THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION.

HL Deb 27 November 1945 vol 138 cc17-66

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE rose to call attention to recent developments in the international situation and to statements by His Majesty's Government thereon; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, when Parliament met after the Summer Recess, a good many weeks ago, I placed on the Order Paper a Motion in general form to give an opportunity for a discussion on international affairs. For a variety of reasons, as your Lordships know, that discussion never took place. In the days which immediately followed the breakdown of the meeting of Foreign Ministers in London, it seemed undesirable to provoke a public debate which might have the effect of exacerbating an already delicate situation. Later came the announcement that the Prime Minister was to pay a visit to the United States, and I think that all your Lordships felt that any debate before his return would be premature and incomplete, and might increase the difficulties of the negotiations in which he was about to be engaged. Though politics in this country are now back on the old-fashioned Party basis, your Lordships' House have never taken the narrow view that the duty of the Opposition is to cause the maximum embarrassment to the Government whether or not that accords with the true interests of the country. Therefore, I left my Motion on the "No Day Named" list.

But I think it will be generally agreed that the reasons for holding our hands no longer apply. The Prime Minister has returned from Washington, and has given a full account of the discussions which took place there. Moreover, the Foreign Secretary has also made no fewer than two speeches in another place surveying the whole scene of foreign affairs. The time, I felt, and I am sure your Lordships will agree, had clearly arrived when it was desirable for this House, which, after all, contains so many experts in this sphere of public affairs, to express its views on recent developments in the international sphere, and on the different pronouncements which have been made on these developments by His Majesty's Government.

In the old days—at least, judging by the reports of debates which I have read —there was a tendency for debates on foreign affairs to range very wide and to cover events, some important, some, perhaps., not quite so important, in every part of the world. They were, in fact, in the nature of political travelogues. But nowadays, after our experience during the last six years, we have come, I think, to be not so much concerned with individual events in individual countries. Indeed we hardly regard individual countries as separate entities. We recognize, all of us, that in the modern world they are all cogs, some big cogs, some small ones, interlocking and interdependent, in one vast international machine, and that anything that happens in any one country inevitably affects all the others. Our object, nowadays, is to find means so to adjust that international machine that it works smoothly and without friction, and if we can succeed in that task we know that events in individual countries will not disturb international harmony. It was—as I understand it—with that main problem of creating an effective international machine, that the debate in another place was mainly concerned, and it is to that problem that my remarks will be confined this afternoon. If I refer in the course of them to individual countries, it will only be in relation to that main problem.

This year, 1945, which is now drawing to a close, has witnessed events which should have raised our spirits to the highest peak of optimism. We have seen the overwhelming defeat of aggression in Europe and in the Far East. What is more, we have seen the establishment at San Francisco of a peace system which, I think, by universal agreement, is more realistic and more powerful than the League of Nations which preceded it, and which has received also—as the League never did—the approval and the adhesion of the greatest nations in the world, those Powers on which peace ultimately must depend. We ought to be sanguine and even confident about the future, and yet, I suppose, there has never been a time when the minds of men were so consumed with anxiety as to what the future may bring. Why should this be? No doubt it is in part due to the natural reaction from war. For six long years we have been living in conditions of unparalleled strain, and now that that strain is relaxed we find ourselves exhausted, and the task of repairing the damage which war has caused seems, sometimes, to be almost beyond us.

Moreover, as the fog of war clears away, we can see for the first time how gigantic is the damage, both material and psychological, which has resulted from this conflict. We hardly know where to start to put it right. Europe with its huge populations drifting about without aim and without hope is indeed a spectacle which might well appeal the stoutest heart. But in addition to this hideous situation, which must weigh down the spirits of anyone who thinks at all, there have been two new developments of the most formidable kind. The first, of course, is the discovery of the atomic bomb, which makes the prospects of future wars, inevitably, even more terrible than those which we have experienced. Secondly, there is the growth, which we cannot deny, of a miasma of suspicion which is poisoning the relations at present between Russia and the other great Powers whose absolute trust in each other is necessary if war is to be prevented. To my mind, of these two developments, curiously enough, the second is infinitely the more serious. If the relations between all the great Powers were established on unshakable foundations we might really, to some extent, snap our fingers at the bomb. It would still remain a horrible weapon but it would be a weapon which was very unlikely to be used. It is the fact that the relations between the great Powers are not secure; which makes the bomb a practical danger.

The main object, as I see it, therefore, of every statesman in every country must be to remove the cause of that suspicion which to-day is undermining general confidence. That, as I see it, is the main aim of foreign policy at the present time. What is the Government, and indeed what are we all doing, to further that aim? That was the main theme of the debate in another place and it has been the subject of many suggestions both on that and other occasions during recent months and weeks. There was Mr. Churchill's suggestion for a United States of Europe; there has been the proposal for a Western Pact and there has been Mr. Bevin's very far-reaching proposal for a World Assembly with members, as I understand it, to be elected directly by the peoples of the various countries. With regard to the last proposal, I, like everybody else, honour the motives of the Foreign Secretary that inspired him to put it forward, but frankly I am doubtful about it. I do not believe that in practice it is possible or desirable to make a differentiation between Governments and peoples. To do that, is to cut at the very roots of representative government. Moreover, any attempt to do that is bound to arouse suspicion in the minds of the Governments themselves and that alone is likely to kill the proposal. While, therefore, I speak as one in full agreement with Mr. Bevin's object in multiplying contacts between the nations, I believe we must work through the Governments if any effective result is to be achieved.

Finally, there was the general statement of the late Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden, that all countries "must modify their old conceptions of sovereignty." There must be very few of us who think at all on this subject who would dissent from Mr. Eden's proposition. That is clearly our right aim but he would be the first, I think, to say—indeed I believe he did say it in his speech—that general aims have to be given practical application. Broad statements of principle are valuable in that they turn the minds of men in the right direction but they are not without their dangers. There is a tendency in the modern world, perhaps there has always been a tendency, to be mesmerized by phrases that become a sort of magic incantation in which the man in the street puts implicit trust without stopping to think what they mean or what they entail.

In one of the books of a very brilliant writer, Mr. Logan Pearsall Smith, this tendency is very acutely satirized and I should like to quote it, if you would not consider it too frivolous for an occasion such as this. The passage is entitled, "Ions": 'Self-determination,' one of them insisted, ' Arbitration,' cried another. ' Cooperation,' suggested the mildest of the party. ' Confiscation,' answered an uncompromising female. I too, became slightly intoxicated by the sound of these vocables. And were they not the cure for all our ills? ' Inoculation,' I chimed in. ' Transubstantiation, Alliteration, inundation, flagellation, and afforestation.'

It is possible to laugh at this: indeed it is almost impossible not to laugh at it; but it does contain a very profound truth. We must not allow ourselves to be intoxicated with words. We have already had "self-determination" which was to remove the causes of war. Then we had "collective security" which was to make war impossible. But neither of these prevented the greatest conflict in history. Do not let us gull ourselves that we shall bring about universal peace merely by setting up machinery to modify sovereignty. Indeed, if words could do it, that aim has already been almost achieved.

The members of the United Nations have assumed most far-reaching obligations under Article 2 of the Charter. There it is laid down in most unequivocal terms, and I should like to quote the words: All members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. Secondly: All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. Thirdly: All members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any State against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action. If that is not modification of national sovereignty, I. do not know what is. It must mean, if it means anything, that the nations who have signed the Charter pledged themselves, without qualification, to subordinate their national interests, their interests as a community, to the nations as a whole, yet suspicion and mistrust still persists.

Personally—if I may be allowed a personal view—I am driven to the conclusion that the evil is far more deep-seated than the mere question of a lack of machinery and we must face the fact that the fundamental unity of European civilization, cultural and spiritual, has been temporarily destroyed. Two hundred years ago, whatever might be the disputes between this and another country, the ordinary man in Europe regarded himself as a member of the same cultural society. He moved without hindrance across the frontiers from one State to another. He was able, freely and frankly, to exchange ideas with what is now known as the common roan in other countries. The retrogression that has taken place in this respect during recent years is appalling to contemplate. We are back to the Middle; Ages; we are almost back to the Dark Ages. Each country to-day is like a fortress with its inhabitants looking anxiously over the battlements to see whence the next blow is coming. Visitors; from neighbouring lands are treated like spies; they have to pass the most stringent examination before they are allowed into any country at all. There is no free exchange of ideas between the ordinary citizens and so there is no opportunity of establishing a common viewpoint. We grow up mistrusting each other and every day that mistrust grows. That is a tendency which began long before this war and, if anything, I think it has got worse.

To-day the dividing line between those parts of Europe which are within the sphere of the Western Powers and those parts of Europe which are within the sphere of Russia, are almost becoming the dividing line between two civilizations. The contacts between these two spheres are almost daily fewer. Even the same words have different meanings. Mr. Eden, the other day, instanced the words "democracy" and "freedom," and of course what he said is profoundly true. On such a basis as that, how can a world organization, or any international organization, succeed? What I feel is needed now, above all, is to break down these artificial barriers dividing us up and recreate the intellectual and cultural unity of Europe; for Europe is, after all, the main, if not the only seat at present, of trouble. It is here, I feel, that our Russian Allies can make a tremendous contribution. We really know little or nothing—I suppose the Foreign Office know—about what is happening in the Russian sphere. It appears to be shut off by an impenetrable curtain. Every now and then disturbing stories filter through and increase the general malaise.

What is the best way to kill these rumours? Let the Russian Government throw open the frontiers; let them give facilities for journalists and trained observers, and anybody else, who care to go there, and I think there would be an immediate relaxation of the tension. It may be that those who went there would not approve of all they saw, just as visitors from Russia might not wholly approve of what they saw here. But, gradually, I believe, the lines of division would be softened down. We might not agree with each other, but we should begin to understand each other. By that method alone, I believe, can a middle line —a modus vivendi—be found. Also—if I may make one further point in this connexion—let us have as many meetings as possible between the Russian leaders and the leaders of Western Europe. I do not think it matters a bit if they are not always successful. What is important is that they should take place. In that way alone, as I see it, that mutual confidence can be built up which existed at Moscow, at Teheran, and at other places during the war.

I was disturbed, as I suspect many of your Lordships were disturbed, to see in the newspapers reports from Washington in the last two or three days that no further meeting is likely between the Big Three for some considerable time. I hope that is not true, for if we merely glare at each other across devastated Europe the situation can only further deteriorate. The noble Viscount the Leader of the House may be able to give us some reassurance on that point. I am a Conservative, and I cannot be expected to be particularly enamoured of the Russian system, but there can be no one, to whatever Party he belongs, who does not want good relations between Great Britain, the United States and Russia, for on that alone must peace depend. It is for that reason that we must, all of us, regret the new friction which appears to have arisen between the Western Powers and Russia over the atomic bomb. I am not going to complain this afternoon as to the procedure which was agreed at Washington. Very likely, it was the only course that could be adopted in the existing circumstances, and, at any rate, it is satisfactory to know that complete agreement was registered between Great Britain, Canada and the United States.

No doubt, too, there are many who would have preferred that the bomb should be handed over immediately to the Security Council of the United Nations. It cannot be denied, at first sight, that there is something anomalous about refusing to transmit so supreme a weapon for peace to the World Organization. But, to my mind, those who favour such a course ignore one fundamental consideration—the existence in the Charter of a power of veto by any permanent member of the Security Council against action by the Council, or by the World Organization. There are many of us, as your Lordships know, who always thought the veto provision unfortunate, but now I believe it has become absolutely disastrous. While it remains in the Charter, it is always open—or always would be open—for any permanent member of the Council to veto the use of the bomb, or even the threat of use of the bomb, in any dispute, whether the Power in question was directly concerned in the dispute or not. In such circumstances the whole deterrent value of the bomb as a means for preserving peace would be largely nullified. The Security Council could be prevented from using it, and no individual nation would be allowed to use it even for the purpose of stopping aggression. From such a situation I cannot see that anyone would benefit except the aggressor.

While the veto remains in the Charter, it is surely better that the bomb should remain in the possession of the United States in whose pacific intentions we can have absolute trust. But, if the veto were expunged from the Charter, the position would be entirely different. Then the arguments against handing over the bomb to the World Organization would largely disappear. After all, the main arguments which used to be used against the veto at the San Francisco Conference have already ceased to have any validity. It used to be said that if a great Power dissented from any decision of the World Organization, that Organization would, in any case, be unable to function, and that it was better to recognize that hard fact in the Charter. But with the invention of the atomic bomb, that argument, surely, is no longer true. It is not true to say that the defection of one great Power would necessarily make the World Organization impotent. It is so devastating a weapon that it is improbable that even the greatest Powers could stand up against it. They would almost certainly be bound to bow to the will of the World Organization possessing that weapon.

In that new situation, what useful purpose does the veto serve? To my mind it is already entirely out of date; and, therefore, I would suggest to the noble Lord the Leader of the House that consideration should be given to the calling of a meeting of the permanent members of the Security Council and to propose to them the abolition of the veto to enable the bomb to be transferred to the Security Council of the World Organization. If they agreed, I think the gain to peace would be immeasurable, and the present friction, which is so unfortunate, would very largely disappear. If, on the other hand, any great Power insisted on the retention of the veto, then the world would know where the responsibility lay. I do not, of course, expect any answer to that rather far-reaching suggestion this afternoon, but I submit the idea to the consideration of the Government.

I have come to the end of what I have to say. I am afraid the picture I have painted is inevitably sombre. But the scene itself is sombre. On the other hand, I do not believe that the outlook is wholly black; there are encouraging features. If the situation in Europe is gloomy, as it undoubtedly is, in other parts of the world the problem of the inter-relationship of nations has been very largely solved. There is the example of the British Commonwealth of Nations to which the Prime Minister referred in his speech. There is the example of the frontier between Canada and the United States—3,000 miles of frontier without a single guard and with the people of the two countries passing freely across it every day of the year. What has been done in one part of the world can be done in another.

Of course, if Russia desires to sink back into isolation no one can stop her. That is a decision for her. But I cannot believe it is her intention. For she would he the first to suffer. At any rate, we must do all we can to prevent it. Let us have meetings, and yet more meetings, between the Russian leaders and the leaders of the Western Powers. Let us try to recreate that atmosphere of frankness and confidence which existed in the clays of the war. Let us continually urge her to remove those artificial barriers which to-day separate and divide the peoples of Europe, and to throw open the frontiers to let fresh air in, and to recreate the unity of Europe. It is to that, and not to any mere machinery, that I believe our policy must be directed. It is to that that I hope, above all, the Foreign Secretary will turn his mind. The Foreign Secretary has a difficult and often an invidious and discouraging task, but he has, during the short time he has held office, deserved well of his country. I am sure we shall all wish him, so long as he proceeds on his present lines, God-speed in his efforts.

3.0 p.m.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

My Lords, the field covered by this Motion is very vast. The noble Viscount who has moved it has given the reasons why he has not pursued the course frequently followed on such occasions as this of attempting any individual survey of the particular problems that now arise in many parts of the world. For the same reasons, I shall follow the same course. I could have desired, indeed, to have dealt with one particular area, the Middle East, and one special problem, Palestine, but that is too specialized to form part of a general debate, and I would express my own view that a special day to be devoted to that subject would give rise to a useful debate in which responsible members of this House might make valuable constructive suggestions, and in which, I believe, a greater measure of substantial agreement would be found than might at first sight be anticipated. But I must confess, from inquiries I have made, I find no very general desire for such a debate. Should other noble Lords wish to take part in it, however, I would make representations to the Leader of the House asking if a date could be arranged accordingly.

One particular reference I would venture to make as a preliminary. I feel sure that many of your Lordships would desire reference to be made to the successful emergence of our neighbour and close Ally, France, from the difficult and severe political crisis through which she has just been passing. It is, I believe, to the general relief in this country that there should have emerged a strong combined Government, headed by the national leader approved by the electors and by the Assembly; and we hope that the ending of the crisis may assure political stability in France, which is the first step to economic, financial and social security. For the rest, I propose to devote myself to only two topics, and they are the same as those to which the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, has addressed himself—namely, the situation created by the invention of the atomic bomb, and the present relations between this country and Russia.

The atomic bomb has created a completely new world situation. The lines have become literally true: A thousand years scarce serve to build a state; An hour may lay it in the dust. This, I think, is the first certainty with regard to the atomic bomb: that it cannot be monopolized in perpetuity by any one nation, or by any two, or by any three, and held in terrorem by them over the rest of mankind. In the first place, it is not practicable. The explosive is known; all that was necessary was to invent a safe trigger. If one group of scientists was able to achieve that in a few months, another group of scientists in another country would certainly be able to achieve the same in a few months also. Meanwhile international relations would be poisoned. If we, the British people, had not, been one of the three who had the possession of the secret of the manufacture of the atomic bomb, I think we should have seen more clearly than perhaps we do now how intolerable the present position is. If—to take perhaps an impossible illustration and merely for the sake of illustration—a group of scientists drawn from, say, Russia, France, and Italy, had come together and discovered the means of using atomic energy and of manufacturing such a bomb, and had communicated that to their own Governments and to those alone, we here in Britain and the people of the United States would at once have declared that it was impossible that we could permit a monoply in the hands of so limited a group as that.

The second fact which stares us in the face is that, as was stated in the declaration of President Truman, our Prime Minister and Mr. Mackenzie King, there is a real danger in proceeding at once to the opposite extreme and to publishing broadcast to all the world, not merely the underlying idea of the atomic bomb (for that has long been known) but the details of its actual mechanism. At present it is true that it can be manufactured only in great plants, enormous in size, costly and conspicuous; but it is very possible that some alternative method may be discovered for the release of atomic energy of a much simpler and inconspicuous character, which would permit, almost in complete secrecy, this deadly weapon to be manufactured almost anywhere. Therefore this invention must be controlled. In order to be controlled its manufacture must be detected, and that, no doubt, will be possible, but only if it is made someone's business to do it. Consequently the second conclusion to which we must arrive with regard to the atom bomb is not only that it cannot be monopolized by one, two or three nations, but also that there must be some effective system of inspection and control in order to safeguard the world against its misuse.

But here there comes in another consideration to which so far I have not seen reference made. How far is this inspection to go? Does it involve that all military establishments should be open to the inspection of an international organization—every arsenal, every naval dockyard, the laboratories in which new military inventions are being devised and tested; that all new forms of armaments on land, sea, or in the air should be subject to inspection at their earliest stages; naval guns, submarines, torpedoes, planes, rockets, artillery—everything, in fact, except possibly small arms? Is that the proposal? If it is not the proposal, how can you be sure that you will be able to prevent the enlistment of atomic energy secretly and to the detriment of the countries of the world? Are we to make a general rule that there should be no armaments at all? That, no doubt, would be ideal but far from possible in the present age. Are we to say that there shall be no new armaments and only existing inventions should be used; or are we to say that no country is to have any exclusive development in any branch of armaments and that any future war should be like a duel, under the guidance of seconds, who will see that each combatant has precisely equal weapons and an equal chance? That has been achieved in one respect in the prohibition of poisonous gases, though whether the observance of that rule in the recent war was due to the fact that nations had undertaken not to use them, or to the fear of reprisals, is a moot point.

I had the privilege of attending the Disarmament Conference of 1932 as one of the representatives of the British Government, of which I was at that time a member. I took part in the work of many Committees which were given the task of trying to distinguish between aggressive weapons and defensive weapons. It was intended that by general treaty the ones should be prohibited and the others allowed. It was found, however, that there were most formidable technical difficulties in making such a differentiation, and in any case it was realized that universal inspection of all military establishments would be indispensable. Such a course would mean that all countries should agree beforehand to surrender all weapons of surprise and that every country should know precisely what weapons it would have to face if it were engaged in war. That, I believe, would be a most beneficent revolution, but whether countries would agree to it remains to be seen. That is one of the most difficult problems likely to face the United Nations Organization when it comes to close quarters with this particular problem.

We have recently read most remarkable speeches by the present and previous Foreign Secretaries, Mr. Bevin and Mr. Eden, advocating that national sovereignty should no longer be absolute and unconditional, responsible to no ones That is a most remarkable development in international policy which. I feel, should be widely welcomed, although I must at once express my agreement with the view put forward by the noble Viscount who has just spoken—namely, that the federal solution of the election of a universal or a European assembly by a direct vote of all the peoples, while leaving in being all the present Parliaments, would create a situation which would not be likely to conduce to the smooth government of Europe or of the world.

Those two principles will, I feel certain, have to be generally agreed; first, that the atomic bomb is not to be a monopoly; and secondly, that it must be subjected to efficient control and safeguard. But there is a third principle which I believe ought to be adopted; that is that atomic energy should not be regarded merely from the standpoint of explosives but should he regarded primarily from the standpoint of industrial, economic and social development. That it can, and will, be applied to industrial use is almost universally agreed; some of our scientists who have had most to do with recent developments, men like Professor Chadwick and Professor Oliphant, as well as many American scientists, have publicly stated that they think it will only be a question of a few years before it comes into current use. The mode of its employment is easily foreseen. Nuclear fission results in the release of energy in the form of heat; heat can always be used to drive engines, engines to work dynamos, and dynamos to produce electricity. Therefore the whole of the electrical installations of the world could, in the near future, be run from nuclear energy, and countries would be independent of supplies of coal, oil or water power. No one can assert that that is certain, but, on the other hand, no one can deny that it is possible; and if it is possible, it would be for the advantage of mankind that that line of discovery should be pursued. There can be very little doubt that international competition will ensure that it will be pursued, for any country which is in the forefront of the new development will leap ahead, as did Britain at the time of the opening of the age of steam, and any country which is slow in starting will soon find itself altogether out of the running.

After all, this is a British discovery; the structure of the atom was discovered by J. J. Thomson and Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge—not Cambridge, Mass., but Cambridge, Eng.! There is no reason why the British people should, on this occasion at all events, as was done in the case of the dye industry and other industries, fall behind and allow others to lead in the development of a discovery that was first made here. Therefore I welcome most cordially the prompt action of His Majesty's present Government in appointing a Committee under Sir John Anderson to review the whole of the situation, and further in deciding at once in favour of intensive research on the largest scale. The problem before us now is to ensure that the same activity and resource which led to the discovery and the application of atomic energy will ensure its regulation and control in the interests of all mankind.

Happily, this matter, which is the concern of all mankind, may be subjected to machinery which has already been devised. Just at the right moment, quite independently of the discovery of this terrific explosive force, the United Nations Organization has come into being and we have the honour of knowing that it is to hold its first meeting here in this capital within the next few weeks. Whatever matters of importance may come before that Organization in the years to come, I am certain there can be none of more profound and more momentous importance than this matter which will come before it as its first business. The Government have declared on several occasions that the first principle of their foreign policy is to promote the United Nations Organization. We on these Benches wholeheartedly agree that that is the right principle. We welcome the reference of the atomic bomb to the United Nations Organization by the procedure proposed in the statement of the Prime Minister, the President of the United States, and Mr. Mackenzie King. That statement was much in advance of an earlier statement made by the President of the United States and we would cordially thank the Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, for the great service he has rendered by his participation in the Washington Conference and for the results that were achieved.

The United Nations Organization must have leadership and it must have force at its back; but it must not be subject to any form of domination, whether by The Three or by The Five, or by the eleven in the Security Council. The Assembly of the whole fifty-one should be the final determining body within that Organization. We may be certain that the nations in general will have their own views, and consequently it would be foolish for this country to wish to go into that Conference to be held in London in January with any cut-and-dried scheme. I am sure that noble Lords will not wish to-day to press the Government for any detailed statement as to the precise proposals they will lay before the United Nations Organization on that occasion. Whether it would be wise to summon, as the noble Lord has just proposed, a special meeting of the permanent members of the Security Council to deal with this question, I do not know; I have not had an opportunity of considering the proposal. At first sight I am doubtful about it; it might seem that the great Powers were seeking to control beforehand the actions of the Assembly when it met. However, if there were a real prospect of a speedy agreement, perhaps it would be worth while attempting it, though it might be better done at first in private rather than by any public action.

That brings me to my second and my final subject—namely, the relations between this country and Russia which caused such disagreement at the recent Conference of the Foreign Secretaries. As a rule when a diplomatic conference is being held, after it is over a joint statement is issued to the effect that the Conference met in a spirit of full mutual confidence and reached complete agreement on all points. On this occasion, in effect, the declaration was made that the Conference met in a spirit of deep mutual suspicion and came to no agreement on anything at all. That is open diplomacy with a vengeance! That came to this country and to all countries as a painful shock. It caused almost a panic; some organs of public opinion seemed at once to come to the conclusion that all was lost, and that we were sliding straight into the next war. That, unquestionably, is contrary to every desire of all the peoples. I am confident that in this country there is the greatest distress that there should be such friction between the British Commonwealth and the United States on the one hand and Russia on the other.

I think that the true spirit animating the masses of the British people was shown not very long ago on the occasion of the-first football match between a Russian team and a British team, when the crowds were unprecedented and the enthusiasm exceeded anything that had ever been known before. It was carried to such a point that the obvious desire of the crowd was that the visiting team and not the British team should win. That spirit was unquestionably due to the admiration felt by the masses of our people for the endurance, the valour and efficiency of the Russian people in the, war, and to our gratitude for the part which they had played; because, if they had not played it, probably at this very hour we should still be engaged in bitter, costly and bloody campaigns in a war which was in fact concluded many months ago.

Furthermore, there is no doubt that there is amongst our own and all peoples a very keen interest—often highly critical as to aims and methods—in the social experiment now proceeding in Russia, the largest experiment ever attempted in history, though in my judgment and in that of many of your Lordships not necessarily the best experiment or the one most likely to be fruitful. However, the fact remains that there is a great deal of interest in and sympathy with the ideas underlying that experiment. There was in consequence dismay at the failure of the Conference of Foreign Secretaries. But the failure of one Conference is not conclusive. If it were repeated, the situation would be grave, and if indeed it were constant and invariable, that would be fatal; but there is no reason to take so pessimistic a view of the results of the failure of that one Conference. Since then there has been a number of disagreeable incidents in many parts of the world in which Russian action has been involved. Sometimes when a man is suffering from an illness there will arise all kinds of apparently unrelated symptoms in various limbs and organs, just as there have arisen such symptoms all round the perimeter of international affairs; but it is all due to one microbe, and when means have been devised, by injections or drugs or whatever it may be, to dispose of that microbe, that man's illness ends completely in all its aspects, and all the various symptoms clear up in a few days, apparently by themselves. It may be the same in this case. All these various incidents in many countries may be due to a single cause, and is a diplomatic method consisting in bringing pressure to bear to secure changes in important central matters.

It is suspicion in this case which is the poison that is affecting the whole of the international body politic. I shall not go back into the history which gave rise to such suspicion before the last war. That attitude was in suspense during the war, when we were Allies and fighting hard in a common cause, and it is our business to see that the same attitude which prevailed for too long between the wars is not allowed to revive now. As the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, has said, it is very largely due to the lack of publicity, to Russian secretiveness; and, as Mr, Eden said in the House of Commons a few days ago, "We have to get to know each other, and that involves freedom to speak and freedom to comment across the frontier. Drop those barriers of censorship, and you will blow away by one gust much of this black fog of suspicion." I think that we could here confirm those words, and send that message to our Russian friends, and invite them to let the free air of publicity blow through affairs throughout the world and thereby remove many of these causes of disagreement.

I was going to give two or three instances of the false reports which arise on account of this lack of publicity, but I am detaining your Lordships too long, and so will pass on to my final point, which is that we on our side have entertained suspicions, I think unnecessarily, of Russian action in the Balkans and in sonic other countries. There are some here who see in what is happening in those countries the designs of a ruthless and determined Russian imperialism which would seek to dominate completely the politics of all the countries that are her neighbours. I believe that we shall take a false view of the present course of history in those countries, and indeed of the history of Europe for the last hundred years or more, if we do not realize that these peoples are moved very largely by social and economic factors, and that it is the agrarian question more than any other which has determined the attitude of the peoples of the Balkans, of Poland, of East Prussia and of other countries.

After the French Revolution in 1789, which was a social revolution much more than a constitutional one, the land question was largely solved by the confiscation of the great estates and the declaration that they were to be regarded as Biens nationaux. In Ireland from the time of Daniel O'Connell onwards there was a great agrarian movement which entirely dominated the politics of Ireland. After the first World War and the Revolution in Russia there was also an agrarian revolu tion, with the dispossession first of the great landlords and then of the Kulaks. Now, after the second World War, we find the same process going on in Poland, in East Prussia, in Hungary, in Rumania and elsewhere. For them these questions of the monarchy, the Church and the wealthy classes are incidents in the agrarian struggle, and they look upon those factors in their societies—the Kings, the Churches and the rich—as enemies who may deprive them of the land of which they have now obtained possession. The only great State in Europe on which they can rely to support them in this great change is Soviet Russia. It is for that reason, I believe, rather than because they wish to place themselves under Russian domination, or on account of any military pressure or any other cause at all, that they are led to have for Russia a friendly understanding which, of course, is reflected in Russia itself, and which creates a situation such as that which we now see.

With regard to Anglo-Russian relations, there is also the question of the atomic bomb. Russia was one of the Big Three, and at Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam affairs were managed by three Powers, the British Commonwealth, the United States and Russia. But now the atomic bomb is in the hands of another trinity. Russia has dropped out and Canada has come in; not, of course, through any deliberate intention or political intrigue, but because the inventors of the bomb were drawn from those three countries, and, for convenience of manufacture, manufacture took place in the United States. Yet the fact remains, and the first declaration of the President of the United States was unfortunately worded so as to make it appear that these three were to be the possessors and administrators of this great new invention. One can imagine how much resented that must have been in Russia, where, as I say, they ceased to be one of the trinity concerned and saw another take their place. Let us hope that this matter will be remedied when the Assembly of the United Nations Organization meets.

We have watched with the closest interest the declarations made by the new Foreign Secretary, Mr. Bevin. They have been marked by firmness and frankness, and I think that they have aroused a general admiration. If one were to strike a note of friendly criticism, it would be to urge the Foreign Secretary not to allow the feeling of resentment, to which he gave expression in his own words, to develop too far and to result possibly in recrimination. He might win popularity in certain quarters but he would, perhaps, be sorry for it, if he discovered to his surprise and regret that he was being looked upon as a second Palmerston. I remember that when Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. Snowden were Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer respectively, they went to the Conference on German Reparations at The Hague, and they there upheld the British cause with vigour and success. When they came back they found that, from being regarded as two of the most hated men in politics in England—having been pacifists during the previous war—they had become immensely popular. They were received with so much surprise, gratitude, and relief; they were taken to the heart of the whole nation immediately, and they were given the freedom of the City of London in a golden casket.

On the United Nations Organization our hopes must be set if the world is to be saved from the effects of its own anarchy. These new declarations that are being made for the surrender, not of sovereignty, but of some portions of sovereignty, are wise, timely and necessary. There is in them no derogation from a true patriotism. Patriotism and internationalism need not be opposites and should not be. By chance, two days ago, I came across a quotation from the words of a French Bishop of an earlier century. He said this: The Christian"— and he might have said it of the sincere adherents of any of the great ethical religions— is at one and the same time a cosmopolitan and a patriot. These two qualities are not incompatible, for the world is in truth a common fatherland.

3.34 P.m.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

My Lords, I propose to follow the two noble Viscounts who have spoken in confining my remarks almost entirely to the atomic bomb. I want, however, to make just one observation upon what has been said, by the noble Viscount who has just sat down, about Russia. We are all of us gravely disappointed and very anxious concerning the unexpected lack of co-operation between ourselves and our great Ally during these recent months. We must, however, remember that Russia has probably suffered more than any other country during this war. She has lost millions of her citizens through deliberate massacre, and vast areas of Russian land have been completely destroyed. No wonder that the Russians to-day are in a condition of nervous anxiety and suspicion, which you find in other countries, too, and which, indeed, is not altogether absent from our own country. But one thing which I think is clear in all our minds is that there can be no peace for Europe unless there is close co-operation between the United States, Russia and ourselves.

I really intervened, as I have said, to speak on some of the problems which arise in connexion with the atomic bomb. Nothing which we have discussed since the war has been of such grave importance as this matter, and I believe that if there is still a civilization in existence in a hundred years' time, the historians looking back at this year will say that the great events of 1945 were not victories but were the discoveries culminating in the discovery of the atomic bomb. I look back, I admit, with a very uneasy conscience at our use of that bomb against Japan. There may have been reasons justifying its use which have not yet been made public. But, whatever I may feel about the past, I look forward to the future with real terror, for man, for the first time in his history, has been presented by science with a weapon with which he can annihilate himself. Science, with its great discoveries, has far outrun man's mastery of himself and the control by which alone he can use these discoveries rightly. I doubt if the ordinary citizen today realizes that within the lifetime of many there may come about the complete destruction of all our civilization, and of all that has been built up during these long centuries.

I do not find any comfort when I am told that this discovery may be used for industrial purposes. I have no doubt that it will be used for industrial purposes in the future. There is a difference of opinion as to how soon it may be used for purposes of manufacture and so on, but meantime, we have the atomic bomb with us and ready for use long before this great discovery can be applied to industry. Nor do I find any real comfort in the thought that, at the present time, it is within the possession of the United, States. If it is to be in the possession of any one country then, like my noble friend who has just spoken, I should prefer it to belong to the United States. But if one country or three countries possess this secret it means that suspicion and fear will be fertilized in other countries. It means that there will grow up increasing fear; and, more than that, I would not trust any one country, not even our own country, with the exclusive possession of a terrific weapon like this. Even the most peace-loving countries in the world may sometimes be swayed with passion and anger and become so obsessed with hatred that rational judgment is set aside and actions are taken which afterwards are bitterly deplored.

No, it is essential that as soon as possible, some method of control should be devised for the possession of this bomb; and in any case the secret, as we have been reminded time after time, cannot be kept for very long. Sooner or later other nations and possibly groups of people may learn the secret and may possess the bomb. Then the whole future of the world will be at the mercy of people who may be irresponsible, as well as at the mercy of great nations when they go to war. So I hope that when the United Nations Organization meets the Government will see that this question of the bomb has the very first priority, and that time is not wasted unnecessarily in dealing with questions of procedure which often seem to have such a fatal fascination for conferences. But one cannot deal with the question of the bomb apart from war. It is impossible to control the bomb until war itself is abolished. So long as there is war there will always be the possibility of the use of the bomb. It can be used by some unscrupulous country which desires to cripple its opponent, or it may be used by some country which feels that without it defeat is inevitable.

I have the greatest suspicion of anything like paper pacts of peace: they have been torn up time after time. This means that there will have to be an organization controlling these bombs for the sake of the security of the world. And here I would venture to express my full agreement with the noble Viscount when he said that the whole question of the control of the bomb by the Security Council is really bound up with the abolition of the veto. If the veto is not abolished, I think the whole position will become infinitely more difficult than it might otherwise be. But if the bomb is to be controlled by the United Nations Organization and if this Organization is to have some control over the question of peace and war, it means that there must be some modification of national sovereignty. I agree with the warnings which were given to us about the great phrases which may have very little practical meaning within them, but there must be some curtailment of national sovereignty if war in the future is to be avoided. If every nation acts on its own for its own interests disregarding its neighbours, if every nation refuses to abate one jot or title of its national claims, then I believe that another war is inevitable, and in it I venture to say I should see the judgment of God on the hubris of man.

Behind any national organization which is to be permanent and stable, there must be the moral support and the moral conscience of the people. A very remarkable speech was made in this House about a year ago by the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, who pointed out that the greatest need of Europe to-day was the restoration of the moral values which had been lost in the war. For a time words like "justice," "mercy" and "truth" seem to have lost their meaning. I see now some hope of those words coming back once again. The Foreign Secretary said that in the future we needed not the phrase "international law," but "world law." I think I can use a simpler phrase and I say that what the world needs to-day is the recognition of the law of God as the sovereign Father of all peoples. I see no hope really for the world, no hope for any international organization which is to be obeyed, unless behind it there is the conscience of the peoples of the world demanding the observance of the moral law which governs nations and peoples alike. And here I think the Churches have got their greatest opportunity and their greatest claim in these days to bear witness to this law. Although at the time they may be minority communities, the influence of a minority, if it is strong may extend far beyond the membership of its own adherents. I believe that this witness in different lands will, in the course of time, have a tremendous influence on the future of mankind.

I have said that behind any international organization there must be the support of the awakened moral conscience of the peoples of the world, but I know quite well that it will take a long time to restore universal moral standards. Sometimes statesmen, by their laws, in their organizations, can help to build up a national and an international conscience, and later on what they have built up is found to be in accordance with a growing and enlightened public opinion. I venture to hope that there will be no time lost in building up some organization which will control the bomb and which will endeavour to abolish war. In the words of Mr. Churchill, when he spoke last August: There is not an hour to be wasted, not a day to be lost.

3.48 p.m.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT ADDISON)

My Lords, it was, I feel, anticipated by all of us that the discussion to-day would take the line which it has taken. It was, in fact, inevitable. The world to-day, as the noble Lord who opened the debate displayed in eloquent and expressive terms, is a turmoil from end to end. That was, to some extent, unavoidable as the result of six years of a war which involved people everywhere. I think, too, we must agree with him in his description of the retrogression that the last generation has witnessed in, shall we say, the free habits of people in the different countries of Europe. But they were before the days of these horrible inventions. Nevertheless, I do not quite follow him when he seems to revert—I think too much—to nationalistic conceptions. I think that frontiers as we have known them will soon be as out-of-date as bows and arrows. They have no relationship, or very little relationship, to the realities and the necessities of international communications. So far as frontiers being for defence, these new weapons have wiped them all out.

We have got to look to a modification of the conception of national considerations, as they have prevailed for hundreds of years, in the face of what has been happening even during the last six months. I think, with the noble Viscount, that there is no essential contradiction between the maintenance of national characteristics and national self-expression and a wider international co-operation than we have ever known. These national characteristics, of course, are rooted in history, and many of them are of immense value. They have led to the creation of great riches in other forms—of art and culture. I do not think a Scotsman to-day is less a Scotsman, because anyone who is fit to be regarded as sensible would certainly say that the suggestion of armed conflict between Scots and English would be a crazy idea. It was a crazy fact once, but, since those days long ago, we have learnt to work together, although some of us down South think we are sometimes rather dominated by our fellow citizens from the North. Still the national characteristics remain as valuable as ever, and their contributions to civilization and history are permanent. For all that, these national differences have given way, insensibly, to a practical, wide co-operation without the national distinction, and we are seeing that co-operation being built up in the British Commonwealth of nations by our own characteristic methods.

My Lords, we have to face the fact that, if the world is to survive at all, then a wider and better scheme of international co-operation must be devised, but one that need not, and should not, of itself, in any way detract from the value of national characteristics. Mr. Eden said, in another place, that science every day is breaking down national barriers, or words to that effect. It is. The most reverend Primate reminded us that science, so far, is far in advance of our political institutions. That is the danger before us all. I am glad some noble Lords paid tribute to what was done at Washington with regard to the direction of developments in the use of atomic energy. I am quite sure it is true that it cannot be monopolized. We all knew that. The knowledge of these things has been spread all over the world among scientists for many years past. The "how-to-do-it" or the "how-to-.manufacture" will, before long, no doubt, be equally widely known also. The methods pursued in Washington, to my mind, represent the right methods of approach. The matter has been deliberately consigned to the United Nations Organization which, let us hope, will come into being in an effective form in a few weeks' time. It was right that the Commission should be established in a practical form and should approach the application of this discovery for industrial and other purposes, but, above all, it was right to determine that it should be entrusted to, and worked through, the United Nations Organization. It is only just beginning, and, no doubt, it will have to feel its way very carefully.

I do not think the suggestion made by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, is practical. It would be a physical impossibility to have universal inspection all over the world, as to what was being done in the manufacture of atomic bombs or the use of atomic energy. It would be impossible to have any efficient system of inspection. We cannot rely on that; all we can rely on is the building up of a state of mind among the nations to which the most reverend Primate referred when he said that it must depend on the moral consciousness of the peoples of the world to devise and be willing to use a better system for the solution of their differences than war. I do not think it could be better expressed than the Prime Minister himself expressed it in another place when he said: The only complete protection for the civilized world from the destructive use scientific knowledge lies in the prevention of war. No system of safeguards that will be devised, or can be devised, will of itself provide an effective guarantee against the production of atomic weapons by a nation bent on aggression. That is a true statement and one to be worked upon. There is no other hope for the world. You cannot prevent the atomic weapon being used, and you cannot inspect the whole world. You must put your whole heart into devising a system, through the Organization being set up, for securing the world against the necessity of war. As the Foreign Secretary said—and I think rightly: It will be the purpose of His Majesty's Government to utilize the United Nations, may I say stretch it to the limits of its capacity from the security point of view, conscious all the time…that the world is moving so fast that a great change has taken place even since…San Francisco. That is our deliberate purpose by every means within our power.

The noble Viscount who introduced the Motion suggested that there might be a preliminary meeting to discuss the abolition of the veto. With great respect, I do not think that is a practical proposal. The Assembly will be meeting in January when we shall put these things to the United Nations, and we must trust them to find a way of dealing with these issues. I do not disagree with the noble Viscount's analysis of the use of the veto.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

I did not intend to say a preliminary meeting. I thought it a matter which ought to be considered in due course.

VISCOUNT ADDISON

In due course it must be considered. In due course, when the United Nations Council begins to address its mind to this dreadful subject, it is bound to consider a matter of this kind. That is inescapable, but I am sure we are right in trusting the development of affairs in this great matter to the Organization which the United Nations have agreed to set up for that purpose. That is the right way to use it. While I would like to say how much I agree with the most reverend Primate, I would also like to add that I think the Churches have never had a greater opportunity, or a greater responsibility, in all history. I have often thought myself, as one of a number of struggling politicians, Seeking to do our best to direct the world into what we think is a better way of life, that, if only the Churches throughout the world would mobilize themselves and insist that every nation was guided by these great principles, they would have a much greater influence than perhaps they have hitherto ever exercised. Anyhow, the thought passed through my mind as I heard the sincere expressions of the most reverend Primate that I would pray that the Churches everywhere would realize what is due from them, and what they can do in an issue of this kind.

Not one of us could differ from the analysis of the situation which has been made by previous speakers and their conclusion that we must do all we can to abate suspicion, and that it is distrust—unfounded distrust—which is at the bottom of many of our difficulties. And let me say on that point, with regard to the recent meeting of Foreign Ministers in London, that I do not think myself it was such a great misfortune as some perhaps have accounted it. I have always thought that the meeting was rather too early. There had not been time enough to prepare the material for a meeting of that importance. I can say this, however: that the Government are as anxious as any of the noble Lords who have spoken that the difficulties that prevented sufficient progress in September shall be removed as quickly as possible, and we certainly will play our part in trying to remove those difficulties. We sincerely hope that the discussions will be renewed as soon as possible.

Many noble Lords have said what must be in the minds of all British citizens, even in the minds of the people who went to the football match to which the noble Viscount has referred, that we all long to be on such terms of frankness and mutual trust' with our Allies in Russia that it is almost impossible to exaggerate the strength of our feelings. I can only say that His Majesty's Government are determined to do everything they can to provide for frank discussion between us and for the removal of any ground of distrust. We have nothing to hide, and the more we can get communications the better it must be for us all.

I am sure that every speaker to-day and to-morrow will recognize that the situation in the world is so difficult that there is no room within it for old-time party controversy, and that we have got somehow, through the United Nations Organization, to fashion a system of international co-operation which must involve some modification of old-time national systems. It must be so. We are confronted from one end of the world to the other with uprisings and difficulties, all of which are to be expected after a war of this magnitude, but it is all the more the duty of sensible statesmen everywhere to deal with them with patience and with frankness. I believe myself that there is no reason whatever for failing to have well-grounded expectations that the United Nations Organization will gradually build up a system which will give us international security; because the peril before us is so great and so universal that it is the greatest incentive to resolute endeavour, and the need is so great that we cannot afford to fail.

4.7 P.m.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, the debate which has gone so far has shown one very satisfactory feature—the very large measure of agree ment which prevails amongst your Lordships, both as to the state of things that exists and as to the temper, at any rate, it which those things ought to be approached. It may well be that as we go on considerable differences of opinion will appear; but I am sure that on one point we shall all be agreed, and that is on the enormous importance of the matters that we have to discuss to-day. For undoubtedly the situation abroad is disquieting. Indeed, we may say that the war has come to an end but peace has not followed. Wherever we look in Europe or, for the matter of that, in Asia, we see continued disturbance. I shall not attempt to go through the various areas of disturbance, because it would take far too long, and besides, I am not at all fitted to do it. No doubt they are part of what may be called the aftermath of war. The stress and the hardships and miseries of war necessarily encourage discontent. As has often been shown in history, war produces war, or at least a warlike atmosphere. That is normal' at the present time, and all these usual feelings have no doubt been intensified by the discovery of the atomic bomb and the additional fear and anxiety which it has produced.

As Mr. Eden said the other day, unless we wish to be blown into smithereens, some definite and vigorous policy must be evolved. The only question is: What is it to be? In this debate, and in other discussions, everyone has turned naturally to the new World Organization, and indeed that must be our chief hope. We may arrange that the process for producing the atomic bomb (as I understand it, that is the only thing which is secret about it) and other similar scientific devices (we must assume that others will almost certainly follow) will be controlled in some way by an international authority. If so, I would very much like to make one observation. I hope that the main part of that authority will be composed of a small body consisting entirely of scientists, chosen entirely for their eminence and their freedom from political bias, rather than a body of statesmen. My reason for saying that is that if the matter can be looked at purely from the scientific viewpoint, the professional training of each of the members of the new authority will emphasize to him the duty that he will have to advise impartially on the requirements necessary for world safety. How- ever the machinery may be arranged, it will clearly have to be official and therefore, presumably, dependent on the Assembly of the United Nations.

As for the other suggestion, that the process shall be kept secret, I confess I am rather anxious about the extent to which more than one speaker seemed to advocate the possibility of such a course. I am sure it is quite impracticable to keep it secret, and that if you try to do so the only result will be the creation of an atmosphere of suspense and anxiety, which is the very thing we are most anxious to avoid. Moreover, I agree with what has been said here and elsewhere—namely, that in the end, however carefully you plan your machinery for control, there is no complete security except by the prevention of war itself. For that we must turn to the United Nations Organization, which is the only means we have of dealing with the problem. Therefore, in any case, we have to come back to that Organization.

Let me just say a few words about the Organization and the conditions of success as an instrument of peace. The general scheme is, of course, well known; it consists in building up around the five great Powers with the other nations and it depends on the hearty co-operation of the five great Powers. That as we all know, was very much present in the minds of those who had to discuss this matter at San Francisco and before then. Great efforts, and even great sacrifices, were made to secure those conditions. All the same, it is common knowledge—and this is really the thing which is causing the greatest anxiety at the present moment—that there are doubts as to how far such co-operation, exists.

May I remind the House of the history of this matter? The first seed of this new Organization was planted at Moscow in the year 1943 at a meeting of Foreign Ministers there. At that time—and it is only right to recognize it—Russia was gat least as anxious as any of the other Powers represented to create such an organization and co-operated very heartily in arriving at the resolution that was announced. Then followed the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 and the first draft of the Charter. Then it was that we first began to find there was, unfortunately, a difference on one fundamental point—namely, the machinery for the en- forcement of peace, for the forcible prevention of aggression. There was no complete agreement and the negotiators so reported.

Then came the Yalta Meeting and the formula that was there devised to meet the problem. That formula was, putting it quite simply, that no coercion could be applied to any aggressor without the unanimous consent of all the five great Powers, even if one of them was itself an aggressor. That was very much disputed and discussed at San Francisco, but the Conference nevertheless decided to accept it on being told that unless that were done Russia would not agree to the Charter. As I understand it, that was said quite plainly. I think almost everybody here to-day regrets very much that that was so and that so indefensible a proposition was endorsed by the Conference. However, it was urged that without the support of all five great Powers no solid or lasting peace could be achieved, and we were further assured that all the great Powers might be trusted to regulate their policies by the spirit of genuine international co-operation, without which, as has been repeatedly said this afternoon, no written compacts could be of any value. That, of course, applies to Russia as well as to the other Powers amongst the five.

I want to say that I do not wish to appear to throw the slightest doubt on the genuineness of the desire of the Soviet Government for peace. I have always believed that the Soviet Government was a peaceful Government, not because I admire altogether the economic and other doctrines of the Bolshevik Party, but simply because there does not seem to me to be any good reason for a Russian Government to desire war. They have an enormous territory, largely undeveloped, which they are making the greatest efforts to develop; additional territory, especially if it were occupied by an alien people, would be a hindrance and not a help in their great work. Moreover, they are still in a stage of experiment with a Government having many very novel features which will require time to test and to improve. I believe, therefore, that Russia wants peace and wishes the United Nations to co-operate for peace. What I am not quite sure about is whether the Russian conception of peace is exactly the same as ours. It certainly looks as if they are in favour of an international organization for peace provided it does not interfere with them. Did not the Yalta Conference really mean that there was to be a division of nations, some of which were to do as they liked, and some of which were to do as they were told—a kind of division of the peoples of Europe into grown-ups and children? Certainly the Russians' recent international actions favour that view. On several occasions now they have made arrangements of their own, so we learn from the Press, with neighbouring States without apparently mentioning the matter even to their chief Allies in the war. It is true that in most of those cases Russian troops had been mainly instrumental in liberating the countries concerned, and it might be urged that the Russians were merely clearing up the mess of war; but even so, a greater openness with their Allies would have been more in tune with the new Charter.

Now comes the Persian incident, where no such explanation would be possible. I do not really know exactly what has happened there, and I do not want to say anything much about it; but it seems to me very strange that, in view of the Charter, the Russians should be said to have taken—let us hope that the reports are not accurate—action of a rather strong kind in interfering with Persian independence, or at any rate with Persian freedom of action. I need not dwell on the agreements which were made at the time when Russian and British troops entered Persia. It is enough to remark that it was expressly provided that that was not to be a military occupation, and that it was not to be an interference with Persian independence. It was merely to safeguard the communications between the Fighting Forces of the Allies and their bases outside. I feel that I ought to add that this action by the Soviet was taken in a district which has long been the subject of interest and even anxiety on the part of this country. I am quite sure that we ought not to do anything provocative in this matter. That is obvious, and we are all agreed about that. I also agree, however, with those who think that there is nothing provocative in can-dour; on the contrary, I think that it is the best way to avoid provocation and misunderstanding. I rejoice, therefore, that in one of those admirable speeches which we have learnt to expect from him, the Foreign Secretary spoke very openly on these and cognate matters.

The Foreign Secretary concluded his recent speech with a very eloquent passage in which he described what he thought would be the proper organization of the community of nations in order to avoid all dangers of this kind. I do not want to go into the details of that proposal; it was a revival, almost in so many words, of the old Tennysonian vision of "the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World." If it could be fulfilled we should all rejoice. I should most heartily rejoice. But I think that the difficulties in the way, as has been pointed out this afternoon, are very great. Mr. Bevin cited the cases of the United States of America and the Union of South Africa as precedents for the kind of organization which he thought might be established first in Europe and then in the world; but I think we must recognize that the component parts of those States —South Africa and the United States—had far more common ground culturally, linguistically and historically than can be attributed to the States of Europe at the present time. It must be remembered that attempts that were made, with great courage and vigour, for many years to bring about a closer federal union of the Dominions of the British Commonwealth turned out to be completely unrealizable. I feel considerable doubt, therefore, whether in the immediate future, or even in the fairly distant future, such a proposal as the Federation of the World is practical politics.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, would the noble Viscount forgive me for a moment? This is very important. I read the speech of the Foreign Secretary, and his idea of this World Assembly was that it was for the purposes of discussing peace and keeping peace only, and not a World Federation. Surely the noble Viscount can give it higher praise than he is doing?

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, no doubt that is true, and my noble friend is perfectly right; but in point of fact you could not have such a federal or confederated body as that, with the power of ordering all questions connected with peace, without a very large abandonment—I will not say of sovereignty or independence but of the existence of the nations as separate nations. The United States of America began by an agreement between the States to join together to defend themselves against the forces of this country, but grew into complete union. That must happen, in view of the practical steps which must necessarily be taken in the working out of such a scheme, or at least so it seems to me. I do not mean for a moment to say that you ought to abandon something of that kind as the ultimate aim before you; but I think that one of the guiding points in. deciding whether any particular international proposal is desirable or not should be whether it would work in with the ultimate federation or combination of States on the lines indicated by the Foreign Secretary. But for the present I would rather see all our efforts concentrated on the support and development of the Charter organization.

I agree very much with what was said by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition as to the desirability of frequent contacts and meetings and other means of drawing the nations together, particularly as far as we and Russia are concerned. I think that that is essential, but, after all, that is one of the main things that is proposed to be done by the Charter itself. I cannot help thinking that we could do a great deal, and I hope that we shall do a great deal, by utilizing the Assembly of the United Nations properly in future. It is true that the members of that Assembly are not to be nominated by the direct vote of the peoples of the different States, which I think would be an operation of very considerable difficulty; but it will bring together—and that is the essential part of it—these 51 States, with the right to discuss fully and freely and openly every possible danger, remote or immediate, to peace, and, what is much more than that, every possible measure which can promote the prosperity and well-being of the States themselves. I think that that is the greatest of all remedies, and the best form of that contact which my noble friend desires. You can have these people brought together year after year, and if necessary many times in the year, in order to discuss all these things. I believe that that is the best possible antiseptic against misunderstanding and suspicion—the open discussion of all differences of opinion in public.

I venture to make this suggestion to the Government far their consideration, though it may not be thought by them to be of any value. Cannot we do something more ourselves to bring the nations together? Many of us are agreed that the so-called veto proposals are one of the great obstacles to a closer union of the nations. The division of the nations into two classes, such as I have tried to describe, must be open to very grave objection, and indeed is based on a retrograde nationalism which is the very thing we all deplore. I agree with my noble friend the Leader of the House when he says that it will be very difficult to make a direct alteration at so early a stage in what was agreed on at San Francisco. He knows much more than I do of the difficulties, but I can well imagine that there may be very grave difficulties of that kind, even though the coming of the atomic bomb has really altered the whole situation which existed at the time of the San Francisco agreement. But even if we cannot make an alteration in the actual provisions of the veto, could not we do this: could not we make a public statement that we, at any rate, would never use our veto, our right to object to action, to protect ourselves against action recommended by the other members of the Council? If we could make some such statement as that and invite the adhesion of other Powers to that statement, we might well, leaving the veto there, get friendly agreement that it would not be used in any way to compromise the effectiveness of the other signatories of the Charter.

I am sure that if that could be done it would be hailed with the greatest possible delight by all the smaller Powers of the world, and not least by our own Dominions. Whether this is a practical proposal or not is not for me to judge. That is a matter, obviously, for the Government. I can only conclude by saying that in spite of what I have said, I do welcome most heartily the attitude taken up by the Government in another place. I most heartily and entirely agree with them that the greatest, perhaps the only, hope of peace is by our zealous support of the United Nations Organization.

4.32 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER

My Lords, I am glad to follow so great an international statesman as the noble Viscount, to whose speech this afternoon, as always, we have listened with such profit. There is one aspect of the international situation to which I should like to refer. The crisis is a crisis of confidence. After Germany's repeated and brutal assaults in the last 75 years, there can be no wonder at the insistence by France and the rest of the United Nations that there shall be insurance, as complete as we can make it, against her power to go to war. Germany now has suffered an overwhelming defeat, and it is difficult for anyone who has been in that country to think that she can recover military power in any foreseeable period. But even if she could, the crisis of confidence is not confined to Germany; it is a general crisis. There is a tendency in all nations, the strong as well as the weak, to suspect other nations, a tendency for each to fear that other nations are hatching military, political or economic designs against their security and their interests, and this lack of confidence paralyses national and international recovery in so many directions. It poisons the repeated attempts at peace settlement, it infects article after article of the Potsdam Agreement. It was the obvious cause of the breakdown of the conference of Foreign Secretaries in London. And the atomic bomb supplies a test case. The various plans which have been brought forward to control the atomic bomb have so far, in my opinion, come to grief because the Powers do not trust one another.

And yet the gravity of the issue, as has been said this afternoon, is unparalleled, and there is no time to lose. So long as this fundamental distrust remains, so long as the planning and policy in international conferences is governed by suspicion and fear, we can get no further. Therefore—and I am not going to he Utopian in what I am about to say—I am join with those who appeal for the opposite approach, who counter fear by hope and refuse to be numbed and paralysed by the deadly poison of more or less complete distrust of every other nation. So, I would join with others who call upon the nations to treat one another as friends, and to use the international scene as a positive task to be travelled through and tackled together. This means a complete change of outlook. The old way has been unsuccessful; why not try the way of friendship? As I said, I am anxious not to be considered Utopian, and when I am asked "How?" or "Where?" I would say first of all that we must go beyond politics. The noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition has already given expression to that necessity, for if we confine ourselves to politics we get nowhere.

There are things more important than politics. Science and culture present wide fields for this trial of friendship. But the field on which I would now concentrate special attention is the economic field. The fundamental problem with which the nations are faced is the problem of human welfare. The ordinary man in every nation has to have sufficient food, shelter and warmth. The world's material resources suffice to give every ordinary man enough. It is not a childish or Utopian proposal that we should put in the forefront of our international programme, not how to prevent war pr control the atomic bomb, but how the nations can plan together on an economic basis, with the fullest help of the discoveries of modern science, to give the ordinary man a decent chance in life. If this problem, which is a soluble problem, is solved, it would do more for the prevention of war than any World Organization specifically designed for that object. Of course, a World Organization like the United Nations Organization is not excluded in any way by such a proposal, and I realize how intimately bound up is the Social and Economic Council with the Charter Organization. It is possible to help both interests together, but in my opinion it makes all the difference towards success where the emphasis is laid.

I would ask your Lordships to consider Europe, the seething cauldron from which wars in modern history have come. It is possible to look at Europe from two points of view. One way is to look at Europe as consisting of twenty or thirty armed camps, exhausted after a long and terrible war but all of them planning for the day when they can reassemble their strength and direct all their policies, social, economic, home and foreign, as do those who fear or hate their neighbours. There is another way to look at Europe—as a single Continent whose whole economy is now in ruin, an economy which can only be saved if all its resources are used by the nations together to aid its recovery. Let me quote from the United Nations Report on the Relief and Rehabilitation needs of Europe: The economy of Europe has been running downhill fast. Production is already at unbearably low levels. It is clear that the liberated nations of Europe are confronted with a grave economic crisis, created by the war's disruption of world economy and transportation. It will grow more acute as winter sharpens the hardships of the people. The entire economy of the Continent is closely interlocking and interdependent. If weakened nations go to pieces, others will be shaken. No nation in Europe can-remain sound unless the others can begin the climb towards normal recovery. If you look at Europe from the former angle, as a body of separate armed camps, nothing can prevent another war. If you look at Europe from the other point of view, you will not only be able to solve the economic problem if you are determined to do it, but you make the chance of another vast European or world war more difficult.

There is a kindred point when dealing with these facts to which I would also refer. There is a sense in which the world's material advance has outstripped our moral capacity and the atomic bomb is a supreme example. The President of the Royal Society, writing to The Times on August 6, said that moral factors were involved. We have all listened with great interest and admiration to the Foreign Secretary's picture of the prospect of a World State, and we have listened with interest and admiration also to Mr. Eden's suggestion of much greater modification of sovereignty. As the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, rightly bade us, we should not be lost in these rather new proposals to the immediate duty of the Charter Organization, but at the same time he also made the remark that the discovery of the atomic bomb had entirely changed the situation as it appeared at San Francisco.

I hope myself that the Government will further explore this possibility of a World State in which, of course, the frontiers between Governments and peoples can hardly be properly drawn. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition in his criticism that you cannot appeal over the Government to the people, but looking at the international scene, not only from the military but from an economic point of view I am, I own, impressed by the fact that the Economist, which is a paper paying special attention to economic considerations, has in a recent article plunged for a World State. But for the fulfilment of any such aim, any United Nations Organization, much more any World State, must be, as the most reverend Primate has said, under the control of moral law and must be backed, as Mr. Bevin has said, by moral force. These things cannot be manufactured, yet there is, I believe, a far greater respect for the moral law, and more willingness to accept its authority, than politicians often realize, just as I believe there is a greater willingness among ordinary people, who are the greatest sufferers from war, to try the policy of friendship between nations, than our realists will admit.

During the last seven months I have travelled much on the invitation of a number of foreign Churches. I have been to France, America and Germany. In each of these countries I found a longing for friendship with other countries, and I also found a respect for right, for moral law. The victories of the Allies and the fall of Hitler reinforced that respect and the general conscience of humanity paid homage to it. I found it in France last spring. I found there special friendship for Britain, coupled with a homage to this idea of a universal moral law, especially among the men of the Resistance Movement. I found it in the United States this summer—a desire for friendship between Britain and America but also including an association with all other nations and the idea of a universal human family governed by moral law. In Germany, the other day, I found a Protestant Church in which a deeply penitent confession of offences against the moral law was combined with an almost hungry appreciation of any step which began to show a sign of hope or a spirit of friendship.

With this I close. I welcome what the noble Viscount said about the challenge to the Churches. I would remind the noble Viscount and other noble Lords that the great majority of the members of the Churches are the laity and the laity must have increasing responsibility for Christianity in these days. I went to Stuttgart as one of a delegation of the World Council of Churches. I went with a French pastor, a Dutch pastor and two Americans to visit the Protestant Council. That Council made a complete confession of war guilt from which I extract the following phrases: …we with our people know ourselves to be not only in a great company of suffering, but also in a solidarity of guilt. With great pain do we say: through us has endless suffering been brought to many peoples and countries. What we have often borne witness to in our own congregations, that we declare in the name of the whole Church. M. Maury: the French pastor, replied and said: It is not easy for you to make such a declaration. It helps us to remember your fight for justice. We cannot take your misery away from you, but we have a common duty to build something new in the Western world. We will do everything we can to secure that Germany has its full place in a new beginning. And the Protestant Bishop, old Bishop Wurm of Wũrttemburg, said he was specially glad that a delegate of France had spoken thus. "How different from the days when we used to say of each that the other was the arch enemy." We are in a crisis of confidence. Such are the foundations of a new beginning and a new hope—first, the acceptance of the moral law; and, secondly, the willingness to work with all other nations in a spirit of friendship.

4.51 p.m.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, this has been a long debate, but I believe I am right in saying it has been on a high level and that, on many fundamental matters, there has been a general spirit of agreement. I do not want, unnecessarily, to break up the party, but I had a profound shock this afternoon, and it was delivered to me by no less a person than the noble Viscount below the gangway, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, at whose feet I have sat for so many years and upon whom I look as the great prophet of the brotherhood of man and the advocate of preserving the peace of the world by international co-operation. When he rose and made his opening remarks, I thought the House of Cecil would be divided because he was going to disagree with his noble kinsman who spoke as Leader of the Opposition. I refer to the reception accorded by all in this House, except the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, to the very remarkable suggestion of the Foreign Secretary last Friday. I refer to the suggestion for a directly elected International Assembly for the purpose of preserving peace. I should have thought that would have been hailed as something deserving of the most careful consideration. It has no doubt been carefully considered by them, but the two noble Lords of the House of Cecil, and the noble Viscount who speaks for the Liberals, and all, indeed, except the right reverend Prelate who has just addressed your Lordships, found and stressed the difficulties in this idea, and rather I thought under lined and exaggerated them.

The idea is very old. As my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition said, it goes back to the poems of Tennyson, and even farther than that. This idea of an International Assembly of the people goes back to the medieval ages in the heyday of the Catholic Church, the universal Church of the time. This was the idea, at any rate, of the Catholic Church of those days, which was without any rival, as a means of preserving peace, and when Mr. Bevin makes a proposal of this sort, I think it is the duty of us all who have been brought up or been converted as Socialists and, therefore, as internationalists to give it every support. There are much more recent examples also; the First and Second Socialist Internationals had the same motive. And for many years now we have had meetings of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. They are never attended by Ministers or members of Governments. I played some part in them between the wars. They are meetings of elected members of all Parties of the Parliaments of various States who can be got together. I do not say that they have done any particular good, but they have certainly not done any harm.

I believe I am right in saying that in the closing years of the first World War, among those working on a plan for a League of Nations, or League of Free Peoples, or the various organizations that were being canvassed and examined then, there was one idea. which received a good deal of favour, particularly in the United States of America. The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, knows more about this than I do, and he will correct me if I am wrong. It was the plan whereby the Assembly of the League of Nations was to be on these lines. The idea, at any rate, was disussed by men of some importance. If no importance was attached to the discussions I will bow to the superior knowledge and experience of the noble Viscount.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

As far as I know, there was never any proposal that the Assembly of the League of Nations should have any different position from the Assembly of the United Nations proposed now. Personally, I think they can gradually grow up into some such scheme as Mr. Bevin suggested. To establish that scheme now would be to produce disaster.

LORD STRABOLGI

This may have to grow like the British Constitution itself, but the noble Viscount will not deny that when those of us who were watching the working out of the League of Nations itself and became rather doubtful of its efficacy—and he was one who wanted to improve and strengthen the organization—one of our proposals was that the Assembly should have representatives of all Parties of all Parliaments among its members.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

Not directly elected by the people for that purpose.

LORD STRABOLGI

How else do you elect members of Parliament if not for that purpose?

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

The present proposal is that the peoples should go to the polls all over Europe and elect members for the Assembly, irrespective of the Members of Parliament.

LORD SIRABOLGI

I am not sure that that was exactly proposed by the Foreign Secretary. I suggest this is a most important proposal that has come from the Government, and I think the Foreign Secretary made it clear that he was, on this occasion, speaking for himself. He spoke about the duty of deciding matters of peace and war, and that that supreme power rests on this House of Commons so far as this country is concerned. His words were: I would merge that power "— that is, the power of the House of Commons— into the greater power of a directly elected World, Assembly in order that the great repositories of destruction and science on the one hand may be their property, against the misuse of which it is their duty to protect us— It is made clear that the object of this Assembly…the almost sole object of this Assembly in Mr. Bevin's words—is the preservation of peace.

If such a body can preserve peace then, in view of the speeches we have had this afternoon and on previous occasions when the atomic bomb has been discussed, and in view of the terrifying pictures drawn by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and other speakers, let us at least try this, and have a directly elected Assembly by people directly electing their representatives, to sit in a World Conference to keep the peace. Where is the man who will deride that and try to find faults and difficulties? It is a tremendous conception, as the gloomy speeches of your Lordships this afternoon surely demonstrated. I hope your Lordships are not going to turn down this idea out of hand. I suggest that it is worthy of a great deal of support, and, certainly, most careful consideration, and not the airy sweeping away it received at the hands of the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition.

I must, however, thank him—and I am sorry he is not here, but I hope he will do me the honour of reading my words—for one suggestion he made which I think will receive, and has already received, wide assent everywhere. Many of us who are trying to follow these matters are becoming more and more convinced that the earliest possible meeting of what is called the Big Three is now necessary. I do not know what has transpired in the United States recently—which was mentioned by one of your Lordships—but if we can get this meeting before the January 7th meeting of the Constituent Assembly of the United Nations Organization, I think it is absolutely essential that we should do so. The situation to-day is not one of unmitigated gloom, it is true. There are some optimistic and encouraging features. While your Lordships have borne witness this afternoon to the amount of suspicion abroad in the world and among the great nations who were the Allies of yesterday, fighting as comrades in arms in the deadliest of all struggles, there are, however, matters of great congratulation. I am going to break new ground for one moment only in referring to one of them

I will not make many remarks about it because it is a judicial tribunal, and matters are sub judice, but one of the most encouraging things to-day is the proceedings of the great International Court at Nuremburg. There you have the misleaders of the German people arraigned for the crime of planning war. I believe I am correct in saving—and I do so with great respect to the Lord Chancellor—that that has never been recognized in International Law as a crime before. It was a sovereign right. All the war criminals in the past have been tried or were intended to be tried for breaking the laws of war; but here these men are being tried for preparing war. That is a tremendous departure and will now, I presume, become part of the International Law of the nations. That is an excellent beginning for the meeting of the Constituent Assembly which will take place in Westminster in January next, and, I should think, would be a most excellent stimulus to its deliberations.

Your Lordships have spoken of the miasma of suspicion, as the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, called it, and all your Lordships have deplored this growth of suspicion and hesitation and mistrust in the relations of the great Powers. The breakdown of the Five Powers Foreign Ministers' Conference has been mentioned. As the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has said, and as Mr. Bevin has admitted, it probably met prematurely. But there is this widespread suspicion. Why is it there? Every one of your Lordships has made it perfectly clear, and indeed every speaker in another place made it perfectly clear in the two days' debate on foreign affairs last week, that we all want to see the United Nations Organization firmly established and working successfully. Every one of your Lordships has agreed upon that, and every one of the Leaders of the Governments concerned—I believe there are 51 Member States—are equally sincere and insistent upon it. But you have a kind of duality to-day in the conduct of foreign policy by the principal Allies of the Second World War. You have, on the one hand, this attempt—I am sure a sincere and earnest attempt—to set up an organization which is to prevent future wars; and, on the other hand, perhaps as a kind of reinsurance, you have going on a series of moves or developments which look very much like the beginnings of the old game of power politics. No one nation is innocent; all are guilty of this.

You have the French—and we must sympathize with them—demanding certain strategic safeguards along the Rhine. You have the policy in Greece which the present Government inherited from the Coalition Government, which is based on strategic needs and safeguards. There is indignation expressed by the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain at any attempt by our Russian Allies to secure a foothold on the North African coast of the Mediterranean. In the Pacific you have the United States insisting apparently, if the Service Chiefs in America are speaking authoritatively, on the future possession of important bases for strategical purposes; and you have the Russian moves in Persia—or, if not moves, at any rate you have a policy in Persia which is the subject of a recent Note—and on the borders of the Russian frontiers in Europe. So all of us are apparently engaged in seeking to hold strategical positions for the eventuality of —what? For another war? The Governments, I repeat, are with sincerity and earnestness, endeavouring to set up the United Nations Organization and attempting to outlaw war for all time. Why then is there this duality? I suppose it is, as I suggested, because there is felt to be a need for reinsurance.

It is no use blaming the Admirals and the Generals They have a natural habit of beginning to think of the next war as soon as the present war is over. That is their professional business, and we cannot criticize them. But there is a great deal of difference between thinking about a future war and making paper plans for it, and making preliminary moves for placing your forces in strategical positions in preparation for it. That is getting rather near the crime now being charged against the defendants at Nuremburg of planning war. You may say: "These are natural precautions. This is all defensive; this is in case of a breakdown of the United Nations Organization." But because this is going on, you have these suspicions, and I must admit that the only way I can see of getting over them is by an early meeting at the very highest level. Therefore, with great humility, I would like to support also the hope that His Majesty's Government will succeed in persuading its colleagues in the matter to hold a meeting of the Leaders of the three great States principally concerned, on whom the future policy of the coming vital months depends.

5.8 p.m.

LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSE

My Lords, I have sat through the whole of this debate and listened with great in terest to many very good speeches. Especially I was struck by the speech of my noble friend Viscount Samuel. I could not help thinking that this Chamber was truly said to be a Council of State by the noble Viscount who leads, with such distinction, His Majesty's Opposition. The more we get foreign affairs out of Party politics, the better for this country and for the countries of the world. What we want is continuity of policy—a long-range policy; not just trying to patch up the difficulties of the moment but a much longer-range policy than we have been using in the past. Of course, the sooner we get this problem of the atomic bomb and its power in war settled, the better for the world. I think the suggestions put forward are wise and the sooner they are carried out the better it will be. I would point out that, having discovered this bomb and used it for the purposes of destruction, there is no reason why our great scientists should not develop it further and use it as a great source of power and good for the world. In fact, instead of destroying civilization it may create a new civilization. At any rate, it is wise, I think, not to exaggerate its power. After all, it has got to be applied, and the power to apply it has to exist before it can be used in any future war.

In dealing with foreign affairs, I think it is a mistake to imagine we have got to the end of wars. Both here and in another place I have had many talks with my noble friend who has just spoken on the means to induce the Government of the day to consider those things which were necessary to prepare the country to face what might come. I hope this Government will avoid the mistakes of previous Governments in that respect. I hope they will make up their minds about the amount of force which is required to carry out any possible attack on this country or on countries allied with us. We all say we cannot expect a war after this devastating war, but I remember we said the same after the last war. I never thought there was going to be another and I therefore left His Majesty's Service and went into politics. There I thought I would meet la guerre politique, and I did. I think the country generally is now more same and is demand-that the Government: of the day shall look at what is necessary to protect this country in case of need. It is not only the quantity, but the quality of the Forces for which we want to provide, and for the necessary brains behind them. You cannot have a really successful foreign policy unless you have an instrument behind that policy. The Foreign Office has always said to us: "Tell us your force and we will tell you our policy." We have always said: "Tell us your policy and then we will tell you the force required to carry it out."

In these days of frayed nerves, after the dreadful war which has afflicted people all over Europe and all over the world, I think that when we talk of foreign affairs, of what other countries are doing, of why they have not done this or that, we ought to be very careful of the words we use and ensure that we do not give causes of irritation to those countries. I notice a good many remarks in the Press about what Russia is doing in various parts of Europe and in Iran. I feel that the prevention of future wars and the rearrangement of a new world depends upon America, Russia and ourselves hanging together. We can guarantee peace only so long as we do hang together. If you irritate people, especially people like the Russians, you create suspicion, and suspicion will die only after years. To a system of Government such as exists in Russia, pin-pricks can become things of great magnitude, when we and other people do not intend them to be more than pin-pricks. It seems to me, therefore, that we should very carefully consider anything of that nature going from our Foreign Office to a country like Russia. I believe we are very well served in Russia by our Ambassador and staff there.

Here I would like to say that the Foreign Office has been shockingly short of information about the various countries with which they dealt; they did not know what was going on in many countries. Therefore, it is necessary for the Foreign Office so to organize the diplomatic staffs abroad as to ensure that they are fully equipped not only with economic advisers but with people who will find out not only what the Government are doing in a particular country but what the people in that country arc doing and saying. That can only be done by a really first-class service on the economic side and on the inquiry side, inquiry as to the general conditions and feelings of the people. That, I think, has been one of the failings of the Foreign Office in the past and I hope the present Foreign Minister will take the necessary steps to solve the problem. It will also require the co-operation of the Treasury, but if they can give £100,000,000 to the building trade or something like that, the amount that would be required would seem very small.

There is one other thing I wish to say before I leave that subject. We have recently seen demands, both by our reporters and by American reporters, for greater freedom in telegraphing their reports from Russia to London and American newspapers. Do not let us criticize a country like Russia too much. They have gone through a difficult time since the last war and they have had to build up slowly. They are not quite sure how the various reports are going to be used. I think it would be wise for our Press not to ask for too much at once, but to have patience and gradually to develop better Press communications not only with Russia as a whole but also with the various countries in which Russia is now predominant. That question, I think, wants very careful handling by whoever is responsible at the Foreign Office.

I would like to ask the Government if they would answer three questions tomorrow when the Lord Chancellor replies. My first question concerns Greece. We are all confused about it; we are told one thing one day and another thing another day. I understand that in March of next year there are going to be elections in Greece to elect a new form of Government, and that the plebiscite on the question of whether Greece should be a Republic or a Constitutional Monarchy has been put off for three years. I cannot imagine a worse situation for any Government to be in. What kind of work will that Government do during those three years? Surely the right thing is to have the election, and after that is over to have the plebiscite as quickly as possible. There may be something about which we do not know which has made this postponement necessary, but unless it is something very grave it seems to me that whatever Government is elected in March it will not have a chance of dealing with Greek affairs until after the plebiscite has been held. I should like to know, therefore, what the Government think about that. I know what Mr. Bevin said the other day, but I cannot believe that putting the plebiscite off for three years is wise.

We have seen the result of the recent Elections in France. General de Gaulle has formed his Government, which again is only a short-range Government to hold office until the people are consulted again. I hope that we shall take every chance of saying to the French people how much we sympathize with them in their efforts to create order in their distressed and broken country. I am sure that economically France will recover more quickly than any other European country, but what I am not so sure about is whether the French will recover their political sanity. That is their affair, but anything that we can do to help them to get on to a sound economic basis will undoubtedly help towards their regaining a sound political situation. We wish the French well, and we want to help them in every way we can.

I have been very concerned about the position on the Nile. I am not talking now about the situation in Palestine or Syria or the Lebanon, but we are bound to face the situation which is gradually developing in Egypt, in the Nile Valley, on the Canal and in the Sudan. It is a problem which requires handling with very great care, because it is undoubtedly a problem which very intimately concerns this country and the Dominions. If anything can be said tomorrow, therefore, as to what is really happening in Egypt and in relation to the Egyptian situation, I shall be glad. I remember when the father of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, very nearly settled that problem for all time with Nahas Pasha.

We have heard from many quarters that we cannot expect a new world unless we have a spiritual uplift. We have to get a better moral tone in the world. All I can say is that we had better begin at home, and have a look at our own people. I am afraid there is a great deal of work to be done here, and the best we can do is to have a fine moral tone in this country as an example to the rest of the world.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD JOWITT)

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

Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

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