Lords Sitting of 10 October 1944

Preamble
The House met at two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.
The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of passing the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Bill through its remaining stages.—(Viscount Cranborne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

HOUSING (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
2.5 p.m.
LORD ALNESS: My Lords, it is trite and true, I think, to say that of all the major problems in the post-war world the major problem is housing. And it is also trite and true to say that it is the duty of all of us to address ourselves to the solution of that problem with a keen sense of urgency. If that be so, and I think none of your Lordships will dispute it, then I venture to hope that any proposals of a reasonable character which are made for the acceleration of the housing programme will receive favourable consideration at your Lordships' hands. Such proposals I venture to think will be found within the four corners of this modest measure to which I shall presently invite your Lordships to give a Second Reading.
The purposes of the Bill are threefold. In the first place, the object is to extend temporarily the class of house which is
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eligible for a housing subsidy; the second is to relax temporarily the procedure which exists today for the compulsory acquisition of land for housing purposes; and the third purpose, which is a purely domestic Scottish one, is to assist the Scottish Special Housing Association in their endeavour to supplement the activities of local authorities in the erection of suitable houses where the need for them is greatest. May I ask your Lordships' attention for a very few minutes to the manner in which these three main objects receive effect in the clauses of this measure? In doing so I shall bear in mind the variety and the importance of the business which follows this upon the Order Paper and I shall measure my observations accordingly.
Clause 1 gives effect to the first of the objects to which I ventured to refer a moment ago. Owing largely to the cessation of building houses since the outbreak of war very large numbers of people in Scotland at this moment are homeless. I am informed on good authority that the number of such families in Scotland is in the region of 150,000. In many of these cases they are young people who have been married since the outbreak of war, and are possibly separated to-day by war service. On the cessation of hostilities in Europe, and on the reunion of husband and wife released from war service, the need for homes will be indeed great. Under the existing law subsidies are payable only in three classes of case—for replacing unfit houses; for relieving overcrowding; and for meeting the needs of the agricultural population. It will therefore be seen that subsidies are not to-day available for those who are homeless. Clause 1 temporarily widens the scope of subsidies, and includes within its ambit houses for homeless people. The clause provides that subsidies will be available for any houses which are provided for the working class generally. Clause 1, subsection (1), I may remind your Lordships, is identical with Clause of the corresponding English measure, which is now on the Statute Book. As regards Clause 1, subsection (2), it deals with a certain letting restriction under the law of Scotland, and it frees the houses which are to be built in virtue of the provisions of this Bill from a somewhat irksome and inappropriate limitation.

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Then I come to Clause 2. This clause your Lordships will remember, is again identical with Clause 2 of the corresponding English Bill which is now law. I should also add that it deals with the second object of which I reminded your Lordships at an earlier stage. The procedure for the compulsory acquisition of housing land to-day in Scotland—I do not know about England—can be described fairly, think, as both otiose and operose. I am told that the procedure which has to be gone through very often takes six months to complete. Clause 2, accordingly, proposes to expedite the procedure, during two years after the Bill becomes law, by giving the Secretary State for Scotland power to confirm opposed compulsory purchase orders for land for housing purposes "without"—and these are the vital words—"causing a public local inquiry to be held." By this means, two or three months of valuable time, so I am informed, will be saved. But I would point out, if I may, that this waiver of public inquiry does not in any way affect the compensation payable for the land. That compensation will be payable under the Bill, and will be determined as it is to-day by means of arbitration. I may add, perhaps, that a similar provision to this one was given, at the end of the last war, under Section 10, subsection (2) of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1919, for which, as it so happens, I was responsible in another place.
I come to the remaining clauses of the Bill. I can cover them quite shortly without doing them any injustice. They apply it Scotland only. They authorize the Secretary of State for Scotland to finance an Association in Scotland, which is known as the Scottish Special Housing Association, by means of grants and loans from public money. That Association, I should add, is a non-profit-making body, with no share capital, and entirely financed from Government funds. But its operations to-day in Scotland are limited to what are called special areas, and these, in many cases, do not touch the problem with which this Bill essays to deal—namely, that of providing suitable homes for homeless people. Accordingly, it is now proposed that financial aid may be given from this Association, in order to facilitate the housing programme in any area in Scotland which, according to its needs, the Secretary of State for Scotland may determine.
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I would only add that the intention of these clauses is not for one moment to supplant the activities of Scottish local authorities in providing houses, but rather to supplement them, also that the clauses are assented to by the representatives of local authorities in Scotland, and are agreed to—which is perhaps most important of all—by His Majesty's Treasury. In these circumstances, I have no hesitation at all in commending this measure to the favourable consideration of your Lordships as a humble and yet a useful contribution to the solution of the housing problem as it exists in Scotland to-day. I beg to move that it be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Alness.)
House adjourned during pleasure, and resumed by the Lord TEMPLEMORE.
2.20 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, my noble and learned friend, with his usual lucidity, has put the whole case for this Bill before your Lordships. My excuse for speaking on the subject is that some years ago I was a member of a Departmental Committee which studied this subject of Scottish housing. I welcome this Bill as a step towards the improvement of a very appalling situation. The housing situation in Scotland is far worse than it is in England; I think that I am right in saying that overcrowding is six times as great in Scotland as it is in England. One thing which remains in my mind, however, is that although we saw most appalling slum conditions the people who lived there were by no means typical of what might be expected from such surroundings and from such living conditions. I saw very nice-looking, well-dressed people coming out of tenements in which any of us would have found difficulty in remaining presentable. I feel very strongly that these people should receive every consideration, and deserve our best efforts to improve their conditions.
Another thing which remains in my mind is that many of these houses are built so strongly that they will withstand not only the weather but also, I imagine, even the effects of a 12,000-lb. bomb falling close to them. They are built to last for ever. To recondition these buildings or to take them down is going to be a major operation. I hope that the

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building trade in Scotland has been consulted as to what is to be done with these houses. I am sure that the first step to take is to stop overcrowding by law. I suggest also that temporary houses should be put up for use while these buildings are being reconditioned from a sanitary point of view, so that some of the people now living in them may be able to go back to them when they are reconditioned. As happens in so many other parts of the country, there are old people living in these buildings to-day whom it would kill, I verily believe, if they were taken away from them permanently. I have heard them say: "My son was horn here; my grandchildren were born here." Over a wide area there are a great many people of that type, and if it were possible to recondition these very substantial buildings so that people could go back to them again without there being any overcrowding, I think that the work would be worth doing, and priority should be given to caring for those who are in a terrible position at present.
I am wondering whether the trade unions and the contractors have been brought together on this subject. I believe that a good deal could be done by those in Scotland who know the conditions if they would agree to put their backs into it and see whether they cannot produce houses at a cost which would enable an economic rent to be paid. I believe that to be important not only for Scotland but also for England. I foresee that if this cannot be done a tremendous burden will be cast on the local authorities throughout the whole country, and an enormous sum will be required, which in these days I see little chance of finding, because all the money for the purpose will have to come from the ratepayers and the taxpayers. That is what some people do not seem to realize when they say that the Government or the Treasury will pay; it is the taxpayer and the ratepayer who will pay. If the health of the people is going to be improved, then the housing question must be almost if not quite our first priority. I have great hopes of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. He is a strong man and a bold man, but I think that in dealing with this matter he will have to get out his whip and see to it that everybody does his utmost. I
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strongly commend this Bill to the favourable consideration of your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

HOUSING (TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
2.27 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF WORKS (LORD PORTAL): My Lords, in moving that this House do resolve itself into Committee on this Bill I think that it will be for the convenience of your Lordships if I take this opportunity of replying to certain points which were raised in the Second Reading debate by my noble friends Lord Latham and Lord Balfour of Burleigh. I undertook to examine them and to give a reply on this stage of the Bill. My noble friend Lord Latham asked whether it is the case that wherever the cost of land exceeds the normal which has been taken by the Minister of Health in his estimates, the local authority will be entitled to 80 per cent. of the increased annual charge. My answer is that that is definitely what is proposed. I am sorry to see that my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh is not here. He asked whether I could enlighten him further on the intention to site thirteen bungalows to the acre. On that I would say that the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and my own Ministry are working out sites which will include a number of ways and means of arranging bungalows up to a maximum of thirteen to the acre on a typical site. If my noble friend has a particular site in view, we shall be glad to go into the matter with him and see how it can be laid out to the best advantage. My noble friend also raised the question of whether the smaller local authorities will have made available to them the best technical skill to advise them in their lay-outs. My answer is that it is the intention of the Minister of Health to help them in this way. I beg to move.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Portal.)
On Question, Motion agreed to; House in Committee accordingly. Bill reported without amendment.
Then. Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended, Bill read 3ª, and passed.

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES (WARMARRIAGES) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
THE LORD SPEAKER (LORD TEMPLEMORE): My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor I have to say that he asks the House to postpone the Committee stage of this Bill until Thursday next.
Bill put off till Thursday next.

THE HOUSE AND THE PEACE SETTLEMENT.
2.31 p.m.
LORD VANSITTARThad the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will give an assurance that this House shall have full opportunity of examining and debating in detail any Peace Treaty or provisional or partial settlement in contemplation, before the interests of this country are committed either in whole or in part; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, to avoid any misunderstanding I should like to explain at the outset that when use the word "detail" in this Motion I have nothing petty or trivial in mind. I have rather in mind such measures as those for the control of German industry in general or the chemical industry in particular, a matter on which I have already spoken in this House. If you will, all such matters—and there are many more of them—are matters of detail, but detail of that calibre mounts to a pretty important ensemble. And I should like further to assure the House that I am very conscious of all the difficulties of the problem that I am touching upon to-day, and certainly do not wish to add to them. At the same time I feel that certain forms and formalities may be outmoded and that the march of events and modern conditions may necessitate some reconsideration.
When I last spoke in this House on the necessity of occupying Germany by all the Powers, I ventured in passing to ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House a few questions which seemed
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to me profoundly innocuous. I think one of them was whether the Allied Governments were agreed in discountenancing a People's Army in Germany and I should have thought that after five years of war the answer to that was fairly obvious. None the less those, as I thought, innocent questions moved the noble Viscount to a passage of golden silence, although in the silver portion of his speech he termed me a blend between an elder statesman and an enfant terrible. To-day I should like to assure him that he has no need to fear that I intend either to revive or press those questions. And, again to avoid misunderstanding, I should also like to assure the House that I do not feel in the least like the old gentleman in the Forsyte Saga who was always complaining: "Nobody ever tells me anything." I do not have that feeling at all. Those particular questions are gone for the moment into storage, together with a number of other legitimate and unsatisfied curiosities.
But I will observe in passing that with every advance of reticence every desire for knowledge may seem a little more terrible than it really is. Discretion—I am the first to recognize it—cannot be carried too far in the defence of military security, but it can be excessive in restraint of political comment or inquiry, and I am not alone (very far from it) in considering that the habit of perhaps over-caution has gone a long way during this war. We are all prepared for short commons in war-time, but it is equally inevitable that the time must come when we shall require more guidance and substance for our thinking, and I venture to think that that hour is hard at hand. I am confirmed in that view by the very commendable promptitude with which the results of Dumbarton Oaks have been published. Now that is the very thing that I had in mind in moving this Motion to-day. Here is something on which we can reflect, and which we can ultimately debate if we feel so disposed and if we feel able to offer any ameliorations. I hope that the process of enlightenment may be carried a stage further by the second Moscow Conference which is now in course, and I have precedent for that hope. In war-time when the great confer we have no impatient or improper expectations of the communiqué. The hungry sheep look up and get something to go on with, notably I think in

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the case of the declaration in regard to Austrian independence which was issued after the first Moscow Conference.
That was an outstanding event and the burden of my complaint is that it is too outstanding. I and I should think others never quite understood why Austria was singled out for this most timely outspokenness and that thereafter the fit of caution set in again. What harm was done by that declaration? Why, none at all; there was not a ruffle except among a few pan-Germans who have been abusing our hospitality. And what good was done? Why, all the good in the world. A whole nest of speculation and agitation was scotched, the air was cleared, we knew at last where we were. It may seem very curious in retrospect but up till that moment none of us had known whether, when officialdom spoke of the liberation of Austria, it meant liberation only from the Nazis or from the Germans. After that we knew.
On the other side of the ledger I would set a more recent event. It may be that for sheer lack of information some of us are gravely perturbed at the apparently facile optimism with which it is assumed that Italy is already regenerate and that we must and can safely act accordingly. Moreover, quite apart from the fact that some of us do definitely not believe that the road to regeneracy is quite as facile as that, we also apprehend that a rather dangerous precedent may be forming without our having had either the opportunity or the material on which to express a view. That the precedent is already tending to be abused I think is manifest. I referred a little while ago to the case of a great newspaper that was already speaking of setting the Germans on their financial feet, and on October 2 The Times came out with a leading article which caused a good deal of perturbation in many quarters. It said exactly this: The only possible policy after the war is to raise German production to its highest point. In other words, to increase the dependence of Europe upon Germany. That is a policy that some of us will not have at any price. I personally should not have attached very much importance to such an article had it not been that it was subsequently twice put upon the air in the European News Service, thereby leading a good many people to assume that it had, I will not say Governmental
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backing for a minute, but at least some official connivance. That is a pretty important detail, and if there is anything of that kind not only on but in the air I think we are entitled to be told fairly soon in order that we who mean to oppose it can start opposing.
Therefore there may at times be divergences of opinion, but I am very deeply convinced that on balance the Government have everything to gain and nothing to lose by taking us so far as may be possible and so soon as may be possible into their confidence, for some of us may also have contributions to make in this laborious business of peacemaking. And when I think of what happened after the last war and what may happen after this war I am most anxious that these contributions should be made in the light of knowledge and before finality is reached; in other words, my real contention is that if we can be supplied systematically and gradually—and I wish to make "gradually" the key word—with the food for thought, it would be far better for us and for our digestions than the prospects of a huge meal, or even a bellyful at an indeterminate date.
After all, what did happen after the last war? The Treaty of Versailles was a perfectly defensible treaty and in its main aspects was a very good Treaty, though, paradoxically enough, within a very short while of its conclusion, it required a little moral courage to say so. Tile Treaty of Versailles was signed in haste and slated at leisure—even by some people who had read some of it, though I admit such people were exceedingly rare. How did that come about? I was in Paris not only up to the time of signature but for a full eighteen months after, and I therefore have no pretension to speak with authority on what went on in this country, but I have my own explanation of this widespread and woeful performance and I do not think it is so very far from the truth. No time or chance was given to form in advance an enlightened body of public opinion. With such pre-informed support the parents would have found it exceedingly difficult to desert their offspring, which is in fact what happened. One of the main causes of our subsequent setbacks and even calamities was not the weakness of the Treaty but the weakness of its authors, when they were inclined to quiver before ill-informed carping and the patter of cold feet.

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After this war events may take a very different course. It is highly likely that there will be no set Peace Conference but a series of settlements spread out along the years. The sum total of these settlements will be the Treaty. But it is quite possible that the process will be a very long one. There may be no German Government with which it will be either possible or desirable to deal for quite a long while, and we should certainly be in no hurry about that. I do not know whether we shall even get a formal and national armistice. We may get a series of local and regional surrenders, in which case we shall be witnessing the decentralization of an over-centralized Reich, and there will be no cause for sorrow in that. The road to settlement is bound to be long and obscure. Only one thing is certain, and that is that on the road we shall be progressively committed to various stages before we reach the goal. Negotiations, being thus continually in process, might be held to justify reticence until at last, when disclosure came, it might be too late to challenge any antecedent part without shaking the whole. It will be apparent to us all that reluctance, let alone refusal, to ratify so complex an instrument as the Treaty of Versailles—and the settlement this time will be considerably more complex—was always a theoretical right rather than a practical recourse. It might, indeed it would, be argued, and argued with some justice, that the Allies, once asunder on an old point, might be much harder to reunite on a new line. Therefore in is of the highest importance that we should get our opportunities as we go along.
I have already mentioned the case of Austria, and I repeat that it bears out my contention to some extent. That declaration was issued at the first Moscow Conference. We have now got to the second. I think the model might be followed. For example, a great many of us have understood for a long time past that it is the policy of the Allies—anyhow of the Russiars—to detach East Prussia from the Reich. It would be timely, if such indeed is the intention, to state it, in order to get another bone of contention out of the way. I do not believe it would cause any more ruffle than the declaration regarding Austria. I am not stressing the point, I am merely giving it as an illustration, and I do not want to argue it to-day.
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My real point—and it is the broad one—is that the Government really have nothing to fear from an enlightened public opinion, and that even an enfant terrible may be a little more troublesome in the dark. On the other hand if, as I foresee, the settlement is long drawn out, it will be hard indeed for a healthy public opinion to feed long on speculation and leakage. Indeed, I do not think it will be content to do so because this time we are all too vitally interested, and we know it—at least I hope we do. Therefore we should, as I say, if possible be fed as we go along. We all know that we have been launched into this second world war by the same tribe of veneered savages. It is the same war, and it is my rooted conviction that we might have escaped this second instalment if the world at large had been immunized in advance against the wiles of the adversary. Properly prepared, the prospective victims would never have mistaken a mild treaty for a harsh one, and then the treaty would have been enforced, whereas to spring an unwieldy and voluminous treaty on an unprepared public is to court dire confusion, as we learnt to our cost in 1919. Briefly, then, my submission is this, that the modern settlement of the second Hun cataclysm is going to prove too slow and too complex for discussion to wait upon finality. I beg to move for Papers.
2.48 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, when I first saw this Motion on the Paper I confess I was attracted by it. I thought: "Here is a case of poacher turned gamekeeper, an advocate of open diplomacy, and this is rather good." But when I discussed it with my wiser colleagues and we came down to the terms of the Motion—not the speech which your Lordships have so much enjoyed, but the Motion, which has been hardly touched upon—we came to the conclusion that what the noble Lord proposes on the Paper is impracticable. I shall give our reasons briefly. The noble Lord asks for more information. Of course we want all the information we can usefully and safely be given. All Governments are secretive, and all Governments are much behoven to the gadflies who occasionally goad them into giving something away. We consider that the responsibility for concluding treaties—this is Labour Party

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policy because we had a great drive in the party from the Union of Democratic Control in favour of open diplomacy; this has been discussed over and over again, so I am giving no new views on the subject—we consider that the responsibility for making treaties must rest with the Crown and the Government of the day. On the other hand, the modern practice of bringing before Parliament for approval major instruments and treaties is perfectly sound, but under this practice Parliament can only accept or reject. In other words, if it decides that a Government has blundered, it does not try to amend the treaty, but it rejects the Bill giving legislative effect to the treaty, and the Government resigns, or the Foreign Minister resigns, as he did in the classic case to which I shall refer in a moment. But of course it is the Government who should as a rule resign if treaties they negotiate are not in accordance with public desires.
I entirely agree with Lord Vansittart about the desirability of public aliveness and awareness of its interests in these matters. If treaties are rejected by Parliament then the Government should fall. But now, to give the example that I particularly wish to quote, I will refer to the notorious Laval-Hoare agreement over the partition of Abyssinia and the condoning of Mussolini's aggression. The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, knows all the details of that but of course he had no responsibility for it as a civil servant. That agreement was rejected by public opinion immediately. There was an extraordinary and most heartening and spontaneous outburst of public indignation which killed that agreement. At that time the public were well aware of the great issues at stake. They were disgusted by the methods used by Mussolini and by his Generals in Abyssinia. The sympathies of the people were with Abyssinia and this secret agreement reached by Laval and our then Foreign Minister disgusted people and this disgust was reflected in Parliament. Of course the arrangement was killed, and a good thing too, and the Foreign Minister resigned. But the whole Government ought to have resigned. They did not do so; they made a scapegoat of the Foreign Minister. There you have an example of the case where public opinion can act through Parliament and check in time a Government
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which is blundering criminally, as the Government did in that case.
I am entirely in agreement with Lord Vansittart, if I am not embarrassing him by saying so, that the more information the public can get, the more information that can be given to the public upon the difficult and mixed issues that are involved in these questions, the better it will be. And of course the more information that can be given to Parliament the better. But no Government can carry on its foreign policy if every arrangement that it makes has to be dissected and amended in Parliament before it is brought into force. You could not carry on the public relations of the country in that way. I notice that in America, where the decision on these matters rests with the Senate, there is apparently a growing feeling amongst American students of the American Constitution that this is a weakness in the Constitution of the United States. I see that only yesterday a very prominent Republican Senator, Senator Burton of Ohio, declared that the powers of Congress over treaty-making should be modified. I believe many American students of their own Constitution particularly stress the weakness in operation of the rule about a two-thirds majority of the Senate being required for the approval of treaties. According to the Motion on the Paper—and that is the serious thing—the noble Lord wants to introduce something of the same kind into this country. I suggest very humbly that American experience shows that we should think again before we do anything of the kind.
But this does not mean that we on these Benches and our Party uphold the practice of what is known as secret diplomacy and the making of secret treaties which are hidden from Parliament. I believe that in one classic case even a majority of the Cabinet did not know of an important agreement. That I think is injurious to the public interest and I do not believe that the public will tolerate it in these days. The Foreign Minister, if he is in the House of Lords, and if we have not the Foreign Minister here then the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, should on particular occasions when it is thought right and proper give us the fullest possible explanation and defence of the policy of the Government.

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With regard to the actual power of Parliament over treaties, I am always proud of the fact that when I was a comparatively new member of the House of Commons I moved the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles and I mustered seven votes in the Lobby, including two Tellers. I am proud to say that I denounced that Treaty as unworkable in practice and containing the seeds of future wars. And how right I was—unfortunately how right I was. It led straight to war. It was impracticable in any case and could not be put into operation. The next Treaty that came before us, I believe, the Treaty of Sèvres, was equally unworkable. It was almost a dead letter before it was printed. There again I moved its rejection and we then mustered sixty-three votes in the Lobby. I had this time the powerful support in argument and vote of no less a person than Mr. Asquith, as he then was, and who had now come back to the House. By that time the Coalition Parliament had begun to sober down a little and the people as a whole were beginning to concern themselves with these matters. Then in the case of the Treaty of Neuilly I think we got as many as seventy votes. Whereas when I moved the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles I was roundly abused by the Leaders of both the Liberal and Labour Parties in the House of Commons, when we divided on the Treaty of Neuilly they both voted with me. That is a good precedent. That was an extremely bad House of Commons, as we all know. Noble Lords who then sat in the House of Commons will bear me out in saving that it was an extremely bad House of Commons. Only an extremely bad House of Commons would have allowed the Treaty of Versailles to be passed through all its stages in the form of a Parliamentary Bill in one day. The speech in favour of it that was most loudly cheered was the speech of the late Mr. Horatio Bottomley.
I want to say only one other word about treaty-making, and it is this. If we had had the present Lord Keynes, who is now away in America, as a member of the House of Commons at that time and he could have been allowed to use his arguments against the Treaty of Versailles that he used in his book on "The economic consequences of the Treaty of Versailles," I believe the vote against would have been very much
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greater, certainly it would have been more than seven. But there is the principle. Parliament can reflect public opinion, it can reject a treaty, it can defeat a Government; but the idea of the noble Lord, in his Motion on the Order Paper, that Parliament must have every instrument of agreement brought before it for meticulous examination and amendment is, in the opinion of my noble friends, quite unworkable. When the treaties which follow this war come before Parliament, if they are bad ones and if I am alive, I shall, if nobody else does, move their rejection. If that be the case then I hope I may have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart.
2.58 p.m.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, as a member of that bad House of Commons to which my noble friend has just referred, I feel that the latter part of his speech was all in favour of Lord Vansittart's Motion rather than against it. The noble Lord has told us that out of a Division of, I think, over 400 on that occasion seven members of the House of Commons, including the noble Lord, voted against that Treaty. Well, I think the 400 must have had very serious reasons for supporting that Treaty, and I wish to say that I myself supported it largely because the Government informed us through the Prime Minister of the day, Mr. Lloyd George, that we either had to take that Treaty in its entirety or not at all, and that if we did not take that Treaty in its entirety we would undo all the work which had been done over a period of at least a year and a half. We should at least, I think, have upset the whole of Europe again and the action would probably have led straight to another war.
For that reason that Treaty, good or bad, was passed through the House of Commons on that occasion, and I venture to suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, has a great deal of reason for raising this Motion to-day because of what happened on that occasion. That Treaty contained a large number of arrangements which affected every part of Europe. They were, I understand, interconnected and interlaced but they were brought to the attention of the people of this country and of members of the House of Commons only a week or a fortnight at the outside before the

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measure was submitted to Parliament for confirmation. It was quite impossible for members of Parliament or the public to understand all the implications of that very great Treaty in such a short time.
Whilst the noble Lord has quite correctly stated the custom and usage of our Constitution with regard to treaties which are placed before Parliament by the Government, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, has raised on this occasion a very important point—namely, that we should not be placed in a similar position to that at the time of the Versailles Treaty in having a complicated series of arrangements placed before us in one document without the opportunity of considering them before they are actually embodied in a treaty. I do not profess to know how that can be done—it may be impossible in some ways—but I hope that the noble Viscount the Leader of the House will give us in his reply some indication and some hope that as far as possible the Government will enable us to know something about what is going to happen so that we can consider it and digest it before all these different matters which may finally find their place in the Treaty are brought before the House.
3.3 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: My Lords, the primary purpose of a peace treaty is to prevent the recurrence of war. As the Foreign Secretary said the other day, the principal danger to Europe after the defeat of Germany is the re-emergence of a militant Germany. While other elements are necessarily involved in treaty-making, such as restitution and the repair of wrongs, and punishment of war criminals, none can compare with the primary purpose of the prevention of war and the prevention of the return of the defeated foe to military aggression. The task of treaty-making is not going to be an easy task for our statesmen and they should receive every support and encouragement that we can give. Therefore I would not personally wish that they should be embarrassed by over-early communication of details to the public, though I should wish them to be fortified by the expression of public opinion as to the kind of factors and principles which should be borne in mind by the responsible statesmen in drawing up terms of peace.
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We have already had a certain amount of information given to us in Parliament and elsewhere. In the early days of the war, when victory was much further away than it is now, we were given a brief sketch of the lines on which a possible peace was envisaged, notably by the Prime Minister and President Roosevelt in the Atlantic Charter. That kind of information is of great value. It is proper to mention this, though not to labour it, in any consideration of peace terms for, as the Prime Minister said last February, though there is no question of the Atlantic Charter applying to Germany as a matter of right or barring territorial transferences or adjustments in enemy country, it is a standard of measurement of which information has been given and of which a good deal has been made, which has been endorsed notably by the United Nations and in the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942 and most recently at Teheran.
But whatever personal views may be entertained about the Atlantic Charter on the basis of the information which has been supplied, it is more important to look at this vital question of details for I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, that some of the details which he mentioned are of extreme importance from a strictly realist point of view. I think we should also in the matter of information welcome the Foreign Minister's statement of September 29 in which he said:
". I am not greatly impressed by those terms 'hard peace' or 'soft peace'…There can be only one peace which will be acceptable to the people of this country. That is a peace which takes every precaution in our power to see to it that neither Germany nor Japan has any avoidable opportunity of starting this business again."
I stress these general statements for it is important to emphasize what they involve if they are really followed out. It is about that that I wish to address a few remarks to your Lordships.
It is easy to write a treaty of peace of the utmost severity which there will be no difficulty in maintaining over a period of five years. During that period, and indeed for a while longer, the belligerent countries will be far too exhausted; nobody will be in any mood to take steps either to disobey or to enforce. But when a treaty has to be maintained over a period of thirty or fifty years it is a very different matter. There are, I sug-

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gest, certain fundamental tests by which any peace treaty claiming really to preserve peace should be measured, and I suggest that the three questions which might be put with regard to any proposed settlement are strictly relevant to what the Foreign Secretary has informed us of and to the substance of this discussion. The first question is, are the general welfare and the living conditions of the peoples of Europe furthered through the settlement proposals? The second question is, is it a settlement for which all the nations would willingly stand in twenty years' or thirty years' time? The third question is, is it a settlement by which the British people will stand in twenty or thirty years' time?
The treatment of a defeated Germany may take one or more of the following forms—the total abolition of all major armaments (including aircraft, the Navy, tanks, etc.), large-scale territorial changes, and economic and industrial impoverishment. That the first of these modes of treating a defeated Germany will meet the tests required for a durable peace, set out in my questions, very few, if any, will dispute. The arming of Germany is so manifestly antagonistic to the peace and prosperity of Europe that no one who cares far peace is likely to object to the total abolition of all major armaments, provided that other conditions in Europe are satisfactory, and such would be properly accompanied by adequate provision for physical reparation, punishment of war criminals and certain frontier rectifications in the East, with exchange rather than transfer of populations. But when a treat rent proposed takes the form of large-scale territorial changes and crushing economic terms, then, from the purely realist point of view, not from the point of view of what a defeated Germany deserves, formidable difficulties emerge.
I think that I am justified in referring to these in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, said, at the beginning of his speech, about industry. Information about coming terms sometimes leaks out, and, as a specimen of what leaks out, partly official and partly unofficial, as your Lordships will no doubt have seen, from time to time it has been foreshadowed with varying degrees of authority that East Prussia is to part with Königsberg to Russia, the rest to Poland, with slices of Pomerania and
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Silesia, and that, in some areas, there are to be large annexations and massive transfers of German inhabitants to Germany, or for forced labour abroad, and that Sudetenland is to be cleared of all Germans, involving perhaps a transfer of a total of 10,000,000 inhabitants. And there have been rumours from America, which have reached this country, of suggestions of depriving Germany of its industrial plant and carving it into an agricultural community, thus changing its whole economic condition. I am not suggesting that both these kinds of treatment may not be deserved. That may well be the case from certain points of view. But I am concerned with the practical point of view, with a strictly realist view of the situation.
How would such proposals meet the test of the three questions which I have put? First, are the general welfare and living conditions of the people of Europe furthered through the settlement proposed? On the military side, it is clear that we have, in such circumstances, to conceive a situation in which there would be a perpetual state of resentment caused by the permanent Polish occupation of. East Prussia, with the effect—like it or not—in Germany, apart from East Prussia, that all German energies would be concentrated on preparing for the time, however many years hence, when they would get it back. On the industrial side, such a settlement, from the point of view of the welfare of the people of Europe, would be entirely out of harmony with the present official plans for rehabilitation, relief, health, transport, and communications which are all internationally devised to work on European lines, and are not devised to isolate any particular country. Moreover, when the future of Europe—and this is the point—depends upon the fullest collaboration in the economic field, such a settlement would isolate a very large country in the middle of Europe, and would deprive the United States and Britain and other industrial States of a large market. It is impossible to suppose that millions of Gentians hitherto trained in their industrial organization would willingly collaborate in an entirely different economy. Such a scheme of a punitive economic character, as some propose, would, in fact, involve the lowering of the standard of living all round, with repercussions far outside Germany.

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Then, second, is it a settlement for which all the nations would willingly stand in twenty or thirty years' time? We have, as realists, to remember that it has to be enforced, and that any undermining of the settlement in any point has to be resisted by arms. Surely, the answer is very doubtful, for such a settlement is based on the division of Europe into master Powers and slave Powers—the same as the Nazi division only with the roles reversed. And it is based, too, on a biological distinction, German and non-German, similar to Aryan and non-Aryan. It is certainly unlikely that Russia which holds as a doctrine that every people is good in itself, and that Anti-Semitism, not because it is Anti-Semitism but because it is biological heresy, is a crime, could possibly approve without a very great change in her total outlook. And a settlement which would involve the keeping down of a people for a long, undetermined time, by force—far longer than five years' occupation—would be extremely discouraging and, in the end, unbearable for the nations outside Germany. Would the United States of America be prepared to enforce a settlement of such a character in twenty or thirty years' time? Would the working classes in such a great democratic country as the United States, and in other democratic countries, be prepared to enforce such a settlement by fighting after the heat of the conflict was over? Would the smaller nations be continuously ready to maintain a settlement, the very heart of which is a seething mass of hatred and resentment in the middle of Europe?
Lastly, is it a settlement which the British people will still stand by in fifteen or twenty years' time? Again the crux is preparedness to fight. If it is a hard peace, however justifiable in theory, a peace based on a policy of enforcement which has no end, the British people are likely to be influenced by the same objection on grounds of principle which was felt last time, regarding the distinction between master nations and slave nations, a biological distinction, and the lowering of the general standard of living. It is very questionable from the practical point of view—and I wonder what the War Office thinks on this point—whether British soldiers and their families would be ready after the first few years to go on with the occupation unendingly. I
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do not think that the British people, fifteen or twenty years hence, would be prepared to go to war for what would seem to them some minor rectification of the settlement, and the whole process of 1919 to 1939 would be repeated. If the British people were convinced, amongst other things, that the enforcement of the peace settlement, involving an occupation of Germany for a very long time, was, as a consequence of the Treaty, inevitably conducted in such a way that all the democratic forces in Germany were in opposition, and that Germany was in principle ruled by a military dictatorship dependent on Quislings of another kind, I hardly think that they would stand for it in fifteen or twenty years' time.
I venture to put these questions as tests which may be fairly applied to any information about a peace settlement or details of a peace settlement which from time to time leak out or are given, because it is a durable peace that we want. Few people are interested—certainly I am not—in a soft peace for Germany, but I want a durable peace for Europe as a whole. It is too early at the present time to make hard and fast decisions, before the state of the German people, physical, mental and moral, after defeat is clearly seen; but the main task of any settlement must be to procure a peace which fulfills the primary purpose of any peace treaty, and that is to prevent the recurrence of war.
3.24 p.m.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I think that most of your Lordships will be grateful to my noble friend Lord Vansittart for bringing this matter before the House. We are, or we hope we are, within fair sight of the time when it will be necessary for the Powers to meet in conference or congress for the settlement of the peace of the world, and I think everybody will agree that before they sit down at the congress table a clear-cut view of exactly what we want and what is supported by public opinion in this country should be available for those who will be responsible for the settlement. My mind goes back twenty-five years to the time when the noble Earl (as he was then), Lord Curzon, introduced in your Lordships' House the Bill for the ratification of the Peace Treaty after the last war. Lord Curzon was careful to explain the exact position of the Government in

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regard to the Peace Treaty. He said that the initiative and the responsibility for the signature of treaties of all kinds lay with the Crown, acting on the advice of His Majesty's Government; constitutionally speaking, the assent of Parliament was not required. He went on to say, however, that, in view of the great importance of the Treaty which he laid before the House, its ratification by Parliament was certainly desirable, and so the Bill was introduced.
That Bill was introduced, I think, in your Lordships' House on July 3, 1919, only about three days after it had been signed; and obviously the opportunity for careful consideration of the terms of the Treaty was but slight. My noble friend Lord Vansittart has pointed out that although the Treaty of Versailles, which was then ratified by your Lordships and by the other House, was generally received with satisfaction, criticism began to be offered very soon afterwards. I remember—and it will be within the recollection of your Lordships who sat at that time in another place—that some very pertinent observations were offered by the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith (then Mr. Asquith), upon the financial clauses of the Treaty, but these criticisms were merely academic and there was no possibility of any alteration of the Treaty after it had been signed. All that Parliament could do was to ratify what had been done.
Experience has shown that this procedure was not really very satisfactory, and, as my noble friend Lord Vansittart and others have pointed out, it would have been greatly to the advantage of the public, and, if I may say so, of the Treaty, if full discussion and opportunity for criticism had been possible before the Treaty came into force. Noble Lords who have addressed your Lordships to-day have, I think, endorsed this view, and it has been suggested that opportunity should be given before the Treaty is signed for Parliament and public opinion to express their views about it. I hope that this will be done. I cannot feel that there would be any great difficulty in supplying Parliament with full information of what it was intended. to do and what the representatives of this country were prepared to propose at the conference table. There may be difficulties in doing soߞI do not know
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—and certainly it might cause delay, but we shall have a very long time before us, and there is no reason why the conference should not last for some time. It lasted for seven months, I believe, on the last occasion, and if it lasted two or three months more this time I do not think that any particular harm would be done.
People would then know what it was proposed to do, and both Houses of Parliament and the Press and other organs of public opinion would be able to lay before the Government the views of all sections of the population on the various problems which arise. Some of them at least have been mentioned by the right reverend Prelate who has just spoken. The Government and their representatives would know what people in this country think. And we must remember that the Peace Treaty does not concern this generation alone; it is really more important for the next generation, because they will have the difficulties before them and will have to carry out the terms of the Peace Treaty when they come into their inheritance. That is a matter of the greatest possible importance; because, although possibly .there may be machinery for altering the terms of the Peace Treaty—because nothing is static in this world—still that will be very difficult, and there will be great reluctance on all sides, especially among other Powers, to enter into what is really a supplementary treaty.
Therefore it seems to me of the utmost importance that whatever is decided at the conference should be really carefully thought out, and should have the whole force of public opinion behind it. We see to-day in the newspapers a draft of the arrangements which were come to recently. I think that was a very wise step on the part of the Government. That draft will be discussed carefully in all quarters, both in this country and in other countries as well, but when a definite arrangement is reached and signed—because I suppose that will be the eventual outcome—our Government and other Governments will have an opportunity of considering all the points that may be raised before the actual signature of a public instrument. That seems to me a course which it would be of great advantage to follow, where possible, in regard to the settlement after the war.
3.32 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, rests very largely, I think, on the question of the Treaty of Versailles. I think it is worth while examining that precedent a little more closely than he did. Surely if the public and the then House of Commons had had a larger voice in framing that Treaty it would have been far more severe than it actually was. I remember the telegrams which were sent to Mr. Lloyd George, who was then Prime Minister; they were always in the sense of what was called "gingering him up." Supposing that the Treaty had been more severe, would not the swing back have been even greater than it happened ultimately to be? That is what really frightens me about these extremist proposals. We cannot help having sympathy with the feelings of those who make them but when we come to think the matter over we feel that if we express them in a violent treaty the swing back in about five or ten years will be equally violent. That is what frightens me, and I am thinking not so much of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, himself as of some of his extremist followers. I feel that what they say is having a very serious effect in this country. Could he not keep them a little more in order?
In the course of the debate I think the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, made a slight error—I am sure he did it quite unwittingly. If I remember aright the reason why Sir Samuel Hoare, as he was then, resigned his post as Foreign Minister was because the Cabinet refused to accept his policy.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Oh no!
THE EARL OF PERTH: Oh yes, I can assure you that is true. It was on that ground that the Cabinet acted. It may be that public opinion was very strong, but the Cabinet did definitely refuse the policy he put forward.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: I do not wish to contradict the noble Earl, but everybody knows that the outcry was so great that the Cabinet had no choice at all and they had to say "Either we shall have to resign, or you will."
THE EARL OF PERTH: I think the two statements are quite reconcilable. All I said was that Sir Samuel Hoare resigned
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because the Cabinet refused to endorse his policy, and I think that is an accurate statement.
LORD STRABOLGI: What I said was that the Government ought to have resigned.
THE EARL OF PERTH: Surely if a Government refuses to accept a policy it is not called upon to resign. I do think there is a great deal to be said for the plea put forward by Lord Vansittart, but I would also beg the House to remember that we are not by any means alone in these matters, we have Allies, and that does make it very much more difficult. If we had been alone, obviously the House ought to be informed, and therefore I feel that in this case we ought to have confidence in the Government. But I would like to put one point. It is this. When agreements are definitely signed and approved by the Allies could they not see that they are published? I have in mind the Italian Armistice terms. They have been agreed to, everybody knows they exist, and yet we are kept in complete ignorance of them. I would ask the Government whether those terms could not be published. I of course will admit willingly that nothing in the nature of military resources must be revealed, but I think that in cases of that kind we could be given fuller information than we receive at present.
I want to turn to something in the speech of the right reverend Prelate, on a point which I dealt with before, but which I could not now allow to pass. When he was dealing with East Prussia he exaggerated the "Germanity" of East Prussia. If I remember aright the population of East Prussia is about three millions, out of which 1,250,000 at least are intellectuals, Junkers and officials. The great centre of Königsberg is also the centre of German culture in that area, but the peasants talk a mixture of Polish and German, and I believe you will find that originally they were of Polish stock. Therefore I do not at all think that in cutting off East Prussia you are taking something away from Germany which is vitally German. The Germans have built up a great tradition, that is perfectly true, but it is a tradition, I think, that ought to be broken down and discarded. I would go a little bit further. The right reverend Prelate talked a good deal about the effect

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on industry of taking East Prussia away from Germany. The effect on industry of taking East Prussia away from Germany would be very slight, if it existed at all.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: I was referring to Mr..Morgenthau's proposals.
THE EARL OF PERTH: I apologize, but I am glad that the right reverend Prelate apparently agrees with me with regard to East Prussia. But I do not think the transfer of a large number of Germans from East Prussia will present a very difficult problem. They will constitute a very small proportion of the people who have to be given new homes. I join issue with the right reverend Prelate also on the question of Czechoslovakia. In the case of Sudetenland, if Czechoslovakia is going to be impoverished because people are going to be removed, the Czechoslovak Government, which is composed of very wise people, will certainly want to keep those people who add to the prosperity of their country, provided they will be really loyal to the Czechoslovak State. That is the test. The test is loyalty. I hope they will get rid of all those people who proved traitors before and keep those who proved to be loyal.
3.40 P.M.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, in his Motion on the Paper and in the speech which he delivered the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, asked for an assurance that this House shall have "full opportunity of examining and debating in detail any Peace Treaty or provisional or partial settlement in contemplation, before the interests of this country are committed either in whole or in part." The debate—as is quite normal in your. Lordships' House—has gone a good deal wider than that very simple question. I do not propose to go this afternoon into any details of the future peace settlement such as were dealt with by the right reverend Prelate. I do not think the moment would be quite appropriate for that. Indeed, I do not think a great part of his speech came strictly within the terms of the Motion, though I have not the slightest doubt that there are many of your Lordships who, at the proper time, would be very ready to debate with the right reverend Prelate on the considerations which he urged on the House this afternoon. Neither do I
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propose to enter into certain controversial issues of past history raised by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, though I must confess I was a little appalled by the revelation which he made that for a great many years he has made it a practice to oppose all peace treaties in which His Majesty's Government have been engaged. I knew the noble Lord was bellicose; I did not know he was quite so bellicose as that.
I am not concerned to-day with the past: I am concerned with the Motion on the Paper; and I feel it will be for the convenience of your Lordships if I remind the House first of what is the exact constitutional position in this matter. In this country, the conclusion of a peace treaty, as Lord Strabolgi correctly stated, like a declaration of war, is one of the Prerogatives of the Crown. Prior submission to, or discussion in, Parliament is therefore technically a matter for the discretion of the Executive. Constitutionally, there is no formal need for the prior submission of a peace treaty to Parliament. In fact the position in respect of a peace treaty is the same as it is with regard to any other form of treaty. That is the technical and constitutional position. Many treaties, however, as we all know, cannot be implemented without some legislation, and it must clearly be an act of elementary wisdom on the part of the Executive to make sure, before finally concluding the treaty, that Parliament will be willing to pass any necessary legislation. Where a treaty is subject to ratification—as a peace treaty certainly would be—the regular practice is to seek Parliamentary approval for such legislation before the treaty is ratified but after it has been signed. This affords an opportunity for discussion of the contents of the treaty. While a great many of the provisions of any peace treaty which may be concluded at the end of the war may not require any legislation, so far as we are concerned, the treaty will almost certainly contain provisions which will require legislation. For this reason alone discussion in Parliament is bound to take place before the treaty is finally ratified.
Quite apart from this—and no doubt this is the main question which Lord Vansittart intended to raise by his Motion—there will evidently be the strongest reason for discussing and debating in Parliament at the appropriate time the arrangements to be made for the eventual conclusion of a peace settlement. Arrangements

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which may be agreed between statesmen, however admirable in themselves, stand little chance of survival if the people of the United Nations do not, in after years, possess the will to maintain them. It is essential, therefore, as the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, said in his speech, that the people of this country and of other countries should understand the reasons for the main provisions of a peace settlement and how it came to be made, and that they should accept, and know they are accepting, a share of the responsibility for these arrangements and for maintaining them in the future as the agreed means of preserving peace and prosperity in the world. That is the value of the publication of such documents as the conclusions of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference to which Lord Vansittart referred. I am very glad that the publication of this document has met with the approval of the noble Lord, as it has done, I think, with that of the great majority of your Lordships. It is evidence of a desire on the part of the Governments concerned to keep the world informed, and keep public opinion in their own countries informed, as to the problems of the future.
I would thus entirely endorse all that Lord Vansittart said about the desirability of keeping Parliament and the public informed, as suitable opportunity occurs, of the Government's plans for the future ordering of the world and of their approval being sought for these future arrangements. I can assure the House that His Majesty's Government will, in due course, invite and welcome discussion on the subject in Parliament. The only qualification I would make, if it can be called a qualification, is that such discussion must necessarily be confined to the broad lines of a future settlement. It would clearly be impracticable to discuss and obtain Parliament's approval for every detail of the arrangements, which must inevitably be of very great complexity. Even to attempt this would be to put far too heavy a strain on the machinery of Parliament. Indeed, I cannot believe that Lord Vansittart seriously intended to suggest such a thing in his Motion.
The noble Lord, in his Motion, mentions not only "any peace treaty" but also any "provisional or partial settlement in contemplation." What I have
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said about a peace treaty applies equally to any provisional or partial settlement, except that there may be certain difficulties regarding advance submission to Parliament which do not apply in the other case. Since a preliminary treaty by its very nature looks forward to some further and more permanent instrument, premature discussion in public might be prejudicial to the ultimate negotiations of that final treaty. That is a matter that should at any rate be borne in mind. Further, a preliminary treaty may be negotiated simultaneously with, or very soon after, an armistice, and, in such cases, there may be operational reasons for not disclosing our intentions in advance. These necessary provisos I feel bound to make.
In what I have said I have been assuming, as I think Lord Vansittart assumed in his Motion, that this particular war will be concluded by the normal processes of a Peace Treaty negotiated between representatives of Governments and subject to ratification by those Governments. In the present uncertainty as to future developments in Germany it may, as Lord Vansittart himself pointed out, not be possible to proceed in this way for some time and some other method may have to be used; but this does not affect the desirability of full Parliamentary discussion of any arrangement, in whatever form it may be made. With these few necessary provisos however I can fully endorse all that the noble Lord and other noble Lords have said this afternoon as to the obvious desirability of obtaining from Parliament and from the country approval of the provisions which His Majesty's Government in collaboration with other Governments concerned may work out for the peace settlement when the present conflict is over. We are, my Lords, a democratic nation and, to my mind, the country has everything to gain by people knowing the facts and more especially the difficulties with which the United Nations may be faced in arriving at a satisfactory settlement. Indeed, I cannot personally conceive any Government here in the United Kingdom, neglecting to expose their plans, in a matter of such vital importance, for examination both by Parliament and by the country. I think the noble Lord may therefore rest assured that there will be ample opportunity for discussing these plans as and when circumstances render such discussion practicable.
3.52 p.m.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, my Motion appears to have created a certain amount of misunderstanding in some quarters. I think I might summarize it very briefly by saying that what I desire is that we should not be put in the position of having to reject the whole because we do not like a part. That is my point in a nutshell. For that reason I find it difficult to reply to the speech of the right reverend Prelate because I think it was irrelevant to my Motion. On the other hand there was a speech which I think, perhaps without the speaker intending it, was entirely relevant to the Motion and that was the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi. He slapped his chest like King Kong and said: "Versailles, I rejected it, I and six others. The Treaty of Sevres—it does not matter whether some clauses were good and some bad I have killed them all." Listening to him I was reminded of the tyrant Drawcansir:
"Others may boast a single man to kill
But I the blood of thousands daily spill."
The position I do not want us to get into is one in which, if we dislike a part, all clauses must be rejected whether they are good or bad. I was reminded as the noble Lord spoke of the first speech I ever made in the open air. I had to take over the title deeds of the National Theatre and when I had said a few words I was succeeded by the speaker of the day, who was Mr. Bernard Shaw. He, somewhat to my consternation, began his speech a; follows: "The first question which will be asked is, Do the British public want a National Theatre? and the answer of course is, No. The British public never want anything." I think that was a libel on the public but if he had been listening to the noble .Lord today I think he would have had considerable confirmation of what he then said, because there was not a single treaty that could hope to stand up against the noble Lord. When we do come to a discussion of these grave matters I think we shall have to have our embrasures enlarged so that these various treaties can go through. What I want to make sure is that we are able to sense in advance whether public opinion is going to approve this clause or that, because I agree that it is no good having treaties which will not have future support. At the same time I hope the public will show themselves very tenacious this time. I
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repeat that the prime purpose of my Motion is to ensure that we shall not be put into a dilemma where we can make no contribution without a total rejection which we should be loath to contemplate. As to the speech of the noble Lord, the Leader of the House, he has, I recognize, gone as far as he possibly could to give satisfaction to my Motion and in the light of that assurance I have pleasure in asking for leave to withdraw it.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

ADEN COLONY (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1944.
3.56 p.m.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire, I beg to move the Motion on the Order Paper in his name.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Order be made in the form of the draft approved by the House on Thursday last.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

TRADE PROSPECTS.
3.57 P.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I beg to ask the question standing on the Paper in my name:
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have seen the report appearing in the Press of October 5 of an announcement by the State Department in Washington to the effect that U.S. foreign service officers are reminded that American trade interests desire information regarding all business contacts and interests in the liberated areas, and are instructed to investigate the status of American branch and affiliated factories there, with a view to establishing how they can be used and the prospect of their resumption of trade operations in the near future; and whether similar instructions are being issued to British consular and other officers with a view to securing similar opportunities for British industries.]
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I have seen the announcement to which the noble Lord refers regarding the instructions issued by the United States Department of State to United States diplomatic and consular representatives stationed in areas liberated from Axis control calling for reports on economic and trade conditions for the guidance of both Government and private interests. I fully appreciate the desire of the noble Lord that British trade interests in the countries concerned should not be neglected, but I can assure him that it is the main function of His Majesty's commercial diplomatic or consular officers to report and make inquiries on matters of this kind and no special instructions are required.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, arising out of the reply, for which I thank my noble friend, may I ask him whether he would ask the Government to take steps immediately to ensure that all the Allied countries should have equal facilities for reestablishing their commercial connexions
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in the liberated areas in the Commonwealth and in the world's markets?
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: In answer to the supplementary question of the noble Lord, I can assure him that regulations are already in existence which aim at that precise purpose.
There is to be a Royal Commission shortly and I think the most suitable plan would be for your Lordships to adjourn during pleasure.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following Bill received the Royal Assent:
Housing (Temporary Accommodation).
House adjourned at twenty minutes before five o'clock.