HL Deb 05 March 1947 vol 146 cc140-68

4.34 p.m.

LORD VANSITTART rose to call attention to the growing practice of disregarding international obligation and good faith; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have put down this Motion after much searching of heart. It has been on my conscience for the last two years, and it seems to me now to be a plain and unpalatable duty. It is fitting perhaps that I should say what I have to say on the eve of the first attempt to find a solution for the abiding German problem, for if any resulting agreement were not to be better observed than some of those which I shall enumerate to-day, we shall be steering for fresh disaster. I will try to speak with dispassion upon a subject on which I feel very deeply and sincerely, as I hope indeed your Lordships do too. I will confine myself to the factual record and the inescapable conclusions. If the conclusions arc alarming at all, so also are the facts. Indeed, I believe that everyone would be alarmed if he had ever seen those facts drawn together in an ensemble as I propose to do to-day. There is no immediate danger, but I think there is an ultimate doom if these facts are not amended.

There is nothing new in international bad faith—it was practised long before Frederick II. Rut from his Prussia it grew to a doctrine dignified by a Latin name rebus stantibus which, in plain English, means you may break your word when you please. That doctrine came into official being on January 3, 1741, when Frederick made his Convention of Neutrality with the City of Breslau. But into the text he slipped the following", Then on August 10 of the same year he seized the city. I think that was the birth certificate of the children of darkness. It is no good delving into the past, and I will come straight to this calamitous century. The creed that solemn engagements may be violated began in 1914 with the "scrap of paper." That expression has become so hackneyed that its main point is usually overlooked to-day. The expression was used not by one of the worst of Germans but by one of the best of them. Even to him that was all that international agreements meant.

Those words stuck and shocked, but not for long. Hitler eclipsed all previous records—but again there is no need to elaborate. Not only was no undertaking ever honoured, but every engagement, or almost every one, came to mean the exact opposite, so that by weaker States his guarantee was looked upon as a sentence of death. Witness the guarantees inflicted—I can use no other word for it—on Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark almost on the eve of war. Again the world was somewhat shocked, but only somewhat and at first. There was no profundity in the feeling, and soon morality was almost normal. When Hitler offered to us a far reaching guarantee, I was instrumental in having sent to him a notorious questionnaire which made it very difficult for him to answer if he was going to break his word, so of course he did not answer it at all. But Hitler was not blamed for that—the Foreign Office was and that was a sign of the times.

Those were the times when people were signing documents like the Kellogg Pact with their tongues more or less in their cheeks. No one: seriously believed that war was going to be outlawed in that way. Indeed, if you could have looked into the minds of some of the signatories you would have seen that subconsciously they were signing to please Kellogg and dear old Briand. Nobody took it really seriously; and so, when Mr. Chamberlain returned from Munich with another scrap of paper which he thought meant peace in our time, Hitler was saying to his friends, "Well, of course, I did not sign that seriously—he seemed to want it."

Now there followed the inevitable sequel of perpetual ill-faith—a holocaust greater than ever. Then we awoke again and some of us perhaps remembered Pistol's words to Mrs. Quickly in Henry V: Trust none; For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes. And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck. We did hold fast, and at what a cost! Then we said that we must be rid of the Pistol mind for, in the light of Hiroshima, if we do not hold fast and together there will soon be nothing left to hold. We had formed all those good resolutions when the League of Nations was founded, but because so many of its members were not really disposed to hold fast or keep faith the League failed. All too justified lack of confidence wrecked the Disarmament Conference of 1932, and when it came to its protracted and distracted end in 1934 it was never more than a question of a few easily predictable years to 1939. Many of the vacillations of the intervening years were essentially due to everybody's secret that his neighbours were not really going to honour their signatures, and many of them, had already physically disabled themselves from doing so.

After the German world war we all began saying again: "This time we have learned our lesson. Never again shall ill-faith be our undoing!" But it is undoing us now, continually and increasingly. We are still in the era of nationalism and duplicity. The last time I spoke in this House I asked: "Has anybody heard more than to-day of nationalism and national sovereignty?" To-day I answer that question: Never, and never more insanely!

Moreover we live in an age of unparalleled, because organized, xenophobia. For some time past I have done my best to support the foreign policy of Mr. Bevin, but since last Thursday I find myself in disagreement with him on one point. I would like to see advantage taken of the resumption of negotiations for re-modelling the Anglo-Russian Treaty and to try at least to abate the flow of venom. That seems to be the test of sincerity in any treaty.

I now come to a record of modern ill-faith. In 1941 we all subscribed to the Atlantic Charter. That document has been torn to shreds, particularly the first three clauses; and because its principles are most explicitly reaffirmed in the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1942, that Treaty has also been violated, though not by us. Only last week I was talking to a young man fresh from the Forces and from the age of innocence, who hopes to join the foreign service. He said to me: "I suppose the Atlantic Charter is the sort of thing people do sign when they want to win a war." I said to him: "Is not that a little bit cynical?" He replied: "Well, what are we to think?" My Lords, that is a warning from the country to come. What are we to think now? It is true that most of the breaches of that instrument have been committed by the Soviet Government, but there have been other cases where all the other Allies have got together to break it. For instance there was the decision regarding the South Tyrol and there are other instances of the same kind. It seems that nowadays people set about making one treaty by breaking another.

I shall say little about the Four Freedoms. What is left of them in a good many parts of the world? But what is left anyway of the Moscow Declaration of 1943, solemnly affirming the principle of the equality of all peace-loving States? Who takes that seriously now? It is daily derided. What easy acquiescence has there been echoed in Professor Carr's dictum in his book, The Twenty Years of Crisis. He says: "The rule Pacta sunt servanda is not a moral principle." Again cut out the Latin. What Professor Carr is saying, like Frederick, is that you can break your word with whom you please. We have now watched that doctrine at work. Is it really compatible with the sovereign equality of all peace-loving States that throughout the preparation of the five treaties with the satellite States last month there should have been a prolonged effort to see that the immediate States concerned should not have their fair share in the matter? Is it really consonant with that principle that the same tactics should have been applied in the endeavour to prepare the Germany Treaty recently, or that proposals were made last month which would virtually have excluded Canada and Australia from any real participation? There were sharp words about that in the Canadian Parliament, and who shall say they were not entirely justified? For, after all, Canada and Australia were at war with Germany before Russia was.

It is notorious, I think, that the small and medium sized States are in a condition of high and a legitimate dissatisfaction—all, of course, except the Russian Protectorates. But are Protectorates anywhere really compatible with the Moscow Declaration? If it comes to that, is the institution of the Big Three, Four or Five as at present worked out really consonant with that Declaration? From the very end of the shooting war, I have never ceased to protest that unless that institution was worked with the utmost self-restraint and abnegation it would become the new aristocracy of avoirdupoid, pregnant with multiple injustice. It seems to me an ironical paradox that the most insistent advocate of the new class distinction should be the country that professes to be class-less. I submit that one self-reminder of the terms of the Moscow Declaration would have ended all that nonsense in five minutes. The Foreign Ministers' deputies would not have broken up after four weeks' discussion without settling either who would be consulted or how.

I know a great many people will say, "Oh, the Big Four must be masters," or, "Oh, the Russians must have Protectorates." I happen to dissent from both those proposals, but in any case arguments like that are no excuse whatsoever for people going on making treaties which they do not intend to enforce or observe. Now the breaches come thick and fast. The Yalta Agreement has been partly flouted, and the Potsdam Agreement has been bodily violated. Opinions may differ as to the merit of this instrument, but one thing is sure: that it never had a chance because it was never observed from the start. Again, last year we were confronted with the simultaneous breach of several treaties in Iran. Happily, they were subsequently rectified, but only because the Iranian Government promised concessions to the Soviet Government, and not because treaties are sacred. It would indeed be to the interest of the whole world if treaties were.

Now we come to a positive spate of breaches of faith and obligation. I enumerate these things in no spirit of recrimination but simply because I think it is vital to see the way we are going, deceived and deceivers alike. It is the road to the abyss. All these agreements were concluded in the very spirit of Frederick's phrase; there was never any seriousness of intention of endowing them with duration. A little while ago I was talking to one of the most prominent of foreign diplomatists and he said: "We have already reached a stage where signatures are worth less and less, but most people are either too timid or too indifferent to say so." That is the hard truth, though weaker vessels recoil from it. We now come to the terms with Tito which were made on the faith of the inclusion in his administration of some moderate man like Grol or Subascic. Where are they now? Has anybody asked of late: has anybody cared? Ill faith has triumphed amid silence.

I pass next to the case of Bulgaria. What of the true Bulgarian Socialists, men of the type of Pastakhov? They have been persecuted, imprisoned and suppressed. I had hoped to hear something of that from my noble friends on the Left, but they have left it to me. This is the second time that I have raised this matter in this House. Coming to Rumania, after laborious negotiations it was agreed that two—only two—Liberal ministers should be grafted into the Communist-controlled front. Surely that was a moderate enough proportion. What has been the fate of those men and their adherents? It has been the same as that of all who have trusted to modern agreements—they have been persecuted, treated almost as criminals, deprived of all influence. And, again, hardly a word has been said.

I now come to the case of Hungary. In November 1945, there was the nearest approach to free and unfettered elections in Central Europe. It resulted in a considerable non-Communist majority—the Smallholders polled 54 per cent, of the votes. Since that day there has been an unbroken process of intimidation to destroy that majority, and to transfer virtual power to a Communist minority of under 20 per cent. In that process, the occupying Power has taken an active part. We have now signed a treaty of peace with Hungary, and that activity, therefore, becomes a clear breach of Article 3 of the Atlantic Charter. But has anybody heard any mention of the Atlantic Charter in that respect? Nobody. Is it because they think the Atlantic Charter to be so dead as not even to be worth mentioning? But it is not even now too late to revive the fluttering pulses. So shall we speak out, or will it still be silence—the silence of the tomb?

I come now to the case of Poland. Her obligations are clear, repeated and incontestable. We could split hairs, if we wished, as to whether those obligations were actually subscribed to by the Lublin Committee, which is what the present Polish Government consists of, or by its Russian patrons. But there are the obligations, in black and white. Each time we ask for their fulfilment we are greeted with nothing but abuse, and Russia has supported the defaulter; so much so that the British Foreign Secretary is reduced to saying that it is no good appealing to Moscow over instruments that we all signed together. So here we are again. Scarcely has Nemesis left the lectern, after man's Second Lesson, than we are again in an era where good faith is the exception rather than the rule. To such eras, if unchecked, there can only be one end—the same as before. Why? Because if people continually break their words in the present, there is no reason why they can or should be trusted in the future.

After all that has happened, what intrinsic value is attachable to the signature of the present Provisional Government let us say, on an instrument to authorize effective international inspection of disarmament? If to claim fulfilment of a promise for free elections is interference, how much more so would be the imposition of effective international inspection? I say "effective," because, on present form, the door is wide open to chicanery. I noticed last Saturday that there was a great meeting in the Albert Hall addressed by Mr. Attlee, Mr. Eden and Mr. Jan Masaryk. Their theme song was international inter-dependence. Amen to that. But how, in God's name, are we to be inter-dependent unless we are all dependable? Unless you answer that question the ghost of Frederick will haunt every formula. It always comes to the same thing: if men cannot trust each other altogether and together, then the circle of mistrust must widen and become vicious. Failing confidence—the one thing this unhappy world has never had—everyone can only play for safety, and must keep something in reserve. So the madness continues, until at last the original sinner thinks himself sinned against, then encircled, and then, next—we have met it twice—he gets persecution mania, as in the case of Germany.

Why must these idiotic and damnable things continually recur, however often we swear they shall not? The causes may be complex, but there is one fairly clear one. Each doctrine in turn has conceived itself to be the eternal verity. Even Hitler gave himself a thousand years. Shadow to shadow well persuaded saith, 'See how our works endure'. Each in turn holds itself to be the sole possessor and dispenser of salvation and therefore entitled to brush aside any trammelling vows. Always the end justifies the means, be the technique the scrap of paper, the liquidation of opponents, or a device like the Polish and Balkan elections.

All those modes are dangerously akin to something that you have heard before: "Right is what suits the German people." We know where that landed us all—and, above all, the Germans. With that sort of conviction you cannot reason. It may be perfectly sincere, but nowadays it is certainly fatal. So I am not here to appeal to reason or principle; we know already that that is far too precarious—a grim thought at the threshold of the Atomic Age. I appeal simply to our instincts of self-preservation. I ask whether, seeing and foreseeing the perfection of the new annihilations, any ill-faith anywhere on any pretext is worth anybody's while. The answer is clearly "No." Willy-nilly, nowadays, we are all in the same boat, and any course bound to run us all alike on the rocks is not only murder but suicide while of unsound mind. Here, at least, is something of which it can at least be said without cynicism—"It is worse than a crime; it is a mistake."

What, after all, is the ultimate gain of policies of force and fraud? That question was answered long ago, and for all time, by Fortinbras' Captain, in the Fourth Act of Hamlel. His forces are marching on Poland (how prophetic of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) and Fortinbras detaches his Captain to ask for right of passage through Denmark. Hamlet says to the Captain: Goes it against the main of Poland, Sir, Or for some frontier? And the Captain replies: Truly to speak, Sir, and with no addition We go to gain a little patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name.

That is the epitaph of the whole school of statecraft that culminated in Germany, and it has never yet declined. Since Fortinbras' day we have reached the fifth partition of Poland' to the shame of our kind, and it may not be the last. There will be other ugly chapters written there and elsewhere, unless we make up our minds that there must be a crusade against the double cross. I would like to see world opinion so roused that it would treat the next breaker of the faith with organized execration as his own worst enemy. Ten days ago, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was talking to us on the air of the need for moral leadership. Here is the opportunity. I do not believe we shall get a better one, because if this issue be not joined we have no future; and the century which set out with so much assurance will never reach its end. Already it is half gone, and gone backwards, muttering that man must ever be more faithful or extinct.

It is no good uttering warnings without suggesting remedies—I have never done that—and, therefore, in the universal interest I propose that we should take the moral lead in trying to call a halt before we go still further back. Even that would be a gain. Pope wrote 200 years ago "Not to go back, is somewhat to advance." Therefore, I should refer this Polish issue to the United Nations, not in any spirit of bickering or dickering, but simply because it is the latest link in a lengthening chain of infidelity which will end up by hanging us all. Do not get bogged in the details of the electoral travesty; keep to the broadest grounds: "Are international obligations to be honoured? Yes or no?" Make the club worth while. If you do not bar sharp practice from its tables in the end honest men will not play; they cannot play.

I know that the course which I commend bristles with difficulties. I know there will always be an immense following for Lord Melbourne's maxim: "When you do not know what to do, do nothing." Less than a fortnight ago the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons: "We are against drift." In this grave matter, we and all the world are drifting like dinghies towards Niagara. The steps I urge are small indeed compared with the consequences of inaction. I beg of you not to dismiss me as a pessimist. People called me a croaker about Germany before 1939, and now I say: If the old ill-faith is to prevail again in the name of no matter what "ism" or appetite, then the new dervishes are fully equipped for self-extermination and the Pistol mind has the means to shatter this sorry scheme of things beyond all hope of remodelling by the simple practice of its own devastating standard. Is that worth while? I beg to move for Papers.

5.5 p.m.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, because of what is, I hope, a temporary indisposition, I should like to support, briefly but very sincerely, the best speech that I have ever heard the noble Lord make; and that is saying a good deal. He certainty need make no apology for the time or the place of his Motion. Always and everywhere it is in order to stress the vital importance of a high standard of good faith in international affairs, and surely we of all generations ought to recognize this. In the period betwen the two wars we saw international obligations fall into progressive contempt. We saw first Japan, then Italy and then Germany, repudiate obligations as soon as they became inconvenient. As the noble Lord said, we finally saw Germany, under Hitler, sublimate breaches of faith into a definite policy. We saw Hitler evolve a new philosophy, under which everything he did became right merely because he did it. We have seen the catastrophic results of that policy to those who professed it and to those who suffered from it, for the professors and the others were all equally victims. We have seen the utter degradation of human standards which led to the ultimate collapse of the whole machinery of international peace. That machinery, admirable in itself, depended on the maintenance of common standards of virtue, decency and good faith—standards to which all had. subscribed.

Many years ago Gresham enunciated the great principle in the realm of finance that bad currency drives out good. That principle is equally true in international relations. Nothing is more easily debased than the currency of good faith, and I think all expansionists and contractionists would support that in this, anyway, a gold standard should be maintained. In no sphere are the results more disastrous if the standard of good faith is not maintained; the whole confidence of man in man, which is, after all, the basis of civilization, is destroyed. One would have hoped and expected that after the last six years every nation, however cynical, would have learned that such a policy does not pay. I agree with the noble Lord that, from sheer self-preservation, if for no other motive, the general community of nations will have to deal with the evil-doer. But must it really come to that? Is not the remedy, as the noble Lord has said, that in the meantime we must be vigilant and resolute to stop the process before irreparable damage is done? The leak in the dam can be stopped early, but if it widens and the pressure behind increases, then the flood comes.

To-day, as the noble Lord has pointed out, there are signs that the whole miserable business is starting up again. Surely it is essential that the law-abiding nations should make their attitude abundantly clear. They must indicate that nations which treat obligations as "scraps of paper" will do so to their own detriment. I agree with him that this is a subject which it is very proper to raise and discuss in the United Nations. After all, the United Nations have now been established for some time. It may be that it was wise, in order to get it going, not to put the most difficult things to it too soon. May it not die of inanition if after a time we who believe in it—and what else have we to believe in?—have not the courage to put the difficult things to it?

Surely if the United Nations exist for anything they exist to maintain the gold standard of international good faith. And that standard can only be maintained if two basic principles inspire and inform international relation: first, that nations must be willing to subordinate their own interests, to a reasonable extent at any rate, to the interests of the whole world. I think that if we all recognize our interdependence as we profess it, and really believe what is such an obvious truth today, that we are all members one of another, particular interests will be more reconcilable with the common interest which is the supreme interest of us all. The second principle is that nations must stand by their pledged word, even if it be to their own hindrance. These two principles were the basis of the League of Nations. They are the basis of the United Nations. If the second is not to go the way of the first, these principles must be affirmed, constantly affirmed, and affirmed both in faith and works.

That indeed was the whole thesis which the noble Lord put before us this afternoon. That is why, as I understand it, he has urged His Majesty's Government to bring these matters to the United Nations and, if I may say so, to raise not only the matter of general principles—that is well enough and would be very easy for all the delegates, who would gladly support in well-chosen words any general resolution of that kind and do little more about it. Faith without works is worth nothing; it is the application of the principle that counts, and that is why this aspect of good faith should be stressed by His Majesty's Government with the greatest frankness, not just as a general principle but as a principle to be applied in every concrete case as it arises. I am sure that we are knocking at an open door, that that is the faith of the Government and it is their intention; but if this afternoon they can give the reassurance in no uncertain terms that they will carry it out in faith and works, then the noble Lord's Motion has been well worth-while.

5.15 p.m.

LORD DERWENT

My Lords, the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart (as I have known happen to his Motions once or twice before, and as I think I heard him admit in his speech) may well seem, if we are to assume that in spite of time marching on it still matters what is said in your Lordships' House, unluckily timed. Our good wishes and, I think, our sympathy go out to the Foreign Secretary in the uphill task with which he is confronted at this latest Moscow Conference, and I am sure we should do nothing definite, in any case, to put grit into wheels that already seem to experience great difficulty in turning.

At the same time, I think your Lordships will agree with me that it is the business of Parliament, while it is still in existence, to continue to dot as many "is" as possible, since the average citizen is unfortunately increasingly occupied with daily material problems and has increasingly little time to devote to the study of international affairs, except to their broad outlines. To that extent I trust I may be allowed, in supporting the noble Lord's Motion, as I most gladly do, to make one or two comments on the point which we have reached in international relationships.

As the noble Lord himself said, disregard of obligation and good faith, of course, is far from being a new thing in the history of humanity, and if you hold, as I do, the Christian belief in original sin, your Lordships may agree with me that, men being constantly impelled by their worst instincts, they are only now beginning to realize the real folly of dishonesty in their bargainings with each other because of the immense danger of war that overhangs such actions—war which is no longer an elegant sport indulged in by mercenaries, but a hurricane in which we are all involved. And so we had the League of Nations and now we have the United Nations Organization. As has already been mentioned, and as we all know, the first was sabotaged by Japan, Italy and Germany, and no less, I think, in a sense, by our own pusillanimity. These countries have been made to pay a terrible price for their gamble; though at what a cost to the victors!

And now here is U.N.O. What is to be U.N.O.'s fate? I should like to draw your Lordships' attention in this connexion to two recent manifestations in print. One is Mr. William Bullitt's book The Great Globe Itself. The other is an article summing up the result of the Paris Peace Conference, appearing in the January number of the American review Foreign Affairs by that eternally readable writer, Mr. Harold Nicolson. An appendix in Mr. Bullitt's book, the accuracy of which 1 have no reason to doubt, for it is Appendix C of the Nuremberg Indictment and was issued in October, 1945, by the United States War Department, compiles in two parallel columns particulars of violations by two major Powers of international treaties, agreements and assurances. Those two Powers were Germany and Russia. Germany has twenty-six laid at her door; Russia has twenty-eight. What I should like to stress is that these breaches of faith are of a really sinister recentness. They do not belong to a remote and barbarian epoch; they belong to one which we are accustomed to consider as civilized; they belong to now. They belong to the years, in point of fact, between 1920 and 1945.

Mr. Nicolson's article on the Paris Conference, which on October 23 Mr. Churchill commented on as having been "bad diplomacy but valuable education," is a significant summary of the type of thing which may well await us at the U.N.O. meetings. "Was it a failure?" rhetorically asks Mr. Nicolson. "No, it was not entirely a failure. Was it a farce? Only if the lessons which it taught us are in future disregarded." The Anglo-Saxon group, Mr. Nicolson reminds us, felt that it "would not be in accordance with Western democratic theory for the 'Big Four' to draw up the final terms of these treaties without the smaller Powers being at least permitted to state their opinion.

The Soviet delegation interpreted the votes which were so constantly given against them as "evidence of an organized opposition bloc; for them the conscience of the heretic world was nothing more impressive than bourgeois inhibitions and diplomatic manoeuvre. So far from shaking the faith of the West in the Liberal Democratic theory, or the faith of the East in the Marxist dialectic, the ten weeks of discussion and oratory merely emphasized the gulf between them." "We came," says Mr. Nicolson, "to understand that the Russians not only spoke a different language, but possessed dissimilar minds." Two other remarks of his will bring to a head the point I want to make. "The Russians," he says, "certainly sought to use the Conference to convey the impression that they could be a formidable enemy and a potent friend. The Americans and the British, being mild men on the whole, conveyed no such impression. No statesmen from the Western Group displayed the same burning conviction in Liberal theory as the Russians and their associates displayed in the Communist theory."

That is all I want to venture to recommend this afternoon. We ought, it seems to me, to realize once and for all that dealing with the Russians in the 'forties is more difficult than dealing with the Germans in the 'thirties. It is, in a sense, useless to accuse the Russians of past irregularities against international conventions any more than of those they may appear to commit in the future, for the simple reason that to arrive at a serious agreement with another party you have to have not only the same vocabulary but the same ideology is he has. You have not only to mean the same sort of things; you have to want the same sort of things. So when the Russians get a stranglehold over Rou-mania, or vilify the Greeks because they are neither Communist nor Slav, or when they advance into Azerbaijan, or show themselves indifferent to the faked elections in Poland or to anybody that protests against them, it is really quite useless to accuse them, because you are not really talking the same language. You arc after something quite different. It is like playing a game of cards with two different kinds of packs.

Incidentally, I find it curiously significant, apropos of this situation, that in a recent issue of The Times their theatrical reviewer, in commenting on a play now running in London, called Caviare to the General (I should explain that in this case Shakespeare's words have been twisted out of their meaning, for the General is a Russian one, and a woman at that) says of the play, where it is a question of a conflict between Russian communism and American capitalism in terms of love, that the author seems to consider "that even when the disputed business contract is signed as a kind of wedding contract, the motives of the signatories are difficult and probably irreconcilable."

I think we must face up to it that at the moment communism and Russian nationalism are as completely allied as, and far better organized than, the spirit of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic forces in the early years of the Napoleonic wars. But communism is far more powerful as a myth and as a religion than the sentiments expressed by Rousseau and put into action by the promoters of the "bourgeois" revolution, because it seems to offer not only relief to the so-called oppressed classes, but power. In any case the Russian rulers appear to believe in it as hotly as St. Ignatius did in the Inquisition; and you cannot argue with a political fanatic any more than with a woman in love. Elements, therefore, that may appear to us in their actions as a disregard of international obligation, cannot really be judged from that angle; it is really a waste of time.

What we must do is to get well into our heads what we are up against. Even more must we believe in our own cause, and, while remaining absolutely fair to our Russian friends, refuse to let ourselves be hypnotized, as I fear all too many are beginning to do, by their dynamism, their persistence and their ingenuity. We must, I feel, walk together with America along the path we have chosen, while remaining reasonably cautious about our commitments, and trying to persuade America to be more aware of her responsibilities than she appears to be to-day.

Our only way to lead back those who stray from the fold of international law is, I think, set forth in Mr. Nicholson's exordium. It is, first of all, to realize that there is no sudden panacea to be found for all this, and that we must exercise patience; and secondly, to believe that if we are clear, consistent, firm and united, we can lead them to comprehend that there are certain rights and principles on which we will always make a stand, and to see that in his words, "the liberal world can offer a way of life which is infinitely more humane and agreeable, while no less certain, than the way of life which communism preaches." If it be pointed out that I have contradicted my own original argument, which was that it is unwise to try and prejudice the results of the conference at this juncture, I can only answer that for forty-eight hours before the conference the Russian radio has been pouring out continuous criticisms of our policy in Germany. All I am trying to do this afternoon is to express my faith that in this instance, as in previous instances, appeasement does not pay and never will.

4.27 p.m.

THE EARL OF PERTH

My Lords, the Motion which the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, has on the Paper is: "To call attention to the growing practice of disregarding obligation and good faith." If a thing is growing, I suppose the idea is that at its present stage it has reached a height to which it has never before attained. I frankly disagree with the word "growing," and I will try in a minute to explain why. In a matter of this kind we have to draw a distinction between nations or statesmen who undertake international obligations with the idea and the intention that they will do their best to fulfil them, and those who, solely for the purpose of gaining a purely temporary advantage, make treaties which they have not the slightest intention of executing. I think all your Lordships agree that the greatest example of that was Hitler. He entered into various agreements and treaties with different nations, and he had not the slightest intention of carrying a single one into effect, once he had lulled a nation into a sense of security so that that nation was not raised against him.

I have often felt that one of the chief crimes of Hitler and his regime was that he completely undermined the faith of mankind in agreements and in treaties. He shook the whole fundamental structure of international relations, because it is quite clear that international relations can exist only as a result of good faith. If you have not good faith, and if you cannot rely on treaties, what have you? You have nothing left but chaos. Therefore, I feel that you cannot help but rely on treaties freely undertaken by both sides, excepting, of course, where Hitler is concerned on one side—that is a different situation.

It is rather curious to note that nearly all the agreements that have been broken have been political agreements, made very often to meet this violent feeling of nationalism that has grown up and sometimes also for self-interest. But, curiously enough, the economic agreements have usually been more or less kept. I feel, with the noble Lord, that it is very sad that countries put their signature to great documents such as the Atlantic Charter, and even to the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations, without any definite determination to try to fulfil the very high principles which those two great documents set out. As the noble Lord pointed out, this is by no means a new story.

He referred to the Kellogg Pact. There, frankly, I think he did exaggerate. I do not think the great majority of the nations who signed the Kellogg Pact did so with their tongues in their cheeks. I remember the rejoicing that went round the world as a whole, because it was said that the Covenant of the League of Nations had left a loophole for war, and war under the Kellogg Pact was now banned. There were certain nations—and we have found out who they were since—that never intended to observe the Kellogg Pact, but, as I say, the great bulk of them did. Therefore, I do not like to hear it said that the vast majority who signed did so with their tongues in their cheeks. I would say the same about the Covenant of the League of Nations. As the noble Lord has said, had the obligations under that Covenant been fully carried out by each of the members, then the last war could have been avoided. But it is not easy; you risk war in order, probably, to stop a universal war. I imagine that had the League of Nations stood up against Japan we should probably have had to fight Japan—and to right her alone to start with, because America was not a member of the League. I think it was wrong. In the end we should have beaten her, but it would have meant taking a very great risk, and I do not know that public opinion here would have stood for it. Therefore I think you have to educate public opinion.

What is really the position? In the ultimate resort you can impose a treaty, if some country wishes to break it, only by definitely saying: "If you break that treaty we shall go to war with you"—and that is a thing which most people are most unlikely to do. In private life, if you have dealings with a man and he breaks his word over and over again, you stop having dealings with him; but you cannot apply that principle altogether in the international sphere. There arc a small number of nations commercially inter-dependent for every kind of thing. Therefore, unhappily, what is good in private life will not apply in international affairs. I do agree, however, that the United Nations may provide the solution and may make for righteousness on all sides. At least, as the noble Lord suggested, the treaty-breaking nations can be brought before the United Nations and therefore before the bar of world public opinion. If we can get public opinion to realize that treaty-breaking is a real crime, then, as the noble Lord said, that nation will be execrated by its fellow nations, and no nation likes to be considered as a pariah. I think that is the only hope for the future. There is now a tribunal to which an aggrieved nation can appeal, and if the appeal is dealt with in accordance with justice and right, progress will have been made.

Incidentally, I am very doubtful whether the suggestion that the Polish problem should be referred to the United Nations is a particularly good one. It is in some ways a very difficult problem. I agree that the Poles have broken certain pledges, but if you read the Charter of the United Nations you will see that there are very many and serious difficulties in the way of bringing that question before—I imagine it would be—the Security Council. I hope that a. better way can be found if this treaty-breaking goes on. I doubt whether any nation, including our own, is without guilt in this matter. I have in mind, for instance, the entry of Hitler into the Rhineland. We were pledged, but we did nothing; and public opinion, probably, would not have allowed us to do anything. I have in mind the lack of action against Japan when she broke the Covenant of the League of Nations. We were a member of the League. Ought we to have acted? I do not know. At any rate, we did not act. Therefore, what I feel is feat we ought really not to cast too many stones. We ought, if we can, to make a fresh start, to preach the sanctity of treaties, to try to make people realize that without that sanctity nations cannot live together; and, above all, to rely on the United Nations if this treaty-breaking goes on. It is for that reason, among others, that I am so thankful and so glad that His Majesty's Government have made the United Nations a cardinal principle of their foreign policy.

5.36 p.m.

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD PAKENHAM)

My Lords, we have certainly listened to some notable speeches this afternoon. I suppose the whole House, like myself, was profoundly moved by the appeal of the noble Viscount, who is acting Leader of the Opposition and deeply impressed by the wise and solid contribution from the noble Earl, Lord Perth, who has such vast experience in these matters. We also ought to benefit, I expect, from the instruction of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, regarding the best manner in which to treat a woman in love. Some of us who have been married for some time, and who flatter ourselves that we have known a lady in that condition for a number of years, may doubt the wisdom of his policy of never arguing in those circumstances. It seems to smack of that policy of appeasement which he denounced in no uncertain terms at the end of his speech.

As regards the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, I am somewhat at a loss. I cannot remember, among the many eloquent speeches to which I have listened in this House, one that was more eloquent or which had behind it more genuine feeling and genuine knowledge. At the same time he seemed to me to paint a picture which, taken by itself, would mislead those who read his speeches in other places. I should say that the general implication of his speech would seem to most people to be a suggestion that we were within sight of war. He will correct me when he rises to speak again, but I am bound to say that I feel there will be those upon whom that impression will be made. I myself, the Government, and, I should say, most members of your Lordships' House, are confident that there is no question of another war being in sight.

I would also ask the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, to accept a proposition on which he expressed neither a favourable nor an adverse opinion during his speech, but which is certainly a basic proposition in the policy of His Majesty's Government. I refer to the proposition that lasting peace is impossible without friendship between this country and Soviet Russia. I hope that when the noble Lord comes to reply he will be able to underline that general statement. As to the particular accusations which he levelled against a number of countries, including our own, he will perhaps forgive me if, on the eve of the Moscow Conference, I do not follow him in detail. It is a field in which the margin between the Scylla of indiscretion and the Charybdis of platitude is very hard to draw. This afternoon perhaps the House will not be surprised if I tend to veer in the latter direction rather than towards the former. At the same time, there are a number of general observations on the fringe of this subject, and, indeed, which go to the heart of the subject philosophically considered, which I am gratified at being able to discuss with the House.

There has been for some years, in this country and in other countries, as the noble Lord implied (he mentioned the name of Professor Carr, who is one of the writers I have in mind, but in what I wish to say I do not want to single out one particular publicist) men of high repute, honourable men, and men of democratic outlook whose general influence, it seems to me, has been to undermine the sanctity of treaties. They have pointed out—or at any rate they have claimed—that the treaty system existing at any one time is nothing but the embodiment of the power relations existing at that time. They have pointed out that whereas at domestic law a contract is void if it is concluded under duress, there has been no such provision under International Law, and many treaties have been signed in the past—and will no doubt go on being signed—where the vanquished accept the provisions of a treaty simply because they are too weak to do anything else. They have told us that no treaty is eternal and, therefore, there must be provision for change.

Whatever one may make of particular features of that argument, there is no doubt that the drift of it has been highly unsatisfactory. Abroad, it has been carried, of course, much further, in countries which do not accept the democratic and Christian ethic in the way it is accepted here. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, that all of us who take the opposite view should say-so in no uncertain terms. I am very pleased, therefore, to respond to the appeal from the noble Viscount the acting Leader of the Opposition to make plain, once again, how utterly His Majesty's Government reject any such approach. We realize, of course, that there must be opportunity for the revision of treaties. We realize that circumstances change and that treaties may, in time, require to be modified. But we do say that one of the outstanding marks of a civilized country throughout history has been its attitude to its own pledged word, and once again we are re-affirming the view of the British Government that to treat one's pledged word lightly is the beginning of the path to the abyss.

I would remind the House, if I may be forgiven a few words of historical disquisition, that the attitude which I have just re-affirmed has been that of the greatest statesmen who have conducted our foreign policy in the past, whether you take so-called nationalists like Canning, Palmerston and Disraeli or statesmen who are placed in the international category and who are credited with a more internationalist outlook, such as Castlereagh, Gladstone, Grey, or a statesman such as the great Lord Salisbury, who reconciled many features of both outlooks, or in more recent years a statesman in whom we on these Benches, and I believe, the whole country, have always taken a special pride, Mr. Arthur Henderson. If you take any of those statesmen, they were all distinguished by the firm conviction with which they upheld the sanctity of treaties, and we have no intention of falling behind them in any way.

Still clinging to the historical, may I bring out another fact which may not have occurred to every member of your Lordships' House? It is sometimes said that it is not unnatural to find that the British Government support the sanctity of treaties because we are now what is called a "have" instead of a "have not" nation. When we look around we are not always so certain that our possessions and our comforts are as great as those with which we are sometimes credited. But that distinction as very frequently drawn, and we are sometimes accused of belonging to the category of the "haves." Be that as it may, it is quite certain that there are times in our history when it was not so. Whether or not one remembers every step by which our Empire expanded, there is no doubt that even in our expanionist days we clung to the sacredness of the pledged word. That is a point, I feel, which other countries who may regard themselves as in a different stage of their development may attend to with advantage.

May I come a little closer to the Motion of the noble Lord? I am not concerned to resist his account or interpretation of events between the two wars. There is no doubt that first of all the Fascisms and then, with still more devilish forms of cunning, the Nazis, developed and applied the simple philosophy propounded by Lucifer in Paradise Lost: "Evil be thou imy good." That was their doctrine, and the world has paid a very heavy price for its application. It was implied by the noble Earl—although I do not know quite what conclusions he was seeking to draw in his argument—that we did not always maintain our own pledged word during those years, and that we did not always spring to the assistance of the victim. If we erred in that respect we erred in the company of the: whole world; there was no question of our erring alone.

When the crisis arose we took the initiative in coming to the assistance of Poland in withstanding the tyrant, and whatever errors of delay and neglect were committed before the war, they have surely been wiped out between 1939 and 1945. I suppose that no great country, under conditions of strain, storm and stress, ever had a clearer conscience than we did on the day when unconditional surrender was received. I recognize that since that Mme the Coalition Government have been broken up and the present administration have been in power. But I vigorously resist the suggestion that our conscience is any less clear, or that our honour is in any way more tarnished to-day than when the war came to an end.

The noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, was somewhat ambiguous on that point. I am not sure whether he was criticizing us or not. He mentioned the South Tyrol, which I have discussed with your Lordships before, when I said it was not a matter of rejoicing to any of us but a matter of necessity, where the countries concerned, with our encouragement, were making the best of a bad job. Apart from mentioning the South Tyrol, he picked out no other instances of our failure in the last two years. At any rate, he did not make it plain to me whether he was criticizing us for any positive violations of faith, or only for an inabilty on our part to prevent other people breakng their word. I feel the point is of some importance, and I do not think that anybody, even the bitterest critics of this Government or of our country, would claim that during the last two years Great Britain had sought to advantage herself by any violation of faith, or by any breach of covenants. The only question that may arise is whether we have been effective enough in stopping other people breaking their word—which is a very different thing, and very different from the kind of charge which would be rightly levelled against us if we had sought to do the kind of things the noble Lord was attributing to certain unnamed Powers.

I am quite ready to agree with the noble Lord that the whole story of Poland during these last few years is a major tragedy. I do not suppose that anybody with any sense of responsibility can think of it with feelings of anything except profound horror. Yet it would be a great mistake and an historical mistake—and I am sure it is not one into which the noble Lord, Lord Vansittart, would be likely to fall—to suppose that in the past Great Britain has been able to decide the fate of Poland. If we throw our minds back, for example, to the (Nineteenth Century, when it is so often implied, nowadays, that we were all-powerful, it should be remembered that our direct physical influence extended only to the periphery of the Continent, and all through that century the Powers that dominated Eastern Europe were Germany, Austria and Russia, three autocratic States with internal systems quite uncongenial to ours.

During those years, no doubt, we were mistress of the waves, but that did not allow us to decide what would happen in Warsaw. May I recall the Polish Insurrection of 1863? In spite of our strong language, the Russians were able to do exactly what they chose. Therefore, we need not regard our failure to save Poland in our latter days as an example of degeneracy in the middle of the Twentieth Century. We must remember that there is a limit to our power, and I hope the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, will relieve the Government of any implied suggestion that they could have exercised more power single-handed, in some more enforceable manner, than they have been able to do.

The noble Lord suggests that the question should be referred to the United' Nations, and the noble Viscount showed sympathy for that idea. I am bound to pause for a few minutes to look at this whole problem of the United Nations. The old universality, which, in part at least, was dependent upon dynastic ties between the great nations, has disappeared for good. Somehow, the nations of to-day must be grouped towards a new kind of universality. One attempt was made under the League of Nations. I am still one of those who refuse to accept the old slogan that the League failed; I should say that the countries of the world proved themselves unworthy of the League ideal. International thought had not reached a sufficiently high level for the larger sagacity. I shall suggest to the House quite seriously that the new ideal, the ideal of the United Nations, contains certain virtues which were lacking in the old League. We are told that it will be able to bring in the nations of the world more extensively, and more intensely, than the League of Nations was ever able to do. We are told that it represents the highest common denominator of international morality and international conduct in the middle of our century. Therefore, we must somehow make the United Nations work.

I threatened the House with one or two platitudes, and it is a platitude to say that the United Nations Organization is the hope of the world. That does not prevent it from being the beginning of wisdom about the whole matter, and expressing a profound truth. Somehow' or other we must make the United Nations work. Lord Vansittart suggested we should take the Polish question to the United Nations. I will not repeat the detailed statement that was made by the right honourable gentleman the Secretary for Foreign Affairs in another place. He pointed out that we had made representations in Moscow, and to the Polish Government, expressing our grave concern at what had happened. He pointed out that in our view no further action would have served any useful purpose in view of the attitude assumed by Soviet Russia. It may be said, "Take the matter to the United Nations; have a row; make your protests heard; show them where we stand; have a show-down." It is possible to say a great many things of that kind, but, in fairness, I am bound to say that the whole matter was not approached in that spirit this afternoon in this House. No speaker adopted a tone of that kind, but I cannot help feeling that whether or not that was the intention, that would be the result of taking a matter of this kind to the United Nations. Whereas all agree we would like to see the United Nations working, we would, in fact, be breaking up the organization just as it is beginning to be useful.

There are, I appreciate, many objections to the veto, and to the way in which the veto is used. The Government have never concealed their views about the way in which certain Powers have sought to use the veto. We have attempted, and shall go on until we achieve success, to ensure that the veto is used in a more helpful spirit in times to come than it has been in the past—a point to which we attach enormous importance. But I can make no promise here as to whether we will be successful. I can only go on praying to ensure that the veto is used in a more neighbourly and more constructive spirit. We shall not cease our endeavours, and we must pray that in time they will be successful. The world we look out upon to-day has many problems, but it would surely be very strange if it were not so, after the greatest and most destructive war in history.

I do not, for a moment, wish to leave the impression on the House to-day that the Foreign Secretary has gone to Moscow in any spirit of pessimism. 1 offer the opinion, for what it is worth, and I hope noble Lords will accept it, that the international sky to-day, for all its clouds, is a good deal brighter than seemed possible a year ago. The conclusion of the treaties with the Axis satellites, the intimacy of our friendship with America, the hope of placing the Anglo-Soviet Alliance on a more solid basis—surely these are all features from which we can draw solid encouragement.

I am not forgetting for a moment that yesterday was a day through which all our lives we may be proud to have lived—a day that brought together finally and, I hope for all time (the treaty, I know, is for a period of years, but I believe it will last for all time), our own great people and the people of France. They have been brought together by a Treaty which is formal and rigid, and inescapable, a Treaty which embodies also a deep-felt friendship and, may I say, devotion and passion. Here, at any rate, is a Treaty about whose violation there need be no fears. Here is a Treaty which will bind us utterly, completely, and willingly. 1 hope that the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, in view of his own great services to the cause of Anglo-French friendship, will agree with me in saying that a new, cheerful chapter opened yesterday, a chapter to which we need never expect an end. I am grateful to the noble Lord and I hope he will now be able to withdraw his Motion.

6.0 p.m.

LORD VANSITTART

My Lords, I shall not long detain you. I have had my say and I thank the House for having let me say it. I thank, also, the noble Viscount the Acting Leader cf the Opposition for the support that he gave me. I understood him to say—and I heartily agree—that we should not only enunciate principles but apply them to cases, because if we only go on enunciating principles into the blue, and never applying them to any case, the look-out will be a pretty bad one. From that point of view, I confess that I differ as strongly from my noble friend the Earl of Perth as he differs from me. He says that it is time to make a fresh start. But you cannot start up in the air. You must start on the ground. You must have a specific case. The noble Earl, Lord Perth, says that the Polish case is not good enough. All right, if it is not good enough let us take another; but if you are going to wait for an absolutely perfect case you may well wait till the cows come home.

The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said that he was rather at a loss in replying to my speech. I confess that I am very greatly at a loss in replying to his, for he began by saying something which conveyed the exact contrary to what I said. He said that ray speech was that of an alarmist and that it might lead some people to believe that we were on the eve of war. Now I most specifically said, almost at the beginning of my re marks, that there was no immediate danger. I do not know if I did not say it loudly enough, but I could not have said it more clearly. I said it, and it is what I believe. The noble Lord went on to interpret some part of my speech as an attack on the Government. Such a thing was never in my mind. I never said anything of the kind for I think that the Government has an excellent record in the observance of its faith—

LORD PAKENHAM

If the noble Lord will forgive my interrupting him, I understood him to say that the Government were drifting. I was unable to take that as a compliment to the Government.

LORD VANSITTART

The noble Lord was quite right in not taking it as a compliment. I merely said that in this matter of treaty observances we and all the world are drifting because we have failed to put our foot down about anything particular. I think it is incontestable that it is a world drift, and, in saying that, I was not making any particular reflection on the Government. I think their record is admirable in that respect. No one could possibly allege that they had in any way failed in keeping their word for their personal advantage. That was why I said in my speech that there was most undeserved anti-British propaganda being carried on abroad. I think that the noble Lord really has got hold of the wrong stick twice, if I may say so, though possibly the fault may be mine. As to the case of Poland I quite agree that what has happened is not our fault. What I did say was that five partitions of a country were discreditable to our kind as a whole—I was talking of the human species—and I went on to elaborate what I was saying with a quotation from Hamlet. That is not the sort of thing on which we ought to spend our desires and substance as a species. I was not criticizing the noble Lord or his colleagues.

Again, take the case of the South Tyrol. I was not criticizing the Government for not being able to do better than they did in that respect. But neither the noble Lord nor any of his colleagues will be able to deny to me that what was settled was, and is, a breach of the Atlantic Charter. But it is not their fault that it took place. My criticism was addressed to the world at large for wanting those things that are not worth while and involve breaches of faith. The noble Lord said he hoped that I would tell the House that I was one of those who agreed that peace could be maintained only by friendship with Russia. I do certainly agree that that is so. We all do. But we are much less likely to misunderstand each other if, when we put our signatures to a document, we try to make it clear in the future that we all mean every word we say. That would tend to minimize the risk of infringements of the principle which the noble Lord has enunciated. I hope the noble Lord will not think I am criticizing him personally for the remarks which he has addressed to me. I am only trying to dissipate some of the misunderstandings which I think crept into his speech.

As to this question of alarmism, I want to make it clear that I am trying to look beyond to-morrow, beyond my own lifetime, very likely beyond the lifetime of many members of this House. I hope that the noble Lord has not forgotten those lines from Housman's More Poems: This is for all ill-treated fellows, Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they're in trouble And I am not. I am not more alarmist than that. If there is any other point which the noble Lord thinks I have made insufficiently clear I shall be most happy to try and elucidate it. Everything which I have said to-day has a general tendency; I believe that most utterly to be true. If I could remember what I said I would say it all over again, if it were the last speech which I were to make in this House or indeed in this world. Having said that, I now most gladly meet the noble Lord's suggestion and do what I was going to do in any case—that is, ask leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.