THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION

HL Deb 21 December 1955 vol 195 cc397-420

11.10 a.m.

LORD HENDERSON rose to call attention to the International Situation; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in rising to move the Motion standing in my name, may I first take the opportunity, on behalf of those who sit on these Benches, of congratulating the noble Earl who has just answered a Question on his elevation to the Cabinet? We have been greatly impressed by the efficiency and the courtesy with which he has conducted his duties in the past, and, leaving his Government on one side, we hope for him personally success in the future.

To come to the Motion that stands in my name on the Order Paper, may I say that it may appear to many of us that the day for the adjournment of Parliament is not the best time for a general debate on international affairs; but we are about to go into Recess for a month, and it is several months since we had the last debate on the general foreign situation. In the period that has elapsed since then, important developments have occurred in Europe, in the Middle East and in Asia. I am not going to attempt to deal with many of the present problems that would have a proper place in a foreign affairs discussion; I intend to confine myself to certain aspects of major related problems, and I hope not to occupy too much of the time of the House.

We are almost at the end of the year, and if we look back we must, I think, realise that little substantial progress has been made as regards East-West relations. The main issues that divided the East and the West remain deep and unsettled. In the light of the year's experience, we are once again forced to realise that patience and persistent effort are called for, and that whatever the setbacks we must not relax our efforts to bring about agreement, if only limited agreement, and that slowly, in the different fields where disagreement still seems fixed and obstinate. We must not accept that the position can safely be left as it is. Six months ago the Geneva Conference at the Summit ended. It was the first at the highest level—between Heads of Government—since the Potsdam Conference of 1945. A full decade lay between the two conferences; and, as noble Lords will recall, it was a decade of conflict, tension, threat and anxiety, highlighted by the rape of Czechoslovakia, the blockade of Berlin, the breakaway of Yugoslavia from Moscow domination, the bitter war in the Far East and the establishment of N.A.T.O. as the defence shield of the free world.

Towards the end of that period there was another event which overshadowed all that had gone before, because of its terrifying and decisive power over the future of human affairs. That was the invention of the hydrogen bomb. In the light of the ten years of continuous struggle and frustration, the fact that a highest-level conference could be brought into being was a notable event which was generally welcomed. There was little disposition to write down its significance. World-wide expectations were centred in its discussions. A successful outcome was regarded as capable of bringing a turning point in post-war relations between East and West.

The Summit Conference seemed to justify, up to a point, some of our hopes. True, it did not solve a single problem, but that was not its purpose. Out of it came what has been called the "Geneva spirit," one of those imponderables that can have far-reaching influence in foreign affairs. Out of it, too, came a directive to the Foreign Ministers, a guide on agreed objectives for them to aim at in the conference at Geneva later in the year. There can be no doubt that the immediate effect of the Summit Conference was a general relaxation of tension throughout the world and strengthened hope for the future. The tone of the discussions implied a common realisation that, as a result of the development of the hydrogen bomb, war had ceased to be a continuation of policy. It appeared that at last the processes of conciliation and negotiation were to be accepted as the only sensible means for resolving differences and disputes. The mandate given to the Foreign Ministers to negotiate on a range of subjects that lay at the heart of the divisions between East and West seemed to foreshadow that there were to be genuine joint efforts to break the old deadlock and to record some definite progress towards peaceful co-existence.

Alas! my Lords, the hopes raised by the first Geneva Conference were completely dashed by the second. The "spirit of Geneva" passed away with the dead leaves of autumn. It was hope that was broken; not deadlock. There was deadlock on German unity and European security; on disarmament and on East-West Contacts. I would remind your Lordships of what the directive had to say on German unity: The Heads of Government have agreed that the settlement of the German question and the re-unification of Germany by means of free elections shall be carried out in conformity with the national interests of the German people and the interests of European security. That was an agreed directive, and it was the task of the Foreign Ministers to give effect to it. But what happened at the second Geneva Conference? The Soviet Government showed that they had no intention of permitting the re-unification of Germany through free elections.

It seems to me that Soviet objections here came closer to the truth and more into the open than at any time in the past. The rearming of Western Germany and its inclusion in N.A.T.O., previously placed in the forefront as an obstacle to any further discussion on Germany, had already been put into the background when the Soviet Union agreed to the July Conference immediately after the ratification of the Paris Agreements. Between the Conferences the Soviet Union had already started to implement its new line on Germany—co-operation and agreement between the two Powers—by its establishment of diplomatic relations with Western Germany and by beginning the repatriation of German prisoners-of-war. But at the second Conference the objections to unification were said to be a refusal to sacrifice Communist achievements in the Eastern Zone; and the whole question of free elections was described by Mr. Molotov as of "subsidiary importance." This meant that German re-unification through free elections was still a "non-starter." Progress on European security, having been linked with German unity, was equally impossible. Progress on disarmament, which is still being handled in the United Nations Sub-Committee, was less decisively blocked. But the refusal to allow greater freedom in East-West contacts was the most significant proof that the Soviet Union refused co-operation.

There is obviously a close link between the rejection of German unity through free elections and insistence on keeping up the barriers against freedom of contact between East and West. No one can really believe Mr. Molotov when he says that a free exchange of ideas would mean freedom for "the propaganda of war and the misanthropic propaganda of atomic attack"; that the opening of frontiers to travellers would permit "dregs of society" to conduct "unrestricted subversive activity." The truth is that the Soviet leaders fear the political consequences to Eastern Germany, and the political repercussions among the captive peoples of Europe, of both free elections and a free exchange of ideas. They are not willing to allow Germany to be reunited except on terms that will guarantee to the East German Communists an effective rôle and voice, no doubt calculating that they will be able to repeat in a united Germany the ultimate seizure of power on the Czechoslovakia pattern.

In adopting this attitude and proposing an "All-German Council" the Soviet leaders are fully aware that the Federal Government will not accept it. No doubt they are counting on the fact that there is a natural limit to the leadership of the present Chancellor. But resistance is equally true on the part of the Opposition Party. Its leader, Mr. Erich Ollenhauer, has recently declared in the Bundestag that the Social Democratic Party will never agree to any arrangement for re-unification which would include even a small part of the dictatorial system now prevailing in the Soviet-occupied Zone. We must therefore accept, for the time being, the fact that the Soviet Union bars German unity through free elections, and will not lower the Iron Curtain. In the light of the completely negative results of the Foreign Ministers' Conference, there can be no other conclusion than that the Soviet leaders have gone back on the position which they had adopted at the Summit Conference. Most of the old fundamental differences remain without any easement at all. This does not mean that the method of negotiation has failed: negotiation never really got started. What it does mean is that the Soviet Government are not yet ready and willing to negotiate.

We must try to discover the real reasons for this Soviet change. There may have been strong internal pressures—a theory supported by Molotov's recent publicised apologia, and by his increased intransigence after his return from Moscow midway through the Conference; by the subsequent reports that further executions of "Beria men" had taken place; and by the offensive anti-Western line taken by Krushchev in India. Internal pressures may have played some part. But I think that the real cause is a different one. The tacit understanding of the first Geneva Conference—and this was responsible for the "Geneva spirit"—was the recognition that the hydrogen bomb had put large-scale war out of the question. Nothing at the second Geneva Conference contradicted this—indeed, the subsequent explosion by Russia of a nuclear device supports the view that the Soviet Union has something approaching parity with the West. The final sanction of preventive or retaliative war having been removed, the Soviet Union feel able again to resume a policy of pressure and expansion by political and economic means.

Soviet intervention and action in the Middle East, and the Soviet leaders' tour of Asia, fit in with this interpretation. The anti-West speeches of Krushchev were intended for Asian audiences rather than for Western ears. They were partly an effort to establish the Soviet position as the leading champion in Asia in competition with China. But they were also pointedly aimed at injuring the friendly relations and trust which exist between India and Burma, on the one hand, and Britain and the Free West, on the other. The ostentatious interference in the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, and the encouragement of Afghanistan in her demands against Pakistan were designed to increase friction, not to serve peace, just as the Soviet aim in the Middle East is to keep alive troubles in that area for her own purposes.

I do not think there can be the slightest doubt that the Soviet Union have started on a campaign of psychological and political warfare against the West. And they are having some success. The pro-panganda and other activities of the Soviet leaders during their tour was a most astonishing and flagrant example of visiting representatives of a foreign Government talking publicly over the heads of their hosts to create in the minds of the latter's peoples rancour and prejudice against friends and partners. Suggestions have been made that, because of this provocative indulgence in bad history and bad taste, the invitation to the Russian leaders to visit this country next year should be withdrawn. I hope the Government will take no such action. It would be a great mistake and one open to misunderstanding and misrepresentation. The invitation was given so that the Russian leaders might have an opportunity of seeing and learning something of this country and its people. They need to do that more than ever. And I think it is most unlikely that official Russian visitors would let themselves be tempted to abuse British hospitality in a similar way and vent hostility on our friends and Allies. What we should take seriously, against the background of their propaganda and other activities in Asia and elsewhere are their promises of economic aid, their commercial drive, and their trade arrangements. All this has two aims—to attract Asians to Moscow and to damage the West in the eyes of the Asians.

At the beginning of the year the slogan was "Peaceful co-existence." To-day, it is "competitive co-existence." There is a significant difference between these slogans, a difference of both spirit and content. The second Geneva Conference was the occasion for the launching of "competitive co-existence," and this will mean, as the Russians interpret it, a political and economic struggle for the support of, and eventual alignment with, the Soviet bloc of the neutral and uncommitted nations of the world. For the West, this constitutes a major challenge. It is not simply a question of countering distortions of history and unmasking hypocrisy. We have to meet and defeat cynical and self-seeking Russian efforts in the field they have chosen for their so-called peaceful operations. The challenge can be met only by effective Western economic action—by demonstrating that the democracies can provide equal or greater benefits without political strings and the danger of enslavement. The Governments of India and Burma know that we recognise and fully respect them as independent equals, and that all the help we give them is given on that firm basis. We are not seeking to buy or persuade them out of their chosen policy of neutrality.

My Lords, it must be clear to all of us that there is urgent need to give hard and clear thought to ways and means of combating, by economic aid, the Communist drive in the Middle East and Asia. I raised this matter in relation to the Middle East a few days ago, and I must frankly state that I do not accept the view which the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, seemed to advance: that there is no need for something on the lines of a Colombo Plan for the Middle East; that we can rely on the economic clauses of the Baghdad Pact for increasing economic co-operation in that area. Both in the Middle East and in Southern Asia we shall have to face increasing Communist efforts to win these areas from the free world, and that calls for planned collective action. The noble Marquess knows better than any of us the variety and extent of Western economic aid through the Colombo Plan, but I am sure that the masses of Southern Asia know more about Russia's economic promises than they do about Western economic deeds.

For all these reasons, I am glad that the Prime Minister is to visit Washington next month to confer with the President. There is just as much need for unity of purpose and action, and for a common policy now, as there was when, in the field of defence and security, we had to face up to Russia's threats in Europe and therefore establish N.A.T.O. Unfortunately, we have handicaps and embarrassments which are a present source of weakness to the West; troubles in the Middle East and in North Africa; our own economic difficulties, the domestic preoccupations which tend to distract America in an election year, and the political uncertainties in France. I regard it as a misfortune that the West is not to have, what I think it ought to have, a Summit Conference of its own, composed of the United States, Britain, France and Federal Germany, to re-assess the East-West position at this stage.

Soviet policy and aims need to be reexamined as a whole in the light of the results of the second Geneva Conference, taking account of Soviet activities in the Middle East and Asia, and the developing challenge of "competitive coexistence." We need also to review our policies and priorities and to work out what collective steps that can be taken to advance towards our common objectives. These include the unification of Germany through free elections; the maintenance of adequate collective security arrangements; progress towards a comprehensive disarmament treaty; an early peace settlement between the Arabs and Israel, and the co-ordination and expansion of Western aid to the neutral and undeveloped countries. This should include the speedy bringing into operation of S.U.N.F.E.D., so that economic aid from both East and West can be centralised under the auspices of the United Nations, thereby removing both scope for and suspicion of political or any other designs against the receiving countries.

Finally, in regard to disarmament, it is obvious that there are differences of approach which will be ironed out only by patient and persistent effort. But some progress might be made in respect of the suspension of hydrogen bomb tests, pending a report by scientists on the genetic effects and dangers of radio-active fall-out. This is a policy which is being pressed by Her Majesty's Opposition. At the same time, I must say, speaking for myself, that I should have been more impressed by the Soviet proposal had it not appeared that they were seeking to get the best of both worlds. They carried through their test before they proposed a cessation of tests. If they had said, "We are ready to make a test, but we will not do so if other nations will agree to stop tests," it would have carried a very much stronger appeal. As it is, having carried out their own test, they are seeking to have a stop put to tests by other countries and thereby to prevent Britain from attaining basic parity both with Russia and with America, and increasing our power of deterrence.

What I hope is that, subject to Britain's obtaining basic parity by her own first test, the President and the Prime Minister will seriously consider the desirability of a conference which could examine the proposal and see in what way effect could be given to it, either wholly or partially. Otherwise, competition in tests will continue, with increasing danger to the present and future generations of mankind. I hope that the President and the Prime Minister will also consider how to take advantage of the final statement in the communiqué of the second Geneva Conference, which recommended that the future course of the discussions of the Foreign Ministers should be settled through diplomatic channels. It is important that we should not accept the present stalemate but should press on with our efforts to break the deadlock by diplomatic action, in order to get negotiations going at the first suitable opportunity. That is, I believe, what the peoples of the free world will expect their leaders to do. The West must take and keep the initiative for peace. I beg to move for Papers.

11.39 a.m.

LORD REA

My Lords, I think there is little doubt that Her Majesty's Government are handling the grave responsibilities of international relations between this and other countries in a way which is approved by the nation as a whole, and even by noble Lords on this side of the House. After the long tenure of Foreign Secretaryship by Sir Anthony Eden, followed by a man of the stature, the imagination and liberality of outlook of Mr. Harold Macmillan, I am sure we shall all wish the best of good fortune to the new Foreign Secretary. The task that he has undertaken is an immensely important one and one that calls for a degree of responsibility and adaptability—probably as great as that required at any time in our history. It is perhaps a little difficult for some of us to understand the cause of this change in Cabinet offices. Prestige, after all, goes with tenure of office, and there are some people we are rather sorry to see give up posts which they have held with success and honour. On the other hand there is one Member of your Lordships' House here today whom we all want to congratulate on having attained Cabinet rank and Privy Counsellorship—I refer to the noble Earl Lord Selkirk. It is a well-earned honour and we express our best wishes to him.

I think I express a feeling that lies in the minds, hearts and consciences of us all when I ask whether this nation is really marshalling its great powers of prestige and leadership, and even, in these days of parsimony and inadequacy, its financial resources, in the best allocation of proportions between the home objective and the international objective. It is a hard problem; and it is one which strikes me as particularly difficult of solution for a political Party whose beliefs and roots are understandably and justifiably planted more in the traditions of the past than is the case with the other two political creeds. For it is, of course, within the Party of today's Government that there exists that element of opinion to which conservation or conservatism seems normally safer, wiser and more respectable than inauguration. And that element of conservative opinion is, of course, existent in other countries of the world where it has not been exterminated by force, intolerance or corruption. Nevertheless, it would appear that in this age of speed and progress, in this age of acceleration and yet more acceleration, we as a nation are no longer confidently in the lead, or confidently amongst those in the lead, with a national faith and conviction (as we used to have) that there exists somewhere within our community a reserve of effort—a reserve of resource—which we can at any time, if we so wish, call upon and bring out to establish us ahead of, or at least equal with, cur rivals in the fields of diplomacy or commerce or general development.

It may be argued—indeed it is argued—that the pace today is so fast that none of us can afford to have any reserves; that we are spending to the full all our energies and all our resources. I suggest, my Lords, that while this may be true throughout the world in its application to material gains and material rivalry, it is not true of the spiritual, moral and philosophical reserves in human nature which, both in domestic affairs and in foreign affairs, have not really in the history of mankind been integrated to any satisfactory extent with the prosecution of purely political theories. I therefore suggest that evolution is leading us now, in this generation, to a point where such dichotomy between materialism and the things in men's hearts can no longer be maintained: the two cannot be kept right apart if we are to continue as a civilisation and are not to be exterminated by mere competition in destructive proficiency by the H-bomb or its successors. The practical problem is how to penetrate the Iron Curtain; not just the curtain of concrete material veto, but the parallel Iron Curtain which separates our Western ideology from the better human instincts and hopes which surely must exist among the millions of ordinary human beings who live behind that ugly and forbidding facade of Communism as it is presented to us by what seems to many people to be a handful of self-appointed juggernauts. Russia is not a democracy, and I believe that today there must be an immense potential of non-Communists—I will not say anti-Communists—in that vast country of 200 million souls. How are we to make contact with them?

First, I would urge Her Majesty's Government—the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, will forgive me—to reconsider the pitifully small allocation of funds which our country gives to all our information services, which alone can penetrate the fog of ignorance and distrust: a two-way fog, if I may so put it, for although it is vitally important that these people of almost another world should gradually be educated into acceptance of at least the bona fides of the Western world, I am also sure that innumerable people in Western Europe and America have a deep-seated prejudice that all the millions who have no choice other than Communism are themselves as Communistic as the figureheads which sometimes seem to us as of another, and certainly a less developed, civilisation. I feel convinced that most of those 200 million Russians would react to the humanities if only we could make some contact with them; and such contact can be built up only by slow degrees, first of all, as I maintain, through an information service whose size and product should not be almost ridiculous in comparison, for instance, with that of the United States.

Although I feel that the heads of this great Russian territory do not reflect the hearts of the millions whom they rule, they do offer at present the main channel of contact which is open to us. For that reason, like the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, I would discount their individual behaviour which may cause pain to the amateurs of a traditional diplomacy or even of a traditional courtesy. When one dines with a Moroccan sheik table manners are not the same as in your Lordships' House—each has a high standard, but they are different—and I would urge upon Her Majesty's Government not to seek to postpone or cancel the proposed visit of these guests whose behaviour may appear to be unreliable. In a country where cricket has never been taught one can hardly expect the inhabitants to play cricket according to the rules of cricket. Indeed, to cancel the invitation which has been given may well be to play right into the hands of those who are impatient to show, rightly or wrongly—wrongly, in particular—that the so-called imperialism and colonialism of the West is as unbending and as unconciliatory as a block of granite.

Apart from the greater use of information services, I would also urge Her Majesty's Government to concentrate their studies upon the political and psychological tendencies of that great country China, with her population, as your Lordships know, of no fewer than 450 million.

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING)

It is 620 million.

LORD REA

I am obliged to the noble Marquess; that strengthens my case. If China were indeed truly and thoroughly impregnated with Communist-minded people, should we not have seen before now a very much more intimate link up between China and Russia than has actually occurred? We have in this country a centuries-old tradition of trade and of mutual understanding with the Chinese, and I do most seriously suggest that in that quarter there is an immense opportunity to try to re-establish our old sympathies and to learn, as well as to expose in regard to China, the essential differences between the Russian Communist outlook and the basic philosophic outlook of the oldest civilisation in the present world. It is through China, I suggest, that we can start to redress the world balance between the nationalistic self-interest of Russian Communism, on the one hand, and, on the other, the philosophies which, in essentials, are shared between the democracies of the West and the idealistic religions and ways of life of the Far East. Unless, my Lords, we can somehow once more align China with ourselves into the way of thought of the welfare world, if I may use that phrase, the outlook in the Far East, and particularly in South-East Asia, is indeed threatening.

I shall leave it to other speakers to expand upon the difficulties now facing us in the Near East, but the United Nations observation force on the Israeli borders is surely proved to be totally inadequate for the task which the United Nations have specifically undertaken—that of pledging themselves to take repressive action against any aggressor. How can an observation force carry out that great task? We must have an armed United Nations force—a mobile force with air observation—and until that force is established on the Israeli frontiers I see no hope of establishing there the peace which is essential, not only to Israel, Egypt and Syria, but to the whole of the world.

I do ask Her Majesty's Government to take a more positive line, in the confidence that this country is in favour of, and not opposed to, their present general line of foreign policy. We Britons think that on the whole they are doing quite well. But both in this House and in another place, we who sit in Parliamentary Opposition to the Government are, if I may say so, continuously faced with a sort of prevarication—a most courteous prevarication—and with appeals—again most courteous and disarming appeals—not to press too far our interrogations upon subjects which they say are still delicate and under negotiation. We appreciate that these matters are delicate, and we know that they are under negotiation. Our last wish is to embarrass the Government, but our first wish is to show that, in general, we do approve the broad principles of the Government's foreign policy today with a remarkable paucity of reservations.

I would repeat, standing here in my present position, having succeeded my noble friend on my right, what I have said before to your Lordships: that, in my opinion, the function of an Opposition in a democracy is to support, so far as it can, the elected Government of the people, and only in matters of divergent principle to oppose. Your Lordships' House is one of the two Chambers of a great national Assembly, and we who compose it are proud of our opportunity to show, whenever we can, a united front.

11.52 a.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER

My Lords, as the noble Lord who has just sat down has made plain, there is general agreement among the three political Parties on the foreign policy of this Government, and there is great disappointment with regard to the two Geneva Conferences, especially the last, and criticism of the intransigent attitude shown by the representatives of the Soviet Government. I have great sympathy with this disappointment and criticism, but I want to approach the matter from a rather different angle and to invite Her Majesty's Government to make a contribution of another kind to the International debate.

Mr. Harold Macmillan, in his statement of November 16 at the close of the Geneva Conference, analysing the attitude of the Soviet representatives and also the general opinion, as he conceived it, of the Russian people, made this telling remark: All the suspicion is on top; all the friendliness down among the people. So far we have been dealing with the top, we have been hammering away at the summit, and have not made much progress. Our spokesmen tackled the hardest task of all in the reunification of Germany, and they found deadlock. In disarmament there is a greater approximation to agreement, but deadlock in the matters of inspection and control. In the development of contacts between the East and the West there has been a slight lowering of the barriers in communication, but deadlock where free exchange of ideas is proposed.

So far, our Governments have been talking in military and political terms: our Government spokesmen have used the language of strength. We have pursued a policy of negotiating from strength, and, up to a point, of course, that policy is sound. There is, however, a limit to the usefulness of that policy, and I believe that we have got as far as we can get on this line at the present moment. We are strong, and there is no point now in talking to Mr. Molotov about the strength of the Western Powers. Mr. Molotov, Mr. Krushchev and Marshal Bulganin know all about that. There is no gain, in my judgment, in harping on retaliation. A threat of massive retaliation with hydrogen bombs brings no additional knowledge to Mr. Molotov's acquaintance with the great military resources of the West. Rather, it heightens suspicion at the top, it chills friendliness down among the people, and gives the Soviet Government ample material for deceiving the multitudes in Russia with the outrageous suggestion that the West are warmongers. Moreover, it raises moral issues of a very grave kind.

During the last war, I was a member of a small group of British Churchmen, consisting of Archbishop Temple, Archbishop Garbett, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Moderator of the Free Church Council, and a few others, which was in constant discussion with a similar group of American Churchmen led by Mr. Foster Dulles on the principles of a just and durable peace. Statements were exchanged between us, and were published in both countries. We were in constant correspondence, and occasionally our representatives crossed the Atlantic. Quite early in those discussions a statement of guiding principles towards a just and durable peace was published. It had been prepared by a Commission, of which Mr. Foster Dulles was Chairman. It was adopted, after America had entered the war in March, 1942, by a large and representative conference of some 377 delegates of American Churches right through the United States, with an editorial committee of which Mr. Foster Dulles was the Chairman.

The third of the guiding principles, which were so drawn up as to be acceptable both to Christians and non-Christians in that particular section, ran as follow—this is the American statement sponsored by Mr. Dulles: We believe that it is contrary to the moral order that nations in their dealings with one another should be motivated by a spirit of revenge and retaliation. Such attitude will lead, as they always have led, to renewed conflict. Mr. Dulles is now Secretary of State in the United States. I should like to appeal to him, as to an old friend, to think again about those guiding principles, and especially that third guiding principle which has never been repudiated, and to ask him to consider what is wrong with that guiding principle now. I want to suggest—and here I believe I am in full accord with what fell from the noble Lord who has just spoken—that there is no point in talking to the people at the top in Soviet Russia for the time being. All the friendliness is down among the people. I would beg our Government spokesmen to turn to public opinion and to make their target world opinion, opinion in Soviet Russia, opinion in the satellite States and opinion in China.

I was grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said about China. China has more than twice the population of Soviet Russia and still has great reserves in its contact with Soviet Russia. It is the moral leadership in the West, and in particular the moral leadership of our own country, which is the chief human factor that is able to make that change in the spiritual climate which is indispensable to a new and fruitful beginning in international affairs. It happens that I enjoy the acquaintanceship of Professor Radakrishnan, the Vice-President of India. When he was over in this country I had several conversations and, in fact, a correspondence with him. About three or four years ago, when he was the Indian Ambassador in Moscow and we were talking about the international situation at that time, he made this pregnant remark. He said: No doubt it is true that Britain is no longer the great Power it was before the war in the military and the economic realms, but it has enormous strength in its moral leadership if it will only use it. Why do you think India, which was quite free to decide either way, decided to enter into or remain within the British Commonwealth of Nations? The reason was mainly because we believed that Britain knew how to deal with foreign countries better than any other nation in the world. But he expressed his disappointment at that time with the way in which we were failing in our moral leadership and failing to handle the international situation in accordance with our old traditions.

I suggest that we are not dealing with foreign countries today with our traditional ability. I believe that this is largely because we are not putting our fundamental ideals in the forefront of our policy. The hydrogen bomb has no power to deter or destroy the Communist creed: only a purer and a better creed can do that. We have that purer and that better creed, and it happens to be a true one; but we must put it into a definite form. We must not indulge in a few vague phrases or what Mr. Macmillan called bonhomie. Our statement must be the expression, or a series of expressions, of an inward spirit, and should be addressed not to Mr. Molotov, Mr. Krushchev or Marshal Bulganin, but to the public, and it should be in the nature of an appeal, and not of an attack.

In order that I myself may not be accused of indulging in vague phrases, I have, rashly no doubt, ventured on an imperfect formulation to give your Lordships an idea of the kind of manifesto which, as it seems to me, the Western Governments, and in particular our own Government, might well put out. As I see it, it is a statement of guiding principles for our policy on these lines, addressed to the people of the world as a whole—principles that, though we may sometimes fail, we try to live up to. They are these—I apologise for putting them in this concrete and daring form to your Lordships:

1. (1) We believe that there is a higher law than the law of the State.
2. (2) We believe in the free exchange of ideas, free speech, free elections, free Parliaments and the free practice and teaching of religion.
3. (3) We believe in a scrupulous regard for the pledged word.
4. (4) We believe that all nations should recognise and safeguard the inherent dignity, worth and essential rights of the human person, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.
5. (5) We believe in the right of the individual person to freedom from arbitrary arrest, and are opposed to all "purges."
6. (6) We believe in tolerance for opinions and policies different from our own.
7. (7) We believe in the development of international responsibility in place of the old colonialism.
8. (8) We believe that relations between peoples hitherto subject and ruling should be those of partnership and co-operation; and that countries enjoying new political freedom urgently need and should receive economic and technical help.
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9. (9) We believe that the world is one world, in which all nations must recognise their inter-dependence, and contribute freely, according to their means, to the welfare of the whole.
10. (10) Remembering the first Article of the San Francisco Charter defining the purposes of the United Nations, we will do everything in our power both to secure the universal elimination of all weapons of mass destruction, and to abolish war.

If we are asked or challenged to translate into concrete deeds those words, we could point to the Mother of Parliaments, our courts of law, our perpetual debate of things secular and sacred, and the great achievements of the Welfare State. If the lips of the Communist spokesmen speak of imperialist colonial Powers, we can point to the great nations—India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma and others, which have received full independence at our hands in recent years; to the dependent territories in Africa which are in process of acquiring self-government; to the Colombo Plan; to the economic and technical assistance which we are steadily and systematically developing, and to the general trend of a policy of liberation everywhere. We might even contrast another Power, the imperialist Power of Soviet Russia, with its unremitting control over the Baltic peoples, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the East Germans, the Czechoslovakians, the Hungarians, the Roumanians, the Bulgarians and the Albanians, where we can see no sign of either a gift or a restoration of independence in any single one of those territories.

By way of contrast to the policy which I believe is really, and should be proclaimed as, our policy, we could quote the formulation of the Communist policy by Stalin in the fifth volume of the 1947 edition of his works, where he says The tasks of the Party in foreign policy are, first, to utilise every contradiction and conflict among the surrounding capitalist groups and Governments for the purpose of disintegrating Imperialism; secondly, to spare no means to assist the proletarian revolutions in the West; thirdly, to spare no means to strengthen the national liberation movement in the East, and fourthly to strengthen the Red Army. Let us hope that this will cease to be the policy of Soviet Russia. In any case, it is well to proclaim as clearly and loudly as we can the much different policy of the West.

12.15 p.m.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

My Lords, as the first Private Member on this side of the House to speak in the debate, I should like to associate myself with the congratulations that have been given from both sides to the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, who is not here now, on his most well-earned promotion.

The noble Lord who opened this debate started by saying that he saw little progress in improved relationships between East and West during the past year. I think that is something of an understatement, because it seems to me that the initiative in the cold war is with the Soviet Power at the present time. If one looks around the map of the world, in Europe, particularly Berlin, India, Burma and the Far East, British diplomacy is engaged in countering Soviet initiative and penetration, and, as the noble Lord said, the Geneva spirit has turned sour. It seems to me that this is in sad contrast to the last occasion, when we could say we had had a year (it was the year 1951) when we really thought that the Western world had turned the corner in the long, patient, arduous journey to stable peace.

During the year 1951 Soviet imperialism did not advance one inch. Indeed, west of the Iron Curtain the initiative had shifted from the Communists to the Western free nations. If your Lordships will cast your minds back, you will remember that, instead of starting things as she is now, Russia was trying to block the Western initiative. Let me give your Lordships some examples. The Japanese Peace Treaty, the Pacific Pact, the expansion of N.A.T.O., the revision of the Italian Peace Treaties, the check of the Communist threat to Greece, the efforts by Russia which failed to displace Tito, and the Russian failure in South Korea, were all measures which the West had initiated and which Soviet imperialism was endeavouring to counter. Since then, the tide has turned, and in spite of the West's growing political unity and armed strength, gradually the initiative is passing in an increasing degree from us to the Soviet. I submit to your Lordships that the most urgent question we should ask ourselves is why we have slipped back and lost the initiative we held then, in spite of the increased political unity of the West and the increase in our armed strength.

Today we are striving to counter Communist initiative with economic aid. There is a sort of upward auction going on now, as to who can give most aid to various countries. The Colombo Plan has achieved much. We declaim at U.N.O., but U.N.O.'s best friends must admit disappointment at its present position as a world-powerful force. We throw open for all the world to see the contrast between our form of free life within our own frontiers and within the British Commonwealth, as compared with the Communist form of life; and we warn all who listen to us of the dangers of Communist imprisonment of mind and, quite often, of body as well. Yet, in spite of this, the poison gas of the gospel of Communism is spreading across ever more greater portions of the globe. I believe this is because we are late in realising and accepting the implications of really fighting the cold war against the ruthless and unscrupulous Soviet determination to continue, if possible without hot war, to achieve their grand aim of Communist supremacy in the world.

The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, spoke about the minimum and lesser aims, but I believe that the grand aim is there all the time. Though we may gain or lose in small manœuvrin as the grand aim remains nothing less than a Communist-dominated world. I repeat this since I think that, because so far we have failed to accept the implications of what it means properly to fight the cold war, the initiative has passed from us and gone over to the other side.

After what was called the "phony war" days of 1940, when we really got down to the job between 1940 and 1945, this country gave up much liberty in order to preserve liberty. We said, in broad terms, that the end justified the means, and justified even that most obnoxious Regulation 18B which was repellent to us all. I cite that only as an example of how far we were willing to go in those days in giving up something in order that we should preserve something precious for all time. To check the Communist advance in the cold war and eventually to confine Communism within its accepted frontiers, we may of necessity have to accept, in the cold war, some measures which are alien to our ideas of freedom in peace time. We shall have, first, to secure our home base and then to advance into more distant fields of cold war action. Thanks to the common sense, tolerance and political education of the average Briton, our home base is, by and large, fairly secure. I say fairly secure, because I believe we must guard against being over-tolerant to the limited few who, by their irresponsible actions, may be able to do great harm to our economic safety and perform acts of economic sabotage almost overnight, before the real effects of what they are doing are appreciated. The question of security on the home front, of course, lies beyond the scope of this particular debate.

I believe that in this period of the cold war we should scrap any reserve we may feel about using Government resources in the dissemination of information to expose the policies and aims of Soviet imperialism. We should not hesitate to use Government resources, to a far greater degree than we do at the present time, to counter Soviet propaganda and to expose Soviet aims and the individuals who are in the forefront of furthering those Soviet aims. If I may mention some popular papers, I would say that the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, do great service in exposing the aims and actions of Soviet imperialism, particularly in the Far East at the present time, through the very remarkable despatches from their teams of correspondents.

LORD PAKENHAM

Would the noble Lord agree that the Daily Herald does just as much?

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

Certainly. I at once apologise and would add the Daily Herald. Mine was not a selective list, and I was taking papers with the greatest circulation; unfortunately for the noble Lord the Daily Herald cannot claim a circulation quite equal to that of some of the more popular dailies, although I would not for a moment detract from its foreign services.

LORD PAKENHAM

The Daily Herald has a circulation as large as at least one of the papers mentioned by the noble Lord.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

I believe we should continue to do all we can in the field of giving economic aid, as we are doing. We must accept that this cold war is a warlike action, even if the guns and bombs do not explode. It is a matter for regret that in the Far East as well as in certain portions of Europe Soviet radio propaganda is allowed to go unjammed. While they jam our propaganda we respect an international agreement to do no such thing, so that they get their propaganda across while we do not do so. Where there is a really violent Soviet propaganda of a lying character against, say, the administration of our colonial territories, I would not at all mind steps being taken to ensure that such propaganda does not get across to those the Communists hope to reach. I should like to see Her Majesty's Government encourage the anti-Communist Press wherever Soviet influence and Press operate in Asia, the Near East or the Far East.

The noble Lord, Lord Rea, who spoke on behalf of the Liberal Party, pleaded for more money to be spent on information services and for new methods of disseminating information. That will cost money, but it is cheaper than dropping bombs or having bombers. I should like Her Majesty's Government to send trade unionists—not necessarily the leaders—to these far places, to tell the truth about life here in Britain: men who, if necessary, can dig coal and can themselves speak and show that they are not enslaved citizens of a capitalist State. We want to show the British way of life by sending out to these territories representatives of all sections of our community, in order that they may speak freely upon life in Britain. The British Council does very good work, but it is no good teaching English folk dances in the Persian Gulf: that will get us nowhere. We want good, tough, aggressive propaganda by ordinary men from Britain. That may be an unconventional suggestion, but I believe it is one which would yield good dividends in showing what life in this country is really like.

Two noble Lords have spoken of the visit of Russian leaders. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said that the danger of their visit lies in an abuse of our hospitality. I do not think it matters whether their abuse of our hospitality is bad manners. Her Majesty's Government have to consider what will be the world effect of this visit. Is the world to say we are broadminded and tolerant people, turning the other cheek? Or will the world say, "Those Britons are awful 'mugs.' They get pushed around and then they wine and dine the very people who push them around "? It is a balance of view and it is for Her Majesty's Government to take the decision. I hope that when the Minister who is to reply comes to deal with this particular point he will tell us that there has been serious consideration of the pros and cons, and that, if Her Majesty's Government have come down on the side of continuing to extend this invitation, it is because they feel that, on balance, there is greater advantage than disadvantage in doing so.

If we fully accept the challenge of the Soviet Union in the cold war, we need not only new aims and arguments but also some revision of executive governmental control and direction on policy in the conduct of the cold war. If we are to fight this cold war effectively in the future, we must accept that, like Civil Defence at home in the last war, it embraces many Departments and the activities of many Ministers. In overseas operations the Foreign Office is closely concerned, of course; but, with respect to the noble Marquess who will reply to the debate, I do not believe that the Foreign Office is, by tradition and training, necessarily the most suitable centre of direction for executive action in the cold war. There are the Government information services, the trade unions, the employers, the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, the Service Departments, the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Supply, the Post Office and, of course, the Treasury—I cite only some of the Departments—all of whom have some part to play if we are to have coordinated executive action in fighting this cold war.

Just as in the war we had the Home Defence Committee, which noble Lords will remember worked under the chairmanship of Mr. Herbert Morrison, so we should now have a body to see that all these various interests are pooled together to work along a broad Government directive of policy. And the task is one which will call for exceptional administrative ability on the part of whoever holds the chairmanship of that Committee. He must not be an unproven man. He must, while accepting broad Government policy, be free to drive through his executive action. He must command the respect and confidence of organised labour and the trade unions. I do not think his politics matter a bit. Such men are few.

If I may, I would make one suggestion to your Lordships as to the sort of man I have in mind. One name thrown up by the wheel of fortune occurs to me—Mr. Herbert Morrison, I think it is fortunate that he is now free of any national activity. He is not actively employed as a Party leader or as a Deputy leader. All of us who served in the last Government remember his brilliant chairmanship of the Civil Defence Home Affairs Committee. Indeed, if someone like Mr. Herbert Morrison, would take on the task of chairmanship and the direction and co-ordination of the efforts of all these various Departments in the cold war, it might well be, if the last, not the least important task that a man like that could do. That is purely my own suggestion. In an assembly like your Lordships' House, we have no political boats to burn or axes to grind. Nor, really, have we any knives to sharpen. Therefore, I throw out this suggestion merely to show your Lordships how my mind is working. I should like to see all these Departments co-ordinated and brought together under such an administrator as that. I conclude by saying this. I feel convinced that we are still almost in the "phony war" days of the cold war; and if we are not to be labelled for our actions, by those who come along in the future, as inadequate and hesitant, we must revise our outlook and our efforts in order to counter properly the enemy we see before us.