THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION

HL Deb 08 February 1961 vol 228 cc414-94

3.20 p.m.

LORD HENDERSON rose to call attention to the international situation; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in, my name on the Order Paper. This debate is being held at what may be the beginning of a new era in international affairs. In spite of the personal affection and admiration which we all hold for President Eisenhower, one cannot but feel a sense of relief that a new, young President has taken over at a time when leadership is really needed. There cannot be any among us who has not felt refreshed by the candour of Mr. Kennedy's approach to his great task. Already he is at work on the home front, and in the field of foreign affairs, too. In his State of the Union Message last week, he promised a re-examination and a revision of the whole array of tools with which to meet the challenges of to-day. We may expect a re-assessment of American policies in the Far East, Africa, Europe and Latin America; a re-examination, of the policy of the military alliances; and a review of economic policies in relation to the under-developed areas of the world.

But perhaps the most welcome news of all was Mr. Kennedy's recognition of the importance of disarmament. As the Guardian said on January 31: The expansion of American military power might be provocative if it were not accompanied by positive proposals for agreed disarmament. From what Mr. Kennedy has himself said, and from the quality of the advisers whom he has appointed, I think we can feel confident that there will be a more positive approach from the new Administration.

There were other indications of policy which we welcome. These include his references to the United Nations: his call for increased support for it as an instrument to end the cold war instead of an arena in which to fight it'',

his pledge to work to see that the integrity of the office of the Secretary-General is maintained",

and his special plea to the smaller nations of the world to join in strengthening the organisation which is far more essential to their security than to ours". My Lords, these are matters on which I have no doubt that Her Majesty's Government are in complete accord with the United States Government, and the two Allies should have no difficulty in harmonising their efforts to strengthen the peace influence and authority of the United Nations and its agencies. Another decision of the President which I believe will give general satisfaction is his ban on provocative speeches by high-ranking serving officers. As the Daily Express aptly put it: In politics, admirals, generals and air chiefs should be in the same Service—the silent service". There is, I think, much support for this view.

In surveying the world scene to-day, we should, I think, also note some encouraging signs from the Communist camp. While I am under no illusions concerning the long-term aims of the Soviet Union, it would be unwise to underestimate the significance of Mr. Khrushchev's achievements at the Moscow Conference of the leaders of 81 Communist Parties at the end of last year. While he had to make some concessions to the Chinese point of view to secure bloc unity, he was able to gain general acceptance of his theory that world war is not an inevitability. Moreover, in recent weeks the Russians have shown a degree of restraint in handling a number of dangerous situations—in Cuba, Laos and the Congo—which suggest that they wish to establish a new relationship with Mr. Kennedy. The release of the R.B.47 flyers in time for Mr. Kennedy to announce this at his first Press conference also suggests that they are prepared to wait and see before making judgments.

My Lords, I think it is very important that the Russians should wait and see. Neither we nor they should expect any dramatic new moves in the very near future. Mr. Kennedy may be prepared to break with the past, and I earnestly hope that he will; but he cannot reverse the trends in American policy overnight. He has inherited a number of difficult and dangerous situations on which he has to re-examine American ideas and policies. If we, or the Russians, for that matter, expect big changes too quickly, we may be disappointed.

I feel that this word of caution is necessary. There can be no doubt that the advent of the new President and his Administration has released a new surge of hope throughout the world. This may, and should, encourage Mr. Kennedy in his tasks. But he does not wield a magic wand that will perform miracles. The old problems, which have defied all efforts for agreement in the past, have still to be solved. Discussion, negotiation and hard bargaining will have to be undertaken if the cold war is to be replaced by peaceful co-existence; and it is here that we look to the new President, with his new team, to bring a new mind, a new approach and a new drive into service. It is, of course, important to get a new start to negotiations: but it is also important to make the right start. None of us wants to see another Summit fiasco. That is why I think advantage should be taken, wherever possible, of personal contacts, normal diplomatic procedures, formal talks and informal conversations to prepare the path to the next Summit Conference and thus ensure that it does produce worthwhile results.

I stress this because I recall that the outstanding agreement between the West and the East—namely, the Foreign Ministers' Agreement in 1949 which ended the Berlin blockade—was set in train as a result of an informal conversation between Mr. Malik and Professor Jessup while attending a United Nations meeting. I would add only that I am convinced that it would be a good thing if the Heads of Government of the major Powers made it a regular practice to attend some part of the Assembly's Annual Session to maintain personal contacts and to take advantage of the opportunities there would be for informal exchanges of views and even more formal talks.

My Lords, I think we must all agree that Britain has a big responsibility to help in creating a new outlook in Western policy. I have felt on many occasions in the past that the rigid and unimaginative approach of the State Department has imposed a severe restriction on the freedom of British foreign policy. But such unacceptable concepts as a preventive war, "brinkmanship" and contempt for neutralism have passed into history with the late Administration. As I said, I believe that we, Government and Parliament, have a big responsibility in helping to influence and guide the policies of our American Allies on those issues which concern us both. For this reason, I am a little disappointed that a first opportunity for private talks between the Prime Minister and Mr. Kennedy cannot take place before April. There are a number of immediate issues on which we on this side of the House should like to see the concerting of a new Western line as quickly as possible. Yet I do not think it can be held to be unreasonable that, before a meeting takes place, the President will wish to consider the reports of his study groups, and that the Prime Minister will desire to have the benefit of his talks with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers.

We are all familiar with the wide range of problems on which East and West are divided, but some of them have a special urgency. Their early settlement could help to take the chill out of the cold war and give some promise of better co-operation between East and West in dealing with other major problems which remain to be solved.

The first of these issues I want to mention is Laos. As co-chairman with the Soviet Union at the Geneva Conference in 1954, we have a special responsibility for helping to restore peace and order in Laos. Here is a situation which could develop into another Korean war, or into another Spanish Civil War, with arms being supplied from both sides, yet which, if wisdom prevails, could be solved quite quickly by co-operation. In Laos we have seen the continuation, by the late United States Administration, of the worst aspects of the policies of the late John Foster Dulles. He never stopped preaching the "immorality of neutralism". He did not believe that the Geneva Powers were right in defining a neutral state for Laos. The settlement which envisaged a Government representing the Right and the Left was, to him, unworkable. In his mind you could not treat with the Communists you could only beat them. He seemed incapable of realising that, while a Government in Laos under Communist control was unacceptable to him, a Government under Western control was equally unacceptable to Soviet Russia and Communist China.

The Americans have never accepted the Geneva Agreement, and even since 1954 America has done her utmost to prevent the Agreement from being carried out. On three separate occasions the Americans have supported Right-wing military leaders in their attempt to overthrow the neutralist Government. Had it not been for the State Department, I believe that Prince Souvanna Phouma would still be Prime Minister of a Government with good relations with China and Russia, on the one hand, and the United States on the other

As the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, knows, we welcomed his initiative to re-establish and bring back the International Commission to Laos. But that initiative does not appear to be likely to get results. It seems to be less and less likely that the International Commission will in fact re-commence its activities, and more and more clear that at some stage, and sooner rather than later, the Geneva signatory Powers will have to meet. We are faced with a deadlock over the return of the Commission, primarily, I believe, because Russia and China regard the deposed Souvanna Phouma Government as the legitimate Government while the West accept the Boun Oum Government as the legal Government.

We had hoped to see the International Commission return to prepare the way for ending strife and restoring peace, and for the setting up of a broad-based Government. But if it is not possible to make headway there, should not the proposal for a Conference of interested Powers be taken up? In another place on January 20, the Lord Privy Seal said that to get agreement about a conference would "undoubtedly take a certain time". If that were an objection to the proposal, in fact, of course, an easy way out has been provided by the Head of State of Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk, who has invited the Geneva Powers, and others directly concerned with Laos, to meet on neutral territory. As nearly a month has passed since the Prime Minister's reply deferring his answer to his suggestion, which I think has since been repeated by the Cambodian Head of State, I would ask the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, whether he is able to tell the House that a reply has been despatched, and if so, the nature of it.

Noble Lords may have seen the statement of The Times Washington correspondent of February 5, that President Kennedy is prepared to accept a neutral Laos. If that is in fact the position of the new United States Government. it is a change of real importance and one that should ease the present deadlock and open the way to an agreed international settlement.

The next of these issues involves the whole Western approach to China. None of us should underestimate the significance of the argument which reached its climax in Moscow between the differing approaches to co-existence and peace of Mao Tse-tung and Mr. Khrushchev. Peking has constantly argued that co-existence with the Western Powers is impossible. Moscow has said that, as world war would destroy most of modern society, coexistence is essential. Admittedly, their definition of co-existence suggests that the paths ahead are likely to be pretty rough ones; nevertheless, a policy which stops short of world war is preferable to one that does not.

It is to me, my Lords, no coincidence that the rigid line comes from a country with whom the West has refused to coexist, while the flexible line comes from a country with whom we have sought co-existence in practical ways. I have always thought that to refuse China her proper place in the United Nations, to treat her as an international outcast, was to give support to Mao's side of the argument. I have never understood how anyone with any sense of the realities of the situation, could regard the Chinese Nationalists, located in Formosa and representing nobody but themselves, as the rightful occupants of China's seat in the Assembly and in the Security Council. It has been encouraging, therefore, that both Mr. Dean Rusk and Mr. Stevenson have recognised that the tide is running against the policy of non-recognition and postponement. There is every reason to believe that they may be ready to come to terms with the decision of the Assembly if this year it goes against them. What we cannot expect is that the new Administration will be prepared itself to vote in favour of the admission of Communist China.

But gone is the old British excuse for constantly voting for postponement. I have little doubt that Her Majesty's Government and the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, believe that it would be far more sensible to have Communist China in rather than out. In future, we should say so openly and vote accordingly to our judgment. Not only would it be against the interests of this country and of the world to repeat again the contradictory conduct on previous China debates in the United Nations; it would also, I believe, be letting down many of those in the new American Administration who recognise which path should be taken but who cannot, for reasons of their own public opinion, lead the way.

Then, again, it is essentially a Western interest to secure Chinese participation in negotiations for a world disarmament agreement. It is unrealistic to imagine that the West or, for that matter, Russia would sign an agreement limiting its own forces whilst leaving China untouched. Nor is it reasonable to assume that China would ultimately adhere to an agreement that she had not helped to negotiate. The securing of Chinese participation in the disarmament talks should not be regarded as a concession to the Communist bloc, but, of itself, a desirable object. With the new Administration at the White House, it may be more feasible than hitherto to get this done. Mr. Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State, has already said that the difficult problem of how China can be brought into the talks is being studied. It may be that here again there will be an opportunity for British initiative, and we look to Her Majesty's Government to take a positive line.

It is too early yet to know how far Mr. Kennedy and his advisers will change the direction of American policies in some of the major disputes which trouble the world to-day. But on the biggest issue of all, disarmament, there is reason to feel confident that the new Administration will seek to break out of the straitjacket imposed by the Eisenhower Administration. Looking back on the long and tedious story of disarmament negotiations since 1955, it becomes clear that, throughout the last years, American policy has not really been directed to-words disarmament but towards what is called "arms control". From the time it became clear that there would always be an element of risk in controlled disarmament, the risk that some country might conceal stocks of nuclear weapons even after a disarmament agreement had been signed, it seems that the policy-makers in Washington decided that this risk was greater than the risk of a continuation of the arms race.

The theory of arms control is that there is safety in a high level of armaments; that so long as each side can totally destroy the other the world situation can be frozen at its present position. Arms control is a scheme for trying, by agreement, to equalise the nuclear missiles and other military capabilities of the Soviet Union and the United States, with the calculation that this would discourage each from attacking the other and thus produce a position of "stabilised deterrence".

In spite of the fact that in his State of the Union Message on January 30. Mr. Kennedy in the same sentence spoke of "expanding our disarmament effort" and of "making arms control a central goal of our national policy", the two things are not the same thing. Unless I totally misunderstand all that has happened at the Ten Nation Commission in Geneva, then I do not believe that we can secure from the Russians, less still from the Chinese, the establishment of a control system to stabilise arms at their present level. Any control system is, for the Russians, a Soviet concession, for it would provide the West with all the military information we need to know about their dispositions. I am convinced that the price—if "price" is the right word—we have to pay for a control system is a really substantial reduction in the present level of arms. We have surely always agreed that there was as much force in the Soviet slogan "No control without disarmament", as there was in the Western slogan "No disarmament without control". We need both, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government are giving, behind the diplomatic scenes, every possible support to those now in the new State Department team who want to see a real programme for controlled disarmament coming from the West.

The fact that President Kennedy has requested a short delay in the resumption of the Nuclear Test Ban Conference is not a ground for disappointment but for hope. I have often said to your Lordships that I regard agreement on tests as likely to prove a real break-through on the road to a general controlled disarmament agreement. In asking for a short delay in the test talks, the President said: It is our intention to resume negotiations prepared to reach a final agreement with any nation that is equally willing to agree to an effective and enforceable treaty. To get a final agreement on the banning of tests would be of tremendous value and I look with confidence to Her Majesty's Government to support wholeheartedly these new efforts to that end.

My Lords, there is one other situation to which I want to refer— the Congo. We must all have felt a certain sense of helplessness and frustration as we have seen the situation drift from bad to worse in that troubled country. We had such high hope when the Great Powers agreed in the United Nations to the sending of a force to restore law and order after the events of last summer. We saw then what the United Nations can do when there is a sufficient area of common. ground among the Great Powers. But by the end of last year, when the Assembly adjourned, the Congo had fallen a victim of the cold war The unity of the Assembly, which had existed as recently as September, 1960, when. by 70 votes to nil, a resolution had been passed expressing confidence in the United Nations and the General-Secretary, had been destroyed.

One can point to Russia's fishing in troubled waters, to the irresponsibility of the Congolese leaders and to the Belgian military activities as bearing a heavy responsibility for what went wrong, but I think that we must also include the fact that, in the face of the opposition of those States who formed the nucleus of the United Nations forces in the Congo the Western Powers rushed through the recognition of Kasavubu's delegation at the United Nations. This led to the split in the United Nations Conciliation Mission and to the withdrawal of important contingents from the United Nations Peace Force.

To my mind, the withdrawal of national contingents, for whatever reason, is deplorable. It inflicts a serious blow at the prestige and authority of the United Nations at the very moment when it is engaged in a difficult and thankless, but vital, peace operation. It seems to me that there is something basically unsound when member States can withdraw at will their national contingents to an ad hoc United Nations Peace Force while it is carrying out a mission assigned to it by the Security Council. Unless national contributions remain available for "the duration", it is clearly impossible for the Secretary-General or the Commander of the Peace Force to discharge their responsibilities. A precedent—and, as I think, a bad precedent— is being set for the future.

Britain also voted against a resolution from India and Yugoslavia calling for the release of all political prisoners, including Mr. Lumumba, for an immediate meeting of the Congolese Parliament, for the neutralisation of the Congolese army and for the recall of Belgian military personnel. Do Her Majesty's Government still adhere to the position which they took up then? I do not doubt that they agree with the statement made by Mr. Dean Rusk in his first Press conference: What is needed"— said Mr. Rusk— is a United Nations plan which will bring peace, preserve the integrity of the nation, provide an opportunity for the Congolese to work out their own constitutional and political arrangements, enlist administrative and technical assistance needed for a viable system, and open the way for a resumption of normal economic life of a productive country.

These are objectives which I am sure will command universal support. But if they are to be realised, practical steps must be taken. Do the Government believe, as we on these Benches believe, that the United Nations should adopt as its policy the following proposals: first, an end to violence—the withdrawal of any foreign troops not under United Nations command and an embargo on arms supplies for either side except for the United Nations forces; secondly, that the Round Table Conference soon to be held should be as representative as possible of the various political, regional and tribal groups in the Congo; thirdly, the release of all political prisoners; fourthly, the early recall of Parliament; and fifthly, full co-operation by all Congolese authorities, national and regional, with the United Nations Conciliation Commission and the United Nations agencies concerned with relief and welfare?

The release of Mr. Lumumba is an obvious essential to agreement on any such plan. There are signs that official opinion in the United States is beginning to move along these lines. It has been reported in the Press that the United States is in favour of the release of Mr. Lumumba, and, according to The Times Washington correspondent, being heard, if only because of his external as well as internal support. That seems to me to represent a sound, realistic view.

I believe that if the United States and Britain are able to work together to get a new mandate for the United Nations on the lines I have indicated, they will be able to rally to their support not only the Great Powers, but all those smaller nations to whose security, as President Kennedy said, the success of the United Nations is so vital. I am convinced that it is only such a constructive plan that will provide the Congolese with an opportunity to build for themselves a new order of independence, peace and internal wellbeing. It is the responsibility of the large nations to co-operate through the United Nations in providing this opportunity to the Congolese. If they fail to do so, the future for the Congo will, I fear, remain a dark one. I beg to move for Papers.

3.53 p.m.

LORD REA

My Lords, once more the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has earned our gratitude by initiating one of our periodic debates on foreign affairs; and I, for one, do not consider that this subject comes before your Lordships' House too frequently. The whole picture of international relationship has changed from the time (within the memory, I think, of any of your Lordships) when that picture, like a magic-lantern slide, stayed in position while ideas and theories about it could be formulated in almost static leisure. To-day, of course, there is hardly time to apprehend a situation before it has changed in one or more of innumerable possible developments; and I suggest, tentatively, that we should all like the Foreign Secretary, whom we are so pleased to see here to-day, to know that the immense difficulties which face him and his Department—and, indeed, face many other Foreign Ministers in other countries—are realised by us to be very heavy burdens of almost frightening responsibility.

The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has again put his clear-cut frame round the picture, and within that frame he has sketched out so many outlines for your Lordships to develop that our choice is rather wide. I do not consider, if I may say so, that a diffuse and wide-ranging speech enlarging upon all the points which could legitimately come under the Motion 'we are now discussing can be very helpful or, indeed, interesting, unless, of course, it comes, as I hope and expect it will, with authority and inside knowledge from the Foreign Secretary himself and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary. I therefore propose to confine myself to two or three short points. Before interrogating or criticising, however, I should like to join with the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in extending the heartfelt good wishes of myself and my Party, and I have no doubt of every Member of your Lordships' House, to the new, young and exciting Administration, under the leadership of Mr. Kennedy, which enters the arena with the high hope, not only in America but here too, of directing the immense prestige and power of the United States towards the common, human and humanitarian aim throughout the world of peace, of plenty and, my Lords, of principle.

The winds of change do not blow only in Africa. After the doldrums of a long and chilly cold war of nerves and frustration between East and West, I suggest that at this moment there is a new atmosphere of expectancy created by the sudden change of eyeglasses through which the United States is viewing Russia, and Russia, with a little easing of prejudice, I think, is regarding America. The situation is, of course, still tense. But now, surely, is the time for Britain also to come forward, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, indicated in the latter part of this speech, in a gesture of new approach to old static difficulties, and to make a trio of nations ready to re-examine the whole East-West position in a spirit of more tolerance and less self-righteousness on both sides. It will need efforts of an unusual faith to wipe out old suspicions and distrust with which both East and West have been living for far too long. The first effort will be to progress beyond mere lip-service to the internationalism on which tomorrow's world must be based, and to put into tangible practice the sacrifices and painful concessions which are unavoidable on that hard but essential path of relinquishing some further degree of sovereignty in this world on the part of all nations

We can and do cherish our great tradition of the past, but I suggest that we have to look to a very different sort of future. I cannot help feeling that this Government, instead of giving the people a lead into the startling novelty of the new diplomacy, without which we shall soon decline into a very secondary position, are afraid to shock them: like an old-fashioned nanny they are doing too much shielding and mollycoddling of old and out-dated ideas for fear of incurring unpopularity at home by a bold development which I feel must be faced. We dislike Communism; it is totally unpalatable to us, and we shall never accept it. That, I think, may be taken as the views of every political Party in this country—and I hope the noble Viscount agrees with me there. Hitherto, because we consider it to be wrong, we have reasoned that all its adherents must also be wrong and wicked or very misguided. But I am not sure that we have the right to make this judgment—as, indeed the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, indicated. The leading Communists think about us much as we think about them, and as a result we have a world divided into two factions each of which thinks the world would be better without the other. We have both bared our teeth and stuck in our toes, and as a result, of course, there is an impasse.

Then comes the cold war (Heaven forbid that it should ever be a hot war!) and a hostile and damnable co-existence. Do we want co-existence in its usual sense? Both sides, I think, have shown signs of intolerance even of that. But to-day existence itself ends without co-existence, and so we have the very simple choice: either co-existence with hostility—the very negation of progress and peace—or co-existence with a far greater degree of tolerance towards what we dislike and distrust than we have been able to stomach hitherto. By that I mean a constructive co-existence. Of course, things will go wrong. Of course we shall be betrayed and disillusioned as we go along. But faith in our own integrity and confidence in our just objectives will surely counter the occasional setback.

Your Lordships will agree, I think, that we have in this country century upon century of the experience of patience in diplomacy and instinct for political timing. Neither Russia nor America has either of these most valuable advantages. We must not let them atrophy in this country. If we have, in these creaking post-war years, had to be expedient, as was suggested in an eariler speech, in accepting from America in some degree a mastership reliance, surely the time has come to put in its place more of a partnership reliance with the new-blooded United States. In doing that, we must jointly hold out to Russia a hand of patent general willingness to try to fit in a creative and even a co-operative co-existence.

In this country the population, broadly speaking, is so politically educated that no Government can possibly pursue a course which has not the support of, or perhaps I should say is positively opposed by, the masses in this country. I suggest that this truism has become taken by us so much for granted, and for so long, that we are apt to apply its principle to other countries when in fact no such equal position exists. We talk about our differences with the Russians. The Russian Soviet is only one of sixteen Soviets. A large part of the population of the U.S.S.R. is Asian, and has Asian values. Their mental processes are far removed from those of Plymouth, Birmingham and Aberdeen. I feel sure that this very different type of mentality and ideology are not strong elements in keeping Mr. Khrushchev in power. What about the ordinary masses throughout the sub-continent of Russia? Admittedly, great progress has been made in education and training, but are they really educated, and are they articulate? Does the Kremlin take its line from them, as our Whitehall takes its line from 30 million British voters? Almost within the memory of our great grandfathers—perhaps I am exaggerating a little—Catherine the Great and Czar Peter were trying to gather from Western Europe, in one short, frantic span, all the knowledge, culture and craftsmanship of centuries upon centuries of Western Europe. The object, of course, was to advance Russia in one fell swoop from a backward country to full civilisation—an impossible task. Of course, a parallel stroke was made in a much more forward sense by the great revolution after the First World War.

My Lords, I feel convinced—or at least I am inclined to believe—that millions of Russian ordinary people bear little resemblance to West European ordinary people in their conception of politics which is not parish-pump politics, or of any international relations which are not just "shooting the foreigner when you see him." The masses in our country and other West European countries are educated, perhaps not consciously, in this general conception of international affairs: through generations, through the means of communication, there is no doubt that our people know more or less what is going on. I do not feel that the Russians know what is going on, and there is an immense field in the minds of ordinary Russians for information to be sown and for truth to grow.

I was rather startled to hear a noble Lord in this House the other day condemn all propaganda as a tarnished and unworthy tool—or words to that effect. Then I realised what importance and what danger can lie in different interpretations of the same word. In past days I have associated no sinister poison in the titles of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, or the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, but I see that I must stop using the word propaganda "when I mean the imparting of true knowledge. I wholeheartedly believe that it is the importing of true knowledge which will save the world from disaster, far more than the expenditure of an astronomical sum of millions of pounds on machines of so-called defence. Therefore once again—and I have done it before—I urge the Government to turn upside-down their policy of miserly economy in their overseas intelligence services, through the B.B.C. and through other channels. In my view, this is a field of the greatest opportunity of all, beside which all other international activities are puny and temporary.

It is tempting in this voyage, preceded by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, to call in at France, Germany, Belgium, Africa, Laos, Cuba, the Congo and South-East Asia. But I shall leave it to others to put in at these countries. For myself, shall pass for just a brief time to China, which was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. For all their loyal dissimulation—and by that I think I mean loyalty to our great Ally across the Atlantic—I cannot and do not believe that this Government of enlightened Conservatives, boasting, like the Labour Party, that they become more and more liberal as time goes on (and I am glad to know that there is plenty of time for them to develop), regard the United Nations Organisations as a world club to which China specifically and uniquely must not be admitted. The whole concept of the United Nations is barren and futile unless all members—all the great Powers—whether in sympathy or out of sympathy, are partners in a universal and interlocking chain of intended protection against international tragedies. Yet that vast country of 600 million Chinese people is virtually ostracised.

I will touch on only three small points beyond this obvious absurdity and leave it at that. First, it is possible, I think your Lordships will agree, and even likely. that within a comparatively short time—say, 50 or 100 years—unless the rest of the nations amend their attitude, China, spurned, unguided, and with the seeds of resentment sown as they have been now for many years, may well become the completely dominant Power in this world to which the whole of the civilised and uncivilised will be subservient, or worse. That is a likelihood more than a mere imagination. Secondly, the untouched, or nearly untouched, potential of vast and profitable trade with China is enormous. Why should our merchants and our industry, with their great tradition of the old China trade, be hamstrung and debarred from developing to the tremendous advantage of world trade, this gold mine of possibilittes or of certainties?

My third small point is this. Bluntly, there are to-day hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of human beings in China who are dying of famine. At the same time, in other parts of the world, masses of foodstuffs are rotting and going to waste, for reasons which equally do not matter. I beg the Government to take steps to put these two things together (as I think was suggested in this House last week by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd) and to act urgently and internationally in the name of sheer humanity to get this tragedy alleviated.

My Lords, I have only two more quite short points to mention. First, the Common Market, about which I shall not go into detail. In my opinion. we have blundered badly in allowing what are ultimately superficial and obsolescent reasons to keep us out of the Common Market—the Six. That organisation, founded with some doubt, some apprehension and trepidation, has turned out to be totally successful, and is going from strength to strength. Quite frankly, we are left, with our partners in the Outer Seven, out in the cold. I think it is too late to bargain our way in, with reservations and qualifications. Either we face a permanent position of increasing and serious disadvantage outside the Common Market, or we make immediately every effort to be included.

It is obvious, I think, that Germany has become the dominantly prosperous member of the Six, and I have no doubt that this is a matter of considerable apprehension both to France and to Belgium, both of which countries have other grave preoccupations. And I have a strong intuition that Germany herself is in some embarrassment at this stage—I emphasise "at this stage"—to find herself in this unexpected position of resented superiority. In a short time her modesty may have passed, and then it will be too late to seize our opportunity for being accepted as a balancing power, which present circumstances, I should have thought, to some degree indicate. I urge that we take immediately all steps to gain admission to the Common Market of Europe.

Finally, may I say just a general word about nuclear armament, which I think comes under the scope of this Motion. My Lords, nuclear warfare is so horrible and so evil that one cannot withhold sympathy from those who would abjure it at all costs—sympathy, not agreement. I do not think I have the noble Lord, Lord Dalton, with me, but I would say that unfortunately the greatest price which any man can pay for his belief—his deepest and dearest belief—is his own human life; and in the past this has frequently been given with honour and with admiration from others. But to-day even by giving his life he may thereby involve the sacrifice of other human lives whose expenditure he has no right to control. I have deep sympathy for the thinking, but not the unthinking, unilateralists, because it is, of course, the outlawing of all nuclear weapons which alone will bring back stability and sanity.

But while I think that in terms of moral justification, if any, and, more sordidly, in terms of capital expenditure, it is wrong, and incidentally quite beyond our means and pointless, for this country to maintain a private national deterrent, I can also only believe, with reluctance but with conviction, that realistically British unilateral disarmament in this over-material world, where of course all nations should disarm, would in fact and in the meantime increase rather than decrease the risk of war. So I am not a unilateralist to-day. We must be supporters of the communal Western deterrent.

My conscience about this is very unhappy because it cannot be clear in its dilemma; the choice is between great evil and less evil. But I hate to hear more and more about machines of death and destruction, paraded with pride and in boastful competition between country and country, against what seems to be a diminuendo of the utterly vital background music of wholesale, multilateral, nuclear disarmament throughout the world. All Governments are blameworthy in soft-pedalling the one and giving too much prominence to the other. I beg our Government to guide the great forces which are at its command, and which are subject to its great influence in other lands, towards a far greater emphasis on the real objective, and to try to curb that perverted urge towards power competition which has developed from the nationalism which is behind us and whose old origin really lies in primitive fear.

4.15 p.m.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME)

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has once more moved a Motion on Foreign Affairs as he has done to the general acceptance of this House for many years, and to-day again he has done it with his usual care and moderation. He has raised a number of questions to which I shall respond in the course of what I have to say; and I shall hope, too, to prove that the exhortation which the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has addressed to me has not fallen on deaf ears.

I should like to associate myself at once with what both Lord Henderson and Lord Rea have said about the new President of the United States. No man in the world carries a greater responsibility to-day, and our prayers and good wishes from this House will go out to him for a very successful term of office. I shall not be so bold as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and speculate about possible tendencies and changes in United States foreign policy. I thought he did a little stargazing. I would only say that the Prime Minister and I look forward very much to meeting Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Rusk in April. I think that meeting is well timed, because it will follow the Commonwealth Ministers' meeting and it will precede meetings which will be necessary with Russia and other Communist countries if the tensions of the world are to be lifted at all in 1961.

On the last occasion I made a speech in a Foreign Affairs debate in this House I tried to define the basic purposes of British foreign policy. At the risk of over simplification I am going to condense that to-day in this way: To create conditions abroad which will enable the nation to earn its living; to create conditions abroad which will enable the nation to defend its life; and to use our writ and influence, wherever they may run, to establish law and order as the only foundation for world peace.

For our island—and little has been said about this to-day—the first of those conditions, to create conditions abroad in which the nation may earn its living, is basic to everything. To earn our living in the 20th century is not as easy as it was for previous generations, with world markets becoming daily more competitive as countries become Indus-trialised. And although technology and machines have come to our rescue as a small nation, nevertheless the balance of age groups in our country to-day means that the burden of earning the nation's living is falling upon a reduced section of our population. Therefore our financial policies must be directed to giving the maximum stimulus to those who are earning the nation's living. Our trade and commercial policies must be concentrated and directed to those areas where market prospects are good, and our foreign policy must seek to create conditions of political stability so that trade may expand and fructify to the greatest possible advantage.

I will give one topical illustration. There are many reasons, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has just said, for coming closer to Europe. They lie in culture, in history and in politics. But one which has always appealed to me very strongly is this: that it holds out the prospect of a significant access of new wealth. That wealth is necessary, and indeed it is going to be essential if we are to fulfil the role which is expected of us, first by our Commonwealth colleagues and secondly by those countries of the Free World with whom we are allied. In another place yesterday this question of the nation's economy and the nation's wealth was most thoroughly debated. and I do not want to go over the ground again but simply to say this. We cannot continue to live with a situation in which our country fails to maintain its percentage of the expansion of the world's wealth, the world's trade. All our weight must be thrown into the scales on the side of policies which will expand production and free trade in the world. It will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that President Kennedy insisted upon a strong economy as the springboard for effective international policies in the 20th century; and what is true for America is a hundred times more true for this country, dependent almost entirely on its exports for its standard of life.

We have debated the condition of the N.A.T.O. Alliance so recently—an Alliance which we agreed was indispensable for the stability of Europe—that I am not going to say very much to-day about defending our life, except that with our world-wide interests (and the threat to security wherever it falls now is a threat of war) we need world-wide alliances. Fortunately, we have them not only in the N.A.T.O. Alliance but in C.E.N.T.O. and in S.E.A.T.O.; and although we may not be able to offer the military power which we had at the beginning of the present century, nevertheless what we can offer to the collective security of the world cannot be ignored. We are a nuclear power and we have nuclear armament in our own right. We have converted our conventional forces so that they are now highly mobile. In fact, in any undertaking in which we are asked to take our part in the field of collective security I think we can be of great use to our Allies.

Nor I think—and this was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rea—in these days when the instruments of international action are becoming increasingly political should we undervalue that section of our armoury. I agree with him that our experience through the centuries makes it possible for us, not only in Asia and in Africa but in the councils of the world, to exercise our influence, very often decisively, in the cause of world peace. Therefore, by closer association with Europe, by our partnership with the Commonwealth, by our contribution to collective security through our alliances, by making every use of the international organisations in the world, I believe we can play a decisive part in creating order and stability. That and peace are the first of British interests. Let us remember, it is no accident that Britain's greatest prosperity coincided with the period of the Pax Britannica.

As Lord Henderson's speech has shown, the road of the peacemaker in contemporary politics is rough. He referred to the Conference of Communist Parties in Moscow, and he said that that Conference had concluded that world war was not inevitable for the victory of Communism in the world. So far, so good. But simultaneously we were told in the Conference communiqué that, short of war, every device was to be used which would weaken the structure of what were called the "imperialistic" countries—what we call the West. In a world in which there are countries on every rung of the ladder of economic and political advance, there are bound to be difficulties and tensions and situations which can be exploited. The choice before the world is just this: whether in this dangerous age other countries are going to exploit internal situations when they arise, or whether they are going to come together and try by positive cooperation to resolve them. For instance, it is for Mr. Khrushchev to say whether he is going to use the Laotians, the Congolese and the Cubans as pawns in the cold war, or whether, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, suggested, he is going to open a new chapter of real co-existence.

Our hopes were raised after the Moscow communiqué which said that war was unnecessary; but they were lowered again when, on January 6, Mr. Khrushchev made a very important speech, which I hope all your Lordships will read, when he said, among other things: There will be liberation wars as long as imperialism and colonialism exist". And then again: Communists will support just such wars and march in the front ranks of the peoples waging a liberation struggle". Or again, his definition of "peaceful coexistence" as A form of intense economic. political and idealogical struggle between the proletariat and the aggressive forces of imperialism in the world arena". As the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. truly said, our hopes were raised when the airmen of the R.B.47 were released. That was a good thing because it was a gesture to President Kennedy. It was a good thing because the men were released from prison. It is a good thing when the captains of the opposing teams agree; it is good for the teams and for the spectators. But it was immediately followed by a speech by Mr. Suzlov who selected and underlined the aggressive and offensive conclusions of the Moscow Conference. So, while I am for Lord Rea's suggestion that we should open up a new chapter and that there should he a new deal, I must put the dilemma of the peacemaker fairly before him. If co-existence is going to be interpreted as not only countenancing but advocating subversion and exploitation of nationalism, poisoning the international mind and disrupting law and order, how then are we to arrive at the settlement which we all so genuinely and passionately desire? That is the dilemma we are in.

I want to see the differences between East and West settled in an atmosphere of calm and reasoning, and it is my strongest hope that the propaganda war to which Lord Rea referred will be cancelled. But if the Russians decide to proceed with it, then it is only fair that I should give this warning: that the West cannot allow their case to go by default.

LORD REA

My Lords, is the noble Earl referring to propaganda in its bad sense or its good sense?

THE EARL OF HOME

No doubt the Russians think that this is propaganda in its good sense, but the definition of peaceful co-existence which I have just quoted is propaganda in what I think most people of reason and fair mind would agree was the bad sense. Do not let us delude ourselves. This propaganda is directed first of all against British colonial policy. The noble Lord asked me whether I was talking of propaganda in the bad sense. I will tell him what I have gleaned from my readings, because it is my duty to read these things day in and day out. It is that that prejudice has been carried so far in this matter of colonialism that in the Communists' minds to-day unless a new nation is hostile to the West it is not regarded as truly independent; in other words, hostility to the West is regarded as a criterion of true independence.

With 600 million Commonwealth witnesses to our liberal Colonial policies, I am simply not prepared to see our country become the victim of a "frame-up" for a crime which we have never committed and which we have no intention of committing. Therefore, with all the goodwill in the world towards Russia, I must give notice that if that campaign is to be continued then false charges will be met wherever they are made and counter-attacks will be delivered wherever they are justified. I must impress upon your Lordships that unless that is done we shall lose the cold war, and we shall lose our political influence and all our ability to influence world events.

If by our determination to sustain the balance of nuclear power—and I believe this is largely the reason for the change in the Communist mind—we have proved to them that world war is unprofitable, then I suggest that our next two tasks are to prove to the Communist bloc that limited war is too dangerous and must be abandoned as an instrument of policy, and that their one-sided interpretation of peaceful co-existence should give place to a more constructive attitude to international relations. As the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said, it would be a good idea if we started in Laos. I suggest that it must be in the interests of the Soviet Union as much as of ourselves and of the S.E.A.T.O. Allies and the countries of South-East Asia that the fighting should end; because the longer the lighting in Laos continues, the greater danger there is of a wider conflict. And who can say where that will end?

The House is familiar with the 1954 Geneva Agreement to which China and Russia subscribed, the essence of which was that Laos should be unaligned in its policy. We thought then, and we believe now, that that is the right policy. I am not going into the reasons—the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, gave one version—why the Geneva Agreement collapsed. As I have said in a letter to Mr. Gromyko, it is not the past that matters in this crisis; it is what we do in future, and how we do it. It is necessary, in our opinion, first, quickly to secure a cease-fire, and secondly, to consider how the situation of neutrality which was gained by the 1954 Geneva Agreement can be restored, either in Laos itself or under the wider area suggested by Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia. There is wide agreement (and I have consulted a number of countries in my capacity as co-chairman with Mr. Gromyko) that the most practical step is to send back the International Control Commission; and to send it back now. For that it would not be necessary to work out new and elaborate terms of reference, nor to summon a conference. But when that has been done, when the Commission has gone to Laos and reported back, then, we suggest, would he the time when we should consider together if any further steps are needed. But the main thing to do is to try to stop the fighting; and stop it quickly.

Britain's sole interest in Laos is law and order and that the country should be independent. We seek no advantage for ourselves there, and I can certainly speak for ourselves, the United States and the S.E.A.T.O. Alliance when I declare that we seek there no forward base for the Alliance as an offensive base against the Communist world. I trust, therefore, that Mr. Gromyko will respond. Every day we withhold the International Control Commission from Laos and miss the opportunity of a cease-fire, we incur an increasingly heavy responsibility.

The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said—and of course he was right—that the stability of South-East Asia is affected by what happens to Communist China. He also raised the question of the seating of Communist China in the United Nations. One must admit that a country which has lately smothered Tibet, is infringing India's frontiers and rejecting all attempts at conciliation, and which has publicly proclaimed its belief in the necessity of war, has few of the credentials of a peace-loving nation in the United Nations. All that is true. Nevertheless, we have always felt, and we feel now, that the facts of international life require that Communist China should be seated in the United Nations. As the noble Lord said, we can make no progress with disarmament unless China is there. I do not know whether we can make very much progress if she is, but that remains to be seen. But the United Kingdoms position is plain and consistent. We recognise Communist China and we have our representative there. We have supported the moratorium in the debates on whether or not Communist China should be seated in the United Nations. because the choice, until now, has been between the admission of Communist China and the break-up of the United Nations. So long as that was the choice there was only one answer. It is for the United States to say, in their own time, what their attitude will be; but, of course, we are in close touch and our approach to this problem is well-known to them.

As in Laos, so in the Congo. The sole interest of our country in the Congo is order and stability, so that the Congolese should enjoy a United Congo, free from intervention from outside, free from exploitation in the cold war. I will not retrace again the story of the collapse of the Congo régime, but I would remind your Lordships that if the attempt of the Russians to establish themselves in the Congo had succeeded —and your Lordships will remember that it was condemned by the United Nations Assembly by 70 votes to none— there would now be an East-West armed frontier in the Congo on the pattern of Korea.

There have been a great many critics of United Nations actions in the Congo and the way those operations have been conducted, but I would remind your Lordships of three achievements which must not be discounted. First, external intervention has been prevented except on the most limited scale. Secondly, Katanga Province has not declared its independence—and, of course, a United Congo depends on Katanga being part of the Federation; Mr. Kasavubu has called a round-table conference and is making progress, I think, towards an agreed solution. Thirdly. the tragedy of starvation which affected whole provinces in the Congo has been averted by the United Nations Organisation.

There are some terrible and testing problems ahead. There is the problem of the units of the Congo Army who have broken away from authority, particularly in Stanleyville. There is the 'problem of the condition of the whole Army under Mr. Kasavubu which, your Lordships will remember, never had an opportunity to be trained for their widespread national responsibilities. Some of these matters are now before the Security Council and I do not want to "cross the wires"; but I do not think there should be any question of imposing a solution upon the Congo !by force or that the Congo should be treated as anything but an independent State. The role of the United Nations is to help the Congolese to solve their political problems, and I believe that that should be possible. It should be possible to work out an agreed scheme, for instance, in respect of the army, where the army was reconstituted to work in the closest cooperation with the United Nations Command, and, in the second place, to provide an army which would function, after the United Nations had withdrawn, in a united Federal State of the Congo.

I should like, my Lords, to say one word about the position of the Belgians and the Belgian intervention. If the Belgian civilians had not stayed at their posts in industry it would not have been a few Provinces, it would have been the whole nation of the Congo that would have starved. The wreckage could not have been rebuilt in a generation. But we have made clear to the Belgians, our friends and Allies, that once the military and para-military personnel had been withdrawn we thought they should not be returned, and that such restraint was essential if there was to be a settlement. The Belgians have made it publicly clear that they do not approve of military personnel returning to the Congo. I think I can claim that we have dealt honourably with the Congo and that we have dealt honourably with the United Nations. We shall do our best to see that the United Nations effort succeeds. If the cold war can be kept away from the Congo, then Africa can breathe again.

There are, as both noble Lords said, other fields in which we are anxious to meet the Russians and agree on constructive action. There is the Conference on nuclear tests. I am certain that if the Russians show themselves genuine in their desire to abolish nuclear tests it should be possible to reach very rapid agreement. So far as general disarmament is concerned, the recess in the United Nations Assembly has given everybody time for reflection. It is rapidly becoming apparent that, if only for reasons of national solvency, even the greatest nations and Powers in the world will have to seek relief from the burden of modern armaments. That is becoming imperative for all nations. Here there are two points only that I would wish to make. The first is that we can go on talking about the principles of disarmament for ever. What we have to do is to get back round the table, to identify the difficulties, and to remove them if we possibly can. So far as a practical working body to do that is concerned, our attitude is flexible and we are perfectly willing to discuss what form that body should take.

Then again, if the main Russian objection to the Western proposal (this was indicated by the noble Lord. Lord Henderson) is that there is too much concentration on control, and that physical disarmament is too little and too slow, then I would make it plain that once we are in a position to start disarmament it is our intention that that process should be continuous. If we have talked in terms of stages that is really only realistic; the stages should be dovetailed into each other so that the result is a programme of disarmament at once continuous and comprehensive. My Lords, I hope that I have made it clear that whenever and wherever the Soviet Union wish to resume co-operation we shall be alert and eager to respond.

One of the reasons, it was said, for having the Foreign Secretary in the Lords was that he might have time to think. I confess that I find abstract thought much the most exhausting of my occupations. But I have tried to use your Lordships' debates, rather shamelessly I am afraid, to put the facts of the international position before the people and to convince them that the degree of international authority which Britain can wield is in the hands of the people themselves. It is by their work and their earnings that they can decide the influence which we shall wield in the world. We have led our Colonies to self-government and independence; and that was right. But our writ no longer, therefore, runs unchallenged in the world. No less wisely, and with no less success, we have been twice in this century in the front line against tyranny. We have lost much of our wealth and much of our financial power. These are facts with which we must come to terms. But I want to enlist Parliament's aid to convince each individual in the country that if he turns his hand in earnest to expanding the wealth of this country and earning a greater income overseas, then the United Kingdom can remain a first-class Power with sufficient power to exercise authority and to bring influence to bear in every part of the international field.

The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said the other day that he felt we should provide a purpose in our foreign policy and a goal for our people; and I, too, have been looking for the key which might unlock their enthusiasm. I think it is true to say that the vision of Empire, which inspired our people, and to which Lord Gladwyn referred, grew out of work by many thousands in the field in the Colonial Empire—work which had in it an element of self-interest, but of service and of sacrifice too. Out of work for other countries which we ruled and which we directed, there grew the vision of an Empire which was contagious and infected the nation. They looked at the results and they saw that they were good: They worked for them because they thought they were providing something for the good of mankind.

In this world we no longer rule as we did, and we no longer direct the affairs of peoples as we did, and therefore inevitably we must change something of our habit of thought and of our action. This is not for us only, for us alone. In this nuclear age, so it seems to me, the world will be compelled to change its thinking and its values. At present there is an outburst of nationalism in the world. But, my Lords, I think pit must be a last and defiant fling, because we all know that, whereas once it was possible to live apart, it is no longer possible to do so. Unless, in fact, we succeed in agreeing to live together none of us will live at all.

I am not going to pursue that thought very much further to-day, except to suggest this. The British have been pioneers in this business of living with and working with other people; pioneers in Asia and Africa and generally overseas. If we have, as I believe we have, a genius for that human relationship, then in a world in which the watchwords must inevitably be "partnership" and "independence" we should have a great role to play—partnership with the Commonwealth, partnership with Europe, partnership with the United States and with our Allies. I do not believe that that is too ambitious a role for Britain to play. Here, in this field there is enough work, I believe, to enlist the energies of our people and, I believe, a theme to capture the imagination of the nation.

4.48 p.m.

EARL ATTLEE

My Lords, my old friend Lord Henderson gave us one of those thoughtful speeches that have really set the line for this debate. I thought that in this House there was a common realisation that now was a period for a new start. I do not mean a new start for any old estimation of Mr. Khrushchev's declaration that no longer do the Communists believe that a world war is inevitable. At the same time, it does seem to me to make a great difference. Some people seem to think that because the Communists declare their invincible hostility to the Western way of life even though they do not mean to carry on a war, the latter statement is somehow neutralised by the first and made ineffective. I do not think so. I think it is a great advance; that we are moving away from the war field to the ideological field; and I have not the least fear of the West meeting them in argument provided—and this is the proviso—that we put as much enthusiasm into the mission of our way of life as do the Communists. It is never any good underestimating your enemies. It is no good blinking the fact that Hitler's supporters had an enthusiasm for their evil cause, and it is no good blinking the fact that many of the Communists are devoted to their cause; and when we come to the carrying on of this fight on the ideological plane, we must show as much enthusiasm as do our enemies.

Now what does that mean? Let us look at various parts of the world to-day. There is the United Nations. That is a gathering of all sorts of nations. It is useless to pretend that the United Nations consists solely of pure-souled, unaggressive States. It is a mixture of all kinds. I can never see the objection to bringing in the Chinese. They are certainly no worse than the Russians. Anyway, they have never been allowed into the "club", so you cannot expect them to keep the rules. The others are, so to speak. people who ought to have seen the light: Communist China has not. By all means bring them in. There is in the United Nations a mixture of all kinds, virtuous and non-virtuous, just as there is in one of our own countries. The fact that not all of us are good citizens does not detract from our country. It is, in fact, a microcosm of the world in which we live, and we have to face that fact. But we in this country, although we consist of all kinds and conditions and sorts of men, do make an effective community of law and order, even though there are breaches of it. With U.N.O., our object must be to make it an effective instrument of law and order.

Now it may be said that the Communists have not any interest in law and order. But they have an interest in not having another world war and in not seeing their achievements other world war; and it is possible to see that they, too, if they believe in their ideology, have as much interest as ourselves in there being general law and order in the world. They might, therefore, be willing to make the United Nations effective as a world organisation in which they can carry on their propa- ganda. Doubtless their propaganda will be distasteful to us, but our propaganda is equally distasteful Ito them. Every time there are defections from Russia, every time it is found that people with free minds cannot live in that atmosphere, that must have its effect on the power of the régime in Russia. Moreover, it is useless to expect that, in departing from the cold war to a dangerous hot war, we are likely to end the contest between two rival ways of life. In fact, peace may be brought about without either of the contestants giving up their views. Take, for instance, the Thirty Years War. When the peace of Westphalia came—unsatisfactory, probably, to most—there was peace, but that did not mean that either the Catholics or the Protestants had departed from their ideology. It meant only that the contest continued; and we expect this contest to continue.

But we come to a rather different matter when we consider our own position, and it is important that the West, the free nations, should have as much sense of mission as have the Communists. I think that we have chinks in our armour. I have always thought it unfortunate that our American friends had such very curious protégés for a democratic country. I did not think that they were examples of a democracy. But then, we also have chinks in our own armour. It strikes the world a little odd that the British Commonwealth should contain the Union of South Africa, with its present policy. It is not just a matter of internal politics: it affects the whole of this question. And while I am well aware that, on a formal agenda for a Commonwealth Conference, you do not deal with the internal affairs of another member State, it is quite possible for the assembled Prime Ministers to make it perfectly clear to the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa that he does. to put it shortly, let the side down; that it weakens our moral position in the world. I hope that that will be made clear to him.

As I see it, we are still very much in the experimental stage in attaining that world order of which the Foreign Secretary spoke. There are lessons which ought to be learnt from the Congo. One of them is that a hurriedly assembled force of national troops does not form a good instrument for the preservation of law and order. The United Nations might consider again proposals which were put forward a long time ago by Lord Davies, backed by Sir Winston Churchill and many other people—small people like myself—for a real international force. If, in this crisis, the United Nations had had at hand a really international force, recruited as individuals. without national loyalties, we might have had much more effective intervention in the Congo. It would be the same in Laos and anywhere in the world. I should like to see a much stronger lead given by our Government to making the United Nations an effective instrument for world order, having at its hand world courts and an international force.

There is a point that I should like to make again, and that is the need for enthusing our people. You do not enthuse people merely by talking about the preservation of law and order; you want something more positive than that. In recent years there has been a danger of a kind of wishful thinking—that we are all going to be very comfortable; a kind of hedonistic outlook ranging from red meat to commercial television. In the years of the war, and after the war, there was a much greater sense of purpose in our people. I think that that has been lost.

My last word would be with regard to the position of our international relations at this time. I wish all success to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary when they meet Mr. Kennedy and the members of the new Government of America, which I, like others, welcome. But I wonder whether it is not time that we turned to the old-fashioned method of diplomacy. When I was young we did not have peripatetic Prime Ministers; Prime Ministers stayed at home, unless they went to Wiesbaden, or somewhere like that. We did not even have peripatetic Foreign Ministers. They stayed at home, too. The work was done by the very able members of the diplomatic corps. The great advantage of that method is that you were not always at the last stage.

I think a certain amount of personal contact, especially in assemblies like the United Nations, is all to the good. It is good that statesmen should know each other. But for a Foreign Secretary to be called overseas on all kinds of occasions, gives an atmosphere of excitement. It gives the newspapers something to point to as a crisis. Foreign Secretaries should be brought in at the second stage, when things are getting a bit difficult for the ordinary diplomats. And lastly—and this must he kept completely till the final stage and not before—the Prime Ministers. We should not make our final instruments too common. Looking at that in a world when, although we are continuing to have a cold war we are not, I hope, going to have a hot war, and when we hope that international relations will ease somewhat, I believe we should ask ourselves whether it would not be better to get back to a rather more impersonal plane. After all, we are democratic people and can never put forward our Prime Ministers as Khrushchevs or Titos, or even Eisenhowers. They are members of a team, neither Presidents nor dictators. Therefore, my Lords, I think it might be of advantage in future months if we saw a return to the old-style diplomacy.

5.3 p.m.

EARL WINTERTON

My Lords, if your Lordships will permit me, I should like to begin on a personal note. I have always felt, both in your Lordships' House and in another place, that if there is a two-day debate anyone who has the privilege of taking part on the first day should be present on the second. I cannot be present to-morrow because I am flying overseas and I cannot alter my passage.

My other observations of a personal character are these. I feel honoured to follow four such distinguished speakers as those to whom we have just listened. I find myself in considerable agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, to whom the Foreign Secretary has very properly paid a tribute for the moderation and sense of occasion with which he always introduces Foreign Affairs debates, although I shall have something of a derogatory nature to say about some of his observations concerning the United Nations. I thought I had better tell him that; and although he might find tea more palatable than my speech, he may like to hear what I have to say. My last observation of a personal character is this. I do not know whether I am becoming effusive in my old age (I used to be very offensive when I was young), but I hope the Foreign Secretary will not think I am effusive when I say—and I think I speak for other noble Lords on this side—that he has delivered one of the finest speeches on foreign affairs which we have had in this House, and one which I think will do a great deal of good in the world.

My Lords, I intended to-day to be rather provocative on the subject of the Government's failure, till now, to allow an opportunity to discuss the Congo, but in view of the fact that we now have that opportunity I do not propose to make the provocative observations which I was going to make. However, I do wish to ask one or two questions about the Congo which I do not think have been fully answered by the Government. Before doing so, I should like to make two preliminary observations. Nothing that I may say in criticism of the behaviour of some of the Congolese must be taken as a criticism of what I think can be generically termed the Negritic peoples of Africa as a whole. I have had the experience, as have others of your Lordships, of knowing Africa, both from a farm I had in Rhodesia and during shooting expeditions in other quarters. Though the people differ widely from tribe to tribe, they are, in general, a cheerful, humorous, good-natured people, who serve with great faithfulness any European employer whom they like. But it should always be remembered (and it is not always remembered) that there has never been what might be called a cultural civilisation south of a certain point in Africa— not an indigenous one. The only civilisation which has been brought to them has come either from Islam or from Christian-European sources.

I hope none of my African friends—and I have some—will be offended if I say that, always in the background of the African's mind, is an intense tribal loyalty. Of course, tribal loyalty, though it has its good qualities, is not based on European democracy. There is also the tear of the witch doctor. Your Lordships may have heard on the wireless a most interesting story, broadcast the other day, about a highly-qualified and trained nursing sister in South Africa, who nursed in an African hospital. She had come over here to be trained and had obtained every sort of certificate that can be obtained in the nursing profession. She was most highly sought after. She went back to the hospital, and the resident medical officer, or someone else. told her that she was suffering from some serious disease and must have an operation. Suddenly she disappeared, and it was afterwards ascertained that she had gone to consult a witch doctor before she had the operation. I think that story is relevant to a consideration of a problem like that of the Congo.

Before I come to the three questions which I am going to ask Her Majesty's Government, I should like to make one other reference to a personal matter, in a sense. I do not wish to criticise Mr. Hammarksjoeld. I think he has made some mistakes, but I am sure most of us who have watched his career belieye him to be a man of the utmost intelligence and integrity who has had an extremely difficult part to play, and I do not think we should criticise him. But I must say I was rather surprised at one apparent illogicality during one of his recent tours when he visited South Africa. May I just say here, in parenthesis, that I rather regret, as I think do others on this side of the House, the reference of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, to the South African Government, because I do not think it is likely to do any good; but that is a matter, of course, for his own responsibility.

Your Lordships will be aware that Mr. Hammarskjoeld paid a visit to South Africa, I think ostensibly to inquire into the South West African problem, but in fact he wished to acquaint himself with the operations of apartheid. At the very moment when he was making these investigations, the State of Louisiana had, through the action of what could only be described as something like mob rule, made it very difficult for negro children to attend white schools. It seems to me very odd but, if I may say so, typical of the illogicality of British thought that we hear so much about apartheid in South Africa and so little about segregation in the Southern States, where in many respects coloured people are treated far worse than they are in South Africa. And I have not heard that Mr. Hammarskjoeld has gone to the Southern States. I am a very humble person, and I do not wish to say anything to embarrass the Kennedy Administration, for whom have a high regard, but I hope that they will have nothing to say at the United Nations about apartheid in South Africa, because that, indeed, would be the pot calling the kettle black.

Now I would ask three questions which I have wanted to put to the Government for a long time. The first concerns the appalling atrocities which occurred in the Congo just after independence. I have been in touch with the Belgian Embassy, who have afforded me all the information at their disposal, and, as was stated in the Press at the time, something like 100 women were raped by Congolese, sometimes in the presence of their children, and I believe that a number of young boys were emasculated. That was a terrible state of affairs. Here is a fact which, so far as I know, has not been fully disclosed in this country. Some of the people who committed these crimes (and perhaps I should say, in parenthesis, that they are not worse than the crimes committed by the Nazis in Germany or by the Russians in Vienna, so I do not want to make a general charge against Africans, as I have already said) were in possession of pieces of paper, for which they paid a small sum of money to extremists, telling them that when independence came they would be given possession of European houses, European cattle and European women, and in committing these crimes they believed that they were doing what they were entitled to do.

In this debate, we are not concerned with the Colonies, but I think that it is legitimate to say, in parenthesis, that the Europeans in Kenya, who are already very much upset because they believe that what they call Macleodism is ruining their economy, are further upset because they have heard and have evidence of similar documents being sold in Kenya to Africans, telling them that they can do the same thing. I do not think that they really need worry, because if any such action were taken against Europeans in Kenya, either after the Election or at any time, if the British Government did not immediately resume control and, if necessary, fly in troops from this country, the harsh wind of change would not only blow Mr. Macleod out of the Colonial Office but chill the Prime Minister himself to the bone; and I am sure that there is no danger of that occurring. But I think it is right to mention that people are very much concerned at the resemblances between the two situations.

At the time of these outrages against Belgian women and children, many of us felt desperately sorry for the Belgian people as a whole, who, after all, have been our allies in two wars and are a most gallant people, and we deeply resented the attacks made on them from certain quarters in this country. A disgraceful attack came from one quarter, which I will not mention, because the very mention of the person's name makes me angry, suggesting that: the Belgians were themselves to blame for these outrages because of their treatment of the Congolese prior to independence. That is exactly the argument which was used by the Nazis for killing the Jews—that the Jews had behaved badly in the past.

The first question I should like to ask is this. Was any expression of sympathy sent, publicly or privately, to the Belgian Government by Her Majesty's Government? I have not read in any of the speeches made by members of the Government such expressions of sympathy. I think that they should be sent, even at long last, because it was a terrible thing to have happened and naturally it has upset the Belgian nation very much. Incidentally, the B.B.C. and one or two newspapers have made a point of attacking the Belgians. I think that some of the talks on the B.B.C. have been very unfair. One report described the Belgians as having "scuttled" out of the Congo. Well, we could be described by our enemies as among the greatest scuttlers there are in the world. We scuttled out of India, with the result that nearly five million people were killed. We scuttled out of the Sudan, with the result that the Southern tribes suffered under considerable terror from the new Government. And we scuttled out of a number of other places. But in the case of both Belgium and ourselves, the reason for so doing was plain: the difficulty of a European Power carrying on colonial rule on the old scale.

There is one other unpleasant feature of the situation to which I wish to make reference. At the time of the Sharpeville shooting, which I agree was a deplorable event, there were loud denunciations by a number of individuals in this country and especially by a body which I think is termed the Council for Christian Action. They held a meeting and attacked the South African Government. So far as I am aware, not a single word has been said by this body or by any of those who protested against the Sharpeville shooting to protest against the far greater outrages committed against these Belgian women. If I am wrong, no doubt now that the attention of the Council has been called to the matter by a speech in your Lordships' House they will correct me. If I am right and they have made no public or private expression of sympathy, all I can say to the Council of Christian Action, is: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites !". I think it is a terrible thing that one action should be condemned and the other uncondemned.

I turn from that to ask my second question, which concerns incidents which have been reported again and again by the British Press of the United Nations troops looking on passively when outrages have been committed against both Europeans and other Africans. I asked my noble friend the Foreign Secretary a Question on this matter and, if I may say so with respect, for once I thought that he was unduly reticent. I want to know whether our representatives at the United Nations have called attention to this extraordinary conduct. To what is it due? Is it due to the indiscipline of these pockets of African troops? Is it due to the instructions received from the Security Council or from the General Assembly? We have heard tributes paid to the United Nations to-day, but surely no one can commend a situation where troops, supposed to be there to preserve law and order, allow outrages against law and order to occur under their very eyes. I hope that, when the Minister replies, should he find time to refer to my speech, he will tell us what is the explanation of this.

I now come to my last question, and that is about the famine. I know that your Lordships always make allowance for any indignation that any of us may show over a matter on which we feel deeply. Certainly I feel deeply about this famine, and if I display undue indignation I hope that your Lordships will forgive me. I think that the behaviour of the United Nations in this respect is absolutely deplorable. It was known as long ago as last summer that Baluba tribesmen refugees were dying at the rate of something like 200 a day. The matter was hardly referred to in the British Press. Then, later on, the British Press, much to its credit, sent a special correspondent to investigate, and paper after paper, both Right and Left, called attention to the deplorable situation. Then, and only then, did the United Nations take effective action. A most fatuous and futile defence of the United Nations was made by Professor Ritchie Calder on B.B.C. Television. He said that it was difficult to get at the facts; that they had only a small number of United Nations officials out there, and so on. Incidentally, Professor Ritchie Calder has been engaged in a ferocious controversy with a very qualified reporter, the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, Mr. Douglas Brown, over this and other matters.

I should like to ask the Minister whether Her Majesty's Government agree or do not agree that this could have been prevented if the United Nations had taken action earlier. There is a charge made by Mr. Brown, incidentally—and I hope the Government will look into it—that even to-day there has been some interference by United Nations officials with the Red Cross authorities. Had the International Red Cross, which is an admirable body, been advised of these matters last August. they could have saved thousands of lives. One noble Lord (I think it may have been Lord Henderson) said in the course of the debate that lives are now being saved; but I understand that these people are still dying off rapidly, although not so many of them as was the case before. I hope that every effort will be made to prevent further deaths. I am glad to learn that a large sum of money has been sent from this country; and I think great credit is due to the Member of the other place, who is a personal friend of many of us on this side of the House, although a political opponent, Mr. James Griffiths, for what he has done in raising a large sum of money; I think that is most admirable.

I come now to my last point. I have made some criticism of the United Nations. I believe that an international body similar to the United Nations, but different in construction, is desirable. But I entirely agree with the view that has been expressed by what is known as the Beaverbrook Press: that the United Nations, in its present state, is not a help to peace, and retards rather than promotes peace. It is all very well for one noble Lord (I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Attlee) to say that it is a good thing that one should have every state of opinion expressed at the General Assembly. But surely nobody wants to see indecent behaviour of the kind which occurs at a tumultuous and disorderly public meeting in this country and such as occurred at the Assembly in the summer. Its very name is a misnomer: it is no longer "United Nations". It was originally formed of the nations which had fought successfully in the war. To-day it is a Dis-United Nations, and should be called a D-U.N.O. rather than a U.N.O.

As to the record of the United Nations, I have referred to some of the instances in the Congo. But what has been its record elsewhere? We are always being told of its action in the Korean war. But everybody knows that the real reason why intervention was possible there was because of the strong action of the United States, which we should commend. The United Nations did nothing about the massacres in Hungary; it has done nothing whatsoever to prevent the appalling massacre of, I think, 50,000 Tibetans. Here is a body which is supposed to promote universal peace and which is supposed to intervene to prevent peace from being disturbed. But what has happened? China has been allowed to invade Tibet, to kill 50,000 Tibetans and to subject them to a tyranny as terrible as any which the Nazis imposed in various countries or which is imposed in some Communist countries to-day.

Another great weakness about the United Nations (and here I am at one with, I think, every speaker who has preceded me) is that it does not include Communist China. It is fantastic to have a body of this kind without Communist China being included. There is a further thing which I think is fantastic about the present state of the United Nations. Small countries which have recently acquired independence, with a literate capacity among their population of no more than 10 per cent., ruled by men who have no experience of rule and are there mainly to line their own pockets. and who in some cases have immediately imposed a tyrannical totalitarian rule upon their people, are accepted almost with kisses on the cheek by the great Powers: "How wonderful that such and such a country has joined the United Nations! We welcome them." But what happens when they get there? These small countries abuse and insult the Western Powers; they use insulting language about great Powers like the United States, France and ourselves, with wonderful traditions, and then they refuse to pay their contributions. Dozens of them are in default (I asked a Question about this some time ago), and nothing is done about it. Nobody, neither the representative of the United States nor of this country, has risen to call attention to this matter. The whole position is really fantastic.

I would claim that what is needed is a reconstruction of the United Nations on a new basis, which would include China; which should have the right to decide which of the new emergent nations is fit to join and to make some conditions of membership. The Daily Express has put forward these views—though I do not agree with the view that there should be no such body—and there have been a few solitary voices, Of which mine is one, supporting them. Contemporary opinion is very much opposed to it; I suppose there is hardly a Member of your Lordships' House who agrees with what I have said on the subject.

LORD KILLEARN

I do.

EARL WINTERTON

But future historians may express astonishment at how blind we have been, in the years 1960 and 1961, to the imperfections and dangers of the United Nations. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, in a notable speech the other day, said something about our having lost our sense of mission. We have also in certain matters —and that of the present position of the United Nations is one—lost all sense of proportion and all sense of judgment. We go on repeating the same old shibboleths: that we must rely on the United Nations; we must rely on the concerted opinion of the nations. But everybody knows that there is no such concerted opinion and that the United Nations is a broken reed. Therefore, I very much hope—indeed, I think it is inevitable—that in the next few years we shall see a renovation of that body with a truly good organisation for the peace and prosperity of the world established in its place.

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, may I say this? He has made a very provocative speech. I think there is general sympathy for anybody who suffers ill-treatment in any political upheaval which takes place in the world. But I do not think there will be much sympathy for the rather sweeping attacks which the noble Earl—

EARL WINTERTON

Is the noble Lord making a speech, or what is he doing? I gave way because I thought he was going to ask me a question.

LORD SHEPHERD

I thought the noble Earl had sat down. The question I should like to ask him is this. He gave a warning as to the policy of Mr. Macleod. Surely the noble Earl will agree that the policy of Mr. Macleod is the policy of the Government—the Government he is supporting.

EARL WINTERTON

I have never heard a more irrelevant question. I made my attitude towards Mr. Macleod perfectly clear. Of course, the noble Lord is entitled to ask me a question, but I do not know why he asked me that one.

5.32 p.m.

LORD BEVERIDGE

My Lords, "the great work which lies before us all is to make democracy fit for its task". That observation was made by a former Prime Minister of this country, Stanley Baldwin, some 25 years ago. I need not apologise to any of my noble friends on this side of the House for taking the text of what I want to say from the other side. In fact, I owe my knowledge of this observation by Stanley Baldwin to this side, for it came to me first from a tear-off calender given to me by the widow of the late Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, and I should like to thank her for it. In spite of many researches I have failed to find that observation in any of the biographies or any of the speeches made by the late Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. I am not going to apologise for treating his word "all" as meaning not only the people of this country but the people of other countries. The international situation is, after all, a problem of national relations—an affair between nations.

The first thing that seems to me important in dealing with such a problem is to ask: what are the nations? What do they look like? What is their colour? On that there is a very important though simple point; that among the people of the world to-day there is one white person for every three non-white: the nonwhite ones being brown, red, yellow—everything, so far as I know, except blue. The figure of three to one is a rough figure. I take it for the moment, but I suspect that even now there is more than three to one, and all the forecasters on population say that there will be quite definitely more than three to one before this century ends—something like four to one before 2,000 A.D. The more one looks at the nations of the world, the more the need grows for getting in each a Government that is fit for its task.

Let me add three more things to my brief survey of the nations of the world. The first obvious fact is the division between the free countries and the Communist countries; between the democracies and the countries inspired by a desire to spread Communism—as strange and savage a religion as the world has ever known. Of course, there are neutral countries also, but those are largely the scene of conflict between the democracies and the Communist countries. That is the first important thing in this division of nations. Secondly, there is the growing passion for power and independence among non-white peoples, in Africa above all. Third, there is the fear of this power by whites where they are in many cases a hopeless minority. Those are the three points on which I should like to say a few words.

On the first, that of the division between Communists and democratic countries and the need to get peace between them, I say very little. I have said a good deal about how we can get peace between these rival ideas, and how to govern the world or govern the nations. I have already said it more than once. It is quite clear that natural science faces mankind with the choice between abolishing war and abolishing civilisation. Nothing short of total disarmament, enforced by a world authority with a world court and a world police force, enabling it to secure both disarmament and justice between nations when they differ, will meet our needs. I do not like to speak of international affairs without repeating, quite simply and with as much faith as ever, my faith in that doctrine: it is as great as ever it was. Co-existence or, rather, any existence of humanity must almost necessarily be peaceful, because if there is no peace the existence will largely come to an end. Quite recently the Soviet policy of arming non-white nations has added to the dangers of this world. I am happy to think that I need say even less about that, because of what everybody who heard it will agree was a quite admirable and moving speech made by the Foreign Secretary. With that all of us in this House cordially agree. Above all, I like what he said about the need to have world-wide alliances.

The second point is the growing desire for power and independence, above all in Africa. The text from Stanley Baldwin fits perfectly: before you have a Government you must be sure that the Government is fit for its task. Human beings are not born able to govern themselves or others. At birth they are not really able to do anything but cry, and all they learn by instinct as they grow up is not how to govern themselves or others, but how to make love. We British have taken more than 500 years to learn, by trial and error, something of good government. We have enjoyed a Parliament since 1295. The first time we had a good democratic Government was in 1832. In the centuries between there was endless fighting of all kinds between Scots and English, York and Lancaster, Stuarts and Cromwellians. There was ruling of the country by Kings and their favourites. There was power through wealth; there were intrigues getting rid of the powerful people, intrigues by other wealthy rivals, personal intrigues as vulgar as anything that can have happened in the Congo, or indeed in the Kremlin.

It took us all those years before we learned good government. I do not think we can afford to wait 500 years for the new Governments coming in Africa to learn their job. But they cannot learn it in a day; they must be taught that job, and must have all that pushed into them. No education of the people who are to be governed can be neglected. Some of your Lordships, no doubt, like myself, saw in the papers recently that one of these "tuppenny Hitters" of the Congo said how fantastic it was to suppose that the United Nations could disarm him: he, being new to arms, being ready for killing, was going on arming in face of all the evil that took place.

Then I come, lastly, to the fear by white people of danger from non-whites with their three to one—or greater—majority. That, of course, comes about essentially in Colonies where white people have gone to colonise a country occupied by others. In the British view, Colonies should end always in independence, and we have always set out to educate the people of those countries to which we went with colonists to govern themselves. I believe that there is no question that in that we have done great good to such countries as India, and many others—good only because we passed on to them independence. I do not think other people have been so successful in that. I do not think the Belgians in the Congo were tyrants, but I believe that they did not educate the people of the Congo as we tried, and succeeded, in educating those in India.

In another part of Africa, South Africa, there has arisen recently the rather difficult problem of apartheid. The movement of apartheid, of segregating whites and non-whites as completely as possible in all South Africa, arose in 1948. It arose, let me say at once, when it was accepted and carried after a General Election which gave a majority to the Party which fought for apartheid. One cannot say that they forced it on the voters; they obtained a great majority for it. The first thing that Party did, after winning their victory, was to establish separate coaches for whites and non-whites on the suburban railway; and almost their last act has been to forbid non-whites to use the beach for bathing when there were any whites near. I am not at this point going to say anything critical of that action. The beginning of apartheid, I think, was due rather to dislike than to fear; but now, I suggest, the example of the Congo emphasises the need, in one way or another, to make it safe for white people surrounded by masses of non-whites far more numerous than they.

I suggest that the way to safety lies, among other things, in education, in the treatment of universities. Until 1957 although some of the universities of South Africa segregated whites from nonwhites, they had two or three very good universities which made no distinction, which were open to whites and to nonwhites equally, both as teachers and as students. The universities at Cape Town and Johannesburg: were, in essence, like our own universities in Britain in disregarding race and colour, as they were like our own universities in absolute self-government and freedom from Governmental control. I believe that some of the best things we have in this country are our universities, with that freedom and that disregard of race or colour, opening the chance of education to any person on his abilities alone.

I myself have had the chance of learning more about them than most people, through the accident of going from the College of Balliol and its many dark men, to the London School of Economics, with its hundreds of people of all colours gathered there together. I rejoice to think that, though few people but myself have had that joint experience, the two most important people to me in the world to-day, our present Prime Minister, Mr. Macmillan, and the new President of the United States, Mr. Kennedy, have combined those two experiences, for Mr. Macmillan, the present Prime Minister, was at Balliol: Mr. Kennedy was at the London School of Economics. So I think they will have the right attitude to the way they should act.

Unfortunately, the South African Government have now introduced an Act limiting all the existing universities to white teachers and students and establishing for all people of colour new university colleges of an extraordinary nature. I must say a few words about them, because, frankly, what the Government there are doing seems to me so absurd. I am interested mainly in the fact that they propose to stop the practice by which the open universities have been free to choose their people according only to their ability in teaching and study, without regard to colour. The universities protested, and soon afterwards there was in London a great gathering of representatives of universities literally from all over the world—from the Commonwealth and from many other countries—which passed unanimously resolutions against anything like apartheid or Governmentl control applied to universities. I hope that the new scheme in South Africa will be altered, in the interests of South Africa and its peace nd education and good government alone.

The alternative of universities for the coloured people seems to me fantastic. There are to be new university colleges each for a separate tribe or race. The Zulus are to be based in Zululand, the Xhosas somewhere near East London, and the Sothos in Northern Transvaal. For some reason or another, the Indians are to be put on an island—I suppose so that they cannot swim back—and the Cape coloured people are to be in the Cape Peninsula. You have only to read the accounts of these places to realise that they do not constitute real education and they will do nothing of value to teach the people.

This survey of South Africa leads me to two main conclusions: first, having regard to the Congo and what has happened there, the fear that has led the Union Government to apartheid cannot be dismissed as baseless. You have either to educate the coloured people thoroughly so that they wish to live together with whites in peace and will not attack, or you must carry on with apartheid. My second conclusion is that the application of apartheid to universities and education generally increases the danger of attack by non-whites instead of removing it. If you have open universities, the natural leaders of the non-whites will be treated as equals, given the chance of learning like the whites, in the kind of brotherhood which you can see any day now in the universities in this country. That is the way to a 'better Government. To keep them out is the way to make all the future leaders, the non-whites with brains, hostile to the whites.

Presumably the policy of apartheid may come under discussion at the Commonwealth Conference. Apartheid has its own economic and financial difficulties. It may for various reasons, nothing to do with what I am speaking about now, be weakened. I do not suppose that any of us here want to say directly to the South African Government, "You must not have this." We cannot force them to give it up. But, of course, it may lead to great difficulties as between the parts of South Africa which are largely English in origin and the other parts. I suggest that when the Commonwealth Conference is held there should, if possible, be a serious discussion on apartheid, the reasons for it and the objections to it; and in that discussion I should give all a say. I know that there are some English people in South Africa who cordially support apartheid, but I think that most of the English there are against it.

Meanwhile, I hope that the South African Government will delay the application of apartheid where it offends most and where it increases the danger—that is, in relation to the universities, which are a way to mutual understanding, and in relation to the churches. I read quite recently—I will loan it to anyone who wishes to read it—a most moving article by the Archdeacon of Cape Town on the working of apartheid. Of course, the churches recognise, as do the universities, the unity of mankind.

That leads me to my final paragraph. The relations of different human races have become a fundamental human problem calling for seriousness by all, and not petty nationalism. If, by friendly discussions between the South African Union Government and this Government, having before them the knowledge of the great unhappiness that apartheid is causing to many people here in the universities and elsewhere, there could be reached a happy solution to that problem in Africa which made the whites safe but did not treat the non-whites as if they were not human beings, that would bring to the whole world an enormous benefit and teach them something of the brotherhood of man.

5.57 p.m.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, I do not propose to follow very closely the line of thought developed in the most interesting speech of the noble Lord who has just resumed his seat, except to make one comment, perhaps of a rather more optimistic nature than the impression that he bas given us. Certainly I do not belittle the problem of the white man in Africa; but in the world context about which the noble Lord was also speaking, when he was saying that there was only one white man for three nonwhite, it seemed to me that he was assuming that all these three non-whites, who were black, brown and yellow, will love each other and agree together to slaughter the white man. Fortunately, we know that that is not the case, and long may it remain so. In fact, in two world wars we have had the black and the brown on our side, and I believe we may hope to find them still on the side of freedom in the future.

My Lords, I return to the problem of the Congo on which several noble Lords have dwelt. If I needed any excuse for talking about Africa in the context of a Foreign Affairs debate, I need only refer to the dictum of M. Henri Spaak who so recently resigned from the post of Secretary-General to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, when he said: The destiny of Europe will be decided in Africa. That is an opinion that I have held for the four years or so since I came to your Lordships' House, and I believe that we have to solve these problems in Africa within the next ten years, because after that the slightly less pressing but also exceedingly dangerous problems of the Far East will demand our full attention.

There is one point, I think, which has not been raised in connection with the Congo and upon which possibly one of the Government speakers may be able to make some comment—namely, a lesson for the United Nations Organisation itself in relation to the admission of newly independent countries to that Organisation. As we know, there is no automatic right of admission. There has been the ridiculous example in the past of such a civilised country as Italy being refused admission for many years because of the Russian veto; and currently there is difficulty about admitting the West African country of Mauretania. Why, then, was the Belgian Congo admitted so easily and quickly to the United Nations Organisation. I believe on the very first day on which the new Government took over? The result of that was that there was recognition de jure of a Government which really never existed as a Government de facto. We often have Governments being recognised de facto before they are officially recognised de jure, but I cannot think of another case where the reverse has occurred. It seems to me that part of the difficulties that have arisen in the Congo stem from that anomaly; because those countries which have favoured a central Government for the whole of the Congo have rested their case on the de jure recognition of a Government which de facto never existed. I will return to that point later in my speech.

The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, put forward five points upon which he thought a solution in the Congo might be based, but if my memory serves me aright he made no mention of the Congolese Army, which was, however, later referred to by the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary. It seems that there is a possibility of two solutions. Simplified, I would put it in this way: the Congolese Army can be disarmed and the United Nations assume what has been called a "functional trusteeship"; or else the United Nations itself must withdraw—and quite a few people recently have been talking along those lines. If the United Nations were to withdraw, I believe two things would happen. First, we should run the grave danger of getting in the Congo a civil war in the Spanish style; and it would not be cut off, as in the Spanish Peninsula. The whole of Africa might find itself fighting on different sides. and countries even outside Africa might be involved. Secondly, one must not overlook the civilian work which the United Nations Organisation has done and is doing in the Congo. With something less than 200 civilians it has maintained communications and some form of medical service without which the whole of the Congo would have returned to the jungle. Therefore I reject entirely the idea that the United Nations should cease to take a part in the affairs of the Congo.

When, however, we come to consider the possibility of disarming the Congolese Army (and, after all, instead of keeping law and order, as it should have done, it has been the main disturber of the peace there and we must face that fact) we have also to face the realities of the situation and the fact that Mr. Tshombe, Mr. Kalonji and Colonel Mobutu have all said this is a nonsensical idea; and in view of the fact that they may feel they are gaining the upper hand at the moment, who should blame them? But if, as the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, said, the Congolese Army is to be reconstituted in order to co-operate and work with the United Nations Organisation, I feel that the idea which has been promulgated that there should be a Coalition Government must be approached very carefully, because surely the one thing to which the three persons I have mentioned will not agree is a central Government in the Congo, for they all demonstrably favour a Federal Government; and that goes also, I believe. for President Kasavubu.

That brings me back to my original point, that those nations which favour a central Government rest their case on de jure recognition of the Congo. It seems to me that if we are to get a solution, they must be willing to compromise in order to achieve the disarmament which is so necessary in the Congo so that the United Nations can function properly. They must compromise and be willing, in exchange, to accept a federal form of Government or whatever form of Government is acceptable to the Congolese political personalities who must settle this problem.

There is just one other matter in connection with the Congo. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson. also said that the United States and Britain must agree before we can expect to achieve a peaceful solution in the Congo. But, as your Lordships may remember, they did agree at the United Nations General Assembly just before Christmas on a combined Anglo-American resolution which would very considerably have assisted the United Nations towards the kind of solution to which they are now working. That resolution failed by a single vote to obtain the necessary two-thirds majority in the General Assembly. Why did it fail?—because among other things, there were two countries of the Commonwealth who voted against and actively worked against it. The two were India and Ghana.

It seems to me that at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference which will take place in early March, and which coincides with the reopening of the General Assembly in New York, the highest priority of all should be given to trying to achieve agreement among Commonwealth countries about the solution for the Congo. We cannot expect all the Commonwealth countries to agree in detail with every aspect of our colonial policy—some of them have gained their independence perhaps too recently to have an objective view upon it—but on a question which is a matter of foreign policy in Africa affecting intimately so many countries of the Commonwealth, it is most necessary that we should have a Commonwealth policy for the Congo. I beg Her Majesty's Government to try to achieve that in the forthcoming Prime Ministers' Conference. Because India is a highly respected country in the world to-day. She has many friends and can influence many votes in the Far East and Middle East: there is no doubt about If we can get that agreement in the Commonwealth, then I believe that we shall get agreement as to what to do in the Congo as a whole.

I have referred to the Prime Ministers' Conference, and if I were to continue on that subject I might be accused of straying too far from the topic of foreign affairs, but here I find myself in a difficulty, because in Africa to-day it is quite impossible to draw a dividing line between our colonial policy and our Commonwealth policy; for in that continent they are inextricably mingled. It is equally difficult—I believe impossible—to ignore the fact that our Commonwealth and colonial policy has a very great bearing upon our foreign policy and upon our work in the United Nations Organisation itself; and I feel that what the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary said in his speech to-day would confirm that belief, especially because at the opening of his speech he dwelt at very considerable length on the importance of the economic aspect. I intend. therefore, for a few moments to say something further about the economic aspect of our Commonwealth policy which, I think, should also have a position of high priority in the discussions at the forthcoming Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

If any further excuse were needed for touching upon that subject I would refer to some words by Mr. Kennedy, the new President of the United States. In his Inaugural Address he said: To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do in a host of new cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do. And in his first address to the Congress on the State of the Union he had this to say: In Europe our alliances are unfulfilled and in some disarray. The unity of N.A.T.O. has been weakened by economic rivalry and partially eroded by national interest. My Lords, those statements are at one and the same time a promise and a reproach; and in order that the promise may be fulfilled it is up to us to remove the causes of the reproach.

That brings me again to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference and to the necessity for economic union, or economic agreement. at least. between the Six countries of the Common Market and the Seven of the European Free Trade area. I would suggest that perhaps we have approached this subject from the wrong angle, because we have not so far been able to join the Common Market on account of the difficulties which arise for the primary producing countries of the Commonwealth. I believe that if we were to approach it from the other end; if we were to try to get a greater economic integration between the Commonwealth, and get more trade between the Commonwealth—for trade is aid—and more co-operation in aid to our own under-developed countries within the Commonwealth; if, in other words, we can produce a real Commonwealth economic policy, then surely after giving that a first preference we can go to the Common Market countries and have something to offer. For at the moment it seems that they are not too convinced that we have so very much to offer. Therefore I suggest that we revise our economic policies in order to get this unity within the Commonwealth on the economic side, followed by unity between Western Europe and the Commonwealth on the economic side. I think that in so doing we shall be fulfilling the wishes of our great American Ally and make united policies very much easier to pursue in the future.

My Lords, I am well aware that this may cut across the G.A.T.T.—the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. We discussed G.A.T.T., I believe, two years ago, and some pretty severe criticism of it was made in your Lordships' House. Perhaps now that time has passed, opinions may have changed. G.A.T.T. seems to be a sort of sacred cow, but when the cow ceases to give sufficient milk it should be dried off quickly and sent to the butcher's. I believe that a Commonwealth economic policy combined with a West European economic policy would far outweigh for the countries concerned, and indeed for the world, the present advantages, if there are any, arising from G.A.T.T.

Before I end I want to say this. Let us put our own house in order, and then we can stand up to our Ally, the United States of America, and look them in the face. There is one point I want to make about that, because at the beginning of a new Administration, and, indeed, as Lord Henderson said, a new era in America and perhaps in the world, I think it is very important that it should be made perfectly plain to the United States of America—and nobody is better qualified than the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary to make it plain—that we expect co-operation in our colonial policy. I do not want to go into details, but your Lordships know very well that both since the war and even during the war, at the time of Yalta and Potsdam and onwards, we have been greatly criticised, and indeed interfered with, in our colonial policy by our American Allies. It seems to me that everybody now knows what our colonial policy is—even the African colonial subject. Is it left only to our great American Ally to distrust us in that respect? I hope that it will be made clear by the noble Earl to Mr. Kennedy that the traditional anti-colonialism of the United States is as ignorant and out of date as the mediæval belief that the world was flat.

In final words, I pass to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, in his speech on N.A.T.O., because they struck the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary and also another noble Lord. Lord Gladwyn said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 227 (No. 29), cols. 1244 and 1245]: I am alarmed because I have the impression, coming back after a long absence abroad, that this nation as a whole does not at the moment know where it is going, or what exactly it wants to do. Later he said: The process of 'de-colonisation'…however desirable and necessary, seems to have left us without any very positive and generally accepted notion of our position in the world and of the role which we should play, either alone or in conjunction with the Commonwealth and our neighbours. If I thought that our colonial policy was summed up in the word "de-colonisation" I should be very depressed indeed, because that is a negative attitude: it is a miserable word; it is pathetic. It conjures up to my mind a picture of a frightened rabbit scuttling into its hole, rather than that of a pride of lions roaring their challenge in the face of the adversary, confident in the future and of their place in the world.

My Lords, I do not believe that is our policy, and certainly I hope it is not. The theme of my speech, therefore, is this: let us get a really united Commonwealth policy and European policy together, because if we fail in that we shall not meet the challenge which has been set us by the President of the United States and which, indeed, is inherent in the world situation to-day. If we fail to meet that challenge, then Western civilisation will disappear from the African Continent, and it may well disappear also from Europe, in which case we shall perish with it.

6.18 p.m.

LORD BIRDWOOD

My Lords, I believe that on these occasions a purpose is served by those who follow the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in pinpointing certain situations. With that in mind, I intend to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, in high-lighting certain things that he, and also the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, had to say about the Congo. But before I do that I shall allow myself just two observations outside the Congo problem.

I was very grateful to the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary for drawing our attention—and bringing us down to earth again—to the statement of the 81 Communist Parties put out from Moscow in December. I waded twice through that turgid, tedious, repetitive statement—but vitally important, of course, For me the matter could be summed up (I think that probably page 29 is the particular page) by very simply saying that when they speak of peaceful co-existence in fact they mean the cold war. I could find in those 20,000 words just one and a half lines of a reference to the admittance of China to the United Nations. That is not to say that this question is not important. I regard the situation as one in which China does not want to enter the United Nations; and I say, therefore, that that is all the more reason for admitting her. I am quite certain that, with the eyes of the world, and particularly the eyes of Asia, on what they do on that small international stage, China will be thoroughly embarrassed: and for that reason alone I would say that it is wise to admit her.

The other observation on the situation outside the Congo which I should like to make concerns the tour of Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. Since I know intimately the ground over which they are going, I thought it might be appropriate to say one word about it in a debate on international affairs. At a time when it seems to me that powerful forces are seizing every opportunity that they can to pick out situations all over the world which represent Western imperialism and African or Asian victims of that imperialism, here must be, for those people, the most confusing evidence—millions welcoming with open arms a symbol of that past imperialism: millions who might be regarded as the previous victims. It hardly fits in with the picture of a world scientifically, predictably and inevitably moving slowly forward to Marxist Leninism. And that is all the more reason (and here I know that the noble Lord, Lord Rea, would be with me) for projecting this story into all the corners of the world, if only to dispel ignorance and protect the truth about our own Commonwealth and our own country.

To turn to the less happy events in the Congo, although I shall be dotting the is and crossing the is of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, I want to pick out an aspect of the situation which seems to me not to have been raised up till now. If you look objectively at the Continent of Africa and base your observations on facts, I think you must note a situation somewhat of this nature. On one side, you see a bloc emerging—the United Arab Republic, joined by what I might describe as the Casablanca Axis; formal union between Ghana, Guinea and Mali, with Morocco far more than an interested spectator in the background—with the declared intention of setting up an African military high command. That was the decision taken at Casablanca; and it is just those same Powers, which took this decision to set up a military command, which have announced their intention to withdraw their troops from the Congo. It seems to me that it is not just idle speculation but is mere common sense to suspect that the withdrawal of troops from the Congo, linked with the intention to set up an African military command, suggests that there is perhaps an intention to move back into the Congo. One sincerely hopes not; but in fact that kind of intention was very nearly spelt out at Casablanca. That is one side of the story.

On the other side, we have to note a meeting of twelve 'States of Africa, previously French colonial territories, at;Brazzaville just before Christmas. Those States expressed moderate and sensible views about the future of Algeria, and they supported a round-table conference in the Congo. They criticised the exercise of the Soviet Veto over the entry of Mauritania into the United Nations, and they confirmed their full and continued support of the United Nations in the Congo. In other words, they stood for sanity and tolerance and negotiation, such as we stand for. And those States, be it remembered, 'represent some 27 million Africans. There is also the clear voice of sanity from Nigeria, whose Prime Minister has openly condemned as completely irresponsible the decision to withdraw troops from the Congo. Nigeria represents 37 million; and, therefore, I say quite 'bluntly that we have a bloc of some 64 million Africans standing for the support of such measured and sane solutions to the Congo as we ourselves would support. When we have finished worrying and puzzling over this Congo confusion, I suggest that we should return to a simple proposition and ask, not "Who are our friends in Africa?" or "Who 'is with us?", but "Who are we with in Africa?".

It is here that I should like to bring the United Nations into the picture. We have noted the great division of the world since the 15th Assembly of the United Nations. We have seen this great division projected more and more into the conduct of the United Nations in New York, and it seems that that division is now being further projected into the Congo. In many minds there will arise doubt (and the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, has expressed it this evening) whether the United Nations is any longer an institution meriting our full support. Has it really become only a platform for staging competition in rival slogans? That is a view with which we must all have sympathy, although I personally am convinced that it is wrong. As new nations come to maturity—and, sooner or later within the next five years or so, we are bound to reach saturation point in this matter—I believe that we must put our faith in the emergence and growth of responsible international opinion, even though it may take a long time.

EARL WINTERTON

I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but he did refer to me. What I said was that the United Nations needed reforming in order to fulfil its functions, which it is not doing at the present time.

LORD BIRDWOOD

I am glad the noble Earl interrupted. I would entirely agree. I think I shall come to that point of agreement in a moment.

EARL WINTERTON

I am sorry.

LORD BIRDWOOD

My brief experience at the United Nations led me to believe that, whereas these new States, in the first blush of independence, tend to fall for false flattery, particularly from the Communist bloc, and tend to fall for the clichés with which we are all so familiar, they do develop, as time passes, a sense of judgment and a sense of discrimination; they do come in time to realise the difference between false and true friends. If that be true, of course, it would he a terrible indictment of British policy if it could ever be said of us that we had hastened or in any way promoted the collapse of the United Nations. I say this because it is tempting to pursue these ideas of some form of unilateral action in the Congo.

I personally can think of an administration which could tidy up confusion in the Congo, and restore law and order and economic stability, in a matter of a couple of years. I can think also of a completely foolproof kind of force which would support it. But, of course, such an administration, supported by such a force, would never pass international sanction as international sanction is to-day. That it would be in the interests of the suffering Congolese, I am certain; but the fact is that it would not have a chance of acceptance. So it seems to me that the only alternative is to go on fighting for processes which, though they may not he the best to rescue the Congo, at least represent something that is acceptable to a majority international opinion. In doing that, I think we might bear in mind the potential power of that great African bloc to which I have referred, of some 64 million, which stands for sanity.

The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, and others, I think, have referred to the Commonwealth Conference to be held in the Spring, when these matters will, we hope, be discussed seriously, and when there will be a chance of placing responsible opinion before men such as Mr. Nkrumah. I say that, remembering that Ceylon was an interested observer at the Casablanca Conference, and that Ghana to-day may be regarded as the focus of the Casablanca axis.

Now, what is the view which we should wish to project at a Commonwealth Conference? I think it is important at this distance for all of us to get a clear picture of this internal confusion, and I shall not attempt to spell out the details of the chaos. But I would indicate and reinforce the warning which the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, made: that in learning from the Belgian experience we are in danger of reading in the wrong lessons. Do we blame the Belgians for ever having gone to the Congo? I think not. Do we say that when they were there they did not do the job properly? I think that is nearer the kind of charge which is made. But in making that sort of charge let us be fair, and let us admit that what was achieved in the Congo was achieved only through the work of many good Belgians. We know that there are Congolese leaders to-day who wish to retain the services of these Belgians, and it is only right that they should be allowed to do so. It is in the interests of the Congolese that good Belgians who know the country and have worked in it should stay on. This, after all, is the principle which we ourselves have upheld in our own experience—the principle of partnership, to which the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, referred.

I submit that it would be a complete betrayal of our principles if we were not forcefully to oppose the fantastic proposition that the future of the Congo can be built up only on a hatred of the Belgians. One is sometimes bitter when one contemplates the mentality that exploits this kind of pattern of thought. If ever there were leaders who sought "the bubble reputation". they are here. How many, one wonders, have thought of diverting funds, which are now on their way to create an African High Command, to the supplying of food for children who may be starving in the Congo? It seems to me that that is left to British university students.

If I may come back to principles, I would say that the development of the Congo. to which the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, drew our attention, must have its impact on the Central African Federation and on East Africa. If partnership is not to survive in such a place as Katanga, what are the prospects of its survival in a Commonwealth territory just over the frontier? That is to put it in a very harsh way; but men who know far more of this problem than I do are thinking along just these lines, and we hope that that kind of thought is in the minds of Her Majesty's Government.

I have stressed the need for the continued support of the United Nations; and, in fact, the pattern of development in my own mind is one of strengthening its power. If a Round Table Conference of Congo Leaders, including Mr. Lumumba, with help from a United Nations Conciliation Commission, could pull an agreed plan out of the hat, then, of course, we should all welcome it. And I think we must still work and hope for this. But it would be extremely unwise not to be prepared if the conference-conciliation-negotiation pattern, of development fails. There would seem to me then to be only one remedy.

My Lords, may I recall the mandate which was given to the United Nations by the General Assembly in September? It was: To assist the Central Government of the Congo in the restoration and maintenance of law and order". I think we all know—and the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, underlined it—that there has never been an effective central Government, and that the mandate of the United Nations has rested all this time on a complete myth. With only a dozen or so Congolese students of university status, how on earth could it have been otherwise? So the simple requirement seems to be just this that a new United Nations mandate for the Congo, with a United Nations Commission of real power and authority sitting in the country to establish law and order, is what is indicated. This may well amount to a period of years under United Nations trusteeship. If so, it would be a complete precedent. It would really be extending the terms of Chapter XII of the Charter, which deals with the trusteeship system, to the United Nations itself. Such a conception could only make sense, of course. if it were supported with a force of real power and authority.

I think the present ludicrous situation is illustrated in the terms of the instructions given quite recently to the commander of a small United Nations force which had to deal the other day with a very large pro-Lumumba force which, with the support of some Baluba tribesmen, had invaded Katanga. The task of the United Nations force was, to keep the indigenous forces away from each other. The spokesman for the United Nations gave us the brief for the commanding officer: To limit the consequences of the situation; to prevent a clash; and then to persuade the invaders to withdraw, but not to disarm them or not to fight them. Personally, if I had been given this kind of instruction I would have resigned my commission straight away.

My Lords, the implication, then, is that, in support of a real United Nations trusteeship, a force, so far from refraining from interfering in the internal affairs of the Congo, would in fact make internal law and order its main preoccupation. Now, if it could receive the co-operation of Congolese forces in doing that, then, of course, it would also be training those Congolese forces; and I remember that the Foreign Secretary referred to that particular point when he drew attention To the inadequacy of the training of the Congolese Army. But if a United Nations force of this nature were only to receive resistance from indigenous forces, then it must be strong enough to disarm those forces. On present evidence, it is obvious that an attempt would be made to sabotage a United Nations trusteeship and a United Nations force. National, political jealousies within the Congo would receive every encouragement from sinister sources outside. But that is no reason why we should refrain from promoting such a solution, and, in doing so, we should remember what the Irish General (whose name I cannot pronounce) said when he took up his command the other day: that if the present troops were withdrawn, he would have to look elsewhere to build up his force from other sources.

Attention has been drawn to the different directions in which the Congo is being pulled. At the present time the Province of Katanga—perhaps not formally declared independent but very near to it—South Kasai and Orientate have declared their independence. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, that the sensible course for the future is to take note of this situation. A United Nations Authority would, I think, be bound to consider abandoning the unitary State and the setting up of a Federation more in consonance with the self-determination of Provinces which have shown so little desire to work together.

I have sketched in the idea of an effective United Nations trusteeship, not necessarily and exclusively within the Congo context but because it might be useful for us all to start thinking of this kind of development as a principle for the future. There may be other Congo situations not so very far away in either distance or time from the Congo. If this principle could be recognised now, it seems to me that it might then immediately be applied when necessary, and a great deal of trouble could be avoided. In the present case, I feel that normal negotiations, which we should all prefer, will be defeated by those who put dreams of an African Empire on the Cesar and Mussolini pattern before the welfare of the Congolese people. I only hope I am wrong. But if pessimism proves right, then there is only this alternative, for me, of a United Nations form of trusteeship. If, in turn, that was refused, at least we should have the satisfaction of knowing that we had worked for such a solution based on principle and on right convictions; and it might then be said that good intentions do not always necessarily pave the path to hell.

6.40 p.m.

LORD MILVERTON

My Lords, it is perhaps one of the signs of the times that, for almost the first time a Foreign Affairs debate in your Lordships' House is not theoretically confined to foreign experts. Perhaps the growing habit of minding other people's business, which I suppose might be stated in a more dignified manner by saying" the growing inter-dependence of nations", has broken down the old barriers and it is impossible any longer to divide what used to be classified as "foreign affairs" from Commonwealth and colonial affairs. The under-developed countries have assumed an importance which is of increasing international interest, and, as we know, Commonwealth affairs are now world affairs. The result is that a Foreign Affairs debate, unwieldy as it used to be in days gone by, now, for a Back Bencher who presumes to speak in it, covers so wide a field that it necessitates strict division into manageable sections. I propose to limit my attention to Africa, and in Africa to the Congo. What I have to say will follow much on the lines of thought of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, and not very much, I am afraid, on the lines of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood—certainly not on the lines of the latter portion of his speech. I should like to deal in a few minutes with the noble Lord's suggestion for a mandate to the United Nations.

President Kennedy named, as one of the major problems of immediate international urgency, the Congo. To-day, the predicament of newly independent territories is apt to offer problems whose repercussions are of immense international importance. And in the Congo we have almost every conceivable problem concentrated. With your Lordships' permission, I should like to go into a little more detail than the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, did, although I may be stating details which most noble Lords already know. In order to get what I wish to persuade your Lordships is a reasonable picture of the problems in the Congo, one must look at the details to try to see the Congo as it was when the United Nations took it over and as it is now.

What had happened in the months immediately before Lumumba made his appeal to the United Nations for help? After difficulties over the previous two or three years, which were disfigured by riots and tribal fighting, in January of last year the Belgian Government called a representative gathering in Brussels to which 81 Congolese delegates came—many of whom, incidentally, had never met each other before. The net result of the conference, which concluded in February, was that the Belgian Government gave way, suddenly and unexpectedly, to a demand that immediate and complete independence should come on June 30 of last year—that is, not much more than four months ahead of the decision. This has been described, I think correctly, as a reckless gamble and as an incredible improvisation. Administratively, economically and politically, there were no clear-cut decisions. it was not even decided whether there was to be a federal or a unitary State, although the implication was doubtless that it would be a unitary State, 'because during the 70 years previously the Congo had had no experience of anything but a highly-centralised unitary Government under the Belgians.

Because of the complete lack of any training of the Congolese in government responsibilty, the Belgian Government must have assumed that Belgians would still be used as authoritative advisers in every branch of the Administration after independence, because of the absence of any alternative. A year ago, the Belgians themselves had been maintaining that a minimum period of four years would be required before the Congolese could be helped to train an adequate number to cope with the situation. To those of us who understand the problem of administration, a period of four years seems absurdly small in which to attempt any such task. It was further assumed that law arid order would be safeguarded by the Force Publique of 24,000 trained men, with 1,000 Belgian officers and no Congolese officers at all. Let us not forget that we are talking of a country of 900,000 square miles, about four times the size of France, containing 13½ million people, mostly of Bantu stock, with 125,000 Europeans, of whom 15,000 were permanent settlers and the rest doctors, missionaries, nurses, and so forth, officials and employees. I am going into these details because it gives us a picture of what we are confronted with to-day.

The Congo was divided into six Provinces, each with one or two dominant tribes. There were 70 major ethnic groups and 400 dialects. The idea of one of the Provinces seceding was apparently never even envisaged. The whole set-up, after the elections in May of last year, was that there was to be a President, a Head of State, a Prime Minister, and Upper and Lower Houses and so forth, elected roughly by adult male suffrage. In an effort to get and give independence, the delegates at Brussels contented themselves with only a division of functions between the centre and the Provinces and with a partition of authority between them.

At the end of the elections there was a deadlock, roughly speaking. None of the Parties concerned had won a controlling number of seats, of which there were 137. Lumumba and his allies won 49 and they were strongly in favour of a unitarian State. Kasavubu and his associates won 27 and they were equally strong for a federal State. Other parties of extremists won 23 seats and 10 were won by chiefs and tribal authorities, and so on. Parliament met on June 17 and it took them a week to find a Government, which was finally formed by a compromise between Lumumba and Kasavubu, in the end Kasavubu becoming President and Head of State and Lumumba, Prime Minister—a very uneasy alliance. On June 30, independence day came. The Congo State was immediately recognised by the United Nations and formally given recognition as a sovereign State. Within three days, on July 3, tribal fighting broke out. On July 6 outlying sections of the Force Publique rebelled, and law and order vanished. On July 8 the Force Publique, even in Leopoldville, mutinied. On July 11, Tshombe, the Premier of Katanga, declared independence. Then followed outrages on European men, women and children throughout the Congo. What a predecessor in office of the noble Earl, Lord Home, Mr. Ernest Bevin, once appropriately called "murder, rape and other anti-social practices" became the order of the day. Most Belgians who could get away, got away; and that meant the collapse of administration, because there were no Congolese capable of carrying on at that standard.

Lumumba then appealed to the United Nations for help, and the request was granted: troops and technical assistance of every kind were flown in. It was in many ways a magnificent effort. Many African members of the United Nations participated; but Soviet Russia, as usual, broke the rules and sent in independently aeroplanes, lorries and arms for Lumumba. Active intervention took place on behalf of a Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has pointed out, which in fact did not exist and never had existed except on paper; and that is not a very profitable task. Mr. Hammarskjoeld, as controller of the United Nations effort, was still further paralysed by the limitations of his position. The United Nations was such in name only, and very divergent views of policy were held by the active members. He came in, as we know, to train a national army, to maintain security and to uphold the country's integrity. He found an army in rebellious, undisciplined disarray, with no trained officers, and a country rent by civil wars and tribal feuds. The army chief-of-staff, Colonel Mobutu, took a hand when Kasavubu and Lumumba quarrelled and set himself up as a third contender for leadership of the so-called nation.

As a result, is it unexpected that the United Nations has failed to maintain or restore harmony: that in trying not to interfere in internal affairs, it has merely succeeded in preventing any of the contenders for leadership from winning their objectives? In despair, as we see now, Mr. Hammarskjoeld has asked the United Nations to take action in disarming the Force Publique as a preliminary to training and disciplining them; to help in creating a Civil Service and the necessary technical services and so on, to recall Parliament and to get together, by consent, Congolese leaders who will be recognised and given the legality of Parliamentary authority. In the present state of chaos this is a task, as I see it, utterly beyond the capacity of the United Nations. It would be immensely costly, for one thing, and would take many years to carry out. The Congo, in fact, is a magnificent object lesson of the danger of trying to solve racial craving for independence or trying to relax racial tension in Africa by precipitately handing over control for purely numerical reasons to those who are not yet equipped to handle the responsibility of government. As has been well said, "Time takes his revenge for all the counsels to which he is not called".

I do not wish to leave a false impression my Lords. I have spent most of my life trying to carry out what is the policy of the British Government, to fit territories for self-government, and I am in hearty sympathy with the policy of so befitting them and at the appropriate moment letting them take charge. But I am not in favour of indecent haste which is foredoomed to failure. In my view, the United Nations must first try to gain some unanimous support for a definite policy, and should face the grim realities of the situation. There is no recognisable Government over the whole Congo area to-day, though there are patches of order, as in Katanga. To my mind, it is futile to talk of a Congo State, whether as some form of Federation or as a unitary State, unless and until we have ascertained what the constituent tribal areas really want. For the present state of the Congo is that of an agglomeration of warring tribes whose tribal differences and antipathies in the past have merely been overlaid by a veneer of Belgian paternal dictatorship. All of that collapsed last autumn, and we are left with a chaos which grows ever more difficult to resolve into order again. Circumstances, and what is known as world opinion, prevent any forcibly imposed restoration of law and order by action from outside. The idea of United Nations intervention on that scale is to me unthinkable, partly because United Nations unity would probably not stand the strain, and partly because the idea of an imposed dictatorship, however temporary or sensible, would surely never gain acceptance in the present climate of world opinion.

Assuming that any solution must have the superficial appeal of a free decision by the people of the Congo, there are some questions which surely need answering. Do the people of the Congo want to be joined together in one State? If the reply to this question is affirmative, do they wish to be governed by one central Government—a unitary State—or do they wish to be joined in some form of co-operative association the details of which would have to be settled by agreement among themselves? If the reply to both these questions is negative, do the Provinces wish to be independent, self-governing countries, either alone or in collaboration with one or more of the other tribal units? I am assuming for the purpose of this exercise in universal suffrage that the Congo would be broadly divided into several tribal units which could be considered as potentially viable countries.

Judging by the events of the past few months, Dr. Nkrumah is probably right: that anything short of a strong unitary Government would be foredoomed to failure. This may well be so. But if ever a solution was arbitrarily imposed upon a people, this surely will be the classic example of it. It would probably be a kindness, if it were a possibility; but in the circumstances I suggest that it is not a possibility. Presumably it would be the pleasant task of the United Nations to take charge of any such referendum and to be responsible for its proper regulation. I am well aware that 90 per cent. of the inhabitants of the Congo are unfitted to appreciate the implications of these simple questions. Meanwhile, let us remember, the framework of government has broken down. and it will take years to educate, train and build up the necessary personnel.

It would be worse than useless to suggest that the real alternatives are either for the United Nations to withdraw. leaving the contending tribes to fight it out in untold misery, or to go in and restore order by force. The first alternative we dare not adopt, because the ring could not be kept free from outside interference; indeed, it is not being kept free to-day, since arms are finding their way in from various sources. The old trade of gun-running has a frightening modern equivalent. I am informed that it costs only £150,000 to £200,000 to equip a small arms factory; and you can pack 300,000 rounds of ammunition and 300 machine guns into a 5-ton lorry and send it rolling clown the old slave routes into the centre of Africa. That, to some extent, is prob- ably what is happening to-day. These messages of disorder are being sent from sources that we all recognise and know, whether the destination is Stanleyville or elsewhere. The second alternative is impossible for a variety of obvious reasons. It would involve the United Nations setting itself up as a super-State, empowered to regulate the sovereignty of individual members.

Let us face the facts if we can. The United Nations is quite incapable of running a colonial administration as a self-appointed trustee, but that is the position it seems to be drifting into. The Congo is a political and spiritual vacuum in which the ruling force is fear. In modern terms, the backbone of any stable and viable State is its cadre of professional men, the product of education and training. They are not there. The problem of the Congo is well nigh insoluble, and is likely to remain so until the United Nations can justify its title by being honestly united in an accepted purpose.

There are other similar problems looming on the African horizon. Perhaps, after all, the idea of an African Consultative and Advisory Committee to help the United Nations authorities would be a first step. My Lords, I have spent so much time on the Congo question because it is, as I see it, of great importance internationally. It is a warning and a challenge that cannot be disregarded. There is much else in Africa of international importance, but I must not detain your Lordships at this late hour. Perhaps in the early future a debate confined to African affairs might be a desirable thing. To-day Africa occupies the centre of the world stage, and we are all anxious that the people of Africa should have a peaceful and prosperous future, unjeopardised by such unnecessary catastrophes as the recent history of the Congo.

7.4 p.m.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, I think we are all grateful to the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, for another clear and forceful exposition of British foreign policy. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, that if it is reported at home or overseas it can do nothing but good. I only wish that it was likely to be as well reported as, say, the "Kiss in the Car" case. It is a sad reflection on the standard of journalism that this, I think one might say without being given to exaggeration, is highly unlikely. I should also like to say that I am grateful to the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne. for winding up this debate instead of speaking to-morrow, because I think it is extremely important from the point of view of noble Lords who speak in the course of the day that they should have their arguments answered at the end of it by a noble Lord representing the Government. I am grateful to him for adopting that procedure.

I was glad that the noble Earl mentioned, as one of the important objectives of foreign policy, the expansion of production and trade in this country, and exhorted wage-earners and others to do their best to carry out this vital national task, because I am quite sure that this is the only way we can hope to meet the Russian economic offensive in neutral and uncommitted countries. I believe that this economic offensive would be far more important than the ideological or propaganda offensive in deciding the future of the Free World. Although other noble Lords may disagree with me about the relative importance of these two factors, I am glad that the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, is on my side.

I think most speakers in this debate would agree that the main challenge to the West—at any rate, one of the main challenges—in the next few years is whether it has the will and the capacity to meet the Soviet economic offensive in Africa and Asia. I had intended today to say a few words about Russia in Africa, but my few words will now be a very few words indeed, because my noble friend Lord Henderson, in a speech which seemed, I thought, with remarkable skill to cover all the main international problems with which the Government have to deal, said exactly what I wanted to say about the Congo. Moreover, I think the Congo has featured more prominently in this debate than any other topic, and your Lordships have really heard every aspect of this problem. So what I propose to do is to deal with another feature of Soviet activity in Africa.

The Soviet Union has so far failed to get any foothold in an independent African country South of the Sahara, with the sole exception of what used to be French Guinea. The experience of this small country in West Africa is an interesting example of the aims of Russian policy, and also of the local conditions which make it possible for these aims to be, to some extent at any rate, successfully carried out. I was in West Africa when Guinea left the French community, and I had an opportunity of discussing its problems with President Sekeu Touré and other Guineans, who told me the whole story about what happened after independence. I think we have a lot to learn from that story.

Your Lordships will remember that Guinea broke away from France before General de Gaulle had come round to the policy of giving the French African territories their independence. The result of this was the complete and immediate disinheritance of this wayward African child. Everything was taken away: French economic aid, French soldiers, administrators and technicians, even the chairs and tables in Government offices at Conakry disappeared overnight. The country was on the verge of bankruptcy and administrative collapse. Now who stepped in to help? Not, unfortunately, the Americans or the British. Ghana made a contribution in the form of a loan of £10 million. But apart from Ghana, the countries who stepped in immediately to fill the gap in money and personnel were the East European countries and the Soviet Union. America has come in subsequently with a loan, but only subsequently. I am quite certain that, if the Western countries, particularly France and the United States, had been willing to help Guinea in its hour of dire need when it declared its independence, Communist influence would not be nearly as strong as it now is in that country.

The moral to be drawn is surely this: the ties of language, culture and trade bind the former French and British territories in Africa to the West, and that is where they would like to stay. They want to preserve those ties after they become independent, but if the West refuses to give them the economic aid on which they feel the whole future of their people depends they will inevitably look to the East. This, after all, is the story of the Aswan Dam, and that story has been repeated in rather a different form in Guinea and may be repeated, if we are not careful, elsewhere in Africa.

The other lesson of Guinea about Communist aims in Africa is that the Communists are far too astute to ask for strategic or political concessions from the independent African countries. They have not asked those countries for those or invited them to join the Communist bloc. They have not asked them to make any of those political or strategic concessions. All they want at the moment is economic power and diplomatic influence, which can be used to undermine the existing friendship and influence of the West and, of course, as a stepping stone in the advance of world Communism.

There is only one other country in West Africa where Russian influence could easily and substantially increase if the case of the West goes by default, and that country is Ghana. I am not one of those who think for a moment that there is any danger of Communism in Ghana or even that foreign business interests will be nationalised or expropriated, as of course happened in Egypt. The Ghana Government has repeatedly denied a number of irresponsible statements about the wholesale nationalisation of British and foreign companies operating in Ghana. But, very unfortunately, those statements have received infinitely more publicity both here and in the United States than the official denials. The recent offer of the Ghana Government to take over five gold mines shows, I think, that in practice the policy of the Ghana Government is not directed against foreign capital, for this offer is not nationalisation as we understand it, but State purchase. Nationalisation is compulsory. but a take-over bid can be accepted or refused by the shareholders in the company. President Nkrumah in relation to these gold mines has borrowed a leaf from the notebook of Mr. Clore and Mr. Cecil King. Moreover—and this. I think, is equally important—the reason for this take-over bid by the Ghana Government is not any sort of doctrinal socialism but concern about the welfare of those who work in the gold mines. These five goldmines are all marginal, from the economic point of view, and would eventually, if they continued under their present management, inevitably be closed down because they are not profitable, throwing thousands of miners Out of work.

I have spoken at some length about the economic policy of the Ghana Government because it is essential to the development of that country and particularly to the Volta Scheme that foreign investors should realise that their capital will be just as safe in Ghana as it would be in this country or the United States. Now I go on to the essence of what I have to say about Ghana, which concerns the relationship between economics and politics. The whole future of Ghana depends on a partnership between public and private investors of capital in the Volta hydro-electric scheme. The success of this scheme not only is vital for the economic and industrial development of the country; it is equally vital to the future relationship of Ghana to the Commonwealth and the West.

If the money for this scheme and for the aluminium smelter which will use almost all the electricity is not forthcoming from the West—and Ghana has been waiting for about ten years to get this money from the West—there is no doubt that the Ghana Government would look towards the East. Russia has already financed a smaller hydro-electric scheme in Ghana, and trade with Russia is rapidly increasing. If there is another long delay over the Volta scheme—and I believe now that the earliest possible moment for decision will be the autumn of this year—or if the West (this would be catastrophic) decide they have to turn down the scheme, the door will be thrown wide open for the Soviet Union to march in. I hope that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, when they meet President Kennedy in the spring—because this is essentially a partnership between the United Kingdom and the United States—will impress on him the immense political importance of the Volta scheme. I believe the Foreign Secretary is going with the Prime Minister; I hope he is, and. if so, may I with all diffidence suggest that this should be one of the matters that he might profitably take up with the President of the United States? None of us wants Ghana to go the way of Guinea, and there is no doubt at all that the resources of the West could easily prevent this from happening.

It seems to me, and I think your Lordships would agree, that one of the primary responsibilities of Western policy to-day is to make those resources available, and available in time, because the time factor is immensely important. I am afraid I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, that only the French African bloc stands for sanity, as he said, and that we should not support any of the countries in what he called the Casablanca bloc. It would be a sad day if we found ourselves closer to foreign countries than to any of the countries in the Commonwealth, and this would surely play right into the hands of the Russians. We should surely be the friends of the African countries in both blocs. I hope their differences have not gone quite to that length. We should surely, at any rate, be the friends of the African countries, both French and British.

LORD BIRDWOOD

My Lords, may I intervene? I did not mean to convey the impression that we had committed ourselves to either one bloc or the other. I did, if the noble Earl remembers, stress the importance of the coming Commonwealth Conference in which I hoped it would be possible to influence the Ghana representative, the Prime Minister of Ghana, by putting the British point of view. But I did face the fact, and that is that the Casablanca Conference on the one side and the Brazzaville Conference on the other suggested a division of two fairly substantial blocs close to each other.

THE EARL OF L STOW

My Lords, I thought the noble Lord wanted us to commit ourselves to one bloc, but I hope I misunderstood him. If that is going to be our policy in practice, to help all those under-developed countries to the best of our ability to develop their resources—and of course this new organisation, O.E.C.D. will be a useful instrument for this purpose—then I think we shall be moving in the right direction. But we must face up to the need for action, and prompt action. The West must act now to help all the emergent African countries if it is not to Jose this battle which goes on from day to day for the hearts and minds of the African peoples.

7.20 p.m.

THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

My Lords, when I was thinking out what I might most helpfully contribute to this debate in winding it up for Her Majesty's Government, I could not help thinking what an ambiguous expression "winding up" is. Perhaps in the Biblical sense, winding up and carrying out might apply. This evening we have been going for quite some time. I will not say we have been running down. But perhaps "winding up" is appropriate, and I will wind up quickly and we must prepare for another day's debate to-morrow.

As always when the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, introduces these debates, we approach the problems of international affairs from a constructive standpoint and with the degree of restraint that the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, inspires us with in this House. As always, that restrain has been followed to-day. Nevertheless, I think that, given that sense of restraint, there is much in the observation of the late Sir Austen Chamberlain when he said: You Foreign Office people are apt to say as little as possible. You should say as much as you can. If a Member of Parliament knew as much as we know, he might even share our view". This evening I think we can all agree that we listened to a speech from my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary which was in every way frank and straightforward. What he told us were the three main purposes of British foreign policy have, I believe, with great respect to him, always been the three main purposes of British foreign policy. We do not deny—it would be foolish not to accept—the fact that our direct power has greatly diminished. Equally, it would be doing ourselves less than justice if we were ever to forget how, in this century, this country has unstintingly given of its blood and of its treasure. Nevertheless, it is my firm conviction that British influence is still very great and unique. Where at one time we exercised control through direct power, now it is in partnerships and in friendly associations; and if we are courageous and frank we exercise an influence which may well be of far greater significance and value than was ever our absolute power.

I do not think that it is arrogant or just wishful thinking to believe that, because of our past experience as the centre of a great Empire, we have learned something. I believe that it is our duty. and one of the principal contributions that we can make in the changed circumstances of the 20th century, to bring to bear upon the problems which face us all to-day the know-how that we have acquired through this experience. Ambassador Jock Whitney. in his farewell speech, referred to the importance of frank discussion between ourselves and the United States. I was impressed to read in President Kennedy's State of the Union Message to Congress his declaration that This Administration recognises the value of daring and dissent; that we greet healthy controversy as the hallmark of healthy change. America, which began life determined to avoid the entanglements of the Old World, has become, willy-nilly, the leader of a coalition of nations, and its most (pressing problems cannot be solved without the co-operation of its allies. The strength of the bond between the United Kingdom and the United States is beyond question, and it is my belief that that strength is not weakened but fortified by discussion and healthy controversy. Unreasoned 'agreement is not a partnership; it is a procession. The present American Administration is new. Its courageous and dedicated President has still to formulate his policies on many subjects, and Her Majesty's Government, our Commonwealth partners and our European allies look forward to cant razing frank and uninhibited discussion on all world problems with our great and powerful American allies. I believe that we should no longer think in terms of exclusive French, American, British, European or Commonwealth spheres of influence. Just as a threat to Europe is common to every country in it and should therefore be treated as a common problem, so every problem which threatens Western or non-Communist civilisation is common to each of us and should be connbated with a common policy.

Alas! the countries of Europe remain economically divided. Until this division is overcome it will certainly not be possible for any one of us to play our full individual part, nor to apply the full European potential to the Western Alliance. Your Lordships are, of course. well aware of the numerous meetings which have been held in recent months with our Continental friends, from those at Prime Ministerial level to technical discussions between officials, and I can assure your Lordships that Her Majesty's Government are doing and will continue to do everything in their power to overcome this wasteful division.

Of course, it is axiomatic that the United Kingdom lives by trade. It is a fact that with less than one-third of the population of the United States, the United Kingdom buys from the world three-quarters as much as does America and more than twice as much as the Soviet Union. For the United Kingdom foreign relations and trade relations are inextricably intertwined. We must earn not just to live, we must. earn also in order to give. I have expressed my conviction that British influence is still great and unique; but we cannot effectively deploy that influence unless our economic position is sound at home and unless we are trading to the maximum of our capacity overseas. The Foreign Office is well aware of this inescapable fact of British life, and our commercial officers overseas not only are trained to advise Her Majesty's Government, and British industry as well, on the political and economic conditions in the countries to which they are accredited, but also give advice on trading prospects to individual exporters, and help in such practical tasks as finding suitable agents, negotiating foreign tariffs and other such regulations. There exists a close co-operation between the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade.

I should like to make it perfectly clear that the highest importance is attached to the qualifications of our commercial officers. I think the fact that on retirement so many of our distinguished diplomats are immediately snapped up by British business tells its own story, and perhaps these gentlemen may help to inspire British industry to an even more competitive spirit to capture the overseas markets. it has been said that the Germans manufacture for export while the Briton tries to export what he has manufactured.

My Lords, I should like for a moment to get away from the principal topics that have been discussed to-day and to look at the world as a whole. I believe that we should attempt to establish closer associations and frequent consultation with the leading free countries outside the Atlantic Alliance, and in that way build up a wider network of co-operation between the free nations. I have in mind particularly Japan, in the East, and in the Western hemisphere the rapidly developing and progressive countriesof Latin-America. Japan, with her high population—some 90 million people—with very limited natural resources, and with little more than 15 per cent. of her total superficial area capable of cultivation, has proved to her Eastern neighbours that it is possible to carry out a gigantic programme of industrialisation and socialisation without adopting Communist methods. As Japan improves her relations with her Asian neighbours, so will she be able to exert greater influence both in the United Nations and elsewhere. Her Majesty's Government would welcome Japan's taking a greater part in world affairs and assisting, through her wealth and technical knowledge, her less developed Asian neighbours. We hope that a closer co-operation will grow up between our two countries.

In Latin-America we have a great Christian continent, and the cultures and traditions of its countries are basically European. The peoples of Latin-America are fortunate in their possession of great natural resources, and as they develop these so do their countries become increasingly concerned with, and interested in, world affairs. Her Majesty's Government welcome this Latin-American participation in world affairs. We value the growing association and cooperation between ourselves and the countries of Latin-America. Recently. further to encourage our association and trade with Latin-America, we have extended the activities of the Dollar Export Council to the whole of the Western hemisphere.

In passing, as we have been discussing at some length African questions, I may perhaps remind your Lordships that certain of the Latin-American countries, with their very mixed populations, have achieved multiracial integration; and I remember very well being struck, when I was in Caracas, by a vast mural which was in the Military Circle there, in which the artist had portrayed three stonemasons, one an Indian, one an African and the third a European, working together on the heraldic arms of Venezuela. Let us hope that one day, with pride, a similar mural might be commissioned in Africa.

Certain questions have been directed to me, and to the best of my ability I will try to reply to them. The noble Earl, Lord Winterton, asked a question about whether any message of sympathy had been sent by Her Majesty's Government to the Belgians over the appalling atrocities which, as he said, had been committed. I can assure the noble Earl that we were in constant touch with the Belgian Government, and, naturally, throughout all our meetings with them expressions of the deepest sympathy were constantly made. The noble Earl also inquired whether the British representative at the United Nations had taken steps with the Secretariat about the failure of various detachments of the United Nations forces to intervene over the maltreatment of both Europeans and Africans. Here again let me assure the noble Earl that representations were made; though as I feel sure he is aware, it is not always easy to obtain results.

As to the question of famine in the Kasai, this is a matter in which Her Majesty's Government played a valuable and helpful part. I think the noble Earl wondered whether perhaps there had been delay in dealing with this problem. From all the facts I have at my disposal I do not think that is the case. Furthermore, I gather (and we have pretty good evidence that this is correct) that the figures given—that something like 200 people were dying each day—were, fortunately, a very great exaggeration of the truth. As the noble Earl will be aware, this famine was caused by the sudden migration of 300,000 tribesmen into an area where possibly there was not sufficient food to support them. But the United Nations came at once to the rescue, and through the Food and Agriculture Organisation, machinery was set in motion. And I think the noble Earl can rest assured that the United Nations played a noble part and that, but for their intervention, the deaths would have been far higher than in fact they were

EARL WINTERTON

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend and relative this question. He says that the United Nations took action. But why did they not take action at the very beginning? Why did they not discover that these people were dying?

THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

My Lords, the answer to that is that they attempted to take action right from the very start; but, as I am sure the noble Earl is well aware, there was civil strife and tribal warfare, and in those circumstances it was very difficult to give the aid which was available. The noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, in his interesting speech, referred to the possibility of some form of United Nations trusteeship of the Congo. As he himself is well aware, this would, in fact, be an infringement of the United Nations Charter as it now stands. That could not legally take place under the United Nations Charter. I was interested to hear the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, refer to the desirability of having a real international force. I am sure noble Lords in all quarters of the House will have pondered on what he said.

The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, has fortunately absolved me from having to give your Lordships an account of what took place and is taking place in the Congo. No one is more qualified than he is to present an historical account, and from his vast experience it was, I am sure, valuable to all of us who listened to what he had to say, sombre though his story was. I think that throughout this debate we have had nothing but helpful and constructive suggestions. I was interested to hear the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, say that we in this country must show as much enthusiasm for our ideology as the Communists do for theirs. Indeed, in the speech of the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary there was the same theme, was there not? Again, from a different angle, the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, spoke of having come back to this country after a long absence abroad and having the feeling that perhaps this nation does not know where it wants to go.

LORD HASTINGS

Lords, may I correct the noble Marquess? It was the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, who said that; I merely quoted his words.

MARQUEES OF LANSDOWNE

My Lords, with that I would wholeheartedly disagree. I do not believe it to be true. I believe that we do know where we want to go, but that more encouragement and more direction should perhaps be given to the people of this country. The will to serve is there. We must somehow contrive to see how this will to serve can be most usefully harnessed. I said that I would be brief, and I feel that I have already overtaxed your Lordships' patience. To-morrow we shall embark on another day of debating our foreign affairs, and I feel certain that the same constructive and objective spirit will then be brought to bear on our deliberations.

LORD SILKIN

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

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

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

House adjourned at twenty minutes before eight o'clock.