theatres of war. The training centres, where they have over 100 schools in operation, have enabled the youth from all parts of the Empire to gain experience and efficiency in record time. Their output of ships, tanks, mechanized transport, cannon, small arms, anti-aircraft and antitank guns, fighter 'planes, general equipment and food production is truly stupendous. They keep in mind that whilst their output may be ever-increasing, there must be no relaxation of effort in the slightest degree until absolute victory is assured.

I said goodbye to Canada with real regret, having formed friendships there which I shall cherish for all time. I have the greatest faith in their affection for us. As loyal partners they will never fail us, for they have dedicated themselves in all earnestness to the task of defending the world against brutal aggression and freeing those unfortunate millions who are now enslaved and in bondage.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil)

My Lords, I should like first of all to say one word of very warm welcome to the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, on the occasion of his brilliant and charming maiden speech. The noble Viscount had a very long and very distinguished career in another place, and I well remember as a young member listening with great admiration to his speeches from the Front Bench—and, indeed, I think we all learnt a great deal from him. In particular, I remember some specially forceful retorts which he used to make in debate, and I have long been wondering when he was going to break his long silence here. We shall all agree that he could not have taken a better occasion to do it than the one he has chosen to-day, and I only hope that now he has spoken here, he will often give us the benefit of his counsel in your Lordships' debates. I am quite sure that his experience and his robust common sense will be of the greatest value to us all.

We must all be most grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and to the noble Lord, Lord Marchwood, for the vivid and stimulating accounts they have given in the House this afternoon of the visit which they and certain members of the House of Commons recently paid to Canada, as members of a Delegation of the United Kingdom branch of the Empire Parliamentary Association, to confer with similar Delegations from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Bermuda. As the noble Viscount told us this afternoon, an unprecedented feature of the gathering and one of great interest was the presence at the conference of members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives of the United States of America. That was. a novelty, and, I think, a most desirable novelty. The actual proceedings consisted, as we have already been told, of informal discussions between the Delegations, in some of which I understand the United States Delegation took part, on questions of Imperial policy and relations between the British Commonwealth and the United States. These must surely have been of the utmost value to all who attended them. For, after all, free and frank personal discussion remains, even in these days of telegraphs and wireless, the only entirely effective way of removing misunderstandings between men.

In addition, I understand that the Delegates had private discussions with Dominion and Provincial Ministers in Canada, and were afforded the opportun- ity of seeing some of the manifestations of Canada's outstanding war effort both in defence and in the industrial sphere. The meetings in Canada, as your Lordships know, were followed by a visit of some members of the Delegation to Washington, when they not only attended the Senate and House of Representatives but also had private meetings with a number of prominent members of Congress, as well as a visit to Bermuda to which the noble Viscount referred in such a very vivid and illuminating phrase. That such meetings can be of great service in promoting cordial understanding and mutual good will amongst those who have the good fortune to take part in them the accounts the two noble Lords have given us to-day will provide ample evidence. We shall all wish to place on record our thanks to the members of the Delegation and our sense of the value of this example of the spirit of co-operation both in the inter-Imperial and the international sphere, as well as our gratitude to all those who, by organization of the Conference, by their interest in its proceedings, by the part which they took in its deliberations, and by their generous hospitality to guests from other countries, contributed so notably to its success. My Lords, we are very greatly in their debt.