HL Deb 07 December 1955 vol 194 cc1196-215

3.39 p.m.

LORD FRASER OF NORTH CAPE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are prepared to recommend that the control and safe custody of atomic and thermo-nuclear weapons should be transferred to the United Nations; and to move for Papers. The noble and gallant Lord said: My Lords, the Motion before the House this afternoon might seem a little Utopian in character to many of your Lordships—perhaps it does a little to myself—but it is a solution which I have not seen previously discussed and which I think merits some consideration. At the end of the Japanese war I had an opportunity of visiting Hiroshima, the first place on which the anger of an atomic bomb descended, and there was a city of 100.000 people razed to the ground. There was standing on the outskirts one concrete building which happened to be a hospital, and in that were still patients suffering from the radioactivity of a year before. Many of us have seen films and pictures of atomic explosions at a distance, but I can assure your Lordships that if you were to see these ruins, it would be a sight which you would never forget. Since that date eleven years have passed and nothing has happened except the making of "bigger and better bangs," and more of them, for the destruction of mankind.

At the time those bombs were dropped on Japan, the war against Japan had already been won. The naval blockade had cut off supplies of raw materials to Japan, a thing always liable to happen to an island Power. But what those two bombs did was to stop the war like a wave of the hand. At that time we were just about to mount the invasion of Japan itself. I remember Admiral Nimitz saying to me how fearful he was of the casualties that were going to arise from that operation, because I feel sure that the Japanese would have fought under their Emperor to the last man, if it had not been for those two bombs, and I think the invasion might have cost millions of lives. The two points I should like to make are that the possession of the bomb is undoubtedly proved by facts to be a deterrent to war and secondly, that the threat of the use of the bomb might save millions of lives.

In the predicament we are in to-day it seems to me that there are three possible solutions. The first solution is what we are doing now—that is to say, nothing. It is probably the easiest, the most dangerous and the most expensive solution. I am sure your Lordships will remember the two or three days before the declaration of the last war. To-day the heads of States will have to make a most terrible decision; they will have to decide whether to launch the attack so as to try to cripple the enemy before he can retaliate, or to take a risk and hold on, to stop the world from destruction. That is the first solution, and that is the frightful decision which heads of Governments to-day will have to take if tension increases. The second solution is one for which efforts are being made now: that is to say, to abolish the bomb and at the same time limit conventional armaments. If you abolish the bomb, you do away with the deterrent to war; but how do you impose a penalty if somebody is dishonest enough to keep a few bombs back? That has been one of the stumbling blocks, the other being the great difficulty of limiting conventional weapons. Again, your Lordships will remember that between the wars we tried to do that—for example, by fixing a maximum tonnage for warships. There were several countries who entirely disregarded that limitation—the Germans were one—and they were undetected.

I come now to the third solution, which is the one I am proposing to-day. I should like to elaborate it into the plan, the operation and the inspection. First of all, the plan—and, of course, safe custody is of maximum importance. First, you destroy all the atomic bombs in the world except about (shall I say?) 300 or 400, and these you divide into three or four parts and stow them in what I have termed inaccessible places. By an inaccessible place I mean somewhere where, when you have stowed them away, you cannot get them out again for at leas) a month. First, such a place must be far from the sea, so that there cannot be a naval raid to capture it; secondly, it must be far from any aircraft landing grounds, so that an aircraft cannot whisk one away in the night; and thirdly, the bombs must be in underground storage, so as to be free from conventional bombing. I can think of three or four places like that in the world to-day. I would quote three: half way up Mount Everest, the Sahara Desert and Basutoland. Each of those places meets the requirements. Those places would be under international guard supplied by the Security Council. I believe that that plan for safe custody is what in the Navy we should call foolproof.

I come now to operations. I would define aggression in two ways: first, minor aggression, in which I would include the alteration of the status quo by force; and secondly, major aggression, which is the mobilisation of a great Power. In the first case the aggrieved Power would have authority to resist with all the forces at their command, until the Security Council came to some decision. If the Security Council's advice was not followed, then consideration would be given to taking out an atom bomb. In the second case, that of major aggression, the mobilisation of a great Power, immediate action would be taken under the Security Council to mobilise the whole 300 or 400 atomic bombs. With that scheme of operating the bomb, it would be necessary to keep conventional forces, first, to maintain law and order, and secondly, to cover the gap between the time when the bomb could be brought into action and the outbreak of war. So we should want our conventional forces—we might be able to reduce them—and we should keep N.A.T.O. and the Warsaw Pact until experience had been gained under those conditions. The third thing required for operations would be an international air force to operate the bombs if they were so ordered by the United Nations.

THE EARL OF SWINTON

Would there be a power of veto in the Security Council?

LORD FRASER OF NORTH CAPE

I was just about to say that. In relation to both these points, and these points alone, the decision would have to be by a two-thirds majority and the power to veto would have to go—and I myself think that two-thirds of the world is sane.

Now I come to control and inspection. This, of course, has been a difficulty in the past, but in this case all that would be required would be a small body of Service officers and scientists. They would have to be in each country, and they would have power to go anywhere, at any time, without notice. It must be remembered that they would be looking only for atomic bombs and not bothering about conventional weapons. The difference between this and the other schemes is that if a nation is "bowled out" hiding some bombs, a most terrible penalty will fall on that nation, because there are the 300 or 400 atomic bombs stowed away ready to be used if any nation is dishonest. So control and inspection, to my mind, is greatly simplified on those lines.

I should now like to say what I think are the advantages of these proposals. First of all, for the first time in history the United Nations would have a powerful force behind it to enforce its decisions; and surely any body which wants to keep law and order must have a force behind it. Secondly, I think the fear and tension in the world would be either removed or greatly reduced if we could get away from this horrible idea of the possibility of an atomic Pearl Harbour—and this plan would definitely remove that frightful fear. Thirdly, the difficulties of the control and inspection of conventional weapons would disappear, since inspection would be limited to atomic bombs. Fourthly, no further development of atomic bombs would be necessary, and no further expense would be incurred—and I suppose the countries of the world are spending hundreds of millions of pounds on that. No further development would be necessary, and all our atomic manpower, brainpower and material could go into peaceable energy. Next, there would be no further objection, to my mind, to any country joining the United Nations. There should be no further restrictions necessary on trade in strategic materials. This arrangement, I should imagine, would lead to the withdrawal of troops from Germany, and German rearmament would become of less importance.

Those are very great prizes because, in addition—I have not liked to say so—I imagine that National Service could be reduced to twelve months or six months. The question of agreement between the Powers, which, of course, is the whole stumbling block in most matters. I do not think arises at this moment, because you have first to ask: "Is it a practical sort of plan? If it is, shall we try for agreement? If it is not, the best thing to do is to consign it to the waste paper basket." I am afraid I have not this afternoon tabulated the difficulties and disadvantages, because I have always found that, in the first place, the author thinks that his own plan is the most wonderful thing in the world; and, in the second place, there are always many who will find out all the disadvantages and difficulties for you, and it saves you a lot of work. I beg to move for Papers.

3.52 p.m.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, the House should be grateful to the noble and gallant Lord who has just spoken on a question which is filling the hearts and thoughts of people all over the world. We in this country have taken a decision in the last few days not to stop making the thermo-nuclear bomb, and have refused to undertake not to have more explosions. The general thought of the common peoples of the world has been greatly moved by the evidence lately published in Japan that the explosions which have recently taken place, coming on top of those which occurred some years ago during the first trials, are to-day filling the rain over Japan with material dangerous to the health of the people. Unless some halt can be called to this kind of thing, the extent to which this current menace to health can go is almost unbelievable.

We have listened to one of those short speeches which we have grown to expect from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Fraser of North Cape, to many of which I used to listen both in private in my room, and also in meetings of the Chiefs of Staff. We have had the great advantage of listening to what I might call the primary force of the noble and gallant Lord on the present situation. In the circumstances in which the world finds itself to-day it must be all to the good that anybody having experience either of planning or of carrying out effective war orders, who is giving thought to how war can be avoided and how co-operation can be brought about amongst the nations of the world, should give his views. I can assure the noble and gallant Lord that in the course of my researches in the matter I shall not cease to take into account the advice that he has been giving to the House to-day as a first shot. He is perfectly right in thinking that the short and potent speech which he has made this afternoon is likely to meet with a great many criticisms. He is right, too, in having avoided a lot of the arduous work that would have fallen upon him had he tried to anticipate all the different angles from which criticism might have arisen.

I shall not attempt this afternoon to follow all the little lines of thought that I have been developing during the course of the noble Lord's speech, wondering how he would get over them. I should like to see leaders and ex-leaders of the Services get together in a little forum, to see what objections can be raised and then, if possible, how they can be knocked down, or how the plan can be amended to meet the view of both sides of the forum. At any rate, that would enable us to have some skilled technical advice in the direction of peace in these matters, which would be more encouraging than the somewhat melancholy statements which we have had in the last two or three years from high places in an international organisation, and which always seemed to me to make it quite certain that war, even on the atomic basis, was going to occur.

One or two of the main points that the noble and gallant Lord has raised this afternoon give me a little anxiety. He was good enough to "stick his neck out" (as we used to say) in mentioning possible sites where, if the countries could be made to agree, he would deposit his minimum quantity of atomic bombs, so that they would be safe. It is not an easy thing to take immediate action against an aggressor if you have first to go and burrow in actual rock or near-rock halfway up the highest mountain in the world, and I am not quite sure how that idea would appeal to those who feel that they might, as a last resort, have to adopt this weapon. The noble and gallant Lord also thinks it necessary that these atomic bombs should be deposited in a place where they would not be liable to effective bombing by conventional bombers. I should hardly think that Basutoland, or even the Sahara, was a place in which one could effectively count upon that. At any rate, that is a technical point which is worthy of examination.

The other point which seemed to be one of difficulty is this. Have we not learned from the utterances which have been made, both from N.A.T.O. Headquarters and from Washington, and from the dotting of the "i's" and the crossing of the "t's" in this country, that atomic weapons now are not merely confined to bombs? When we talk about the: difficulties of conventional disarmament, is it not a fact that in the normal plans going on to-day there are numerous things like small atomic rockets or artillery shells, some of quite small calibre, which are being prepared and with which forces are being equipped with the idea that they are going to be used in conventional warfare? If the idea is to allow the manufacture of atomic weapons of that kind and to abolish only the atomic bomb or the thermo-nuclear bomb, I think that would require far more inspection than seems to be envisaged by the noble and gallant Lord, when he claims that many of the present difficulties in the way of agreement between nations could be overcome by inspection.

The suggestion that on this matter it might be possible to abolish the veto on this one great issue is intriguing. I should dearly like to see some alteration of the present veto method in the United Nations Organisation. Whether the noble and gallant Lord will ever see in his lifetime, or I in mine (he is younger than I am so I had better say "in his lifetime"), any fundamental amendment in the United Nations Organisation with regard to the veto, I am a little doubtful. I have been so obsessed with the great damage done to the universality of the work and scope of the United Nations by the manner in which the veto has been used up to date that I feel that some attempt to change that position ought to be made. I should very much like to see that happen. Whilst I very much doubt whether one would get the nations in their present frame of mind to agree upon that matter, at least the general principle deserves examination.

I do not propose to say anything further this afternoon about the speech of the noble and gallant Lord. I commend him for the courage with which he brings forward such a scheme this afternoon. It is not always the courage of going into a live battle which is the greatest; often it is the courage which is required to run the risk of some people ridiculing both the speaker and the proposition. I admire the noble and gallant Lord for his courage. Of course, he was never lacking in that. I remember that, when he was Controller of the Navy, he was never lacking in courage in what he told the First Lord of the Admiralty in those days; so I expect him always to come and be frank, as he has been to-day, about his true views. However, I felt when he was speaking this afternoon that it was absolutely essential for us to make all these efforts to try to get agreement upon these international and material problems.

When he speaks about atomic weapons as a deterrent to war, however, I am not quite so sure. As long as there is any organisation in the world which will oppress other people, will rob them of their freedom and will prevent them from practising their true religious freedom, as well as their political freedom, I do not think there will ever be peace. I say it again and again—I have said it many times in your Lordships' House: man will be free; and he will fight till he is free. Therefore, we have to get behind that spirit and see how freedom can be brought about. I am bound to say that the more I look at it the more I feel that a good many of the thinkers who are writing and speaking to-day might go back a little more to the ancients.

Thinking about what I was going to say this afternoon. I went back to my early studies of Pope's Essay on Man. It gave me once again a little picture of the kind of problem that besets man, particularly to-day. Right through his Essay on Man, Pope was posing the problem of what man's view was of God, whether he should dare to scan God or whether he should dare to criticise God. Already in his lifetime, hundreds of years ago, he was observing the growth of the belief of man in what science could do for him: he was thinking ahead of many of us. I wrote down a few lines. I want to preface them by a passage from Pope that we all know well: Hope springs eternal in the human breast. That, obviously, is a message that the noble and gallant Lord should take with him wherever he goes. There is hope if somebody is working to get a solution. Pope also says: Go, wondrous creature! Mount where science guides. Go measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides. Instruct the planets in what orbs to run Correct old Time, and regulate the sun. Go teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule, Then, drop into thyself and be a fool. If only I could get that message over to some of the people who are playing about with this idea that the growth of science is making man the creator of power over his fellow-men, we might come to effect a solution of the whole problem. What we need is a change of heart; and although many of us do our best here and there on the political platform, in our legislative assemblies and in our international organisations, to preach the general gospel of disarmament, we have not yet perhaps been either big enough or willing enough to face ridicule to preach that need of a change of heart and how it is to be accomplished.

4.7 p.m.

LORD HORE-BELISHA

My Lords, the noble Viscount who has just sat down ended his speech, as befits this great and moving subject, on a high note. That, indeed, is the note on which the noble and gallant Admiral of the Fleet introduced this topic to your Lordships' notice. The noble and gallant Lord admitted that his proposal was Utopian. Unfortunately, as is brought home to us by the recent statements of the Russian leaders and the harsh conditions of the world we live in, we must be realistic and we must be long-suffering. We cannot jump to solutions. The noble and gallant Lord helped us to re-live, in imagination, the horrors of Hiroshima which he himself had witnessed; but he said, with undoubted truth, that the dropping of an atomic bomb on that occasion shortened the war and saved (I think he added) millions of lives. The noble Lord also, I believe, agrees that the possession of the atomic bomb in recent years by the United States has been a deterrent to the recurrence of such miseries as those which he described. It so happens that virtually all the atomic weapons in the Western world which he is seeking to control or neutralise are American in manufacture. The gallant Admiral comes here therefore this afternoon and makes a proposal addressed virtually, in its practical application, to the United States alone, that they should hand over the weapon that has saved us from destruction during the last few years. I permit myself to wonder what impression he thinks that may make upon the American psychology. I wonder what the gallant Admiral would feel, being such a devoted servant of the Senior Service, if the Americans were proposing to abolish the British Fleet.

In this matter we must be realistic; we must look at the exact and precise meaning of this Motion, and its effect upon our Allies. That is not to detract at all from the sincerity and nobility of the motive which actuated the noble and gallant Lord. The first effect of this Motion, if it were carried out, would not relate to atomic and nuclear weapons at all; it would have a profound and decisive impact upon our capacity to resist aggression by conventional means. The situation brought home to us in the Statement of Defence this year is one which is within the knowledge of your Lordships—namely, that over the whole field the Russians could deploy divisions, their own and satellite divisions, to the number of 400. Against those 400 divisions we could muster, let us say, 40. Therefore we have to rely upon some compensating advantage; and it is for that reason that Her Majesty's Government have stated, quite categorically, that the use of nuclear weapons is the only means by which this massive preponderance of Russia can be countered.

With the aid of nuclear weapons—and the distinction between tactical nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction was correctly drawn by the noble Viscount who has just spoken—and with the German contribution, we can hope to defend the Continent instead of contemplating again the grim process of liberation. If we do not use the full weight of our nuclear power, Europe could hardly be protected from invasion and occupation, with all that that implies, both for Europe and the United Kingdom. So we have decided—and it has been announced and established—that the use of nuclear weapons is the whole basis of our defence planning. Without these nuclear weapons we should be at a considerable disadvantage. It is therefore the duty of any Government which seeks to discharge its primary obligation, not heedlessly to throw away the means of our defence. That, my Lords, I feel is the effect of this Motion upon conventional methods of defence.

But when we come to the larger issue, though the noble and gallant Lord drew no distinction at all between tactical nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction we find that this Motion goes back in essence to the Baruch proposals of 1946. Once, Sir Winston Churchill described Lease Lend as the most unsordid act in history. The Baruch proposals could very well be bracketed with that great international gesture. Here was the United States of America, the sole possessor of the atomic bomb—enjoying a complete monopoly—proposing to outlaw atomic war, to place all atomic activities under a supranational United Nations, with the power to impose penalties, as the noble Lord wishes, on any nation abusing its duty towards its neighbours. The plan stipulated that the veto should not apply. That is exactly what the noble and gallant Lord is proposing this afternoon. Well, Russia refused to accept that proposal and insisted on the retention of the veto. She also refused to allow inspection except, normally, in declared plants, and the recommendations of the inspectorate were not to have compulsory force.

It is therefore fair to remind the noble and gallant Admiral that the proposals which he has brought before your Lordships this afternoon have been categorically rejected by Russia. Russia will not give up the veto; Russia will not agree to the kind of inspectorate that is necessary. It follows that, for proposals of the noble and gallant Admiral to have any validity at all, they would have to receive the concurrence of Russia. But she has already rejected them. For us to agree to them, assuming that Russia signified her belated assent, would mean that we should have to trust Russia. The fundamental question upon which we have to make up our minds is: should we or should we not trust Russia? It is quite clear that since 1946 great developments in this field have taken place. Stocks of nuclear weapons have been accumulated: they are not detectable by inspection, because they are so widespread, and I am informed, on the highest authority, that it is impossible to discover them.

Since the Baruch plan was propounded Russia has made great strides. She has presumably reached an equality, in some respects, with the West; and she may outpace us. Whether she has or whether she has not, she is now semi-officially suggesting that all tests should be abolished. In the light of what has transpired, I should look most carefully at a proposal of that kind coming at this stage from Russia. What stage she has reached in the hydrogen bomb, and precisely what the tests disclose, we do not know; but we do know that in 1953 she completely bypassed the United States, reducing the costs (so I read, on the authority of scientists) from thousands of dollars per ounce to dollars per pound. That is the position of the Power with whom we sought to reach an agreement—and failed.

In the circumstances, what would seem to be the more practicable course for Britain would be, I feel, to improve our own resources. There is no other course that any responsible Government could possibly adopt Yesterday, in another place, Sir Anthony Eden said that the Government would at all times welcome an arrangement contributing to world security, but that they were not prepared to accept agreements which would put the United Kingdom in a position of decisive inferiority to other great Powers not justified by the state of our scientific knowledge and resources. We have not yet tested our hydrogen bomb, but I invite your Lordships to say, in response to this Motion, that the cautious, wise and statesmanlike pronouncement of the Prime Minister yesterday is a more constructive approach to this problem than that recommended by the noble and gallant Lord.

If we are to improve our position we must improve our technology; we must increase the number of our technologists and their training facilities. Last year we had a debate on that matter, and we saw how far behind we lag in this field, The noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, pointed out that in Russia 40,000 engineering graduates were turned out in 1952, and 54,000 in 1953, almost twice as many as in the United States. Over and above this they have 1½ million or more of what we should call technical colleges, as opposed to the 50,000 of which we boast here. They have 300,000 people at technological institutions. There is the real crux of the matter: that we are lagging behind. Mr. Aldrich, the United lagging Ambassador, said last week that both America and ourselves were lagging behind and that there was a compelling obligation upon us to redress this inequality. This is particularly incumbent on us in the light of the explosion, eight days ago, of Russia's latest hydrogen bomb. Other countries in the Western Alliance must look to their own position. France, for instance, has only 13,000 scientific workers engaged in research—a quarter of our number.

Last year Her Majesty's Government announced that we in Britain were to redress this discrepancy, but only yesterday Sir Winston Churchill said—and I think note must be taken of his very impressive words—that in technological education Britain has allowed herself to fall behind. We are, he said, already surpassed by Russia on a scale which is almost alarming. In the last ten years the Soviet higher technical education for mechanical engineering has been developed both in numbers and in quality, to an extent which far exceeds anything we have achieved. This, he emphasised, is a matter which needs the immediate attention of the Government. The setting up and bringing into full and active life of large technical schools is one of the most urgent of the practical steps which we should urge upon the Government. Such a statement, coming from one who until very recently was responsible for the Government, reveals a state of affairs for which it is not so immediately important to blame any Government in particular as it is to set about rectifying.

Another positive step which we ought to take is to improve our relationship with the United States. I saw yesterday in The Times newspaper that under the McCarran Act at least six months is required for a foreign scientist to prepare his visit to the United States, and that at least one hundred foreign scientists have been seriously delayed or altogether prevented from going to the United States to discuss these problems. Two of them are British: Professor Dirac, a British Nobel physicist, and Dr. Fremlin, who is said to have applied for a visa since the spring of 1953. That is one illustration of how the West is failing to stand solid in this great hydrogen and nuclear contest. Further, there is an atomic submarine, the "Nautilus," which has been invented in the United States. Because of the impossibility, under existing United States legislation, of giving us information it will take us two years more than it otherwise would to get such a submarine; and if there were war in the meantime we might be suffocated.

The riposte which we should make to the recent declarations by the two Russian leaders in India is to achieve greater solidarity in the West. At the time of the Quebec Agreements we laid down quite clearly the principle that our salvation depended upon the closest co-operation and interchange of information and ideas. I believe, therefore, that instead of going forward with a vague and generalised proposal which has no practical chance of acceptance, and which, even if it were accepted, would depend upon the good will and a change of heart of Russia, we should go forward on practical lines such as those which have been followed throughout by Her Majesty's Government. In other words, I think it is our duty, while neglecting no opportunity to achieve a satisfactory and watertight agreement on disarmament, to see that in the meantime we keep our powder dry, improve our technical knowledge and bring about a greater unity of feeling and of action, and a more complete interchange of information in this vital matter between the United States and ourselves. The opportunity for that is now presented by the very welcome announcement that the Prime Minister is to go to the United States. That is an occasion on which we should all rejoice and from which we have the highest expectations.

4.25 p.m.

THE MARQUESS OF READING

My Lords, may I return to the Motion on the Order Paper and remind your Lordships of its exact terms? It asks Herr Majesty's Government whether they are prepared to recommend that both the control and the safe custody, not merely of atomic or nuclear bombs but of atomic and thermo-nuclear weapons (which covers, presumably, the whole range of atomic and thermo-nuclear weapons) should be transferred to the United Nations It is certainly no part of my design this afternoon in any way to ridicule what the noble and gallant Lord said in the speech which he made, to your Lordships in expounding his Motion. His experience, supported by what he himself has seen, is such that anything that he may say to your Lordships on a subject such as this must command both our interest and our respect. But, at the same time, in analysing the scheme which he has laid before the House, one must, in the end, apply the test of whether it is a practical proposition in the condition of affairs which exists to-day.

When the noble and gallant Lord was speaking I was not entirely clear on how he meant this operation to be carried out—whether, the United Nations having taken charge of all these weapons, if a situation arose in which they were to be released, wholly or partly, they were to be handed out by the United Nations for use by the country which had suffered aggression; or whether such weapons were to be used only by the International Air Force to which the noble and gallant Lord referred at the end of his speech. Judged by general considerations, and after discussion of the question, that makes little difference. Much of the ground, and a great deal of what I should otherwise have said, has been covered by the two speeches since made by the noble Viscount opposite and by the noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha.

In considering any scheme of this kind we inevitably have to face its parochial aspect in the sense that we have to take into account the interest, the preservation and the security of this country. It is perfectly true, and has been generally recognised and declared, that the defence policy of Her Majesty's Government is in its latest form to a large extent based upon the fact that the United States and ourselves are in a position to control and, as a last resort, to use these weapons—whether they be in the shape of atomic artillery or bombs, or anything else—as the ultimate deterrent. No one would lightly incur the responsibility of employing weapons with that power of destruction, and, of course, the scheme which the noble and gallant Lord puts forward has the attraction, I imagine, for all Governments, that it would lift off the shoulders of individual Governments much of the responsibility for taking the appalling decision which, as he quite rightly pointed out, might in certain circumstances rest upon them, because it puts the control of these missiles in international hands.

But the situation that Her Majesty's Government in this country have to confront is that in respect of what we have come to call "conventional" weapons, the balance is very heavily against us, and that the balance is preserved on some basis, at least—in the end, it might be that the preservation of peace depended upon it—by the fact that the predominance of one side in conventional weapons is redressed by our possession of nuclear weapons. Can we, taking into account the whole state of the world to-day and watching all the developments which are proceeding, really contemplate, however much we might desire to do it in the general interests of humanity at large, a situation in which at this moment we are to hand over to others what we regard as essential for our own security and preservation? I think that that really is the gist of the whole problem as we have to see it.

And hand over to whom? It is said that we are to hand over to the United Nations. The United Nations is a body representative of a very large number of countries. With whom is the direction, control and supervision of these weapons to rest? With the General Assembly? We have seen the General Assembly to some extent divide itself on various occasions into different and not always harmonious blocs of nations. The General Assembly, itself, can, after all, only call upon—it cannot go further than that—member States to take certain courses. There are no sanctions that it can apply to them if they do not comply. To the Security Council? The noble and gallant Lord saw the very substantial obstacle which was in his way when he came up against the position of the veto in the operations of the Security Council, and in order to circumnavigate that obstacle he said that the way to deal with it was to remove the veto and to rely upon a two-thirds majority of the countries represented.

But how can you remove the veto? It may be that a good many people would share the view expressed by the noble Viscount opposite that it would be a good thing if the veto were not there. But it is there, and in discussing what is practicable in the circumstances which the noble and gallant Lord is contemplating we have to face a situation either that the veto is there or that there is a reasonable chance in the close future of getting it removed, even if it were only to be removed for this one particular purpose, which I understood was his suggestion. I do not know what prospects the noble and gallant Lord, in his own mind, would attach to the possibility that if that proposition were put before the Security Council it would be unanimously adopted, or whether he is not really satisfied in his mind that any proposal of this kind must inevitably founder upon the veto itself before it can achieve anything satisfactory.

The noble and gallant Lord has made some suggestions as to where these bombs should be stored. I do not propose to enter into the geographical details, because, as I say, I am afraid that the whole scheme is impracticable on the general basis of our outlook upon our own defence problems. He pointed out that if such a scheme could be adopted and commended itself to the nations of the world, there were very great prizes to be obtained in taking such a course. There may be very great prizes, but the question is how much do you have to sacrifice in order even to compete for the prize? The view of Her Majesty's Government is that any scheme of this kind would undermine the whole fabric upon which we have at the present time built our defensive plan.

The noble and gallant Lord spoke of inspection as though that, again, were an easy proposition to carry out. He said that you would need only a group of Service officers contributed by different countries, and the only condition to be made about their efforts would be that they would be free to go anywhere at any time without notice. We have been trying now for some years to arrive at agreement on a system of inspection and control of weapons in the Disarmament Commission of the United Nations and in the Sub-committee on Disarmament which has been deliberating for very many months. Here, again, I cannot help thinking that if the proposal were put to any body of which the Russians and those associated with them were members, it would not be likely to find a very eager reception, because one of the main difficulties we have always had arises from the unwillingness of those countries to give any wide area of inspection such as would afford the means to carry out the only effective method of keeping a vigilant eye upon what was going to be done.

Without some very close and very effective form of inspection, even if you had come to some agreement of this kind on this basis, how would you ever know if a country was putting into this pool the whole of the resources of nuclear weapons at its disposal? The only way you could do it would be by some far more general, widespread and close system of inspection than you are ever likely to get agreement upon. In the absence of that inspection, there is always the risk—and what a risk it would be!—of some country not observing the terms of the agreement, and keeping back some stock, small or large, of nuclear weapons. Indeed, if she were the only country in free possession of the nuclear weapon, it would not need to be a very large stock to enable her to strike what might be an annihilating blow.

For those reasons, in the first place—and there are, I am afraid, others with which I will not weary the House—however attractive, at first glance, the noble and gallant Lord's proposal may be, there are, at any rate at present, in the view of Her Majesty's Government insurmountable obstacles, some of which I have ventured to detail to your Lordships, others of which have already been referred to by noble Lords who have spoken, which take it outside the field of practical politics at this stage. That does not mean that Her Majesty's Government are prepared lightly to abandon the situation with a shrug and say that there is no more to be done. The noble and gallant Lord gave three possible solutions. The first, he said, was "to do nothing, as we are doing now." I would not accept that as an accurate statement of the position, because, although the measure of success hitherto has been disappointingly small we have gone on, and we shall continue to go on, working with all determination to produce what in our view is the only hopeful and realistic solution of the problem of disarmament—that is, an accord between the nations concerned. We should not lightly abandon that position. Along that line, and I am afraid not upon the line sketched in the noble and gallant Lord's proposal, must develop the future of a problem which in the present state of the world is inevitably very much in the minds and in the hearts of the Governments Lind peoples of every country.

4.42 p.m.

LORD FRASER OF NORTH CAPE

My Lords, I should like to thank both noble Lords who have spoken and all your Lordships for the patience with which you have listened. May I make one comment on the noble Marquess's speech. I did not mean to imply that we were doing nothing: I meant that no progress had been made except to build bigger and better bombs. With all that, I personally know how much the Governments have done in trying to get agreement with somebody else. It is a very difficult thing to do. I was a little disappointed that the noble Marquess should imply that, because a country, a long time ago, said "Never" it would not change its mind. That has been done in the past. In spite of the fact that the Russians refused to abolish the veto in 1946, I should not like to rule out that possibility in changed conditions—because conditions do change.

I am afraid that I have not seen the Baruch Plan which the noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha, mentioned, but I am pleased to know that "great minds think alike." I do not know whether the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, realises that the reason for having three separate sites for these bombs is that every one of them would have to be captured at the same time; and to my mind few operations could be more difficult. If we took only one, we should still have twice the number of bombs against us. I think it would be an impracticable operation for any country to capture three sites at the same time, and of course that would be essential. I will not say anything more, except to mention one thing which impressed me. I remember Sir Winston Churchill once saying to me, shaking his finger at me, "Admiral, difficulties are there to be overcome and not for the purpose of frustration." I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.