THE SUEZ CANAL

HL Deb 23 May 1957 vol 203 cc1147-75

2.37 p.m.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY rose to draw attention to Her Majesty's Government's statement in this House on May 14 with regard to the Suez Canal and matters relevant thereto; and to move for Papers. The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I hope that I shall not be accused of "rocking the boat", or whatever the correct phrase is. Actually, I imagine that no senior, or fairly senior, Minister has ever left the Government and been at less pains than I have to explain my motives or justify my action. And may I assure your Lordships that it was not because I had nothing to say or was given no opportunity. I was offered innumerable chances of speaking, on the radio, on television and through the other media of modern publicity which are open to a retiring Minister. But I refused them all. And I refused because I did not want to "rock the boat."

If, then, I have put down this Motion to-day on the subject of Suez, it is merely because the noble Lords on the other side of the House, for reasons which no doubt seem good to them, were unwilling to table a Motion themselves, and because it seems to me that there are things that ought to be said and questions that ought to be asked with regard to the momentous step which the Government have taken, and that Parliament is the proper place in which to say them. For this decision to accept Nasser's terms for the use of the Canal, whether under protest or not, whether as a temporary arrangement or a final settlement—and of that I shall have something to say later—is, let us face the fact, a decision of the most important kind, and one which may have the most far-reaching repercussions. It is right, therefore, I submit, that we in this House should take stock of the position as we see it today, in the light of what has occurred, for the purpose of avoiding similar experiences in the future. The number of noble Lords who have put down their names to speak this afternoon seems to indicate that in tabling my Motion, I was correctly interpreting the wish of the House.

In discussing this question, I think it is necessary first to draw a differentiation, as I did in my speech in your Lordships' House on December 11 last, between the two crises with which the Suez Canal has been concerned during recent months—the crisis arising from Colonel Nasser's seizure of the Canal and the crisis arising from the outbreak of war between Israel and Egypt. These two crises, as I then pointed out, though, of course, they are inevitably closely allied in our minds, were, in fact, different and required different treatment. To that assessment I still adhere.

With what I may call the Israel crisis, I do not propose to deal to-day, except to make this one comment—and in saying it, I strongly agree with what was said by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister last week: that whatever else may be said about our intervention there, it certainly did achieve a number of valuable results. For example, it stopped the conflict between Israel and the Arab States, which might easily have spread and imperilled the whole peace of the Middle East. Secondly, I believe that it was the main cause of bringing the United States into the Middle East. Mr. Gaitskell, in a speech in another place last week, seemed to think that that was a bad thing. He said, rather scornfully: We invited them to come in. I must say that I thought that that was a rather strange doctrine in the mouth of a Socialist. I did not know that they believed still in Imperialist spheres of influence. I should have thought that anyone would have been glad to see the United States intervening in the Middle East, instead of leaving us to carry the whole burden in that area, as we have done ever since the war. Actually, as I think we all know, Her Majesty's Government had been hoping for a long time that this very result might be achieved, but they had been continually disappointed; and I am sure that it never would have come about but for what happened last autumn.

In saying that, of course, I do not suggest that that was why we acted. We all know that we acted simply to stop the war between Israel and Egypt. But I think that we can at any rate register satisfaction at this by-product of our policy, which I am sure we are all glad to welcome. I imagine that all of us, on whatever side of the House we sit, are in favour of what has come to be known as the Eisenhower doctrine; and the main regret in most of our minds is not that it has been promulgated now, but that it was not promulgated two years before. It would, I believe, have made a very real difference to the situation in the Middle East if it had been. Many of the difficulties which to-day afflict the world might, I believe, have been avoided; and, indeed, the Suez Canal might never have been de-internationalised at all.

However, the Canal was de-internationalised; and that, of course, produced the other crisis, to which I have already referred. And over this, I am afraid I must say quite frankly that it is difficult to register any satisfaction as to the results that have been achieved by the efforts of ourselves and the other free nations concerned. In saying that, I can assure your Lordships that I am not trying to make Her Majesty's Government the scapegoat for the present situation; I am not using this Motion, like some retiring Ministers in the past, as an excuse for having a "whack" at my old colleagues. Not at all. Whatever one may feel about their latest decision to advise British shipping to use the Suez Canal on Nasser's terms—for that is what their statement amounts to—I do not mean to suggest that they, any more than the late Government, have been responsible for Nasser's success.

The responsibility for that, as I see it—and it is a heavy one—must be shouldered mainly, first by the United Nations; secondly, by the Government of the United States; and thirdly, and by no means last, if I may say so, by Her Majesty's Opposition in this country. Of the United States Government it is not for me to speak. It is their duty to do what they think best for their country. That duty, I am quite sure, they always carry out as their conscience directs them, and it is certainly not for us here to criticise them, however hardly their decision may have borne upon us. Nor should I speak to-day of the United Nations—there will be other occasions for that. But I am not, I think, inhibited in speaking of Her Majesty's Opposition, and I hope that I shall be forgiven by noble Lords opposite if I state frankly the views which many of us hold about their attitude at this crucial moment in the world's history.

As I said last week, I can understand very well why noble Lords opposite preferred not to table a Motion in this House; and I have somewhat wondered at the hardihood of their colleagues at tabling one in another place. For if ever, in our long history, any body of men did their best to ensure that the policy of the Government failed, it was the Labour Opposition in another place. Here, I agree, noble Lords opposite were far more temperate—as indeed they frequently are. I am not referring to the attitude of their Party towards our landing in Egypt: that, as I have said, is part of another story, with which I do not propose to deal to-day. But long before that, practically from the beginning of this crucial period, the Leader of the Opposition and his supporters embarked on a course of action which they must have known could only bolster up the morale of Colonel Nasser at the expense of their own country.

We were told last week by the Leader of the Opposition in another place that Her Majestys' Government could have got better terms last October than they could get now. Personally, I do not believe it. I should be very surprised if noble Lords opposite could produce any evidence to-day to that affect. But in any case, even if better terms were obtainable at that time—and I repeat that I do not believe it—it was certainly not because of any support which the Labour Party were giving the Government to obtain them. Every speech, or practically every speech, made by members of the Labour Party during that period could only have had the effect, as I have already said—and they must have known it—of weakening Britain in the eyes of Nasser and of the world. And that, no doubt, is why all the speeches of Mr. Gaitskell in another place, with, of course, the exception of the first speech, were consistently relayed by Cairo Radio, an honour which was not accorded to speeches of Sir Anthony Eden.

That being the case, to suggest that the Government are the main villains of this particular piece is, I think, mainfestly absurd. They are undoubtedly a Government—and we all know it—who have been striving to do their best to do the right thing in very difficult international circumstances. The only doubt that some of us have is whether, in fact, with the best will in the world, they have done the right thing over their latest decisions about the Canal. It is over this that I believe a good many noble Lords, like myself, have most serious anxieties.

My right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, in their speeches in another place last week, gave the reasons which actuated the Government in reaching their decision. No-one could complain of the clarity of those speeches; they were lucid and they were straightforward. Next morning, The Times described the Prime Minister's first speech as a "practical approach "; and that no doubt it was: practical and businesslike, as one would expect. But as I read it, I could not help asking myself: Is a practical approach all that is required in circumstances like these, when the whole principle of international good faith, on which civilisation itself rests, is in jeopardy? Is there not something more needed if we are to retain that moral leadership that is essential for the maintenance of our influence for good in the world?

As I read the debate, my mind went back to those stirring days of 1940. At that time, too, we were facing a successful dictator. At that time, too, we stood alone—far more alone even than we do to-day. But at that time, when I suppose to an outside observer our situation must have seemed absolutely hopeless, the country was given very different advice from what it had last week. And, as always, the country rose to the level of its responsibilities. Undaunted, at whatever sacrifice, it stood firm; and gradually the free nations of the world rallied to our side. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that that might equally have been the result if we had stood firm now. American opinion is already, as we know, moving rapidly in our direction. Moreover, even with no-one else, France and ourselves control over one-third of the tonnage which passes through the Canal. I personally believe that others might well have joined us if they had been given a strong enough lead, which I am afraid they were not.

In such circumstances, I am bound to say that I have found it rather difficult to accept the suggestion which was made in another place last week that a partial boycott by one or two countries would have been completely valueless. On the contrary, the moral effect might have been considerable. We should have established the supreme importance which we attach to the principle of good faith between nations, which seems nowadays to be somewhat "under the weather "; and by so doing we should, I believe, have regained what we have rather lost—the moral leadership of the world, a leadership which the United States seems rather reluctant to take up.

The late Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, had no doubts at all about the importance of this issue from the moral and material point of view. The House will remember the unequivocal terms in which he spoke of it on this point last autumn. He laid it down as a primary object of our policy that the Canal must be free from the unfettered control of any one man or any one nation. Those, my Lords, were no mere unguarded words, thrown off in the heat of the moment. They were carefully weighed. They had the approval of all his colleagues, the present Prime Minister, and most of the present Cabinet. They, and I myself, were equally bound by them. It is surely impossible, therefore, for any of us who had subscribed to those words now to describe what has happened as a mere "episode."

For that reason, I must confess that I personally should have been infinitely happier if, instead of taking a decision in the opposite direction, the Government had given the strongest possible lead at the last meeting of the Suez Canal Users' Association, in conjunction with France, for a continuation of the boycotting of the Canal. I believe that the country as a whole would have preferred it. Indeed, I believe, if I may say so with all deference, that in not doing so the Government have seriously underestimated the courage and toughness of the British people, who, I am pretty sure, would infinitely have preferred to pull in their belts than submit to what they regard as a bitter humiliation at the hands of Nasser. That, I think, is strikingly borne out by the results of a remarkable Gallup Poll in the Daily Express of May 16, which showed 64 per cent. in favour of continuing to go round the Cape, and only 28 per cent. against. But whether I am right or wrong about this—and I certainly do not claim to be infallible—I must recognise, and we must all recognise, that that is now out of the question. The decision has been taken, and we must accept it. In these circumstances, the last thing I want to do is to take up a purely negative position. The question now before us is what, if anything, can be done now to build up a stronger position for the future. It is of that, if your Lordships will bear with me for a few more minutes, that I should like to say a word.

There seems to be a comfortable doctrine in some quarters that it is perfectly safe to make a temporary arrangement about the Canal, however unsatisfactory that arrangement may be, on the assumption that the final settlement is certain to be better. But, my Lords, why should we assume that? My grandfather, Who had a long experience of foreign affairs as Foreign Secretary at the end of the last century, and was by nature a realist, had a phrase that he used to use about this form of wishful thinking. He used to speak of, "My old enemy the long run." Do not, I pray you, let us fall into that error to-day. The reason, after all, why we have not got a better arrangement now is that Nasser would not agree to a better arrangement, and I cannot see why that situation should change unless we take some positive measures to see that it does. Unless we take such measures, I gravely fear that either we shall be obliged in the end to accept a final settlement that is little or no better than the present arrangement, or—and I think this is yet more probable—no settlement will be reached at all, and the present position without a settlement will become a permanency.

Herein, as I see it, lies the importance of the future policy of the Government about which, with all deference, I should like to ask for a little further information. The Prime Minister, in his speeches last week, lifted the curtain for a moment and disclosed something of what was in the mind of Ministers. He said, first of all, that the Government proposed to support France in taking the whole question of the Suez Canal again to the Security Council—a step which, of course, has already been taken. We shall all of us, I am quite certain, warmly applaud that decision. Indeed, I think it is the least we could do for France, who has stood so loyally at our side throughout this business. Moreover, of course, it seeks to reaffirm our position, which is always a good thing. But we must not, I am afraid, expect that any appeal to the United Nations at the present time will lead to really substantial or substantive effects. The Prime Minister himself, in last week's debate, in a reference to Egypt's apparent acceptance of the Six Principles of the Security Council's resolution as far back as October of last year, made the dry comment—and I am now quoting from his speech [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 570 (No. 109), col. 429]: …anybody who would think that that was anything approaching an acceptance has had no experience of any negotiations, or must have a very naïve view of what was likely to happen. The Egyptians were obviously relying…on the Russians being able to veto any effective resolution, and, of course, on the feeling…that they would be quite safe to elude and evade the real issue, because they believed that no effective action would be taken against them. I hope the Government will bear those wise words in mind now. They seem to me to have considerable relevance to the present position.

Now I refer to another point about which the Prime Minister spoke. He told us something about the policy of the Government regarding the building of tankers. He gave a number of extremely interesting figures about the tanker position now and in the future, and he made the announcement that Sir Matthew Slattery had been appointed to assist the Government in facilitating and increasing the flow of oil from the Middle East to this country. I am sure that that announcement will be welcomed in all quarters of the House. It is quite excellent, so far as it goes; and so, indeed, is the further statement that the Government favoured the construction of additional pipelines to reduce the dependence of Western Europe on the Canal. He did not go into any details about this and I am not going to press the Government spokesman to-day, for I imagine that it is at present a question of some delicacy on which it would be quite premature to make any public statement. I will therefore merely say that if such pipelines can be built that is clearly all to the good.

Where the Prime Minister was less definite was how far it was to be our settled policy to use the Canal at all in future, especially for the transport of oil; and yet I think that, clearly, is of the first importance. It seems to me that our policy in this matter can take one of two forms. We can say, "Our intention is to use the Canal to the full in the future just as we did in the past, but we are taking steps to make ourselves less dependent on it in the event of Nasser misbehaving again." That is one of the lines that we could quite properly take. Or we can say, "It is our settled policy not to use the Canal more than is absolutely necessary from now on, and, in particular, we intend, as our settled policy, to route all shipments of oil round the Cape as soon as we are in a position to do so; and we are taking the necessary steps to make this policy effective as soon as possible."

I rather had the impression, reading the debate in another place, that the Government favour the first of those two courses; for, speaking of the accelerated programme in tanker building, on which I understand we are now embarking, the Prime Minister used these words: They will be fast, modern tankers designed for economic operation not only through the Mediterranean "— I emphasise those words— but round the Cape. Personally, I should feel a good deal happier if he had gone all out for the second policy and had said something on these lines: "They will be fast modern tankers, designed to make it unnecessary in future to make any further use of the Suez Canal for oil transport. For Her Majesty's Government believe that, in the light of Colonel Nasser's recent actions and present policy, this is the only course compatible with the interests of our country and the principles for which it stands."

No doubt, that policy could not be carried out all at once. It would take, as I am sure I shall be told, several years to bring into full operation. It would involve, first, the construction of new tankers; it would involve a widening and deepening of certain harbours and it would, I believe, both give Britain greater security in the future and make clear to Nasser and to all the world, here and now, what happens when a country destroys the confidence of other nations by a unilateral repudiation of its international engagements. It would, I suggest, be a firm policy and I believe that it would be a practicable policy; and it would have the immense advantage that no one, not even the Leader of the Opposition, could say that it involved an infraction of the United Nations Charter. Perhaps I have misunderstood the Prime Minister's speeches; and perhaps that is precisely what the Government mean to do. If that is so, no doubt the Leader of the House or my noble friend Lord Hailsham will tell us. It will come, I am sure, as a great relief to many noble Lords in this House, and, I believe, to the majority of the people in the country. But I am afraid that anything less will appear to many of us to be inadequate to the situation in which we find ourselves, and will be so regarded by the British people.

There are a number of other questions that I should have liked to ask the Government to-day. What will be the position if Colonel Nasser makes unacceptable demands for compensation in the negotiations which we are about to begin in Rome? What will be the attitude of the Government in the position that has been created by the decision that we shall use the Canal? What will be done to forward the claims of British refugees from Egypt for whom so many of us feel we have some moral responsibility? I do not propose to press for an answer to any of those three questions this afternoon, for I realise that to do so might prejudice the delicate negotiations which are just beginning. The Government, I am sure, will recognise the grave anxiety with which these particular points are viewed by many noble Lords in this House.

And now, my Lords, I have done. But, as this is my first opportunity of addressing your Lordships since I resigned from the Government, there are one or two things that I should like to say, in conclusion, of a more personal character. It has been my privilege to lead the Conservative Party in this House now for nearly sixteen years. I should like to thank noble Lords in all parts of the House for their consistent kindness and consideration over the whole of that long period. All that, of course, is now past. I am now over sixty and it is, I suppose, unlikely that I shall hold office again. I took my decision and I do not regret it. But there are two reflections I should like to leave with your Lordships. I have served in Governments, on and off, for over twenty years, and two lessons, at any rate, I have learnt which I believe to be all-important for those who are embarking on the shifting seas of politics and, I submit, have a special relevance to our present situation. The first is this. Any foreign policy to be effective must, as I see it, have two essential attributes. It must be firm, and it must be consistent. The main anxiety of some of us, as we have looked at recent events, is whether our present foreign policy takes as full account of those two attributes as perhaps it ought.

I will give noble Lords two instances within the last month or so of what I mean. The first relates to the release of Archbishop Makarios, the issue on which I resigned. I am not going into the whole of that story, because it certainly is not the right time or the right Motion on which to do so; but I should just like to make this one point. In the case of Archbishop Makarios, the Government were at pains to make clear to the Archbishop the minimum terms that were necessary for his release. The Archbishop rejected those terms and the Government immediately released him. Similarly, in the case of the Suez Canal, the question we are discussing to-day, the Government were at pains to make clear to Colonel Nasser our minimum terms for the safe use of the Canal. He rejected those terms, yet we immediately instructed our ships that they could use the Canal. Were the impression to get about that we were going to make it an ordinary practice (which I feel sure the Government do not mean to do) to switch about like that, I believe that a situation of great danger would inevitably arise, for other countries would come to think that we were always bluffing; and then, when a time came, as it would come, when we felt obliged to stand by what we had originally said, the other party to the dispute might have gone too far to retreat, and then war would be very near. I hope, therefore, that this country will always, so far as possible, stand by what it has first said. I am sure that is the best way of ensuring enduring peace.

The second lesson that I have learnt—and it is one which I think is equally important—is that the true greatness of a nation is not to be measured by the extent of its territories or by its material wealth. It is to be measured only by the spirit which inspires and informs it. That means, in plain words, that a nation, if it is to be great, must always be ready to risk severe material sacrifices, if that be required, in defence of the principles in which it believes. For that, I believe profoundly, is the only way in which ultimate victory for those principles can ever be secured. This, my Lords, is in particular, I believe, true of this country, with its long history and its great traditions. On our recognition of this fact I am quite certain that the survival of our greatness will mainly depend. I beg to move for Papers.

3.10 p.m.

EARL ATTLEE

My Lords, I am sure that we have all listened with intentness, and some emotion, to the concluding passages of the noble Marquess's speech, because he referred to the services—the great services—he has rendered to this House and this country in leading this House over a great number of years. We all hope that in the future—if there should be future Conservative Ministers, he will be among them. If not, I should hope that he would be prominent on the Opposition Benches. I am bound to say that I had rather hoped that in his speech we should have had a little more light shed on the situation.

During the last ninety years, members of the House of Cecil have resigned office on four occasions. On each occasion there was some big moral issue. There was the great Lord Salisbury, when he resigned from Disraeli's Government; there was Lord Cecil of Chelwood, when he resigned from the Lloyd George Government; and there was the noble Marquess himself, when he resigned a few years before the Second World War. I am bound to say that this resignation seemed to me quite different. In effect, what has offended the noble Marquess has been that the Government of the day has had to face the results of its own folly. The complaint of the noble Marquess is that they will not persist in that folly. He gave the instance, which I need not deal with at length to-day, of the talks with Archbishop Makarios. I recall in this House warning the Government that if they took the action they did with Archbishop Makarios they would have a year of murder and executions, and that in the end they would have to talk. That is exactly what has happened. The noble Marquess wished to carry on that same business which has always proved wrong. It was proved wrong over Ireland and has proved wrong everywhere—it is the idea that if you have something of this kind you can carry on a kind of guerrilla warfare interminably. You have always got to talk, exactly as has happened in regard to the Suez Canal crisis.

One would have hoped that the noble Marquess might have resigned when the act of folly of going into Suez commenced. Not a bit of it! All he resigned over, or objects to, is the clear results that everyone foresaw of this folly. He then, naturally, tried to turn the attack on the Opposition. The Opposition warned the Government of what would happen if, departing from the principles of the United Nations, they insisted on "going it alone" with France. They "went it alone"; they "went it" without consulting anybody. I do not know whether they consulted the noble Marquess—I think he was away at the time.

I noticed that to-day there was great insistence that the Government were unanimous. I have always thought that Governments were always supposed to be unanimous. I can never recall that the Cabinet of which I was head was anything but unanimous; it was always assumed that that was so. I recall that if anybody challenged any course that the Government took it was usual for him to resign. Apparently, if the noble Marquess had been present on this occasion there would not have been that unanimity. It is a curious matter that the unanimity rather suggests that he was not there. We have been told that the whole threat was started by an intimate group. I do not like "intimate groups" in a Cabinet. I think all Cabinet Ministers must take their full responsibility and give their full advice and assistance.

The fact is that what has happened is something which we all deeply resent, and it is the result of the folly of an action which was both wrong and foolish. The attempt now is to make out that there were two crises, when the whole thing was part of one. The fact was that the Government thought that they could act in the kind of way that Lord Palmers-ton acted many years ago. But he could not do it in the modern world. The fact is that this was a supreme folly. The Government refused to consult anybody. They were constantly attacking the Opposition. How much did they try to get Opposition support? Of course, they told them in advance—ten minutes before! That is what we had from the Foreign Secretary in another place. Ten minutes beforehand, they told the Labour Opposition what they were going to do. They did not consult the Commonwealth; they did not consult the United States of America. There could not have been any greater folly than to go ahead with this plan. Now, they turn round and say that it was all the fault of the Opposition. Suppose the Opposition had stepped in. Would it have made any difference to the attitude taken up by Canada, by the United Nations, by India and Pakistan, and by most of the people of this country? The fact is, that here was an act of folly.

Last night, at a public meeting I was addressing there was an extraordinary person who spoke about a "stab in the back." That is a good old Hitler phrase. If a Government goes into a war that we think is wrong, that we should not say so is quite contrary to the traditions of this country and of this House. It was Lord Chatham who stood up in this House, when we were making war on the Americans, and actually expressed the hope that they won, and said he would never give in. Through the years it will always be found in this country—and I hope that it will always be so—that if the Government of the day is doing a wrong act the Opposition will not be ashamed to get up and say so. We considered that the act was wrong; we considered it was foolish, and that it was most ineptly carried out. We had every right to say so. I know perfectly well (although I was out of the country at the time) that there was a general feeling of satisfaction that this was only the work of the Government and was not the work of the whole British people.

I am not going over the pitiful story of the advance and the withdrawal. The result was that we got the worst of it all the way round. There was no negotiated settlement. You get the same sort of thing in regard to the termination of a strike. If a strike fails and work is resumed on the old terms, it is not a settlement; it is an enforced surrender. That is all that this is. The Government could not do anything else now. We have lost every point in the game. They have done nothing else but surrender. It is no satisfaction whatever to us that, as the noble Marquess said, we have lost the moral leadership of the world. That should have been thought about earlier, because these imponderables count.

The noble Marquess is quite right in saying that this is not only a matter of arms and ships and territory; it is a moral issue. This action did lose us the moral leadership of the world because all Governments, hitherto, have stood for the reign of law. I do not suggest that the United Nations is satisfactory—it is not; but it is all we have in the way of an international organisation. After all, we are pledged to it. Instead of using it, there was this futile attempt to "go it alone," dragged in with France (which dragged the other in, I do not know)—in fact one of the mysteries of this whole business is who instigated this unfortunate adventure. I cannot find that it was responsible people in Whitehall who advised it. Who advised the late Prime Minister to do it I do not know. We do not even know who were the intimate section of the Cabinet that were in favour of it. But we do know the results. We have to face those results, and only time and the advent of a different Government will expunge those results. The fact is that this Government have destroyed a great deal of our moral leadership in the world. I can remember three occasions on which this country has stood ill in face of all the world. One was the Boer War; another was Munich and the third is this. It is unfortunate that Conservative Governments, who are supposed to have some conception of the dignity of this country, should invariably drag it in the dust.

3.21 p.m.

LORD REA

My Lords, I should like to preface my speech by supporting the words which have fallen from the noble Earl in tribute to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, to whom the whole House, in every quarter, owes so much. We shall miss him from his central position on the Front Government Bench, but we hope, nevertheless, to hear him often from the Bench rather further to the right that he has now adopted.

Having heard two extremely good speeches, your Lordships will not need to be reminded that for about nine months this country has been divided from end to end by various opinions about the action taken by Her Majesty's Government in the Middle East: whether initially it was right or wrong; whether the subsequent advances or retreats or sidesteps, either in action or policy, were good and well-advised, or bad and ill-advised. Genuine criticism and genuine pleas of justification have been advanced; and less worthy moves, based on Party or partisan interest, have, unfortunately, not been absent from the scene. All this makes good Press copy but it is not helpful, and I, for one, am heartily tired of this atmosphere of post-mortem inquiry and recrimination.

The Party which I have the honour to lead in your Lordships' House—small in Parliamentary numbers but, in my humble opinion, of growing size amongst electors who are not always revealed as Liberals—has condemned in no uncertain terms the action taken by the Government led by Sir Anthony Eden, who, incidentally, we are all glad to hear is now in such improved health. We have given our reasons and we consider that subsequent events have justified our condemnation. What matters now is the present and the future; and I am not prepared to go over, again and again, the regrettable actions of the past—whether of last year or of last month—which we on these Benches consider were not approved, and are still not approved, by most of our fellow citizens in this country.

Since the past cannot be recalled or reshaped, is there any reason, other than that of mere poetic justice, to advocate now the replacement of the present Government, to whom we sit in conscientious opposition, by a Government of another complexion—presumably of Socialist complexion—to whom our conscientious opposition would be of similar intensity? We in the United Kingdom may be unfortunately close to having a two-Party Parliamentary system, but I am convinced that in the minds and hearts of the people of this country no such simple dichotomy exists, and that the voice from these Benches, particularly in regard to Suez, is a representative voice when it says, "A plague on both your Parties!" What we want is that Her Majesty's Government should concentrate upon repairing the damage that has been done; that they should set to work, with our brothers and sisters of the Commonwealth and with our friends and allies of Western civilisation, to get on with the job. Internationally, for centuries past, we have acted from strength, not from weakness. What has happened so tragically in the Middle East seems to be that our Government have failed to keep abreast of the times and to realise that unilateral action, on the scale envisaged by them as being action from strength, is to-day as unpractical for a leading nation—as we still are and will continue to be—as it would be for the smallest and newest State in the world; or even for America or Russia, acting virtually alone in face of world opinion.

To-day, unfortunately, Her Majesty's Government have to recognise a position of some national loss of face. There are two ways of exacerbating this unenviable position, and there is one way of improving it. The two unhelpful ways are, first, that the critics of the Government should continue to cry from the housetops what a miserable situation we are in; and, on the other hand, for the Government to continue to be so "stiff-necked," so preoccupied with their amour propre that they cannot or will not admit that things have gone wrong under their direction and that a new outlook must be adopted. I am totally unwilling to be a party to prolonging this miserable quarrel at home when so much is waiting to be done in every field of domestic and overseas activity.

The way to improve the position is obvious. Each of the three political Parties has the same aim in regard to the Suez situation. Each wants to see achieved a fair and just solution of a situation which is, at present, not only unfair and unjust but highly inflammable and dangerous. We have before us quite clearly the course of pursuing, soberly and responsibly, the Six Points which are accepted by responsible nations throughout the civilised world as a proper statement of minimum requirements. But all this will take time, and I would plead for greater tolerance between the two major political Parties in this country, so that a sorry situation can be progressively put to rights without the delay and the indignity, both at home and abroad, which continued recrimination and ill-feeling must inevitably create.

3.28 p.m.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME)

My Lords, I have taken part in the whole series of these Suez debates, but up till six weeks ago in the rôle of "follow my Leader"; and as I listened to the noble Marquess I could not help wishing that he had been sitting beside me to-day, because as he spoke I thought how much more effective his reply to his own speech would have been than that which I can hope to achieve. But I was not alone in feeling unhappy and in feeling a gap on the Front Bench, because his humble reference to the service which he was able to render to this House touched us all, and there is in the whole story of Parliament no Leader from our side of the House who has given such distinguished and brilliant service.

When the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, got up, the tone of the debate was slightly lowered. When he said that he never remembered getting up to say that his Cabinet was unanimous the House took his point at once. The only complaint that I have against the Opposition—and I believe it is a legitimate one throughout this series of debates—is that they have never said what they, the Opposition, would do when a free country, a member of the free world, is faced with a situation in which its vital interests and even its life are threatened, and when the system of collective security which was devised to protect International Law and order simply does not work. In that situation what would the Opposition do if they were the Government of this country? Up till now, they have simply sheltered-behind the label of collective security, when they know that collective security has no substance in fact. If we were to accept the situation that in no circumstances, even to protect its own vital interests, the country concerned should ever use its power, then Communism and barbarism would overrun the free world. If that is the policy of Her Majesty's Opposition then I shall work harder than ever to prevent the domestic catastrophe of the return of a Socialist Government to rule over us.

EARL ATTLEE

No one has ever said that from my side. The Government side have never yet made out the fact of this wonderful danger that is supposed to be hanging over us all the time. They have never managed to produce any evidence whatever of that.

THE EARL OF HOME

Perhaps I shall be able to produce that evidence to the noble Earl's satisfaction this afternoon. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rea, I hope that this is the last of the post-mortems. Inevitably we must retrace our steps to some extent, and I agree with my noble friend that we must recognise that there were two separate crises. It is worth remembering, as the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, reminded us, that the dispute over the Suez Canal had its origin in a flagrant breach of International Law by Colonel Nasser when he destroyed the Convention of 1888 which was the instrument which gave confidence to the users that the Canal would be treated as a truly international waterway.

The picture has since become so confused that for the sake of historical accuracy I think it worth recalling that the answer of the United Kingdom and France and the other users to that act of piracy was not force; it was to request the Security Council to exercise its authority and to insist that the control of the Canal should rest not with one country but that there should be an internationally guaranteed system for the Canal. After much toil, the Security Council produced the familiar Six Principles as the minimum requirements of the customers and the minimum basis for a permanent settlement. The Opposition has claimed—I heard the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition make a claim the other day—that in October last we could have got better terms. The Opposition are perfectly entitled to speculate as to what might have been, but there is no evidence whatever to support what the noble Viscount has said. Nasser at that time was negotiating, as he has done ever since, both with the Americans and with Dr. Hammarskjoeld, on the Russian pattern, with the Russian veto always behind him.

The United Kingdom and France and the other users have from the start been consistent over this question of the use of the Suez Canal. We have sought a settlement within the international machinery provided by the Security Council, but we have said that Colonel Nasser has upset the balanced system that existed and he has merely put in its place a regime of his own in which control of the Canal is a purely Egyptian affair. To that, we and the other users are not prepared to agree. There are certain limited signs that the Egyptian Government is beginning to realise that the Canal is not much of an asset to Egypt unless it meets the requirements of the users. Under persistent pressure, Egypt has modified her original declaration in some respects. Tolls are not to be increased in any one year by more than 1 per cent., except by negotiation. A reasonable sum, 25 per cent. of the receipts, is to be put aside for development. Compensation for the old Suez Canal Company is to be fixed not by Egypt but by arbitration. And Egypt has declared that she intends to respect the 1888 Convention and that she will register the Declaration with the United Nations.

Those points go some way towards meeting the Six Principles, but of course there are many obscurities left. The representative of the United Kingdom on the Security Council only last Monday asked some specific questions which must be answered before the Declaration can possibly be converted into a permanent settlement. For instance, how is the compensation to the Suez Canal Company, which may be fixed by arbitration, to be paid? What sanction will Egypt admit upon which the users can rely against unilateral amendment by Egypt of the Declaration, or, indeed, unilateral withdrawal? These questions could be answered if there were good will. Colonel Nasser could have answered them long ago.

Unless the Egyptian people are blinded by Colonel Nasser's narrow nationalism, they will surely see that Egypt's future interest lies in a fair and permanent agreement with the customers. I have quite deliberately at this point mentioned the Egyptian people, because our quarrel has never been with them, and still less with any other Arab country. We are bound to many of them by ties of alliance and friendship. Substantial benefits have flowed already to the Arab countries from good relations with the great maritime Powers, and there are many of them who set great store by relations of confidence and good faith with the Western world. It is just that rare and precious flower of confidence, of which the noble Marquess so rightly reminded us, that Colonel Nasser has shattered, and this has to be remedied by positive acts of Statesmanship before the unilateral declaration by Egypt can be turned into a permanent settlement. The Egyptian people will, I hope, realise that until confidence is restored the future for Egypt will be dark indeed.

So as far as this part of the question, which deals with the agreement covering the use of the Canal, is concerned, I would reply to the noble Marquess that, by every means—through the Security Council and by every diplomatic means—we shall seek to turn this unilateral declaration into agreement. As he rightly says, and as I shall endorse in a minute, no one can say whether that can be achieved. Although it is well to remind ourselves that we did not intervene in Egypt in a military sense in order to impose the Six Principles, nevertheless it was evident that Nasser's act of seizure of the Suez Canal was only a prelude to much more ambitious plans of conquest. Not only were his plans directed against the United Kingdom and the rest of Western Europe but, as is now evident, against other Arab countries as well. His ambition was a danger not only to Europe then but to the Middle East. And whereas in the whole setting of the Middle East the Canal is an important feature, nevertheless the vital elements in the situation for the United Kingdom and for Europe were that the sources of oil should remain intact and that the countries of the Middle East should not be brought under Communist domination.

My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, in one of our debates the other day was counting the cost to the 1957 Budget of the Suez enterprise as somewhere between £30 million and £40 million. Has he ever calculated what would have been the cost to this country if not only the Suez Canal and its transport facilities but also the sources of oil had fallen into enemy hands? If Israel had been annihilated and if Colonel Nasser had taken control from Iran to the Atlantic, as was his boast, not only would Western Europe have suffered greatly but the ruin and suffering falling on the Middle East and Africa would have been beyond calculation. Therefore, in striking the balance sheet to-day—and that is what the noble Marquess set out to do and what I seek to do before I come to the future—I would invite your Lordships to keep your eyes always on the political and strategic objectives of the United Kingdom which I dare to identify with the objectives of the free world.

What is the position roughly, nine months after the October intervention? Russia and Egypt are not in control of the Middle East; the Baghdad Pact has grown in cohesion and purpose, and it has recently had an injection of strength by America becoming a member of the Military Committee. There is no Arab unity under Nasser. He has been exposed to the Arab world as being politically unreliable, economically bankrupt, and militarily a squib. The Americans have committed themselves to maintaining the political independence of the Middle East under the Eisenhower doctrine which we so warmly welcome. Does anybody believe that America would have acted as she did in the recent Jordan crisis if it had happened six months before the United Kingdom's intervention? America has now decided to sustain these countries of the Middle East against Communism. That is a clear gain. The United Nations is on the spot with a force. So far, as I said earlier in my speech, collective security has not been much more than a label; but here is the chance for the United Nations to impose collective security and to sustain law and right. If there is determination, if they can "grasp the nettle," there is the opportunity to direct a settlement of this problem between Israel and the Arab countries which plagued the world for so many years before the Suez incident.

My Lords, I have never concealed from myself, and I have always thought it certain, that the most promising point of attack by Russia upon the West was through the Middle East. They were baulked in Europe by the Berlin Air Lift and they were held in the Far East, both in Korea and Malaya, and on both occasions, I would remind your Lordships, power was used before Russian intervention was held. That they would launch a plan to disrupt the Middle East and to deny oil to Europe was a certainty. I am not defending every aspect of our intervention in October; but, given that the United Nations had proved itself helpless in the situation, and given that at that time the United States was unable to appreciate the deadly significance in Nasser's moves in alliance with Russia, I doubt whether there was any ideal way to prevent the Middle East from being overrun and plunged into chaos.

But I believe most profoundly that when the historian comes to write the history of the struggle between Communism and the free world he will record that the date of the Anglo-French intervention was the date when Russia was given notice to quit an area of vital significance to the Western world, and I trust he will be able to record, too, that the new unity between the United States of America and the United Kingdom which was born in Bermuda turned the act of the United Kingdom and France into one of the decisive victories of the free world in the cold war.

Those were the two situations: that of the operation and use of the Canal and the attempt to find a Canal settlement through the machinery of the United Nations, and that of the fate and future of the Middle East. We are at the end of these chapters of a story which, as the Prime Minister said, is not yet completed. The immediate cause of this debate has been the reopening of the Canal and the decision of the United Kingdom Government and of the users, with the exception of France, to allow their ships to go through and to use it under protest. The noble Marquess does not like the decision, and there have been other critics of the line which the Government have taken. I believe that I am justified in asking the critics what is their constructive alternative. Would the noble Marquess really have carried out a boycott conducted by the United Kingdom alone? Would he have prevented United Kingdom shipping from carrying cargoes by the shortest route? Would he have seen custom diverted to our competitors, paid the necessary compensation to the shipowners and financed over an indefinite period the purchase of oil with dollars—dollars which we should have to borrow? To decide not to use the Canal when it was opened would have been a decision fraught with very heavy responsibility for the Government.

The plain truth is, I think, that there were only two practical alternatives: either an international agreement, which we are seeking by every possible means and under which the Canal would be fully developed and fully used as an international waterway serving its customers, or a de facto arrangement under which we should pursue by every means open to us the object of making this country less and less dependent on this Canal. The noble Marquess said that his grandfather was always afraid of the "long run"; he called it "the old enemy, the long run ". It is not by any means certain that even in the long run in our dealings with Colonel Nasser or other Egyptian leaders we shall get a settlement to which we can subscribe. Therefore we must study all the means open to us to minimise our dependence on the Canal.

We must do so by all the means in our power: by new pipelines; by new and larger tankers, for which plans are well under way; by increasing our capacity to produce more steel; by increasing stockpiling of oil in this country and on the Continent of Europe, and by stepping up the search for oil, and for this there is certainly scope in Canada, in North Africa, including Libya, in Latin America and in Europe itself. The Prime Minister has appointed Sir Matthew Slattery to concert and direct the joint effort needed so that substantial independence of the Canal may come within a reasonable time. I hope that this is an answer to my noble friend. It is difficult to be more precise, but my noble friend did not ask me to give more precise details of when we should have the extra tankers, pipelines and the rest. I think that mention of the appointment of Sir Matthew Slattery on these terms of reference—to give us substantial independence of the Canal within a reasonable time—is the furthest I can go today.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, does the noble Earl mean that the policy of Her Majesty's Government is that we are to put ourselves into the position that we need not use the Canal, or that we should put ourselves into the position that we will not use the Canal for these purposes?

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, I think that we can use the Canal so far as it suits us to do so and at the same time by these means reach a position in which we do not need to use the Canal if we do not wish to do so. The Egyptian Government and the Egyptian people have a choice which is plain before them. There can be an international agreement, which means the confidence of the users, in which case the Canal can remain a significant artery of commerce, but if Colonel Nasser and the Egyptian leaders prefer to play politics, then the Canal will inevitably dwindle in stature and performance into an insignificant local waterway.

Our action in October, and all that we have done since, has been condemned by some as an intervention—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Rea, in effect, said this—outside the stream of twentieth century practice and fashion. But I would ask your Lordships to face up to this position: when so much of the world is practising the law of the jungle, and when the system of collective security is patently not working, there must be occasions on which a nation must use its power, and we have proved in our past history that this power can be used for high purpose. I believe that the time has come when all of us—the Party opposite, if I may say so, the Americans and the United Nations—must study this question of collective security and so organise it that collective power can effectively support International Law and order and right. To-day they are not doing so. And it is because we could not induce them to do so on the occasion in October that we felt bound to use our power to protect our rights and our life.

Therefore, although I feel with the noble Marquess and, I expect, with all Members of your Lordships' House, the frustration of the present—because this country has been frustrated; America has been frustrated and so has the United Nations, and all by a petty dictator under Russia's control—I cannot feel any shame or any repentance because we acted in October in order to save the Middle East and the world from a catastrophe. If we warned off the enemy; if we alerted our friends that international Communism must be met by power (and we devoutly hope that it will be effective, collective power); if we have stimulated the United Nations out of their passive, negative paralysis to accept a positive obligation to promote justice, law and order and the upholding of the right; if, though we find the situation to-day frustrating, or even almost unendurable, as the noble Marquess said, we can show tenacity and endurance, as the British people have done through so many of our long crises, then out of the present frustration, twilight and gloom, hope for mankind may dawn.

3.56 p.m.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, there are many noble Lords who wish to take part in this debate this afternoon, and therefore it is not my intention to deal with the wider issues involved in the Government's decision to allow British shipping to use the Suez Canal. The apprehensions which I and some of my noble friends feel have already been voiced, far better than we could voice them, by my noble friend Lord Salisbury. So, in an endeavour to be brief, I will confine what little I have to say this afternoon to the question of the financial talks which I understand begin to-morrow and to the claims of British subjects who have been evacuated from Egypt.

The question of British refugees from Egypt has already been discussed on two occasions in your Lordships' House, and normally I should not have wished to raise this issue in a general debate on Suez and Egypt: I should have preferred to put down a separate Motion. But I cannot forget that the financial talks begin to-morrow, and that the claims of British subjects are to be considered within the ambit of these discussions, so that the matter may be disposed of, for either better or worse, long before I have any further opportunity of raising the matter in your Lordships' House. For that reason, I feel bound to take advantage of this opportunity to-day to draw your Lordships' attention to the plight of these people.

I have studied what the Prime Minister said in another place but I am still not clear about the scope of these discussions. I am not clear, for example, whether they are to cover the question of compensation for the Suez Canal Company and the expropriation of Government assets in Egypt as well as the claims of individual British citizens. I do not wish to embarrass the Government by asking too many questions about all those matters this afternoon. I would say merely that I am left with the impression that it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to press all claims against Egypt, whether they be claims of Her Majesty's Government, of the Canal Company or of private individuals. Certainly this is the impression that has been gained by many of the individuals concerned, and this is causing the gravest anxiety. Perhaps at this stage I should declare an interest, in that I happen to be President of the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society, a charitable organisation which tries to help these unfortunate people in the sad predicament in which they find themselves.

I must confess that I do not know what chances Her Majesty's Government think they have of doing a satisfactory deal with Colonel Nasser. Clearly, Colonel Nasser has been much inconvenienced by the freezing of Egyptian assets and by our boycott of the Canal. Having won hands down on all other questions connected with the Suez Canal, he is anxious to unfreeze his assets and to get traffic moving again through the Canal. I am surprised that Her Majesty's Government should have selected this particular moment to start using the Canal. I appreciate, as we all do, the difficulty of continuing a boycott when many other nations are not willing to do the same, though I confess that on this particular issue I was impressed by the arguments of my noble friend Lord Salisbury. But even if the Government decide that, because they cannot get others to support them, they must eventually cease boycotting the Canal, it seems to me an odd procedure that they should give Nasser one of the things he most wants only a fortnight before they are to start financial negotiations with him. I should have thought that this was bound to weaken our position at the negotiating table.

In any case, however successfully we negotiate, we surely cannot expect that all the claims will be met in full. Nasser is bound to advance counter-claims in respect of the damage that was done during the Anglo-French intervention at Port Said, and he may well suggest that the claims and counter-claims be written off one against the other. Even if Her Majesty's Government were successful, and if, on balance, negotiations ended in Egypt's paying some compensation, this, too, must surely fall short of the total sum claimed, the global sum. This probability, I know, is causing acute anxiety to British subjects having claims against Egypt. In the circumstances I have just outlined, they fear that either the claims will be written off one against the other, and they will receive nothing, or, at best, their claims will be prejudiced by Egyptian counter-claims arising out of the military operations at Port Said. This, they consider (and I am entirely in agreement with this point of view), would be totally unjust, for there can be no doubt that the sequestration of their property and their expulsion from Egypt were directly due to the action which Her Majesty's Government felt bound to take last year.

In saying this, let me emphasise that I am not in any way criticising the action taken by the Government at that time. I was then a member of the Government; I fully supported that action then, and I support it to-day. What I am saying is that one cannot escape the conclusion, however much one may wish to, that the plight of British subjects is one of the consequences of the action of the Government. These people, therefore, feel that their claims should not be prejudiced by any Egyptian counter-claims, which lie, as they see it—and I agree—against the Government; and, in the event of the compensation received from Egypt falling short of the global sum demanded, that the loss should fall upon Her Majesty's Government.

There is another matter in respect of these individual claims of British subjects which I hope Her Majesty's Government will bear in mind. Most of these claims arise out of the sequestration by the Egyptians of property, or businesses, or other assets; and it may well be that the Egyptian Government will try to escape their proper liabilities by merely offering to de-sequestrate this property without the payment of any compensation whatever. Such an arrangement would, of course, in the majority of cases, be entirely inequitable. In most cases the property will have deteriorated through neglect; stock will have been looted, and inevitably there must arise such questions as loss of profits, loss of goodwill and so on and so forth. Therefore, I hope that, if any such suggestion is made to the Government, they will, on behalf of these people, who must depend on the Government to put forward their claims, because they are unable to do it themselves, stand up for their rights and refuse to accept any such bargain, which in my opinion would not be in their interests.

At this juncture, I do not expect from my noble friend Lord Hailsham any reply or further information this afternoon. I realise that on the eve of negotiations it would be quite unreasonable to expect him to give a reply. However, I felt it right and proper to put forward in this House this afternoon the views and feelings, as I understand them, of these British refugees from Egypt. They have suffered much hardship in the last six months: they have been driven from their homes; they have been deprived of every possession they had in the world. I know that Her Majesty's Government have done a good deal to help them—and here I should like to pay tribute to the work that has been done by the Board under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Colyton. Nevertheless, the power of the Board to help is, inevitably, extremely limited, and the only thing that can ultimately solve the problems of these people is that they should receive the fullest possible compensation. I hope, therefore, that Her Majesty's Government will make a special effort in these negotiations to secure the interests of these people. For if, in the outcome, it were to appear that these people had been "sold down the river", there would, I believe, be great indignation not only in this House but throughout the country at large.