Lords Sitting of 19 July 1961

Preamble
The House met at two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Liverpool

LORD ROBERTSON OF OAKRIDGE
Sir Brian Hubert Robertson, Bt., G.C.B., G.B.E., K.C.M.G., K.C.V.O., D.S.O., M.C, having been created Baron Robertson of Oakridge, of Oakridge in the County of Gloucester—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

COURT SENTENCES
2.17 p.m.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the criticisms which have appeared in some quarters about sentences imposed by the courts, they will make it clear that the Judiciary has the sole right to impose such sentences and cannot be subjected to outside influence.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, the determination of sentences in criminal cases is, subject to any limitations imposed by law, entirely within the discretion of the courts. I agree with the noble Earl that it is desirable that the courts' exercise of this discretion should be completely free.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, may I thank my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack for his very favourable answer on this very delicate matter.
LORD BIRKETT: My Lords, might I ask the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack: Is it not a rather dangerous thing to suggest (if the Question does suggest) that Her Majesty's Judges are immune from public criticism? Is it not the right of every citizen in this country to criticise a sentence imposed by a Judge, or indeed
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any other act done in a judicial capacity, providing that it is done respectfully and without any imputation of improper motives? For example, is it not a fact that, if a citizen thinks that a sentence of, for instance, 40 years imprisonment is an intolerable thing, he should be entitled to say so?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, with great respect to my noble and learned friend, Lord Birkett, I think he has in mind an entirely different matter from that in the mind of my noble friend Lord Winterton. If my noble and learned friend Lord Birkett will look at the Question, he will see that the concluding words are—
"cannot be subjected to outside influence."
I do not think that my noble and learned friend's question really touched that point. He is dealing with the position after sentence has been imposed. I agree with him that, as the late noble Lord, Lord Atkin, said in a well-known case, justice is not a cloistered virtue, and the administration of justice is subject to criticism, just like anything else in our free society. In fact, the justification of my!own triple position as head of the Judiciary, a member of the Executive and a Member of your Lordships' House, is that there should be someone answerable in Parliament for the administration of justice. But I say again that that does not justify for a moment—and I hope that my noble and learned friend Lord Birkett will not be interpreted as justifying—outside influence and pressure on the Judiciary in coming to their decisions.

HARVEST PROSPECTS
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government if they will make a statement as to the prospects for the harvests this year.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, forward estimates of yields per acre will be available early in August We have found

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from previous experience that estimates made any earlier in the year do not always prove reliable.
The figures of cereal acreages in England and Wales obtained in December showed that the winter wheat was about 900,000 acres down. Most of this deficiency is likely to be made up by the spring sowings. For barley, the farmers' forecast made in March showed an increase of - million acres. Oats were down by 160,000 acres.
In general, our reports for England and Wales indicate that, at the beginning of this month, autumn and winter sown cereals looked promising, but that some spring-sown crops were making poor growth. In some of the main cereal growing areas the harvest will be early.
Good progress has been made with the hay harvest. The quality generally is good and yields should be a little higher than last year. It is too early to report on maincrop potatoes and root crops. The forecast acreage of maincrop potatoes is down by 80,000 acres, but the yield per acre of early potatoes is expected to be slightly below average.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend, may I ask him whether, so far as it can be forecast at the present time, this looks as if it will be an average year, or worse, or better?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, that is a rather difficult question to answer. As I said in the main part of my Answer, though we have the figures of acreages, we do not like, as early as July, to make official estimates of what the outturn will be; but from the acreages I have given, I think that noble Lords will be able to draw their own deductions of what the cereal harvest is likely to be.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make on the future, if any, of the Road Traffic Bill?
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My
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Lords, I hope to be in a position to answer that question in about an hour's time.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that my noble friend Lord Carrington will be making two statements later this afternoon, one on recruiting for the Regular Army and the other on the missile defence alarm system.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (EXMOUTH) BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
TEESSIDE RAILLESS TRACTION BOARD (ADDITIONAL ROUTE) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without further amendment.

MOTOR VEHICLES (VARIATION OF SPEED LIMIT) REGULATIONS, 1961
2.26 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, the First Schedule to the Road Traffic Act, 1960, specifies speed limits for vehicles in certain classes or descriptions. Paragraph 1 (1) of the Schedule provides that passenger vehicles having an unladen weight exceeding three tons or adapted to carry more than seven passengers, exclusive of the driver, shall be subject to a speed limit of 30 m.p.h. This means buses, coaches and small 10 to 12 seater personnel carriers. Smaller passenger vehicles, of course, are not subject to any speed limit on unrestricted roads. The Regulations for which I ask your Lordships' approval increase the speed limit of vehicles covered by paragraph 1 (1) to 4.0 m.p.h. on roads that are not subject to a speed limit of less than that figure. In fact, the Regulations are those in respect of buses and coaches which I

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announced during the Committee stage of the Road Traffic Bill, when your Lordships discussed the matter very thoroughly and agreed on the necessity for speed limits being realistic. I think that noble Lords in all parts of the House generally welcomed the announcement at the time, and I hope that your Lordships are now able to approve these Regulations. I beg to move that the Motor Vehicles (Variation of Speed Limit) Regulations, 1961, be approved.
Moved, That the Motor Vehicles (Variation of Speed Limit) Regulations, 1961, be approved.—(Lord Chesham.)
LORD MOYNE: My Lords, at the risk of being thought to be a voice crying in the wilderness, and not wanting to hold up proceedings before the forthcoming debate, none the less it seems to me that this is a matter of sufficient importance for those of us who feel strongly about it not to let it go without a protest. I am not going to press a Division because I should obviously lose it; apparently there was unanimity of opinion on a previous occasion when the question was discussed—I was not here or there would not have been.
There is one point which needs to be thought about. I may be wrong, but I am told that the permitted size of buses is shortly to be increased. Surely it would be wiser to discuss this increase in speed in conjunction with the increase in size. A second point which is near to my heart is that, like many other noble Lords, I live in the country and have a large family. I keep them off the roads when on their bicycles as much as possible, but they have to go on the roads sometimes and on many winding country roads, when we consider that it takes large vehicles as much as 150 feet to pull up at 30 m.p.h., I feel that 40 m.p.h. is altogether too fast. I should be much happier to see a bus going down a winding country road at 30 m.p.h. than at 40 m.p.h.
It has been argued previously in favour of this proposal that the law is not enforced and that vehicles do go at more than 30 m.p.h. It seems to me an extraordinary attitude for a Legislature to take up, that because they cannot bother to see that their laws are enforced they should therefore alter the law. Furthermore, I cannot help thinking that once
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this increase is permitted, motor coach companies will increase the speeds allowed for in their schedules and the unfortunate drivers will be forced to drive faster, even if it is against their better judgment. I promised to keep my remarks short and I will only say further that this is a serious matter: the number of people killed and injured on the roads is very great and the number of accidents in which public service vehicles are involved is very high.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I will not keep your Lordships for more than a minute. I entirely agree with the Government's attitude in this matter and not with that of my noble friend Lord Moyne. As to the interests of road safety, if you get passenger coaches and buses driving slower than the normal stream of traffic it leads to others trying to cut in and pass, and causes more accidents than anything else. My noble friend does not seem to realise that bus and coach drivers in this country are probably among the most reliable on the roads.
LORD MOYNE: I certainly realise that.
LORD DERWENT: If there should happen to be a large bus in a winding country road you will molt find the driver driving at 40 m.p.h. I hope that the Government will stand by their own ideas.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, the real queston is that mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Moyne, as to whether any real effort is to be made to enforce this speed (limit. I remember when the order for putting up the speed limit of commercial vehicles from, I think it was, 20 to 30 m.p.h., was moved, I asked whether the speed limit would be enforced, and I was given some assurance that it would But no effort whatever has been made in that direction, and every one of your Lordships Who drives a motor oar must have been passed by large commercial vehicles travelling at anything up to 50 m.p.h., time and time again. It happens to me almost every time that I go on the road. It is ludicrous to establish these speed limits unless they are enforced. The ordinary 30 m.p.h. speed limit in built-up areas is ignored all the time, and if anybody driving tries to keep to it, he is hooted at by all the other people who

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are angry with him for obeying the law. Are the Government going to give us traffic police such as we had before the war, to warn people and try to keep the traffic in order? I am sure that that is the secret of this problem. It is futile to have these speed limits passed by Parliament and to make no sort of effort to enforce them.
2.33 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Moyne must remember that the present speed limit was introduced in 1930. Since then there have been improvements in the construction, and particularly in the braking performance, of public service vehicles, so that buses can now travel quite safely at 40 m.p.h. That is, at any rate, our view, and that of many other people, including the Departmental Committee on Road Safety. Furthermore, public service vehicles are regularly inspected by the Department's technical officers to ensure that they go about their business with a high standard of maintenance. As my noble friend Lord Derwent said, the drivers are of a very high order; they have to be, and they must hold a special driving licence which requires a high level of competence.
I do not think Lord Moyne's point about increased size has anything to do with this, because what we are discussing to-day is the question of speed. If in due course it is approved that there should be an increase in size, such as has been mentioned, it will not apply to existing buses. It will take quite a long time to come into effect, and in the meantime it is thought that this measure should apply to existing buses and coaches. I agree also with my noble friend Lord Derwent that the fact that vehicles are permitted, in proper circumstances, to travel at 40 m.p.h. does not mean that they must do so and must do it round every corner.
I could not be more at one with my noble friend Lord Moyne in his concern for his, mine or anybody else's children cycling along country roads, but I do not think that is a valid objection. The point of altering the law on this subject is not because it cannot be enforced, but because it seems sensible and reasonable to do so, which is, of course, a much better reason. My noble friend was
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worried whether the increased speed might mean tighter and, therefore, possibly more dangerous schedules. Here again, the schedules of what are generally known as stage and express carriages (quaint but expressive words) are regulated by the traffic commissioners, and I do not think there is much danger that a higher speed limit is likely to be abused in this way. But even if it were, operators would be liable to a charge of incitement if it could be shown that the schedule could not be reasonably complied with without exceeding the speed limit. Those, I think, are good arguments against what my noble friend said.
I thought the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, was a little cynical, if not perhaps entirely incorrect, in what he said about enforcement. At the time to which the noble Lord referred, it was said in many quarters of your Lordships' House that in order to enforce things properly it was needful that they should be realistic. This is a move to try to produce a realistic speed limit, in the circumstances, for buses and coaches. We feel that we can go ahead with this now, without waiting for the results of the reviews of other speed limits, which we have also discussed in the past. I hope therefore that your Lordships will approve this Order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
2.38 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON 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. The international situation confronting us to-day is one which I think must give all of us cause for deep concern. It is a sad fact that, contrary to the hopes of those who thought that the election of Mr. Kennedy to the Presidency of the United States would lead to a new unity of purpose in the West and to a conciliatory response from Mr. Khrushchev, the world situation contains more dangers to-day than it did a year ago.
The first meeting between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev may have served to give each a better insight into the mind of the other; but

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instead of developing understanding and conciliation, the one concrete result that came out of it was in the form of a political time bomb handed to the President by Mr. Khrushchev. Mr. Khrushchev's aide-mernoire on Germany and Berlin was bound to create an atmosphere of crisis; the Soviet Government must have known very well that such would be the result. The Soviet objective was stated in summary terms by Mr. Khrushchev himself in his television broadcast after his return from Vienna. He declared that the Peace Treaty with Germany must be signed before the end of 1961, and added that,
"when a Peace Treaty has been signed, countries wanting to maintain connections with West Berlin will have to negotiate them with the Government of the German Democratic Republic."
This is the real crux of the dispute between the two sides which may flare up into a grave crisis before the year is out.
We have all been able to read the Note which the British Government have given to Soviet Russia in reply to their aide-memoire. It states the Western position on Berlin with a firmness and clarity that we shall all approve. Joint four-Power responsibility for Greater Berlin is set out clearly in various Agreements. The fact that the Soviet Government has incorporated in East Germany the sector of Berlin for which it was responsible does not invalidate the Agreements, and does not affect the legal rights and obligations under the Agreements. The incorporation was itself an illegal act. The statement in the British Note
"that the status of Berlin cannot he altered without the agreement of all four interested Governments"
cannot, surely, be controverted. I think Her Majesty's Government were right in their Note to call both Soviet and world attention to the fact that
"the City of Berlin does not belong to the Soviet Union, nor to the so-called German Democratic Republic."
I do not believe that there is a single Member of your Lordships' House who is not completely steadfast in support of the right of the West Berlin population to be free to decide their own way of life and to have uninterrupted communications with the outside world; and of the right of the Western Allies to station limited troops, or limited forces,
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in West Berlin, and freely to exercise the right of access to which they are entitled.
Mr. Khrushchev has said that West Berlin should be established as a Free City. But it cannot be free if access to the outside world is to be at the discretion and courtesy of the East German regime. In the light of the Berlin blockade I find it difficult to understand how the Soviet Government could imagine that the West would submit to a situation in which the legal status of Berlin is destroyed by the unilateral action of one of the partners to the Agreement, and the right to deny or control access between West Berlin and the outside world is given to the Russian-maintained regime in Pankow.
It may be desirable—I think it is—to negotiate a new statute for West Berlin, as was attempted in 1959. But negotiations now, as then, would have to be between the same four Powers. I hope that the Soviet Government will not ignore the statement in the British Note that
"Her Majesty's Government have accepted the possibility of practical arrangements intended to improve the present position in Berlin until such time as an overall solution can he given to the German problem."
Such practical arrangements were discussed in 1959 and related, among other things, to the fixing of a ceiling for Western troops in West Berlin, reciprocal arrangements to control what were called "activities" which would be likely to cause a breach of public order and the carrying out by East German personnel of all functions connected with access procedures. It is my view that the West should definitely propose new negotiations. They can stand firmly by their essential rights as well in negotiations as in Notes. They should not leave the Soviet Government in any doubt as to their readiness to do so, and so allow the Soviet leaders to turn an artificial crisis into a real crisis.
The question of a solution of the larger problem of Germany is a far more difficult matter. As the British Note states, effort after effort has been made to get agreement between East and West that would lead, through free elections, to an all-Germany Government with which to make a Peace Treaty, as was envisaged in the Potsdam Agreement. The Russians say that the absence of a Peace Treaty

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is a cause of tension in Europe. I would say that the absence of mutual confidence is a cause of the failure to get a Peace Treaty.
My Lords, there have been occasions when I have felt that we in the West have failed to understand how deep are the genuine fears of German militarism which exist in the minds of the peoples of Eastern Europe, especially those of Russia and Poland, who saw their cities overrun and their families killed by the million. On the other hand, I doubt whether the rulers of Russia realise the fears and anxieties which were aroused in the Western World by their blockade of Berlin, which inspired the first serious post-war suspicions of the power policy of the Soviet Union. It is my personal view that that cynical and ruthless action was the real father of N.A.T.O. and of the race in armaments that has bedevilled world affairs ever since.
The fact, as I see it, is that the achievement of unity is not within the grasp of the German people at present. The Soviet aide-memoire states that the Soviet Government does not propose any changes in Germany. It wants a Peace Treaty
"to record the situation that took shape in Europe after the war"
to consolidate de jure existing German frontiers, and to normalise West Berlin. If I read that statement correctly, it means that Soviet Russia wants its political expansion in Eastern Europe as far as the Western frontier of East Germany accepted and recognised, and it wants the Polish-German and the Czech-German frontiers as they are at present made the legal permanent frontiers. In his interview with Mr. Walter Lippmann, Mr. Khrushchev said that the Soviet Government would not accept a non-Communist Germany, and that the West would not accept a Communist Germany. The West's position is as set out in the British Note—namely, that their proposals have been directed towards the reunification of Germany in freedom and by stages, and Mr. Khrushchev knows that the end result would be a non-Communist Germany.
Despite the discouraging prospect with which we are faced, the West should persist in efforts to lessen the causes of tension in Central Europe. I person-
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ally regret the cavalier way in which the West German Chancellor has brushed aside the serious proposal made by Herr Willy Brandt, the Chief Burgomaster of West Berlin, for the convening of a Peace Conference of all the 52 countries who had by 1944 entered into war with Hitler Germany. While none of us could feel confident that such a conference would bring about an immediate settlement of the dispute, it would nevertheless serve to involve in the settlement of the German problem many countries whose practical sympathy and understanding might help towards a solution.
I also regret that since Mr. Macmillan returned from his visit to Moscow in 1959, nothing more has been heard of the proposal to discuss the idea of limitation of arms and armaments in an agreed area of Central Europe. Nothing has weakened my conviction that the Berlin problem can be securely settled only within the framework of a broader European settlement which will involve some form of disengagement and some sort of limitation of armaments, with effective control over East and West Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, as well as the creation of a nuclear-free zone.
It is probably true that in present circumstances progress along these lines may not be possible and that the achievement of German reunification will have to be delayed indefinitely. We may have to be content, for the present, with seeking an agreement limited to West Berlin. That will be a good thing to get. We must all hope that Mr. Khrushchev has not become a prisoner of his own pronouncements. It is little use his talking about the vital need for peace and then recklessly endangering for it must be obvious to him, as it is to the Western Governments, that if he carried through his plan it would lead to "a most serious situation". He must realise that his demand, "Agree to what I want or I will do it without your agreement", is a bad substitute for negotiations. The whole world recognises that hard bargaining is far better than hard fighting. It is for Mr. Khrushchev to return to the path of genuine negotiation.
I turn now to the question of nuclear tests. All of us must regret that the

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Geneva nuclear test ban talks appear to have reached complete deadlock. I can recall Soviet insistence that nuclear tests should be dealt with apart from general disarmament. Some of us pressed the Government to accept this point of view. We urged that separate negotiations should be conducted to bring an end to nuclear tests. The voluntary moratorium on tests created a helpful atmosphere. Progress towards an agreement was slow, but there was progress. I think there was more promise of agreement on the banning of tests than in any other field of disarmament discussions. Noble Lords may remember that I have on more than one occasion expressed my belief that success in this particular field may provide a breakthrough to wider disarmament agreements.
I was one of those who felt that, despite the difficulties which had to be overcome, the three Governments involved in the talks all wanted an agreement. I was particularly convinced of this when at the resumed discussions in March of this year the new American Administration came forward with significant new proposals which seemed to open the way to a solution of most of the outstanding points at issue. The American proposals made seven important concessions to the Soviet point of view. They were constructive concessions. But instead of producing a favourable response from the Soviet Government, the conference was confronted with a new attitude and policy from the Russian side which indicated that the Soviet Government had gone into reverse, and in particular had gone back on its agreement to a single impartial administrator of the control system. It insisted on the application of the Troika principle to the control administration; suggested that even after a treaty had been signed, the control commission should not begin operations until a further four years had passed, and then, as an alternative to getting a treaty now, proposed that the Geneva negotiations be merged in the general disarmament negotiations, which have yet to be agreed upon, thereby postponing the achievement of a test ban treaty into the indefinite future. This cynical set back I believe will create depression and disappointment throughout the world.
I urge again two points which I raised with the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, a month ago: that the Western Governments should not become responsible for ending the Geneva talks and should not be first to break the existing moratorium on the tests. Both points are of vital importance. To do either would, I believe, be a grave mistake. And we welcome the decision of the two Allied Governments to ask the Secretary-General to place before the United Nations General Assembly in September an item on the urgent need for a properly controlled ban on nuclear tests. The Foreign Secretary is right not to weary in his efforts to get a properly controlled ban, and he will be taking a useful and worthwhile step to mobilise world opinion in its support.
We want the talks to go on, we want the tests suspension to continue and we want effective steps to be taken to begin negotiations on general disarmament once more. There are, it must be admitted, obvious difficulties. The Ten-nation Disarmament Commission broke down in failure when the Soviet Union and her four Communist associates walked out of the conference, but in my view it would be wrong to conclude that no progress was made in the Ten-nation conference talks or that no further progress is possible. There is no doubt that the revised proposals which were put foward by Mr. Khrushchev on June 3, 1960, and the American plan put forward on June 21, 1960, represented significant moves by both sides to concede points which had been made during the course of earlier exchanges. These two sets of 'proposals could provide the starting point for new negotiations, which should also have regard to the statement on disarmament which issued from the Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference earlier this year.
My Lords, the immediate urgency is to find an agreed forum in which the talks can recommence, and in this connection I want to urge that the Government should associate themselves with the proposals that have been made for bringing some of the neutral powers into the next round of disarmament talks. One can hardly think of a situation less likely to lead to concessions than a commission consisting of five persons drawn from one side and five from the other, with neither a neutral chairman nor

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neutral participants to help to induce concessions from either side. The search for peace and disarmament is not a matter for the members of N.A.T.O. and the Warsaw pact Powers only but for all other nations who are not committed to the two-Power structure. I hope the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary will be able to give some indication of the Government's attitude to the renewal of disarmament discussions.
My Lords, the adoption by the Soviet Union of the Troika principle and the thesis as expanded by Mr. Khrushchev to Mr. Walter Lippmann, that while there may be neutral nations there can be no neutral men, presents a threat not only to the establishment of a control system for tests and general disarmament but also to the future functioning of the United Nations itself. To accept this principle would be to condemn to total ineffectiveness the one organisation which offers the greatest hope for the peace of the world. We hope that Her Majesty's Government will stand firmly against such a destructive principle. The recent committee of experts set up to advise the United Nations Secretariat were all, with the exception of Russia, opposed to the Troika principle. Mr. Roschin was in a minority of one in his campaign to get rid of Mr. Hammarskjoeld.
I agree with the Secretary-General that to apply the Troika principle would be a violation of the United Nations Charter which lays down that members of the United Nations staff should be of undivided loyalty to the United Nations. Nevertheless I think Mr. Hammarskjoeld has been right to recognise, as the experts' committee pointed out, that the Secretariat as at present constituted is unrepresentative of the member States. The present membership is almost double the original membership of the United Nations. I therefore welcome Mr. Hammarskjoeld's assurances that energetic efforts are being made so that Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe will be more fully represented on the staff, and I think his proposal to establish five assistant political secretaries, one from Russia, one from America and three from uncommitted States, is a good idea. It will help to ensure that the Secretary-General is fully in touch with the various
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groupings in the United Nations without undermining his right to act.
My Lords, it is of vital importance that the United Nations should in every way be strengthened at this time, in view of the challenges that may well be before us. While we may feel a sense of relief that the situation in the Congo has taken a turn for the better—and this is due very largely to the constant and strenuous efforts of members of the United Nations Secretariat, and to the loyalty of the countries which have continued to supply troops to the United Nations Forces—we must surely see that the developing situation in Angola and in South-West Africa may call for united action by the United Nations. It is my own view that many difficulties in the Congo might have been averted if the United Nations had been given a broader mandate; if it had, in fact, established an administration for the Congo by an extension of its trusteeship responsibilities. It may be that there will be a vital role for the United Nations to play, not only in helping to bring peace and prospects of independence to Angola and South-West Africa, but in providing the administration during the period of time when adequate preparations are being made for the assumption of full responsibility by the peoples of the territories concerned.
This is, perhaps, looking into the future, so far as Angola is concerned, but I must say a few words about the situation there. The whole world has been shocked by the tragic events which have occurred in the past few weeks in Angola. Our factual evidence is limited. Because of the rigid censorship of the Salazar Government we must rely largely upon the evidence provided by the Christian missionaries, and in particular by the Baptists. For my part, having seen some of the sworn testimonies of the Baptist missionaries I cannot conceive that they are wilfully painting an inaccurate picture of the situation in Angola. The Times on June 28 stated that
"The evidence of repressive measures has become so overwhelming lately that it is hardly possible any longer to plead ignorance and to appear neutral."
The noble Earl the Foreign Secretary recently arranged for his own observers to visit Angola. I would ask him

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whether he has received any report from them yet, and whether he is able to give the House any information to-day on the situation.
My Lords, Dr. Salazar and his Government in Lisbon appear to have learned nothing from history. How can he imagine that the winds of change can somehow omit to blow through Portuguese territories in Africa? The African people, from North to South, and from East to West, are on the march and will not be content with anything less than real independence.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me, as one who used to know Angola, to ask him if he is aware that factual information supplied by the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph does not altogether agree with the views of the Baptist missionaries, who have said nothing about the appalling atrocities committed by the rebels in the early days of the rebellion?
LORD HENDERSON: I am sure that anybody who has taken a serious interest in the situation is well aware of the atrocities to which the noble Earl refers, and nobody would seek to excuse them. They are part of a situation arising out of a political control.
To return to what I was saying, I believe that nothing can hold up this march, and this is a point that touches upon the question that has been raised by the noble Earl. What is clear is that a Government which tries to stem or disregard the forces of history can bring upon the people of the territory concerned terrible destruction—and people of the territory, of course, include both sides. Most of the Free World has made known its view against the oppression in Angola. The United Nations, by a large majority, both in the Assembly and in the Security Council, has expressed the condemnation of world opinion. Unhappily Her Majesty's Government refrained from associating themselves with what was virtually a world-wide denunciation. It is only fair to say that the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary, in reply to my noble Leader, has stated that in future the British vote would be directed to the substance of a United Nations resolution on Angola. But Her Majesty's Government have continued to take other actions
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which can be read by others as signs not only of friendship and respect but of condonation.
I believe that unless the Government express their view clearly and directly to the Portuguese Government—and I feel sure that the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary, did not omit to do that during his recent visit—and also publicly through the United Nations, not only will the Western Alliance greatly suffer but British prestige and repute in Africa will be seriously undermined. For, above all, it is a British interest to use its moral authority in aid of those who are oppressed.
My Lords, we on these Benches have already made it clear that we consider that the Government had no other course than to respond to the appeal of the Ruler of Kuwait to go to his assistance when Iraq threatened its independence. We also expressed our satisfaction at the speedy and efficient manner in which the operation was carried through. It seems that the success of the operation was to give General Kassem time for second thoughts and to discard any immediate plans for the annexation of the newly independent State. Already it has become possible to begin the running down of our forces, which is a good thing, in view of the fact that Moscow has been casting suspicion on our motives and seeking to stir up Arab hostility.
It would be a good thing if responsibility could be taken over by the United Nations and a United Nations force, composed in the main of Arab contingents, brought in to relieve the British forces of the international task which they rightly assumed to protect Kuwait against the threat to its independence. Once the immediate threat to Kuwait's integrity has gone, the need for the presence of British forces will have ended; and it is important that a British service to peace should not develop into an embarrassment to Britain, by our over-staying our welcome.
The last area of international trouble I wish to refer to is Laos. On this I should like to congratulate the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary on his success since our last debate in getting the International Conference brought into being, and on his selection of Mr. Malcolm MacDonald as his representative. It is

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clear that the Communist members of the Conference are proving difficult, and that progress towards getting the Control Commission properly functioning is slow. I hope we may hear from one of the Government spokesmen during this debate what are the prospects of achieving the conditions for a settlement that will ensure peace and independence for Laos, and put an end to the civil war there.
My Lords, I have taken a good deal of time. Finally, I want to say that I will not weary your Lordships by raising the question of the Common Market which is receiving so much attention. We recently had a full debate on this matter in your Lordships' House, and since then Ministers have been on tour for discussions with Commonwealth Governments. Their return is so recent that the Cabinet may not have had time fully to consider their reports. We shall, no doubt, have a statement from the Government before Parliament rises for the Summer Recess, and I am content to leave it at that for the present. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.13 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, once more we are indebted !to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for bringing his Motion on Foreign Affairs before the House; and once more I think we must thank him, not for the first time or for the second, for presenting his case in a way that, I think, may be described as fair and square. In any debate on Government policy the Opposition are necessarily in the rather difficult position of having to prove a negative—a negative of commission or of omission on the part of the Government—with this further handicap that if any cards are up any sleeves, the chances are that they will be Government cards up Government sleeves.
Nevertheless, in this debate we, on this side of the House, advance to the charge in perfectly good heart, because the field is wide; and notwithstanding the record of our Foreign Secretary who, on occasions, makes things so difficult for us as an Opposition by his liberal and enlightened outlook, which of course no Tory is entitled to have—not-withstanding this most acceptable disadvantage of sometimes having our thunder stolen, !perhaps we in turn can
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take a leaf from the Conservative book and endorse the view—quite a recent view; I think it was expressed last month—of a Government supporter who said:
"I tell the Government frankly that my constituents are as doubtful as I am about what the Government is after; and perplexed by the lack of a coherent principle of European policy."
That was said by a so-called Conservative supporter, abut I believe that that bewilderment exists far too widely in this country for the healthy flourishing of confidence or for the soothing of over-anxiety and of apprehension, which, as your Lordships know, can lead so easily in the international field to antagonism, from antagonism to hostility, and from hostility down the fearsome gradient to war.
It is, of course, difficult in these matters to take the public into the Government's confidence if the Government's confidence is a matter of day-to-day improvisation, for public opinion and public support will not withstand the continual jar of being jammed into forward gear and jammed into reverse gear at too short and too frequent intervals. I do not, of course, suggest that there is a premeditated continual reversal of policy; but it is difficult to see whether there is any consistency in any long-term policy, or even, indeed, what that long-term policy is, apart from the general aim of all civilised peoples and of all Parties to establish peace and prosperity and to abolish war, poverty and ignorance. Of course that goes without saying. There are to-day many international problems of what I would consider a rather simple, two-sided facet, where we really do not know where the Government stands—but we should like to know.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has mentioned Angola and the supply of arms there. But what is proposed about it? We appreciate that Portugal is possibly our oldest Ally and that need for diplomacy and tact is obvious. But are we frozen on a pinnacle of indecision? After all, diplomacy and humanity must go hand in hand. What encouragement or advice, or sympathy, or succour have we given to our nearest, and what I call our dearest, ally, France (for I am certainly a Francophile), in all the great troubles that she has been going through

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lately? Are we still manacled by expediency in the matter of bringing China into the club of the United Nations? I am sorry to have to call it a club, but it takes on some of that air, that only accepted members are inside the United Nations, which, by its very name, should surely include all nations. Is it still considered ill-timed or inappropriate to lift our veil to the obvious fact, which we do not seem to want to face, that China herself is on the verge, potentially, of being, within a few decades, the master nation on this earth?
We should like to know the Government's attitude to the suggested combination, as I understand, of South American countries in some sort of commercial combine, some sort of common market. That surely is of great importance to this country. I admit that the man in the street does not know much about South America unless he has a particular interest in the area. I should think that most men in the street would be unable to describe the difference between Cuba and Chile. Nevertheless, this area is one of vast commercial importance, as your Lordships will know. I think, too, that we have had little or no enlightenment about the foreign policy and long-term intention towards the newest of independent nations—I refer to the new State of independent South Africa, that most important country in the international balance of political influence. I hope that we shall have a fairly clear-cut explanation on that important and powerful area.
In South East Asia, apart, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson mentioned, from a sort of passing interest in Korea and Laos, and perhaps an occasional glance to Malaya and the explosive question of Formosa, it seems to me that we are most unwise and most short-sighted in not concentrating a great deal of attention and interest upon Indonesia. Indonesia is a vast country, enormously rich in existing and potential production, with an enormous and greatly increasing population—increasing indeed, at the rate of one million a year. Yet I feel it is being virtually ignored by the non-Communist Powers such as ourselves in the spectrum of future developments.
I do not want to give your Lordships a geography lesson, but you probably
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know that if you were to turn to a map of South East Asia, an ordinary atlas would show Indonesia as a little island down at the bottom, not looking very important. But if you transposed Indonesia on to a European map of the same scale it would run from Aberdeen, not to Northampton or to London, but to Constantinople. Indonesia, where many of us have good friends, is, I think, psychologically the victim still of an over-prolonged and nationalistic resentment of her long-past role as a political dependency. She is oversensitive, I think, and over-quick to take offence in her new, or fairly new, independence. But, basically, I feel sure that she is ready to accept the fact that she needs advice and assistance towards the immense prosperity of which she is capable, provided that such an approach is made with tact and with recognition of her sensibilities. On the top level of commercial direction and planning there is really an adequate supply of talent there, and on the manual worker level there is an inexhaustible supply of labour. But on the intermediate technical level of engineering and scientific expertise, of management and administration, there is a very great vacuum maintained even now, as I say, by what I consider to be misdirected national pride—a vacuum which I think it would pay us a hundredfold to help to fill before it is exploited by other nations who would wish to gather Indonesia into the Communist fold. We are, my Lords, I think, neglecting a very vital and very important opportunity, and we are neglecting it dangerously.
Then, my Lords, we should like to know a little more about our policy vis-à-vis the Arab States. What actually are we aiming at, and who is working with us? This sudden and apparently unscrupulous decision of Iraq that Kuwait is now a component part of Iraq is, of course, an immediate problem. We congratulate the Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said, on their prompt and efficient action, and on its success; and we extend our congratulations and thanks to the Forces on the spot, not only the commandos, but all those who have been going through such an extraordinarily uncomfortable time. But what is our long-term policy in respect of Iraq—that nation of such a very ancient civilisation—apart from the

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immediate question of oil? Your Lordships may remember that the Garden of Eden itself was located in Iraq, and you may remember, more sadly, that the Tree of Knowledge, which flourished there throughout the centuries, actually withered and died in 1946, only fifteen years ago. Let us hope, my Lords, that that is not a portent.
Then, of course, there is this great question of Berlin. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has covered that in a way that we on these Benches would endorse. It is at the moment a very great problem, and I do not propose to say very much about it. We are very glad, however, that Her Majesty's Government are advocating negotiation and discussion as obviously preferable to any sort of dug-in obstinacy on either side. But, in passing—and I do not take this point very heavily—I would say that I hope we shall not continue to make it a primary point, as we seem rather to have been doing, that we are there in Berlin because we have a right to be and that nobody has the right to turn us out, rather than on the merits of the case and whether it is advantageous that we should be there.
The attitude that we are there because we have a right to be there seems to me to savour too much of the nursery game "I'm King of the Castle". But, of course, the delicacy of the situation and its vital impact on things to come in the immediate future demand the most thoughtful and probably the most flexible handling. I am confident that our Foreign Secretary, in handling this difficult matter, will not be swayed at all by considerations of purely national prestige but may give thought, perhaps, to the suggestion that the United Nations Organisation should be brought into the picture in this inflammable and smouldering situation.
At the moment, of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, says, politically everything is rather overshadowed by the question of the Common Market. From the aspect of political rather than commercial desirability, the matter comes well within the range of this afternoon's debate, but I take it that we shall have other opportunities of discussing it. All I would say is, in answer to Sir Roy Welensky's recent remark that "If
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Britain enters the Common Market it may be the end of the Commonwealth", the reply might well be that "If Britain does not enter the Common Market it may be the end of Britain". But however the merits or demerits of this difficult question may be adjudged, we ask the Government not to lose sight of the damage which I think prolonged uncertainty is causing, and to come to the wisest decision of which they are capable in as short a time as possible.
The field for discussion on the noble Lord's Motion is, of course, almost unlimited. But I would close my remarks by saying that modern conditions have really wiped out our old reliance upon a general world stability advancing parallel with greater knowledge, greater wealth and greater intercommunication. We find ourselves involved in a cold war—a long, permanent, poisonous cold war—which I think your Lordships will agree must be eradicated from the international body politic. And in its place there must be achieved a reliable and longed-for state of peaceful co-existence. Disarmament, therefore, it seems to me, and, I believe, to other noble Lords on these Benches, takes first and foremost place; and we think it should do so in the minds and aims of all responsible nations and statesmen—total and world-wide disarmament. I mean, subject to effective inspection and control.
Of course, that last question raises a difficult point. That this is not just a pipedream or a stale and overworked pious hope is, I think, shown vividly, strikingly and convincingly by the declaration which the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, referred to; the Declaration by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London on March 17 of this year. My noble friend Lord Samuel calls it to your Lordships' attention by a Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper for discussion at some future date, but I would earnestly beg your Lordships to look at that Declaration again and to read it again, because I think it is of the utmost importance.
Here is a constructive blueprint, with realistic detail, for immediate implementation towards what we all desire and what we all know to be an essential prerequisite of peaceful co-existence. Yet it seems to be neglected and overlooked, and many people seem hardly to have

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heard of it. The machinery for inspection and control exists, at least in embryo, in the United Nations Organisation, and to advance this to efficiency and strength is only a matter of application and determination by all the member States who, as your Lordships probably know, now number over 100.
I would urge the Government to give absolute and urgent priority to reexamination of this matter, this immensely important Declaration, and to seek every available means of initiating its implementation, however gradually, however slowly, whatever the difficulties and frustrations which are bound to accompany the emergence of a new era, the era of survival, to put it at its lowest—survival, if we can attain it, rather than the era of utter destruction and of the return of mankind to the primeval blackness of millions of years ago.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
3.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think it probably would be convenient if I replied to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, by making the statement which my right honourable friend will, I hope, be making in another place at the moment. I think it will be convenient to repeat it as follows:
"There is clearly not enough time this Session for the Road Traffic Bill to go through all its stages in this House. There has, however, been valuable discussion of its provisions in another place and I am sure that the Amendments made to the Bill have improved it considerably. It is the Government's intention to reintroduce the Bill next Session."
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I do not think this is a new statement. It is just a kind of last-moment final apology at the end of the Session. No doubt my noble friends in all parts of the House will appreciate the fact that this explanation has been made, but we hope that it is not going to be a recurring factor in another Session.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I would agree that these things are regrettable, but I think I can honestly say that I have suffered as much trouble in
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the cause of the Road Traffic Bill as any other Member of your Lordships' House.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, would the noble Viscount make a similar statement as regards other measures which have fallen by the wayside—the Weights and Measures Bill, for instance?

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
3.30 p.m.
Debate resumed.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, not even the studied care which the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, employed in his review of world affairs, nor the measured language which he used when he described current events, nor the wider tour round the world which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, could conceal from your Lordships that we are living in a situation which can be described only as one of international anarchy. When the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and myself are added up to-morrow, they will be found to contain a catalogue of violence, of threats, of coups d'état, of incitement to rebellion, of the use of force, from which few areas of the world are exempt; and these incidents, breaking out like a disease across the face of the world, are making a mockery of the claim of twentieth century man to have devised an international code of conduct which could be called the code of the good neighbour. The Congo, Cuba, Korea, Kuwait, Angola, Algiers, South Vietnam—all these areas are involved in conflicts of one kind and another which entangle others outside their own borders. And, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has reminded us, one false step over Berlin could easily plunge the Continent of Europe into war.
Part of this turbulence is explicable. Many new nations have emerged into independence before they had been properly prepared, at any rate before they had found their international legs—and we therefore could expect outbreaks of nationalism, and even racialism, before countries had learnt the responsibilities which go with independence and with power. But far the largest share

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of the responsibility for the breakdown in law and order which is evident all over the world to-day must be laid at the door of international Communism. My Lords, it was the deliberate finding of the Conference of World Communist Parties in Moscow in November that civil strife, wherever it occurred, should be exploited in the interests of the final victory of the Communist Party. If that is not a direct incitement to discord and riot, I do not know what is.
That is bad; but, even so, local disputes, however violent, could be settled if the conciliation machinery of the United Nations was allowed to operate according to the spirit of the Charter. But in order to make chaos doubly sure, the Communist Parties decided, simultaneously with their resolution about the exploitation of civil strife, on the all-pervading use of the veto, transferring it from the Security Council in the United Nations right through the whole structure of the United Nations itself—and, indeed, associating it with any bodies connected with the United Nations.
In such a world, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has pointed out to us, Britain has to try to steer a true course, to find a principle of international conduct and to apply it consistently. If I may respond to him, I think I would name the principle thus: that we should use the influence of our country everywhere to maintain international law and order. Because upon law and order depends political stability, and upon political stability in the world depends, ultimately, the peace. It has been—and, indeed, it is—our philosophy and our practice to try in our own country, and in the territories for which we are responsible, to maintain law and order as the basis of political stability. It is our belief that there is no other way in which civilised nations can live together unless it be by observing the sanctity of treaties and agreements freely made.
Then, again, if I may name another principle in response to Lord Rea, I think it would be this: that we have never insisted on the status quo—never in our own country, whose history has been, throughout all the years, one of peaceful change; nor in our Colonies; nor in our Commonwealth partnership. But if there is to be change, then it must be
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change by consent. So when the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Party in this House asks me on what principle we operate, that is my answer: that the weight of this country should be thrown behind the maintenance of law and order in international affairs.
My Lords, that sequence of values—law and order, the sanctity of agreements and change by consent—has proved of good value to 'ourselves, and I think experience tells us that it has a much wider validity. It was that code of conduct which brought us to act only a few weeks ago, when Kuwait was threatened with what I can only describe as an attempt at snatch and grab. The propagandists are already questioning our action, and so I should like to remind the House, if I may, of the sequence and order of events. On June 19 Britain signed an Agreement with the Ruler which took 'account of the Kuwait Government's sole responsibility for the affairs of their country. Kuwait's independence had already been recognised by a number of countries, including Iraq, and this Agreement with the United Kingdom confirmed the independence beyond doubt. Under that Agreement we had told the Ruler that if he asked for assistance in the case of danger, then we would come to his help.
A week later, on June 25, the Prime Minister of Iraq declared Kuwait to be part of the Province of Basra. He said the Ruler of Kuwait was the Iraqi Governor, and that he would be punished if he misbehaved. Iraq had enough troops already within reach of the Kuwait frontier to overrun it without reinforcement, but information reached Kuwait that those troops were in fact reinforced by a tank regiment which was moved to near the locality of the frontier. Language and action could scarcely have been plainer, and the Ruler of Kuwait, if he was to save his city without a bloody battle in the streets, and to prevent war, was almost bound to ask for our assistance, which he did.
The rest of the story is familiar to the House. I would say only this: that. having undertaken the obligation, and having received the request, Her Majesty's Government had to act with speed and with decision—and both were done. In the event, my Lords, in this

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matter of dispute in an area which, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has said, is traditionally inflammable, not one drop of blood was shed, and the independence of Kuwait was secured. I would associate myself with what the noble Lord has said about the performance of the Services. So often they get the raps that it is right that they should be commended when, as in this case, they really have done a magnificent job.
My Lords, I said that the propagandists were busy. When I see the accounts of our motives in going to Kuwait, I marvel at the imagination and really boggle at the malice, because those are the only words by which I can describe such distortions as this, when it is said that the reaffirmation of the independence of Kuwait is an act of imperialism. It is said that we went to Kuwait in order to ensure our oil supply. Since when has it become a crime to see that the food and raw materials on which the world's population depends can be freely transported around the world without payment of ransom to the highwayman? The future is difficult to forecast, so far as Kuwait and the protection of the Ruler's security is concerned, because there are a number of questions which I cannot answer to the House to-day. I cannot say whether the Arab League is going to elect Kuwait a member. I cannot say, if the membership of Kuwait comes before the Security Council again, whether Russia will veto it or not. All I would say, in response to Lord Henderson's questions, is this: that none is keener than the United Kingdom to find solid international guarantees upon which the Ruler can really rely for his security. When he is confident that he is secure and that the threat is over, then the United Kingdom can withdraw.
It was our desire for law and order and political stability which led us consistently to support the United Nations in the Congo. After months of indescribable confusion, there is some improvement to report. The relationship between the Leopoldville Government and the United Nations is better. There is a closer working arrangement between the United Nations forces and the Congolese army, and, in fact, training schemes are going to be devised which will improve the quality and the responsibility of the Congolese forces. But the central problem still remains, and it is
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one which only the Congolese can settle for themselves. What is lacking is a Government of national unity. There is, therefore, a need—and I have said this before in this House—for the provincial leaders to come together and to agree upon a political structure which will result in a united Congo. Month after month we have had to watch this process, and by our Western standards it is exasperatingly slow. But it is being clone by Africans, and Africans have to take their own time, and therefore we must exercise patience. There is a chance for a settlement and a chance of co-operation between the different factions.
But just at this moment, when it seemed that Parliament might be recalled, when it seemed that the different provincial leaders might come together and arrange a political settlement for themselves, a mission has been flown in from Moscow to Stanleyville. This is horribly reminiscent of the opportunism of Russia twelve months ago when the strife in the Congo started, and of the carelessness which Russia showed at this time for the true welfare of the Africans, which is, above all, to avoid the ideological war being imported into the countries of Africa. Russia will carry the heaviest responsibility if, at this time when success and co-operation seem possible, they intervene in order to set the different factions of the Congo once more at enmity with each other.
My Lords, may I go from Africa to Asia, and to the Laotian situation, which Lord Henderson again mentioned? Britain's sole interest is to assist a settlement which will enable Laos to be genuinely neutral and which will prevent any attempt by outside Powers to intervene in their internal affairs. It is the same principle, if I may respectfully say so to Lord Rea, that I mentioned earlier. Our sole interest is to see law and order and political stability in this country without interference from outside. Again there is some progress to record. First of all, there is a cease-fire. Secondly, the International Control Commission is back in Laos, although I must report to the House that it is hampered in its activities because the Pathet Lao are preventing its going into their territory except at their own request. But there is also a Conference

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in being at Geneva, and although it appears that there is deadlock, there are certain indications that I can give to your Lordships that an agreement might be possible. First of all, the delegations have declared that, if there is a declaration by Laos that it wishes to be neutral, that declaration will be respected by every member of the Conference. Secondly, I believe it will be possible, if there is a declaration by the Laotians that all the forces they need are forces for internal security, that that too would be respected by the members of the Conference.
But this raises the question whether declarations are enough, and in the present situation it is clear that they are not, because it is uncertain, unless there is some independent supervision, whether outside nations will respect the independence of Laos and whether they would observe the ceiling on armaments which might be agreed. Therefore, the essence of the matter is this: the freedom of the International Control Commission, first of all, to investigate incidents, and secondly, to report them, probably to the co-chairmen of the Conference. I am bound to say, looking at the present, that the Communist forces have been uncooperative. The Government side in Laos has given complete co-operation and is willing to have complete inspection everywhere. That cannot be said of the Pathet Lao. But, nevertheless, there is a cease-fire, and, broadly, the International Control Commission reports that the cease-fire holds.
Looking ahead to the future role of the International Control Commission, no one wants to see it invested with such powers that it can overrule and infringe the sovereignty of an independent, neutral Laos—of course not. It must co-operate with the Government of Laos, because the whole point is to help it to be neutral and unaligned. But, nevertheless, after confidence has been so badly shaken, as it has been over these last few months, declarations of intent are not enough. Agreement must be seen to be kept, and Laos must be seen to be genuinely neutral; hence the importance of the role of the International Control Commission. I very much hope that, after more consideration, the Russians and the Chinese will
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agree to give the International Control Commission, not excessive powers—no one wants that—but adequate powers, to convince the world that Laos can be genuinely neutral.
As in the Congo, so in that country, what is really lacking is a National Government. The three Princes have had one meeting and they will shortly have another, and it will make a great difference to the chances of success in the Geneva Conference if they are able to appear at Geneva as one delegation representing their country and its need. So I have always felt that this might be one area in which we could come to an agreement with the Russians, because I should have thought it is here that Russia's national interest and our national interest and the interest of the West coincide. And so we must persevere in these negotiations.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, mentioned another Conference at present sitting in Geneva—indeed, it has been sitting there for some time—that is, the Conference dealing with the abolition of nuclear tests. Again I have felt that this is an area in which we must persevere to the limit to come to an agreement with Russia, because surely it is one where the national interest of Russia and the interests of the West should coincide. It cannot be in Russia's interests to see the spread of nuclear weapons, least of all to Germany on the one side and to China on the other. But the negotiations, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, indicated, have not foundered on substance.
The West came to Geneva with a number of very important concessions to the Russian point of view, and already the differences were very narrow—concessions on the moratorium and on the number of on-sight inspections, concessions which we thought would meet the Russian's point of view; but they were never considered. Instead two demands were made; first, that unless the Russian version of a settlement was accepted in its entirety, the question of nuclear tests should be absorbed into that of general disarmament; and, secondly, that the whole control system required for the abolition of nuclear tests should be subject to the Troika, the new Communist doctrine whereby every member would have the right of veto. And I would emphasise to your Lordships that this

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veto would not only operate in the political machinery which was set up to govern any nuclear test arrangements but, in the eyes of the Russians, it would operate through the whole administrative machine. This was a severe set-back.
But that was not all. There was another set-back. I do not know whether your Lordships read with care the aide-mémoire sent by Mr. Khrushchev to President Kennedy on the matter of disarmament, but one sentence in it reads like this:
"So long as States maintain their armed forces, no control can be free from intelligence; when the armed forces are abolished and armaments are destroyed, then, only, control will not he connected with intelligence."
In other words, what Mr. Khrushchev says in this aide-mémoire is that, until armaments are completely abolished, all inspection and control must amount to espionage and therefore it cannot be entertained.
If those words are taken literally—and the Russians choose their words with care—and if they are not departed from, this means that there can be no phased disarmament at all. I do not know whether your Lordships can think of any other way in which we can disarm, but I cannot think of any other way, except of disarmament by stages, and disarmament by stages in which at any given stage no nation would have an advantage over any other. This is an illustration which I would give now. Having negotiated in one way or another with the Russians on these matters for a year, after years of negotiation, this new doctrine of the Troika is interposed. It would result in this. We may devise the best disarmament scheme in the world, with the most perfect scheme of inspection, but it would mean that anyone, even at the lowest level, on instructions privately given, could frustrate the whole scheme.
I have reluctantly come to one conclusion, and that is that in this matter of nuclear tests and disarmament it is at present too great a wrench for the Russians to open their closed shop and their closed military circle to inspection, and that so far this consideration has overridden the other national interest, which is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. But so much is at stake, as both the noble Lords who have preceded me have said, that we must persevere and mobilise world opinion in favour of
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a separate nuclear test treaty and staged disarmament. And in that I agree that the agreement which we achieved at the Prime Ministers' Conference—and, after all, there are unaligned and uncommitted nations within the Commonwealth. The document which they produced, and which since then has been sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations for distribution, is a document which we can use with great influence on the Assembly of the United Nations. I still hope the Russians may change their minds.
Difficult and dangerous and frustrating as the situations I have described may have been, none is so threatening as that concerning Berlin. Of course, the situation of the city of Berlin is abnormal, and abnormal it must remain so long as half the people of the country are prevented from saying in a free vote how they wish their country to be governed. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has recalled the proposals put forward in 1959 for the reunification of Germany by free elections within a framework of European security. That scheme is mentioned, as noble Lords may have noticed, in the American reply to the Soviet aide-mémoire. That scheme offered self-determination, and offered the Germans the right to decide the shape of their country's future, but it was rejected. Therefore, we are left with the abnormal situation, because the Russians refuse to put into practice the self-determination which they so assiduously press upon other people.
Clearly, the two parts of Germany cannot be united by force, but an opportunity must be given to them at some time to declare their wishes for the future, and that opportunity kept open. Meanwhile, we are faced with the assertion of Mr. Khrushchev that he will sign a separate peace treaty with the East German Government. Of course, he has the physical power to do so. If he wishes to do so, this is a matter for him and it is his own affair, so long as he realises that the conclusion of a peace treaty by Russia with East Germany—and this is a point which all the replies to Mr. Khrushchev emphasised—cannot by itself make any legal difference to the right of the Allies to be in Berlin. That is not a matter Which Mr. Khrushchev can decide. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, says, "Do not let us stand on our legal

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rights, which may be weaning thin," but, of course, the right of occupation, a right deriving from the assumption with the Russians of responsibility for the whole of Germany, which followed the German surrender, is not the only right. We are there in West Berlin for another reason, and a very good one—because the West Berliners want us to stay. And if Mr. Khrushchev, or anybody else, has any doubt about that, it can easily be proved again.
LORD REA: My Lords, I was not suggesting that that was the case. I was merely asking that it should be made clear that it was not.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I think that I have responded to what the noble Lord said. So far as we are concerned, the position is very simple. Although we are content with the present position in Berlin and do not think that there is any need for change, we have never insisted upon the status quo. But I repeat what I said in the general context only a few moments ago: if there is to be a change in Berlin, then it must be a change by consent, and a change by the agreement of the Four Powers upon whom the responsibility for the whole of Germany is laid. We have never said, and we do not say in the Notes in reply to the Soviet aide-mémoire, that we will not meet round the table with the Russians and talk and negotiate. What we have said is that in respect of West Berlin three essentials must be secured: the right of West Berliners to preserve their free way of life—that way they have chosen; the right of the Allies to be present in the city so that we may guarantee the West Berliners' freedom; and the right of unrestricted access to the city.
Sometimes Mr. Khruschev seems to concede these points and to recognise their validity. I noted with considerable interest a speech which he made only a few days ago to the military graduates. I should like to read to your Lordships one of the quotations (it is not the only one) from that speech. He said:
"The Socialist countries do not encroach upon the right of West Berliners freely to determine the social and economic order under which they want to live. Nobody is going to create obstacles to access to West Berlin."
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That is much nearer the language of diplomacy and reason. But in another breath Mr. Khruschev says:
"The control of access to West Berlin must remain in the hands of the East German Government."
I will say no more about this now except that there are exchanges going on and that I should like to hear more about what Mr. Khruschev has in mind in this speech about guarantees and guarantors. I hope he will read with great care the replies which we have sent.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has made several suggestions as to what might be considered in the context of a negotiation about Germany and Berlin. I am not going to comment on the individual proposals that he made, for obvious reasons. I would say only this at this moment: that I think for the time being we have had enough of public speeches which tend to freeze the position and raise tension. In other words, as the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said (and I paraphrase his actual language) we are in danger of becoming prisoners of our own pronouncements and of a rigidity growing up from which no one can escape and which might possibly lead us into war. Therefore I should like to revert to the quiet, serious, patient techniques of diplomacy, free from the threat of force or from the use of force. I should hope that if we can treat this Berlin issue in that way we might find a peaceful solution.
I do not enjoy at all the kind of speech that I have had to make to your Lordships this afternoon: a "Cook's tour" of the trouble spots of the world, and no difficulty in finding them in every continent in the world. I do not enjoy making speeches from this box as Foreign Secretary in which I have to expose the differences between Russia and this country and Russia and the West. I believe that we all want to be friends with Russia. Certainly our people showed in the great welcome which they gave to Major Gargarin how much we wish to be friends with the Russians, if they will be friendly with us. I would go further and say to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, that there is a great desire to deal fairly with Russia's legitimate desires, her legitimate aspirations as a nation, and to take account of her legitimate fears—and some of her fears may be very legitimate indeed.

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But it is my duty, however painful it may be, to repeat what I have said before: that there is a duality in Russian policy of which this country must take note. Time and again there is a Russian national interest which you would think would prevail; but time and again it is overborne by the doctrine of international Communism. And one has to remember that even the most flexible of the Russian leaders cannot deviate very far from the Communist doctrine without risking losing his place in the Communist hierarchy. So I must do two things. I must warn the people that there is a challenge from Communism on an unparalleled scale, which will be pursued quite relentlessly and will demand endurance from our people over a very long time.
I am not going to talk about the economic situation to-day, but I remember something like a year ago making a speech in this House—it was my first speech as Foreign Secretary—and saying that our authority and influence in the world would depend upon the economic foundation on which it rests, and that the people could have the foreign policy which they desired. That is still true. But if I have to give that warning, at least I will give this assurance to the House and to the country as we part for our Recess: that the Government will persevere in trying to find areas of agreement where the Russian interests and the interests of the West coincide.
All the way through this speech that I have made to-day there has been a refrain recurring in almost every section of it—namely, the theme of law and order; of negotiation; of change by consent. I hope that when the House reassembles, although the outlook is not propitious to-day, I shall be able to report some progress based upon those principles, because it is upon law and order, upon the sanctity of treaties, upon change by consent, that the only basis can be found on which civilised people can build any international harmony.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down may I put a point? I do not want to abuse his patience, but may I remind him of a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, about Indonesia, and ask whether he is disposed to say anything about it;
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because I personally share to the full the views of the noble Lord, Lord Rea, in regard to the political and other importance of that area?
THE EARL OF HOME: I will respond immediately to that by saying that I am sorry I did not mention this particular question, but we have only a few days ago had very useful discussion with General Nasution who was here. It is our desire to keep on good terms with Indonesia and to develop our relations with Indonesia. I hope that those discussions will make some progress, just as I hope the very useful discussions I had with the Foreign Minister of Japan will contribute to better understanding and co-operation between our two countries. My noble friend Lord Lansdowne will have more to say about this, but that is my short response to the noble Lord.

ARMY RECRUITING
4.8 p.m.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the debate, but I think this might be a convenient time to repeat a statement which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War has just made in another place. These are his words:
"With your permission, Sir, and that of the House, I will make a statement about recruiting for the Regular Army. I promised to keep the House in touch with progress in this matter.
"The latest figures show that as far as recruiting from civil life is concerned, we arc having a good year. There is an increase of almost 12 per cent. over 1960. I believe this encouraging fact is due to a great extent to the special measures which I announced in March, and we are of course only now beginning to see their full effect. It is now quite clear that television advertising is proving a most successful way of turning on the tap. It has produced an increase of about 20 per cent. in recruits over the same three months of 1960. I have therefore decided to extend the present television campaign during the late summer and autumn. If the results continue to be good, I shall arrange

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a further campaign for the winter and spring to begin after Christmas and extend into the middle of March. This will, in effect, double the scope of the original proposals.
"I am anxious to link the Territorial Army as closely as possible to the recruiting drive. Within their ranks are men and women who have the future well-being of the Regular Army very much at heart and who have close contacts with families from which Regular recruits might well come. I am at present in the process of consultations with the Council of Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Associations to see how this may be done. The Council have promised to co-operate to the fullest possible extent.
"There is, of course, another side to the picture and this I call the plug. Clearly if we are to reach our minimum target on time, we must do everything possible to stop soldiers leaving the Army once they are in it. There the picture is not so bright.
"I have already told the House of the special measures we are now taking to ensure that recruits are reasonably treated and that they should give the Army a good try. But we cannot afford to leave anything to chance and I have been carefully studying with my colleagues on the Army Council whether there are any particular features of Army life today which are causing discontent and which we can improve by removing legitimate grievances. I think there are.
"The chief one is the enforced separation of a substantial number of soldiers of the British Army of the Rhine from their wives and families because of the lack of married accommodation. I believe this is having a bad effect on the Army. We are vigorously attacking the problem and are now well launched on a programme which will result in the provision of an additional 8,000 quarters over the next three years. This will almost exactly double the existing number. The first 2,000 of the new quarters will be ready within the next nine months.
"As this programme will take time before its effect is fully felt, I propose
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that during the next two years married unaccompanied soldiers in B.A.O.R. shall have three free leaves a year to this country. I also propose that single men in B.A.O.R. shall during the same period have two free leaves to this country each year.
"The House will recall that only recently I announced a new leave scheme for married unaccompanied Servicemen in theatres outside North West Europe. My own visits to troops in the Near and Middle East have convinced me that conditions in some stations are still such as to make a tour of two or more years without any home leave most trying to single men. Accordingly, I propose that for the next two years single men in Cyprus, North Africa, Aden and the Persian Gulf shall have one free leave to this country during a tour of two or more years. These leave travel concessions will also apply to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. I hope and believe these steps will have a marked effect on morale, recruiting and prolongation.
"The way is now therefore open to launch a drive to get as many soldiers as possible to remain in the Army at the end of their National Service or their current engagements. To this end I have decided to offer a bounty of £200 to Regular soldiers due to leave the Army before the end of June, 1963, with nine years' service or less who extend their service by at least three years. This offer will be open from to-day until the end of April, 1962. Similarly, a bounty of £200 will be offered to National Servicemen now serving who from to-day enlist on a Regular engagement.
I have already explained that I do not believe we can make any accurate assessment of the success of our recruiting campaign until later in the Autumn. But I believe that, taking into consideration the way things are going at present and with the further measures I have announced, we shall succeed.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I must say that I hope the Secretary of State for War will be successful in his last hope, and that his measures will succeed. However,

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from this statement it is impossible to judge exactly what will be the overall effect upon the attempt to meet the requirement of, say, a total of about 180,000 men, whom you really want to acquire into the Army if you are to be successful. I do not propose to comment upon the particular measures set out here, but I hope that in this kind of pressure salesmanship of the Army the real facts of Army life are being portrayed, so that the men will know what they are going into, and that you will not have to continue every three years increasing the number of bounties you have to pay in order to get men to give a decent length of service in the Army. It looks to me rather an expensive scheme.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the First Lord what comfort there is in the recruiting figures which are just out, in view of the fact that the Regular recruiting figures of other ranks for May, 1961, are 2,331, as compared with 2,480 for May, 1960, and also in view of the fact that on June 1 this year Regular other ranks strengths, including boys, were only 140,639—a long way from the target? May I also ask the noble Lord what percentage of Regular re-engagements there have been over the last three months, and what percentage of recruits still buy themselves out?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am grateful for what the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition has said. The point that recruits should know what they are in for is very much in the mind of my right honourable friend, and he is taking steps to see that that is so. With regard to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, as so often happens, he and I have different figures. The figures for recruiting that I have for new recruits into the Army in May, 1960, are 1,552, and in May, 1961, 1,792. In June, the figures, which have not yet been published, show an increase in recruits of over 24 per cent. So the recruiting figures are not going too badly. I am afraid I have not got with me at the present time the re-engagement figures, but it is because the re-engagement figures and the withdrawals from the Army are not satisfactory that my right honourable friend has introduced this bounty scheme.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, on the question of figures, may I ask the noble Lord whether he Will look at the figures now in the Printed Paper Office, published by the Ministry of Defence, which I have quoted?
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes, my Lords, I will; and I will send the noble Lord mine for him to look at.

MISSILE DEFENCE ALARM SYSTEM
4.16 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am afraid that I have another statement to make which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Air has made in another place. It is as follows:
"Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States of America have agreed to establish a ground readout station of the Missile Defence Alarm System, MIDAS. This will be situated at the Royal Air Force Station, Kirkbride, in Cumberland. The text of the agreement is available as a White Paper in the Vote Office.
"MIDAS is now under development by the United States Government. It will consist of a number of space satellites equipped with infra-red apparatus to detect ballistic missiles in the early stages of their flight. Information recorded in the satellites will be relayed back to readout stations, one of which will be at Kirk-bride. This information will complement that provided by the ballistic missile early warning radar system. It will give even earlier warning than the B.M.E.W.S. system; and will make it even more difficult for an enemy to launch a successful surprise attack on Western strategic deterrent forces. Our contribution to this new system will thus be of direct value to the R.A.F., the U.S.A.F. and the forces of our other N.A.T.O. allies.
"Kirkbride will be commanded and operated by the Royal Air Force. Warning information from the MIDAS satellites will be available simultaneously to Operations Centres in the United Kingdom and the United States and to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.

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"The United States will provide and install the special equipment for the station and the communications required to link it with the United States. The United States will also defray, in the first instance, the cost of the technical works services required to make the station operational. The United Kingdom will repay these costs, within an agreed limit, after the station becomes operational.
"The United Kingdom will provide the land, domestic accommodation, and certain existing buildings as well as the communications and equipment required to link the station with our own authorities.
"The cost of spare parts for the special equipment provided by the United States will be borne by the United States Government, for the first five years of operation. The cost of maintaining this equipment on the site will be borne by the United Kingdom Government, as will the other running costs of the station.
"The capital cost of the station to this country is expected to be in the region of £2 million to £3 million. Its capital cost to the United States is expected to be about £10 million. This latter figure, is, of course, a very small part of the projected United States expenditure on the system as a whole. The United States Government have already allotted £150 million for MIDAS, of which well over half has already been spent."
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, generally speaking, I am quite sure the whole House will welcome the statement which has been made on behalf of the Government on this matter. The expansion of the usefulness of this system is wholly desirable, if we are going to have to rely upon that kind of operation at all, and it has got to be expanded to its full use. I am not at all sure whether the estimated cost shown here has already been included in the Estimates but it does not seem to be unreasonable in relation to the expenditure as a whole. What one is most anxious about in these matters, whether it is about recruiting or these things, is exactly what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to do with regard to our general expenditure in
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these defence matters and overseas. I am a little anxious about that point.
LORD REA: My Lords, in addition to what the noble Viscount has said may I ask one question? I think the First Lord of the Admiralty said that warning information will be given simultaneously to the Supreme Commander of Europe and others. Could he, if security allows, say whether that warning will be instantaneous, or passed on by trunk calls or something.
LORD CARRINGTON: As near instantaneous as possible, but I cannot exactly say what the time lag would be. The time factor in all these matters is so very short that it is essential to be as near instantaneous as possible.
With regard to what the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition has said, this, of course, has come up since the Air Estimates were introduced, so this is extra to the published Air Estimates; but I very much agree with what he says. Taking into consideration the amount of money which the United States has spent on this system, I think the United Kingdom Government have got a good bargain for a relatively small expenditure of money.

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
4.22 p.m.
Debate resumed.
EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, I think the House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for his lucid and careful survey. It is not my intention to cover the same ground, which has already been covered quite adequately. We have heard from the Foreign Secretary a survey of the world, which I think he summed up very adequately when he said we lived in a world of international anarchy—. rather lamentable if you consider what we tried to do at San Francisco years ago —and I am not going to refer to the many difficulties in different parts of the world with which he has to deal. I only recall that I am perfectly clear about what was agreed at Potsdam with the Soviet in regard to the status of Berlin, and I would also recall how we had to stand against an attempt to win back West Berlin from Communism by blockade, which was defeated by our air forces, British, French and American.

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I am very conscious of the tension which must face the Foreign Secretary in that regard. But when I look at the question of international anarchy I ask myself: what is the opposite of anarchy? And the opposite of anarchy is government. Not merely of ideas about law and order, but positive ideas of government. I should like to see the British Government, and indeed the Governments of the Commonwealth, following up that admirable statement which was issued after the last Commonwealth Conference.
It is anybody's guess what are the effective influences working behind the Iron Curtain. The Foreign Secretary indicated, as it seems to me, that there appears to be a double influence. There is the interest of Russia and the interest of international Communism. Always one of the difficulties, I think, in estimating Russia is that they are heirs not only to Marx and Lenin but to Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and the rest, and we are facing something which is specfically Russian as well as being international Communism.
The question we have to ask ourselves is: how far at the present time are the rulers of Russia still bent on trying to overturn Western civilisation by force, and how far are they influenced by fear? I think that one of the most potent influences in the world to-day is fear; not only ambition of conquest or the desire to spread Communist doctrines, but fear. One must remember that Russia has twice been overrun by Germany, and that fear remains. And we may think it ridiculous that they should suspect the West of having desires to overthrow the Communist régime by force, but that is at the back of the Russian mind. Equally, you have fear in the West, particularly in the United States. The question is: how we are to banish fear?
I think that when we look at all these various problems in the world to-day we must recognise that they are not always a direct result of Russian instigation. But there is no doubt that where there is a sore place it is exacerbated by Russia. It seems to me that until one looks at the overall picture of the world to-day one does not do much good in trying to get a settlement of particular questions because, every attempt is
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vitiated by this underlying suspicion and fear. Berlin is related to the strategic position of Russia. You cannot separate disarmament from the question of contest in the world. You cannot even deal with, what seemed at one time the most hopeful of problems, missile warfare—282 times, I think, that Committee have met; but they cannot get forward; everything fails.
I remember Sidney Webb saying years ago that when you had problems you did not always cure them by hammering on the bulge because you hammered on the bulge in one place and it came up in another. We have to deal with every question to-day which faces us. We are living in a world of anarchy, and I am afraid that in all our attempts to deal with these different questions we are still aiming at living in a world of anarchy. The Foreign Secretary remarked on the infringing of sovereignty. The question which faces the world to-day is just how far we can allow sovereignty. It is as if we were trying to deal with the problem in this country, as we have had to do in the past, of how far it is possible to have a rule of law enforced by the police without infringing the sovereignty of the individual citizen. In a community like ours, in a dangerous community, you have every day to infringe the sovereignty of the driver of a motor car in order to prevent still more massacre on the roads. It seems to me that there is need in the world to-day for a much broader approach on the whole problem of our international relations.
The United Nations has not been successful in ridding the world of the fear of war, just because it was formed at that time on the basis of absolute individual sovereignty. It is my contention that until we depart from that conception of individual absolute sovereignty and sovereign States we shall not cure this international anarchy, and until we aim at something wider than the mere holding off for the time being of some particular crisis, like Berlin, we shall be faced, year after year, with a situation of tension. It may be that that is the special desire of the Russian Government; maybe they want to keep the world in a state of tension in order that they may operate in these disturbed waters. But it is also possible, and worth exploring, whether they may not have come to the conclusion—after all

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they have their internal development; they have their internal problems—that it might be worth while to sit down seriously and consider whether we cannot take adequate measures to prevent this continued tension, which everyone knows could at any time bring down the fabric not only of Western civilisation but of the Communist world as well.
I have been engaged in talking on this subject with a great many leading people in many countries, and there is a great body of opinion in the world today that realises that we must get away from anarchy, and that means a degree of world government. When I talk with people they are always waiting for somebody else to take the first step. I have approached all the smaller countries and talked with their Prime Ministers, but it is not quite a job they can do. I have talked with the President of the United States, I have talked with people of a great many countries of the world, but no one is quite willing to take the lead. There are many suggestions that perhaps after all the people best calculated to take the lead in this would be the British Commonwealth of Nations. After all, we in this country have set the world an example of relinquishing sovereignty, as we have done over Asians and Africans. We represent not just one continent or one people of one colour; we represent all the continents and all the colours. We are therefore in a position to make an approach, and I would like that lead to be given by us in the United Nations. You cannot get disarmament without security; you cannot get the rule of law without international courts of law. You cannot get international justice without some sanction behind that justice in the form of an international force. That has been illustrated over and over again of recent years where there has been trouble—the absence of power, the absence of an international force, the absence of a tribunal.
I know something of the difficulty, the suspicion in the Russian mentality, but I am convinced that when you take all these problems separately every time you approach them you will be met by suspicion, because this is regarded as just one move in a game of higher politics. It is possible, I think, that one might get to grips with the broader sub-
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ject, if we could try to make the rule of law a reality in the world. I am not suggesting that we can do it ourselves; I do not believe in a unilateral approach. I do not suggest you can do it with the Russians on the basis of any ethical ideas; I do not think they have them. They have no objective idea of justice or anything else. But it may be that there is enough self-interest there, enough desire, such as we have, for survival, to make that approach.
I should like to see that approach made. I believe that, if it is properly done, you will get a response from Governments and a great response from peoples. I think you could make people realise that the kind of world that we are living in must have government; that it is as out-of-date for a closely linked world like our own to be without government as it would be for a great city like London or a country like Britain to be without government. The same reasons that have compelled us to have government in this country are applicable to the world to-day. The example of what to do is here. There was anarchy in the streets of London 150 years ago; we cured it by a police force. There was, in the Middle Ages, a state very often of private war between private armies. We cured it by suppression of private armies and the substitution of courts of law. The analogy of what we have done in this little Island of ours is what the world needs to-day. I should like to see our British Commonwealth take the lead.
4.37 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the story is told of the late Lord Balfour, who spent many years in the House of Commons and was for some time Leader of that House, that he once remarked that he never heard a speech in the House that had not one good point; but he added, after a pause, that he had seldom heard a speech that had more than one good point. At a time like this, with steadily darkening skies, one is sorely tempted to range very wide, from Berlin to Kuwait, to Laos, to Indonesia, to all parts of this very troubled globe. I think we all owe a deep debt of gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Home, for taking that particular course as Foreign Secretary, in the fine speech which he delivered this

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afternoon. But to-day, at any rate, I personally intend to bear Lord Balfour's dictum very much in mind and concentrate on one main point, which has indeed already been mentioned by more than one speaker. Whether it is a good point or not will be for your Lordships to judge, but it is at any rate, I think, very relevant to the whole foreign position which we have been discussing this afternoon.
It is this: if our foreign policy is to be wisely directed in the present crucial time, it is, I submit, absolutely essential that we first assess correctly the nature of the conflict in which the world is at present engaged, or we may well come to the wrong conclusions as to who are our enemies and who are our friends. It is not uncommon, in the Press and elsewhere, to see this struggle, this cold war, described as a struggle between dictatorship and democracy. Starting from that conclusion those who hold this view are apt to move on to the further conclusion that any nation that does not enjoy the system of Parliamentary democracy must be regarded as not on our side but, on the contrary, on the other. That, I know, is a popular view which is fairly widely held. But, if I may say so with great deference, I believe that the premises on which that view is based are ill-founded; and so, in consequence, are the conclusions. If we base our policy on them they are, I am afraid, likely in due course to lead us into very great dangers.
The struggle in which we are to-day engaged is, I suggest, not one between dictatorship and democracy, but something quite different. Its real nature, I thought, was admirably defined by the Foreign Secretary in his speech this afternoon: it is a struggle between two great power blocs, one dominated by the Communist Powers, Russia and China, and the other representing, broadly, Western civilisation. Whether the Communist Powers are dominated by force or, as the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said just now, by fear, I do not know; but I am driven to the conclusion that they are more imperialistic than defensive.
If that be the right assessment of the present position, and I believe it is; and if we are fighting for our lives, as I believe we are, for the preservation of Western civilisation against a growing threat from the East, surely the right
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course for us in determining our attitude towards this or that country is to concern ourselves not so much with the exact political system under which that country is at present governed but with the more immediate consideration: is that country broadly on our side in resistance to the immediate peril facing the non-Communist world?
I remember one historic occasion in recent years when just such a decision had to be made, and when it was made rightly. It was during the last war. I happened to be staying at Chequers when the news came in of the German invasion of Russia, and the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, had to make up his mind at once what attitude this country should take to this new and immensely important event. The Soviet system was something entirely contrary to all those things for which he and this country had always stood. It was a rigid and monolithic dictatorship; it was kept in power by force and allowed, at that time at any rate, no liberty of thought or speech at all. But the Prime Minister had no hesitation: he decided that Hitlerite Germany was the greatest immediate peril, and that any country, whatever its domestic form of Government, which was opposed to Hitlerite Germany was on our side; and immediately, that very evening, as your Lordships will remember, he made a broadcast to the nation saying that he regarded Russia as our ally in the great conflict in which we were engaged, and that we must be ready to give her every help in our power. Unless he had taken that decision we should very likely—I was almost going to say "very probably"—have lost the Second World War.
My Lords, I believe that that story has a lesson for us all at the present time. There are two countries which are to-day under a constant fire of abuse by the British Press and by certain sections of British opinion. They are Portugal and Spain. We have had examples of that criticism this afternoon. It is said, quite truly, that they are dictatorships; that they have no free Parliamentary institutions, and that therefore they are to be regarded as the evil thing and we must have nothing whatever to do with them—or, at any rate, as little as possible. My reply to that would be: which side are they on in the great struggle which is raging to-day?

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The most immediate peril, I believe—I have already said it—to the Western World, and to us in particular, is the Communist Imperialism represented by Russia, China and their satellite countries. Where do Spain and Portugal stand on that? Indubitably, on our side. In these circumstances, at a time which is, I believe, in its way, just as dark and dangerous as the dark days of the war, are we going to take the same decision as Sir Winston Churchill and the Government of his day took with regard to Russia—
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, may I put a point to the noble Marquess? I am most interested in this argument. I think he must remember that while we all favoured joining up with Russia directly she was invaded by Germany, some of us went to Lord Halifax in 1938 and suggested that instead of pursuing the course pursued at Munich, if we wanted a balance of power for the freedom we sought to maintain why not go to Moscow, and not Berchtesgaden or Munich. Therefore, this is no new point. But when it comes to talking about Spain—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Perhaps the noble Viscount will allow me to finish my speech; then he can say what he likes. But perhaps I may return to my remarks. Are we to continue to cold-shoulder two nations which may be essential for our own survival? For, make no mistake, my Lords, Spain and Portugal may well occupy key positions in the struggle between Communism and non-Communism which is now raging. I made bold not so long ago—two or three years ago—to warn your Lordships that the main object of Communist strategy was to drive Western influence entirely out of Africa. It seemed to some of your Lordships at that time a most far-fetched suggestion. But does it seem so farfetched now? I do not believe it does.
There are many students of world politics to-day who would go further and suggest that it would be by no means impossible for Communist long-term strategy to have yet more extensive aims —namely, that when they have virtually eliminated Western influence from Central Africa, they will swing north through
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West Africa with the object of outflanking Western Europe from the south and then deploying all the resources of the cold-war in a full-dress assault on the two nations of the Peninsula which, not being democracies—and they are not democracies—are the weakest link in the Western defences. Were that to succeed, and were Spain and Portugal won over to Communism, what then would be the position of Western Europe, confined in a narrow salient, with Communist-controlled Governments right behind our main line of defence and with bases both on the west end of the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic? That possibility may seem fantastic to many of your Lordships to-day. But it is no more fantastic than recent events in the Congo and Angola would have seemed to many people only a few years ago.
If that be the position, while Spain and Portugal may not have the same forms of Government that we have, they may well, I believe, be as important to the Free World as Russia was during the war. After all, to Portugal in particular, who is under a heavy burden at the present time, we owe an enduring debt of gratitude. As has been said, I think, already this afternoon, she has been our faithful Ally for upwards of 600 years. She has stood by us in fair weather and foul. In the last war when we, in our own dire need, appealed to her for some help, she gave us facilities in the Azores which were of the utmost value to us and our Allies, though at that time she had herself no effective means of defence against our enemies. Nor did she allow the fact that we had different methods of government from her to stand in her way. She came to our assistance, to the best of her ability, with what aid she could.
Is it then for us, my Lords, in her hour of need, to turn our back on her in the United Nations or elsewhere and to assume, as I am afraid I thought even so fair and moderate a speaker as Lord Henderson did to-day, that she, and she alone, is wrong? Is this not just the moment when we ought to show sympathy and a desire to help? And is that not likely to be the better way of bringing her round perhaps more closely to our views?
The Portuguese Government claim that the terrorist attacks in Angola have been fomented, and indeed organised, outside

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that territory. I am not clear whether Her Majesty's Government accept that view; but certainly they do not reject it, judging by the Answer which was given to me by the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, a few days ago. And I think it is rather borne out by statements made by those on the spot, such as a Methodist missionary, Derrick Nearn, whose words were reported in the London Press. It is only fair to say about Mr. Nearn that he was extremely critical about the Portuguese counter-measures—I do not want at all to overstate the case. But he added these words:
"The whole thing"—
this is the uprising of the terrorists—
"seemed to have been planned and organised well in advance. Overnight, vital roads and bridges were cut off. It appeared to have all happened simultaneously."
My Lords, that does not sound very like the unaided work of the untutored African. And if it was fomented from outside I think that has an important implication which we ought all to bear in mind. For it is stated quite clearly, I understand, in the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1663 that Britain will defend the interests of Portugal and her overseas territories "as if they were her own", and come to their defence "with all land and sea forces" in time of trouble. I would remind your Lordship that that is not merely a provision which might have been appropriate to the seventeenth century but not to the times in which we live. It was, in fact, ratified again in 1942 by a National Government of all Parties, of which Sir Winston Churchill was the Leader, and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, and myself were all members.
Although in this particular case Portugal has not asked us to come to her aid—and she will not, I imagine, do so—she might, I think, in these circumstances naturally expect us not to hamper in any way her efforts to restore law and order in her overseas territories which are now so gravely threatened. And, my Lords, if in fact these terrorist attacks are being fomented from outside there can be little doubt from whence the impulsion comes. It is all part of that broad strategy to which I have already referred, and is directed ultimately against us as much as against Portugal—against the Western World as a whole.
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Moreover, my Lords, it has been conducted—and I think this is generally agreed—with the maximum of ferocity on the part of the aggressor. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, in his speech did not say much about these atrocities on the part of the terrorists. But there were, in fact, very many horrible cruelties before the Portuguese moved at all. I have not seen the photographs which were produced to the United Nations, some of which, as your Lordships know, were considered too horrible to be shown even to them. But I have taken two extracts from the British Press within recent weeks. They were not given great prominence; they were just items of news which appeared near the bottom of the columns, but they give us some idea of what the Portuguese have been up against. The first stated quite simply and baldly that:
"Near Carmona, terrorists killed a Cape Verdian and his wife after setting fire to all the native huts. The couple's infant son was torn into half by the legs."
The second stated, equally baldly, that:
"At Camabalata, 160 miles from Luanda, a coffee plantation belonging to Mr. Karl Henner Huckling, who is German-born, was ransacked in his absence. His wife and the staff of 25 Africans were murdered and his three children, the youngest a baby, burned alive."
And, my Lords, many hundreds of Portuguese men, women and children, died in these ways within the last few months. And the shocking thing, I feel, about these appalling cruelties, which seem to have been directed especially against women and children, is that they appear not to have been merely exhibitions of the bestiality of savages but acts of deliberate policy designed to terrorise the Portuguese into abandoning their country. And the same, I think, is true of the "scorched earth" policy on which I see from the Press the terrorists have now embarked.
That, my Lords, is the situation with which the Portuguese Government and people are at present faced. It is for them a supreme crisis. They have either to abandon Angola, which is essential, I believe, to Portugal's existence as a viable nation, or to establish law and order with whatever severity appears to be necessary. No doubt great severity has been used. It is not for me to say whether it has been to severe. If so,

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that is something which I am sure we must all deeply deplore. But it is hardly, I submit, for us to point the finger of scorn and execration. When we ourselves in the last war were faced with a similar threat to our very existence we had no hesitation in bombing the great German cities, knowing, as we must have known, what it must mean for the women and children who lived in those cities. We did not like it; we hated it. But we did it because we believed profoundly that it was the only way to save our country, and all those things for which our country stood, from utter destruction. That being the case, do not let us too readily execrate Portugal, who, faced with a similar crisis, has adopted a rather similar policy.
There is another thing, my Lords. It may well be—I expect it is so—that Portuguese methods of colonial administration are not the same as ours; and it may well equally be that we like ours better, even very much better, than theirs. But would the situation be improved if the whole of Angola were handed over to anarchy and to those who have themselves been guilty of these appalling atrocities? I beg you, my Lords, do not let us make our ethics too selective.
Now a word about Spain. Spain under the present regime does not enjoy a form of Government that we could possibly welcome in this country. But certainly it is not more alien to our ideas of free institutions than Russia was at the time when we welcomed her as an Ally in the days of the war. We have a long history of friendship with Spain, and if we wish her to modify her present system —and 1 think we all do—I should have thought that the last way to achieve our result was to drive her into resentful isolation. It may indeed be a hard fact that we have to face that Spain and Portugal are not temperamentally suited to the particular form of Government which suits us, and that their national temperaments require something more authoritarian.
Indeed, my impression—and I was at the Foreign Office at the time of the Spanish Civil War—is that, whichever side had won that conflict, the result was likely to have been a dictatorship either of the Right or of the Left; and that may still be true. In any case, my Lords, is it the counsel of wisdom and states-
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manship to treat them as if they were a bad smell and do our utmost to alienate two nations whose co-operation may in no long time be vital to our own security? After all, as has been pointed out this afternoon by the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary, the general outlook of the world is grim enough in all conscience.
We are threatened in Berlin; we are threatened in South East Asia; we are threatened in Kuwait—and we shall all wish, I am sure, to congratulate the Government, and the Foreign Secretary in particular, upon the firm stand which has been made there against Iraqi pretensions. By the swift and effective action which they took, one may be certain that they averted what might have been a very serious crisis indeed. But I am sure the Foreign Secretary would be the first to say—in fact, he practically said so in so many words this afternoon—that the danger in that part of the world is not yet over; and in other parts it seems to be growing. The West is under a pressure which, as I think the noble Earl, Lord Home, said, is on an unparalleled scale. In wide areas of the world the structure of Western security, and even of Western civilisation, is shuddering and quaking. There never was a time when there was more need for the Western World to stand together, even if the ultimate goal is for us to get that World Government for which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, pleaded so eloquently this afternoon.
My Lords, we talk a great deal nowadays about peaceful co-existence, which means, as I understand it, living together in peace and friendship with nations—even those with different political systems from ours; and we talk a great deal, too, of the urgent necessity for the West to close its ranks. Surely, I submit, this is a good time and a good place to begin to practise what we preach.
5.2 p.m.
LORD STRANG: My Lords, the governing factor in the present state of the German question is, of course, the Notes which have just been sent to Moscow by the three Western Powers in reply to Mr. Khrushchev's latest memorandum. Her Majesty's Government's reply will, I hope, receive the general support of your Lordships'

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House. It is firm on the crucial point, where firmness is required; it does not say a word more than is necessary; and it advocates a settlement by negotiation on an interim or permanent basis. But the delivery of the Note is not the end of the matter; it is perhaps rather a new beginning, a first step in a new operation. What is important is what will happen next, and then later on, in the further development of the controversy.
On the question of Berlin, Russian tactics have followed a common pattern, both in 1958 and again now. They present an ultimatum, together with what may ostensibly appear to be concessions. What Mr. Khrushchev has recently said is very much like what he said in 1958. There is the six-month ultimatum: unless we make a treaty with the two parts of Germany, he will make a separate treaty with East Germany himself; if we will make a treaty, he offers some alleviations in our position—and he seems, my Lords, to be willing to negotiate. Now it is necessary, I think, to note that since Khrushchev's ultimatum of 1958 his international position has been much strengthened. His conduct of his foreign relations has become more confident and more menacing. He has pressed his wrecking Troika proposal; he has brought the nuclear test conference to a standstill; he has made a spectacular new announcement about stepping up his armaments; it is his declared policy to support violent revolution and civil wars; and he believes that, with the balance of power now tending in his favour, he can practise brinkmanship in comparative security since the Western Powers, he thinks, will not dare to use force to repel these indirect revolutionary attacks upon their position. He hopes, in fact, to force major retreats upon the West without war.
Of course, he has his own difficulties, but in the coming Berlin crisis the test of our nerve is likely to be more severe than ever before. However, it may not be quite as grim as that. We have a bit of time, and both sides have left the way open for negotiation. There should be an opportunity for diplomacy, as the Foreign Secretary has rightly said. Now it is the dual purpose of diplomacy, as properly understood, first, to finds ways to avoid, if possible, the final clash
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between opposing forces; and secondly, to search for areas of common interest, however small they may be, between the contestants—and this, again, is a point which the Foreign Secretary has made. The difficulty in these days of public and polemical diplomacy is to find a way for the traditional, confidential procedures to operate. But there is everything to be said—and this has been said by several noble Lords in this debate—for being ready to negotiate, or at least to discuss.
Where it is a matter of negotiation, my Lords, we are all under a very strong temptation. We are all tempted to tell Her Majesty's Government and other Western Governments what we think they ought to do; where to stand fast, where and in what measure to make concessions, and what preparations to make for a variety of circumstances that may arise in the future. My Lords, I shall resist this temptation and say no more about Germany. I would add only that in all these matters in regard to Germany, and in regard to everything else, we can, I know, with confidence, leave our affairs safely in the hands of the Foreign Secretary.
I now turn to another topic. This is not a debate in which one ought to speak at length about the Common Market, but I would ask your Lordships' indulgence if I raise, once again, one matter to which I alluded in your Lordships' House a little more than a year ago. It is a broad political point affecting international relations, and it is one which arises directly out of the debate in your Lordships' House on June 21. Again, I will try to be brief. The Treaty of Rome, as we all know, is an instrument of the highest complexity, but in the simplest terms one may say that its more immediate objectives are economic—the Common Market, the Economic Community, the creation of an economic entity which shall act as a unit. Its ultimate objective is political.
That this is so is made quite clear in the preamble to the Treaty, which says that the signatories are
"determined to establish the foundation of an ever-closer union among European peoples."
It has also been authoritatively stated by, !I think, one of the authors of the Treaty of Rome that the Economic

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Community is something which involves, as he said, the
"entire economic, social and political life of each member country".
That, my Lords, is the underlying purpose of the Treaty, and without this the whole conception would lack its real meaning. This is the driving force behind the aspirations which have brought the Treaty into being. Without this objective, the Treaty would have been hardly worth concluding. Unless the Six go on to work towards a closer political association, the enterprise will fall short of its real purpose. It is true, of course, that General de Gaulle has hitherto been rather cool about this; but, as the General himself once said, the future lasts a long time, and the future may well bring France back to her original course, the course marked out by M. Jean Monnet.
If this view of the Treaty is true, and I believe it is, there are forces in Europe behind the Treaty of Rome which are quite foreign to ourselves. The wartime and early post-war tribulations drove the Western European peoples together, and they came to see their future as a continuing, close association for common support and reassurance. Happily, we escaped the worst of these experiences. We were not subject to these compulsions. We have not evoked these aspirations. Nevertheless, what the Six may be expected to require of us if we apply for membership of the Community is, as an article in The Times recently put it, that we should accept
"without reservation the unwritten political content of the Treaty of Rome".
Now, my Lords, as if to drive this point home, the heads of Government of the Six have just put into writing in a separate document this unwritten political content of the Treaty of Rome. Their aim is "a united Europe". They are
"determined to develop their political cooperation with the aim of European unification",
and to give form and substance to the will toward political unity already enshrined in treaties like the Treaty of Rome. They aim also at creating common institutions. Those words may be vague but the 'tendency is plain.
Can we truly say that this is the sentiment of our own people? Is this really what our people want to do? What is
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now proposed is not yet a federation. But was not the noble Earl, Lord Avon (as he now is), right when he said, as early as 1952,
"That the United Kingdom should join a federation on the Continent of Europe…is something which we know, in our bones, we cannot do"?
And if there is any serious doubt on the question whether our people are, in a positive sense, prepared to contemplate the longer-term political implications of the Treaty, and not only its letter but its spirit, then it would be less than honest to make application for membership.
My noble friend Lord Gladwyn has been quite frank—and I am sorry he is not in his place; I did give him warning, but it does not matter because I am going to praise him—about the implications of the Treaty. He has not tried, as other people have done, to minimise the political content of the Treaty, present or prospective. Unlike him, I am not a "hot gospeller" for our joining the Common Market; but on this particular issue I do agree with him. I should like to quote one sentence from his speech in your Lordships' House on June 21. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 232 (No. 96), col. 646]:
"But the fact remains that we should have accepted a binding and, so to speak, an organic commitment wider than, and different in kind from,"—
and I repeat those words "an organic commitment wider than, and different in kind from,"—
"our commitments under our existing Treaties, far-reaching as some of those undoubtedly are."
I think that is true, but Government speakers do not seem to see the position in the same light. For example, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, speaking in the same debate, said [col. 699]:
"I am inclined to suggest to your Lordships that to take part in negotiations for joining the Common Market does not involve us in any more prospective sacrifice of sovereignty than taking part in, let us say, a disarmament conference."
The Foreign Secretary, on the same occasion, unless I have misunderstood him, seemed to see our prospective commitments under the Treaty of Rome as analogous to those already accepted under other instruments. But I think, with Lord Gladwyn, that there is a fundamental difference. It is one thing

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to enter into precise commitments as to what one undertakes to do or what not to do, and even to submit to inspection; it is quite another to hand over the power of continuing decision, now and hereafter, intimately affecting our internal life, permanently to a body that is over and above ourselves.
May I quote an authority on this point? Mr. Uwe Kitzinger, in the course of an exhaustive study of the present state of the debate in the June number of the World Today, remarks:
"…even where the Council of Ministers is concerned, the ultimate absence of a veto on most questions of substance, and the direct impact of international decisions on internal British affairs, make the Rome Treaty different in kind from anything that has been accepted by Britain so far"—
and I repeat those words "make the Rome Treaty different in kind from anything that has been accepted by Britain so far"—
"and it is no wonder if supranationality even in this attenuated form is looked upon with distrust".
The distinction between this new kind of treaty obligation and the general run of treaty obligations into which we have entered in the past is clearly, I think, if rather abstrusely, brought out by Professor Manning in a letter to The Times on July 18. His point is the same —to draw a sharp distinction between those kinds of obligation. I trust, my Lords, that the Foreign Secretary will look at this point again.
Along this same line of reassuring argument is the point, made by some advocates of our entry, that, after all, we should have a veto on the most important matters and should be able to block any undesirable advance towards integration or supranationality. I am not saying that the Government have said this. I think that the truth is that the scope of the veto under the Treaty will be progressively reduced, as the years go on, in the later stages of the transition period. But whether this is so or not, I would say again that it would be less than honest to apply for membership if our objective, once inside, would be to try to water down or dilute the political content of the Treaty, present or prospective. If the Treaty of Rome has any outstanding value—and I think it has—it is because it offers to Western Europe the possibility of closer union, which will meet a need felt by the peoples of the
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six countries. If we do not want to go along this road we had better not set foot on it. To go in with the object of using the veto in order to frustrate the underlying purposes of the Treaty would indeed be to play the part of "perfidious Albion".
6.20 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth will not be speaking. He has withdrawn from the debate to-night, and I therefore wish to have the consent of the House to take his place, which consent I have. First of all, I should like to pay a very great tribute to my noble friend Lord Henderson for once again presenting a résumé of the Foreign Affairs position, as he has to-day. I am very grateful to him, and I am quite sure that he has placed the review of the position in relation to the dangers which seem to be arising in future relationships with Russia in exactly the right perspective. It is no use for us to deny the fact that, if we are once going to start negotiating about things which would very sadly water down the terms of the contracts under which we are working under the International Treaties of 1945, we shall not know where we shall land. I support entirely the interpretation of that position which has been given both by my noble friend and by the Foreign Secretary.
I should like to say a word about Kuwait. At the time the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary made his announcement of the policy that was being pursued, I could not possibly see how this country could have acted in any other way under the terms of our agreement with the Ruler of Kuwait. We supported the announcement then and we support the position now. Whatever may have to be done in future about negotiations over the use of the oil resources of the Middle East as a whole, so long as we have actual commitments, such as our agreement with the Ruler of Kuwait, I feel that those commitments have to be met, until there is a change.
I also support very strongly, as I have all the way through, the line which the Foreign Secretary has taken with regard to the troubles in Laos. We have been very anxious to see a better feeling there

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and a better settlement and we will do all we possibly can to support the Foreign Secretary in his efforts there.
I should like to say a few words in reply to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, whose speech brought back memories to me of how foreign affairs have gone during my lifetime. He referred to the step that was taken by Sir Winston Churchill as Prime Minister in 1941 when Germany invaded Russia. The noble Marquess drew certain lessons from his point of view. I think it was absolutely necessary to support Russia at that time against the invader, irrespective of her political philosophy or of anything else. It was a question for us of survival. The United States had not yet come into the war, at any rate actively, and it was necessary far our survival. It was a setting up during war time of a balance of power, which no student of the strategy of defence could possibly have missed. And the principle which operated then should not operate merely from the point of view of saving a defeat in war, but should operate in the same way with regard to the preparation of a balance of power which might prevent warfare breaking out at all. I was moved this afternoon when the noble Marquess, looking at these events from his point of view, strove to bring these matters into relation with Portugal and Spain, because of that experience of ours. We had even to go to a Communist dictatorship to get where we wanted to get in the course of the war.
Probably no other Member of your Lordships' House has a greater experience than the noble Marquess himself of the political controversies and events of the 'thirties. Then our policy on Spain was one of non-intervention. We often complained about this from the Labour Benches and many people wanted us to intervene on behalf of the Liberal and Socialist Government of Spain elected by the people, but that was not done. And when the world war broke out, what happened in Spain? The dictatorship joined with the Nazis. I have records in my files at home of the greetings from Franco to Hitler. And, finally, the Spanish Blue Division was on the side of Hitler at the time of the invasion of Russia by Germany. Therefore, I
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cannot place much reliance on that argument.
It is true that Portugal was not in that position. Portugal is a very old Ally of ours, and is still our Ally, and I hope that she will continue to be our Ally; but that will not prevent us from making strong representations—which 1 believe the Foreign Secretary has already done —with regard to the unnecessary severities they may be carrying out in Angola. Even in the course of the war, it was not easy to obtain the free use of the Azores for our Navy. We were not getting the facilities that were vital to us. I was First Lord of the Admiralty at that time and I know what I am talking about. I had enough difficulty, because the southern ports in Eire were not available to us, to be able to carry out a proper defence of this country. The facilities that the use of the Azores afforded to us was an important factor in the situation.
The fact is that unless we get, what my noble friend Lord Attlee asked for this afternoon, a change of thought and of action, which will certainly take a very long time, and unless we get a recognition of the need for lesser sovereignty among all the countries in the world and some move towards world government, then we shall have to rely upon supporting whatever collective efforts may be authorised by a body like the United Nations. We have to make sure that the countries which are free shall remain free. And we have to make alliances and agreements, especially of the expansive nature of N.A.T.O. I do not see where we should be to-day if we had not taken that action ourselves. Therefore, I beg the noble Marquess to think again about Angola.
The noble Marquess was restrained in his language about our missions there and I am not complaining about that. I think that more reliance should be placed upon those who have been in the country for such a long time engaged in their work. I am a Baptist and very proud of the Baptist Missionary Society. I cannot think of anything sad or which would reflect any lack of faithfulness in the history of the Baptist Missionary Society. It is a great institution.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I never criticised the Baptist missionaries.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I speak of missionaries in general and I said that I was not complaining about the noble Marquess's language. But I want their evidence to be regarded as worthy of acceptance. From the day that William Carey worked in India, the Baptist Missionary Society has been a great witness, not only in preaching the Gospel but in establishing freedom of mind and freedom of life. In the case of Angola, I would say that if you study carefully the whole of the Baptist missionary reports that have been received, one thing is outstanding—that many of them feel that perhaps they delayed too long in complaining about the measures carried out. The Baptists have been working there for 85 or 86 years and have always had reasonably good relations with the Portuguese Government; and for this reason they were hesitant about making complaints about that Government's action in Angola. When you come to read the actual testimonies of those who have sent in reports direct, I cannot think there can be any doubt whatsoever that the number of killed and wounded, and the severe restrictions upon men, women and children in the course of the actions of the Portuguese Government, are something that we ought to try to prevent in future. The great provocation in the northern part of the territory of Angola is, I think, undoubted; but I do not think that excuses a Christian nation from taking any but the proper measures. It does not excuse the use of exaggerated, unfair and cruel methods.
I was interested in the example which the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, gave as to the lines upon which he was thinking. He seemed to compare this operation of a very backward race in Northern Angola as something akin to our reply to Hitler's attack upon us and our attack upon German open cities. If I remember rightly, we were then struggling for the final defence after the open attack upon out cities here. We were then replying to, and not initiating, attack.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: But were not the Portuguese doing the same?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I should say in very different circumstances indeed. However misguided and cruel they have been on one side in some of those things, which were
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engineered perhaps more from the Congo than from Angola—and that must be recognised—nevertheless it was a very different standard from the attacks being made upon us by Germany, a civilised and highly educated race, with all the philosophies of Goethe and Nietzsche behind them. The attacks were upon us, and we had finally to defend ourselves from being completely wiped out and having our freedom entirely destroyed. I think that was a very different set of Circumstances.
So when we approach the thought about the proposals upon foreign affairs, I think we have to be careful how far we go and what we say. I keep on coming back, when I am thinking on these matters, to some words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"What is the hardest task in the world? It is to think. I will put myself in a position to look an abstract truth in the eye, and I dare not; I blench and I withdraw, first upon this side. and upon that."
That is how many of us, if we are sincere and anxious, must often feel upon these great questions about which the noble Marquess has been speaking. I do not want to be sitting in judgment upon the noble Marquess. I get too many anxieties when I think about these different factors and truths that any man with a soul is called upon to face in trying to decide upon what is best for humanity.
I should now like to say a word upon what the noble Lord, Lord Strang, has said in regard to the Common Market. It is obvious that as a Party we on these Benches are most interested in what the noble Lord has been saying. But he will not expect either me or my noble friend who will wind up the debate for the Opposition to give a firm expression of opinion about the Common Market. The noble Lord, Lord Strang, has spoken with great energy and a great deal of courage this afternoon, and I should like to thank him for it. I think he has put a case before us which needs to be considered carefully. I do not want to go further than that.
I would say, however, from my own personal observation, that the political aims in Europe come differently from different heads of Government and different speakers. I have not yet forgotten the speech made by General de Gaulle on May 31, 1960, which is worth

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looking up, when he said that what he wanted was a European Confederation from the Atlantic to the Urals. At what point in the Urals he hoped that it might end, I do not know; I have not looked at the map to see what he meant. But that was certainly something extremely broad and ambitious. Looking at the political side of the matter, I feel that it still requires a good deal of further consideration. I hope that before we make a decision, one way or the other, about the Common Market, before we become committed, there will be a great deal more thought and education of the people.
In regard to the general position in the world, I may say that we in this House are grateful for the obvious care, attention and detail of which the Foreign Secretary has been shown to be capable in the time since he went to the Foreign Office. He may have been in this Chamber when I said I hoped he had already made his representations to the Portuguese Government with regard to the situation in Angola. I rather have a recollection that there was a report, when he made his visit to Portugal, which said that he had not been silent upon these matters. I thank him very much for that.
In the meantime, with the case that has been put by my noble friend Lord Henderson, and with which I thoroughly agree—as I do with most of the points the Foreign Secretary has made this afternoon—I would say to him that we wish him well in a most difficult time. I do not think my noble friend Lord Attlee was offering anything in the way of criticism when he put his great and idealistic conception before your Lordships this afternoon. The Foreign Secretary, of course (and nobody knows this better than my noble friend), has to deal with foreign affairs as they are from day to day, and our general work, collective thinking and united action in the direction of idealism is not always capable of being effective in settling something which arises overnight. In all these matters I want to say to the Foreign Secretary that of course we shall criticise whenever necessary, but we do wish him well; and we hope that what he does will lead not only to the maintenance of peace but to greater happiness in the world.
5.38 p.m.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, I propose to follow the precept put before your Lordships by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and make only one point. It will be for your Lordships to judge, when I have finished, whether the point I make is a good one or not. I have always felt that for speakers on the Floor of the House it is perhaps more useful to focus attention on only one or two of the corners of the international situation, and therefore I make no apology for concentrating my remarks on Berlin and the situation in Germany which surrounds it.
It is here, it seems to me, there is going to be the great test of wills and energies. And while I am quite convinced that Her Majesty's Government are as determined as the Americans or anyone else not to yield on matters of principle, some of us are not so happy about what I would suggest is quite a lot of loose, defeatist and irresponsible talk—sometimes from people whom one expects to be responsible—in sections of the Press; in programmes over the air and in the day-to-day comments which we collect as we do the daily lot and which might be summed up as the view of the man in the street. For myself, I want to make it quite clear, for what it is worth, that as a Back Bencher, I shall support the Government in the present policy—a policy which, when one has finished being clever in the matter, in the last analysis adds up, as I see it, to being just to fight for the truth.
It is not for me to deliver a lecture on history, but may I remind the House of one or two facts which are sometimes overlooked? Mr. Khrushchev, it seems to me, has now abandoned his legal arguments which have been put up from time to time to support the view that Berlin is part of the territory of the Soviet Zone; and, of course, they do not bear examination. But to put the record right with ourselves, I would remind the House of the Official Gazette of the Control Council of June 5, 1945, which referred to Berlin as "occupied" by each of the four Powers, and the setting up the Kommandatura; and in regard to Berlin said of the four Commandants that their task was to "direct jointly the administration" of the city. Previously there was the London Protocol of September 12, 1944 (which I think

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was drawn attention to in the Note in reply to Mr. Khrushchev and was referred to in this morning's Press), signed by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Government defining the three Zones of occupation, and which, having noted the Soviet-occupied Eastern Zone, added
"with the exception of the Berlin area for which a special system of occupation is provided."
I am raising a point of history because the whole pattern of the post-war settlement is sometimes rather ridiculed to-day. There have been articles in the Press ridiculing it. The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, poured scorn on it in the Sunday Times last Sunday. The fact is, as it seems to me, that the price of anything very different would have been to risk splitting the Allies during the war. I would ask those who are to-day wise after the event, had they been in authority at the time, whether they would themselves have taken that risk.
I have reminded your Lordships of past Agreements, if only to note that, when the legal arguments are exhausted, the Communist practice is to adopt a different technique, in the belief that the West will change a situation in order to avoid a crisis. A crisis is then manufactured in order to effect just that change. This, it seems to me, is the identical method which they have employed in attempting to introduce the Troika device into the United Nations Secretariat. We are told that as realists we must accept the fact of the division of the world into three camps, Communist, capitalist and neutral. It seems to me that it is just exactly that same technique which is introduced in the case of Berlin and Eastern Germany. A situation is manufactured; a change is demanded to meet it, and we are told, again as realists, that we have to accept the change. Alas! it seems to me that too many people in the country are falling for this kind of thing. The Sunday Times article to which I have referred closed with this passage:
"In the long run, realism is a better basis than illusion for the conduct of foreign policy and is less dangerous."
I think your Lordships will take my point when I say that realism might have told us in 1940 to pack up and surrender.
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I would submit a very simple proposition, and that is that to permit this mental and moral creeping paralysis, to accept change for the sake of change and for the relief of tension, is the betrayal of a very great principle. History surely tells us that we can take our short-term profit in such ways, but the long-term result will surely be anarchy and disaster. I should think that it is only wise for us now to assume that Mr. Khrushchev will find it very awkward to retreat from his declared intention to sign a separate Treaty with Eastern Germany. I feel, therefore, that we are justified to some extent in speculating as to what could happen if and when Eastern German officials took control. I think Her Majesty's Government are quite right when they say in the Note published this morning that this would lead to a serious situation. I think it is fair to assume that, if we do stand on our rights in Western Berlin, our convoys may well be interfered with; and it is fair to assume that we should have to deal with Eastern German officials, whether as the agents of the Soviet Government or as the servants of a Government which we do not recognise.
Every conceivable device is going to be brought to bear on us to afford that official recognition. Personally, I hate the idea. If we were going to take such a step, conscious as a people that we had, in fact, been led down the garden path, then perhaps the pill might conceivably be swallowed; because it would connote that we had learned the lesson and that the last word had not been said. But is this the mood of the people today? That is what worries me. I would repeat that, outside the Government today, there are far too many shepherds trying to lead the sheep in the wrong direction. I would only beg that whatever measures are taken, they are taken without any compromise whatsoever of the future.
There is one interesting feature of such a situation. What would be the status of the 20 Soviet divisions in Eastern Germany after the Soviet had signed their Treaty with Ulbricht? More than ever, surely, it would be crystal clear to a watching world that they remained for the sole purpose of holding up a tottering and hated régime. But if I may return to this speculation of possible action which would arise from

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action of the Eastern German officials, I would suggest that it would be rash misjudgment to panic in any way, and to assume that the very first incident on the autobahn from Helmstadt into Western Berlin is going to trigger off a nuclear war. May I put some of the embarrassments that must arise for the potential enemy?
An incident, of course, would first be the concern of the Eastern German forces —not the Soviet forces. I ask: How far can Herr Ulbricht trust his own troops? For the first minor incident he might be able to depend on a quick concentration of reliable men. But the moment what started as a small incident tended to spread into the countryside, I would suggest that he might have to face the possibility of his own men throwing away their arms. I think it is hardly wise, or possible, beyond that point to speculate, except to say this: that surely it must be an overriding interest of the Eastern German Administration to prevent a local situation from spreading. A scorched-earth development will be the very last kind of situation which will suit Communists, whether they be German or Russian.
I think we should remember, too, that an incident or a minor clash, or any of the hundreds of different permutations and combinations of such a situation would take place on soil with a potential fifth column of about 16 million people; and Herr Ulbricht is well aware of that situation. I would suggest that a justified conclusion is that, rather than indulge in tragic prejudgment and extreme assumptions, we must be ready to protect our rights in Berlin, meeting each situation as it arises with the minimum amount of force, in order to confirm our determination not to have an artificial situation imposed upon us.
My Lords, when truth is in danger of being abandoned it is not a bad thing to restate the truth and to go on restating it over and aver again until the balance is restored. The truth is, if I may use unparliamentary language, that Khrushchev and Ulbricht between them are in a hell of a mess. It does not matter which you regard as the dog, which you regard as the tail, and which is wagging which. The truth is that sixteen years after the war Communist domination has failed to turn 17 million
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Germans into Communists. As the Foreign Secretary once said, they vote the only way left to them and that is with their feet, and there are about 1,000 pairs of feet voting every day at this moment.
In this situation there is one obvious card that the Communists will play, and that is a belief in the dangers of German rearmament. Again, to come back to Lord Boothby's article—I warned him that I was going to say these things, but apparently he is unable to be present—there occurred this passage.
"the basic reality which hit us"—
that is Lord Boothby and somebody with him—
"with unexpected force on the 'other side' of the Iron Curtain is that they fear German rearmament."
My Lords, I find that naive in the extreme. Years ago I could have told any Western trader or journalist, any visitor travelling under patronage, before he started off, that the first priority job of those in control on the other side is to see that this fear is kept alive.
The first thing which the British Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to Warsaw discovered on the tables in the hotel, when they turned up in Warsaw in September, 1959, was a collection of documents put out by the East German Embassy in Warsaw to impress us that Adenauer and his Nazi generals were at it again. Now this card is going to be played over and over again, and the sad and terrifying reflection for me is that those who on their lawful occasions visit Iron Curtain capitals and have access to the men in control seemingly are not so much concerned with the truth or otherwise of the allegations which are put to them as seeing, in their solicitude, that those views are projected and picked up by the British public at home.
Before I finish I shall indicate my own view as to the validity of this weapon in the Communist armoury. Meanwhile, may I return to this nightmare of Herr Ulbricht? Of course the real fear, with rising tension in Eastern Germany, is of his own failure, and that, surely, would represent a political and psychological defeat of significance for Communism far beyond the East German frontiers, with its repercussions most certainly, of course, throughout Eastern Europe.

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Here, if I may, I will make just one diversion from Germany and come back to this article in the Sunday Times. The noble Lord wrote this:
"The Dulles policy of liberation is dead, if indeed it ever lived, and it would be better to face that fact."
Here is the philosophy of the realist returning. Only two days previous to that, on the 14th July, President Kennedy had solemnly and publicly designated what is termed in America "Captive Nations Week" in accordance with a resolution that President Eisenhower formerly approved, naming the third week in July always for this purpose.
"until such a time as freedom and independence shall have been achieved for all in the captive nations of the world."
My Lords, it seems to me that for the Americans the Dulles policy is not quite dead; nor, I insist, is the evidence, for those who care to look for it, to the effect that this policy should never be abandoned. If it were otherwise, what need would there be for that barbed wire that stretches from the Baltic down to the Black Sea?
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to interrupt for one moment, simply to say that Mr. Dulles did encourage the Hungarian rebellion even to the point of sparking it off, and then he did nothing about it. That has not been forgotten in Hungary or in any other part on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
LORD BIRDWOOD: I entirely agree with the noble Lord that they have not forgotten the ineptitude and the failure of the West to do anything about their rebellion in Hungary. That I would accept completely. But I would insist that, if the circumstances were otherwise, there would be no need for this barbed wire fence that, in effect, turns Eastern Europe into a human cage.
But now, if I may return to Germany, I do not wish to speak entirely in terms of negative propositions. In any attempt to be constructive we face the embarrassment that the Germans have their elections on September 17 and, Party politics being what they are the whole world over, one does not wish to say anything that might be picked up as a Party Political point by one side or another. Therefore I will refrain from controversial matters such as the possibility of a
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restoration of flexibility to the whole situation through consideration of the future of the Oder-Neisse line, except to say just this: that I believe the key to all our problems, in Europe at least, is to find a conciliation between Germany and Poland. I believe that this is possible through courageous diplomacy and I will say no more.
I feel I am on safer ground when, on looking back, I take note of some of the proposals of the past. We have again reaffirmed our readiness always to negotiate, and I do not feel that just because reasonable and sane proposals have been refused by the Soviet this should prevent previous ideas from being taken out of the files and our having second thoughts on them, perhaps with a view to modifying and amending them.
The Eden Plan of 1954 has to-day been referred to, with its proposals for free elections in Germany, the setting up of a national assembly, the drafting of a constitution, and an all-German Government to be formed to negotiate a peace treaty. But there was one very important stipulation which I think we might still bear in mind, and that was that an all-German Government would have the authority to assume or reject the full rights and obligations of either the Federal Republic and/or the Soviet zone of the German administration. In other words, a reunified Germany, just as any other sovereign independent State, would be free to choose its own foreign policy, to join either N.A.T.O. or the Warsaw Pact, or—and this is important—to be neutral. I hope and believe that my interpretation of the Eden Plan is correct, and that the Eden Plan did not, in fact, exclude all-German neutrality. This is important, because over and over main it is said that the concept of all-German neutrality does not make sense.
My Lords, the Eden Plan has been rejected, but in Geneva the following year, 1955, the Soviet actually agreed to the principle of German reunification by free German elections. The directive to the Foreign Ministers signed on July 25, made that quite clear and it was signed by Bulganin, I think, with Mr. Khrushchev present. What happened? Four days later, on July 27, Khrushchev switched. Molotov, at the Foreign Ministers' Conference, said:
"The so-called free elections might result in the violation of the vital interests … of

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the D.D.R. Reunification could only come about by mutual agreement of the two Germanys."
For four days, my Lords, we were on the brink of agreement.
Once we could persuade the Russians to sit down at a table, many avenues could be explored. One should not exclude disengagement. The Rapacki plan should not be excluded. Even (this has been referred to to-day) perhaps the rather vague thing called a U.N. "presence", not in West Berlin, of course, but covering the whole city, could be included. Above all, I think that the Western guarantees which have been offered against the revival of German militarism, and in which the Germans themselves are the first to wish to participate to-day, could be brought out of cold storage. The one condition on which we could not negotiate, of course, would be the basis of accepting Soviet conditions before we sat down.
I said, my Lords, that I would say a word about my own ideas on the validity of the belief in the danger of German rearmament. I presume that those who believe this would accept also, in varying measure, the danger of German reunification. I, in contrast, believe that there is a danger to Europe in failure to effect that reunification, because such failure would represent a psychological and political victory for the Communists. It is with that thought in mind that, in conclusion, I wish to say a word in general about Anglo-German relations.
It has been my privilege recently to follow the noble Earl, Lord Longford, in the chairmanship of the Anglo-German Association, a task which he fulfilled faithfully and with success over a period of eight years. Anglo-German relations, therefore, are for me a matter of rather more than mere academic interest. Indeed, I think that my views are based just as much on experience and thought as an individual as on anything else. I suggest that it is always very easy to win a round of applause by playing the obvious card of fear and hate of the Germans. When I note it happening in this country, I find myself contemplating the paradox that, to-day, the French, of all people, are much nearer in sentiment and friendship to the Germans than we are.
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I will tell the House of a situation in my own experience which is not uncommon to-day. German students come to this country, and they come fully conscious of a past which they were too young to have lived with but believing that they can make a new start in the name of a new Germany and looking just for recognition of that hope. They then encounter coldness. They might have expected that, and they do. Beyond that, however, they come up against unintelligent and relentless attacks, not in very good taste, in the Beaverbrook Press and elsewhere, and they sometimes note the similarity of those attacks, sometimes the identity of those attacks, with the attacks made in the Daily Worker. Quite a number of students return to Germany beginning to wonder whether, after all, Hitler and the Nazis had offered something to their mothers and fathers.
In contrast, my Lords, I shall tell a rather different sort of story. Twenty-five thousand German officers and men passed through a prisoner-of-war camp, the Featherstone Park Camp in Northumberland, during the war. They received better and more imaginative treatment than is usually given to prisoners in such circumstances. They were allowed to print their own newspaper, Die Zeit am Tyne. They were treated well in the countryside where they worked. When the tide of Anglo-German relations started to flow the wrong way in a year or two ago, they formed in Germany their own association, the Featherstone Park Group, with membership stretching to places as far apart as Hamburg and Munich. They are now dedicated to doing just this, to combating this evil thing—for that is what it is—the encouragement and the perpetuation of hate between peoples who should be thinking, surely, in relation to the international situation which we have had laid before us to-day, of imperative unity in Europe.
I could elaborate this theme, my Lords. I could tell of the effect on me personally of watching the Swedish film Mein Kampf, not in a London cinema but in a cinema before a packed audience in Munich, an audience dominated largely by youth. I recall the sighs of horror and bewilderment, and the murmured voices which echoed the closing comment, "This must never happen again." I put the thought before your Lordships

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that the future belongs not so much to us as to a new and eager generation. Who are we to hand on a message of hate or fear of their children to our children? If, in contrast, we can sow the seeds of a new friendship and understanding among the generation which is to come, we shall—this is my conviction—as certain as night following day, have laid the foundations of a European renaissance which no insidious political cancer will undermine or shake for very many years to come.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, as it is very nearly time for the Royal Commission, perhaps it would meet your Lordships' approval if the House adjourned during pleasure until 6.15.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION
6.20 p.m.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

Finance,

Small Estates (Representation),

Court of Chancery of Lancaster (Amendment),

Criminal Justice,

Consumer Protection,

Flood Prevention (Scotland),

Sheriffs' Pensions (Scotland),

Public Authorities (Allowances),

Barristers (Qualification for Office),

British Transport Commission Order Confirmation,

Montrose Burgh and Harbour (Amendment) Order Confirmation,

Argyll County Council (Arinagour and Craignure Piers, etc.) Order Confirmation,

National Trust for Scotland Order Confirmation,

Forth Road Bridge Order Confirmation,

Birmingham Corporation,

Saint Benet Sherehog Churchyard,

Saint Pancras, Pancras Lane, Churchyard,

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Dartford Tunnel,

Sutton Coldfield Corporation,

London County Council (Money),

City of London (Various Powers),

Manchester Corporation,

Stationers' and Newspaper Makers' Company,

River Wear Watch (Dissolution).

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
6.34 p.m.
Debate resumed.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I think we should thank my noble friend Lord Henderson for framing his Motion in such a comprehensive manner that each one of us can make a speech on the affairs of that part of the world with which one is acquainted. I propose to speak to-night on what I think history will describe as the "Kuwait incident", because it is quite clear as the days go on that what has happened in Kuwait recently will be categorised historically as an "incident". An occasion of this kind serves a useful purpose also because it enables one to focus attention on what I believe are our outmoded commitments in the Middle East.
I should like to preface my remarks by mentioning that my first mission in the field of foreign affairs was undertaken at the request of Mr. Ernest Bevin—that unique Foreign Minister who did not possess any of those superficial qualifications once deemed essential to his position. Ernest Bevin was a man of deep human sympathy, who did not indulge in dialectics but applied his native common sense to world problems. It was after a conference in Cairo in 1950 that he asked me to go and see him. I remember well that, in a few words, he told me what he believed were the right qualities for a good Foreign Secretary. He said that among them, a Foreign Secretary should not only talk of extending the hand of friendship but, so far as possible, follow it up with action.

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I had been in Cairo two or three days, and he reminded me that Egypt was an extremely poor country and had pressing social problems. It was in this field that he asked me to give him this help. Shortly afterwards, we invited the Minister of Social Affairs from Egypt to this country. He came here, with a number of his staff, and to the best of my ability I helped them. I was gratified when, only a few months later, I was invited back to Cairo and asked to open the first insurance office and a new clinic. Subsequently, at the invitation of the Government I went to Iraq and many Middle Eastern countries, and I learned that, while appalling poverty prevailed in the non-oil-producing countries, nevertheless oil revenues cannot in themselves establish a welfare state.
In these countries (and I think it is well for us to remember these things and to put them on record) the most crying need is for a civilian army of qualified teachers, health workers and administrators, among whom, incidentally, should be plenty of women; and also, if possible, of course, an Arab civil administration. With all this in mind, when the news about Kuwait was announced only two or three weeks ago, I realised that this claim for Kuwait coincided with the anniversary of the revolution in Iraq, when people were apt to indulge in a reappraisal of their continuing social problems. Of course, Iraq's claim has no historical validity at all. Nevertheless, it has been made before, though no attempt has been made to enforce it militarily.
I was rather shocked when the Foreign Secretary (I am pleased that he has come back to the Chamber) said in his opening speech this afternoon that he felt there were malicious propagandists about, who are now trying to criticise our action in Kuwait. I hope that he will not include me among them. I can assure your Lordships that my criticism is going to be rather similar to that of my noble friend Lord Henderson, who said only that he hoped that in Kuwait we should not overstay our welcome. I felt that that was a masterly understatement, and a delightful euphemism of what I am prepared to say.
I should certainly like to know, in view of the fact that it was made clear by the Iraqi delegate to the United
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Nations, and by the Iraqi Ambassador here, that there was no intention of forcing militarily Iraq's claim on Kuwait, why it was that Her Majesty's Government were not made more aware of the situation. For instance, why were our advisers not better informed about the true position?—because the tactics we have employed are calculated to undermine confidence in Britain in the Middle East and in Africa. I do not think that that can be denied; and this loss of confidence is a big price to pay for this rather abortive action.
In Middle East politics there is an unwritten law that Arab armies do not fight one another; and there is an Arab saying (one that I have often heard; and it is repeated in most of the countries of the Middle East) which emphasises this unwritten law. They say:
"My brother and I are against my cousin, but my brother, my cousin and I are against the stranger."
It is a fact that since the last war there have been bitter feelings and plots in the Middle East, but this Arab law about one Arab country not fighting another has held good. My Lords, I am a little apprehensive lest "my brother, my cousin and I" may be "against the stranger"—that is, Britain—unless we very soon Change our policy.
There is ample evidence that Kuwait has already gone a considerable way towards achieving acceptance, both as an independent State and as a part of the Arab world. I would remind your Lordships that the Arab Economic Council was established in 1960 with Iraq among the member States. Then the following year, in 1961, Kuwait joined as a full member. At the Arab Telecommunications Conference in Tripoli in I960, of which Iraq is a member, Kuwait was represented by a full delegation. The Arab Airline Conference was established this year with Kuwait as a full member contributing 15 per cent, of the capital. At the Arab Financial Organisation for Economic Development, which met this year in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, Kuwait and Iraq were admitted as full members, and Kuwait agreed to contribute £5 million to the capital. My point in explaining the position of Kuwait vis-à-vis Iraq is to make it clear that, in the eyes of the Arab world, Kuwait and Iraq have already established themselves as two

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independent States. I therefore found it very difficult, knowing this history, to understand how it was that Her Majesty's Government could believe for one moment that in the Arab world, Iraq, part of the Arab community, would militarily enforce her claims.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, may I just interrupt the noble Baroness, as she has referred to me? I was going to acquit her of being a malicious critic in any way, and I think I still do. But when she asks why we acted—because, she says, there is a general rule that Arabs do not attack each other—then I would point out that I did explain that the Iraqi Prime Minister had said Kuwait was no longer independent but was part of Iraq, and that the present Ruler of Kuwait was one of his own Governors—a Governor of part of the Province of Basra. I also explained that we had been told there were sufficient troops on the ground to take the city of Kuwait; that an armoured regiment was moved up to reinforce them. So it was not the British Government's action; it was that the Ruler of Kuwait asked for assistance under the Agreement which we had made with him. Unless we were to break the Agreement we had made, we were bound to go to the Ruler's assistance when the Ruler's position was questioned.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I am grateful to the noble Earl for acquitting me of being a malicious propagandist, but if he will listen to me patiently I will meet the points he has made. I recognise, of course, that we have to balance the two things against each other, and that is precisely the argument which I intend to pursue. In the first place, I was explaining that during the last few years the closeness of Iraq and Kuwait in the Arab world, as shown by their collaboration in these various organisations, was such that the Arab world would know that it would be a most remarkable thing for Iraq suddenly to announce that it was to devour Kuwait. Of course, we should welcome Kuwait taking her rightful place in the Arab world, but in all this I believe we have to recognise that the question is an Arab one. Our policy should be solely to remove all possible obstacles. In answer to the noble Lord when he asks, "Should we withdraw?", I would say, in
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the first place, that the fact is that the presence of British troops, and not Iraq's claims, is the main obstacle to Kuwait's membership of both the Arab League and the United Nations. Indeed, I think that is accepted by people who have studied this problem.
The Foreign Secretary, as he has done to me, may argue that withdrawal may involve risk. I agree; but surely we must determine the degree of risk and whether, on balance, it must be taken having regard to the risk of the hostility of the rest of the Middle East—and, indeed, other undeveloped countries who suspect that we are there only to protect our economic interests. I think it is a fact that a Kuwaiti delegation in Cairo suggested on July 11 that Arab League troops should replace British troops, and it was on July 13 that the Council of the Arab League decided to adjourn for a week in order to enable delegates to consult their Governments regarding the sending of an Arab force to replace British troops in Kuwait, and regarding the admission of Kuwait to the League. The Foreign Secretary, who quoted a number of dates and who is, I know, very familiar with the whole situation, will know that the week is up to-morrow, Thursday. It was last Thursday that the members of the Arab League went back to their Governments to ask permission.
Now I should like to ask the Foreign Secretary whether we could have his assurance—and I really feel that it would be helpful to our relations with the Arab nations if we could—that Britain would not oppose the replacement of our troops by Arab troops, as Kuwait has herself suggested. To-morrow may be the day when this decision will have to be made. May I say that, tactically and diplomatically, it would surely be the right moment to make this generous gesture to-day, before to-morrow, when there is another meeting of the Arab League and when it may mean that the Arab League will ask us to withdraw in order that our troops should be replaced by Arabs.
Now I am not unaware that while there is an unanswerable moral case for this action, there are those who are reluctant to loosen their hold in the Middle East for economic reasons. The interests of Britain in Kuwait are in the importation of oil, oil company profits and sterling

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area reserves; but the most important and the most genuine interest is the ability to import oil. Those of your Lordships who know the Middle East and the oil-producing countries well will surely agree that unless there was a breach in political relations comparable to that with Egypt after Suez, any Government in power in the Persian Gulf area would sell oil to Britain. There is no shortage of oil in the world now.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, I wonder if the noble Baroness would allow me to interrupt, and to come back to the point which she has just left. Suppose the Ruler of Kuwait himself expresses a desire for British troops to remain: how would the noble Baroness view that desire?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, if the noble Lord is asking me what I would do if I were Foreign Secretary, I will tell him. I am afraid I have no control over these forces, except to give my opinion. The Ruler of Kuwait is an individual, an individual who has a Government which is very dissimilar to ours. I would take into account all the things I have mentioned—the repercussions in the Arab World, the real danger, if there is one—and then make my decision in view of that. I should certainly not make my decision because of one individual who thinks that he, as an individual, and his property is vulnerable to attack. I certainly would not agree that that would carry me over the consideration of all these other matters.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, might I ask the noble Lady this? If you have a Treaty with an individual, do you then scrap it?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I think the noble Lady has not been listening to my argument. I have been describing what the background was, and in view of this I was specifically asking, having regard to the invitation from the Ruler, why these other considerations were not taken into account when the decision was made. Surely that is the right approach; and on an occasion of this kind, when we are discussing international affairs, this is the time to ask these questions.
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On the subject of acquiring oil, I would say that, basically, there is no more reason for us to own, far less militarily to occupy, Arab oilfields than Danish farms, though the products of both are equally essential to us. The other two interests are a different matter, and I want the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary to consider very seriously the huge profits of the oil companies in the Middle East. These huge profits have been largely reinvested in Britain. The Sheikh receives about £100 million a year from the Kuwait Oil Company, and between £30 million and £40 million of this is invested in the London Stock Market. The Sheikh's total holding is now estimated to be at least £300 million, and his investments represent between 8 and 10 per cent. of all the new money available for investment each year in the United Kingdom. My Lords, this is Arab economic aid to Britain on a scale far larger than any aid enjoyed by an underdeveloped country.
The fact must be faced that, over the coming years, these funds must and should be increasingly used in the Middle East. The moral argument for this is unanswerable. If that is unconvincing, then politically it should be recognised that our good relations with the Arab States must deteriorate unless we practise what we preach for other underdeveloped countries. May I just emphasise that point? I think the latest world figure who has spoken on this is the Pope, when two or three days ago he appealed to the Catholic world and said that, if we are to have peace, it is essential for those wealthy countries in the world to help the poorer countries; and, my Lords, surely that is the approach of this country. That is the approach of the United States of America. Yet here, we are in the position of receiving help from the poor Arab world.
There is another question to which I should like the Foreign Secretary to give me an answer. Now that Kuwait has been given her independence, when do the Government propose to adopt the same policy toward the other Persian Gulf Sheikhdoms? There are eleven Sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf, many of which consist of nothing but desert and scrub. If there was an incident in one of these primitive places similar to

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that of Kuwait, are we to use our men and money to protect a semi-feudal despotic ruler? The noble Lady asked me just now what we should do if the Sheikh asked us to come in and help because we had promised help to him. The same position might apply to any of these eleven Sheikhdoms on the Persian Gulf. Surely this is the moment to tell the country, the world, and especially the Middle East, what you would propose to do if one of these Sheikhs came and asked for your help, as the Sheikh of Kuwait has done.
The Arab League itself experienced a difficult adolescence, but now it is more mature and is directed by a responsible Secretary-General, Mr. Abdel Hassouna. Why should it not become an effective instrument for consultation on all these Middle East problems? I would remind your Lordships that Arab nationalism is no different from British nationalism. The British Commonwealth is an association of States; similarly, the Arab States are striving to associate for their mutual advantage. It is inevitable that one day the Arabs will become a united people, with one language and one way of life. We may resist that. We may resist it as we have resisted nationalism in Africa; but finally we had to accept the inevitable. Our mistake in this swiftly changing world is to haggle over the inevitable. True, the countries of the Middle East are no longer content to be regarded as a chessboard for foreign Powers. At this moment in our history, when our attention is focused on the Middle East through Kuwait, let us recognise that the Arabs have an important destiny of their own, and that our role to-day is to give them a friendly hand to help them to shape their destiny.
6.57 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, it is difficult to speak after the noble Lady, who had some almost vertiginous insight or foresight into economic reality, particularly in what she was saying about the reinvestment in this country of Kuwaiti capital. It seems that what happens is this. The basic economic reality is that we buy their oil, and they immediately send back the purchase money, the revenues, to invest in this country—which means in British industry—so that it is really rather a long way round of taking a capital sector
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off the money which is available in this country in any case. The situation is unreal to an extent that it suggests that the best long-sighted view is that which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, was speaking of earlier in the afternoon—more international economic arrangements of one sort or another in all spheres.
I want to speak, very briefly, if I may, on two topics: first, the Berlin crisis; and, secondly, the test-ban talks. On the Berlin matter, at present we have the Western Notes of yesterday to the Soviet Union, which I was glad to see set out the legal position very forcibly and firmly; and, equally forcibly and firmly, left open the door to negotiation without specifying that this or that must be done, therefore leaving us free, as diplomats should be, to negotiate what seems to be the best settlement. I should like to associate myself with what my noble friend Lord Alexander of Hillsborough said when he wished the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary good luck in the talks he is going to have in two or three weeks' time with his American friends and German colleagues. I should also like to wish him good progress in reaching a concrete negotiating position which can be put to the other side in this matter. Legally, everything is in our favour. Legally we are in the right and they, it is quite clear, are in the wrong.
The Foreign Secretary was at great pains to emphasise the basis of British foreign policy as far as international law and order and the sanctity of our treaties are concerned. All that is in our favour; but the crisis remains. It is true to say that the crisis was created by Mr. Khrushchev—it was. But he need not have brought it up at this moment. He need not have brought it up in 1958. If nothing happens, he need not bring it up again in 1964. He did bring it up in 1958 and now, and, no doubt, if nothing happens, he will bring it up again in 1964. So we have to look a little at the "Why?" of this matter. Does he do it out of capricious malice, or does he do it because he cannot help it? I think there is a lot to be said for the latter view, if one considers what is happening in Germany at the moment.
The first thing one sees is the often proclaimed Russian fear of Western

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armaments. I think that anybody who has walked in the streets and talked, even through an interpreter, with the Russians in Russian cities could be under no misapprehension about the reality of this fear. No doubt in people who had been eating cats and rats in sieges of this or that city only 19 years ago this is justifiable. The fear is real, and naturally it is something they will want to do something about. Whether they are right in the course they suggest is another matter.
Secondly, there is something which is not often pointed out in this connection—namely, that East Germany, the so-called German Democratic Republic, is rapidly disappearing. People are leaving it at such a rate at the moment that very soon there will not be anybody left in that country. This is a state of things which is obviously a problem, not only to the rulers of any country but also to their friends and allies. For this reason I have no doubt Mr. Khrushchev has felt himself compelled to make a démarche now to settle the matter in some way which might reduce that flow of people out of East Germany. Here particularly I must not fall into the mistake which the noble Lord, Lord Strang, pointed out, of telling the Government what to do. I cannot do that because I do not know so much. But there are many ways in which this problem can be settled.
One is the suggested course of pressing for a reunited Germany with free elections and total freedom for a pan-German Government to join which side they wish. This would be very nice for us, but I do not think it is realistic to expect Mr. Khrushchev to accept this. It would mean an enormous increment to the Western armed forces, since there is no doubt whatever that a reunited Germany would join the West. Therefore he would not permit it, for the simple reason that it would bring Western bomber bases and missile sites a couple of hundred miles nearer to Soviet territory, which would mean so many minutes' fewer shooting time at the bombers and missiles which they fear would be launched against them—wrongly, we think; rightly, they think.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, the noble Lord will remember that in 1958
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the Foreign Secretary put forward a proposal that if a reunited Germany wished to join N.A.T.O., we would not take advantage of that. We would not move anything in the nature of troops or aeroplanes farther to the East.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I think that the troops and aeroplanes of a reunited Germany would be quite sufficient to rule out that course in the minds of the other side. From their point of view, a German bomber is just as bad as an American one.
The second course is some sort of disengagement plan, the reunification of Germany with guaranteed neutrality and no armaments in that country, with or without the corollary of the withdrawal of arms from Poland and Czechoslovakia, as proposed by Mr. Rapacki a few years ago, an offer taken up by Mr. Khrushchev a few days ago. This looks a good deal better. The balance is better. One could more reasonably expect the Russians to accept it, but the trouble is that West Germany will not. I think that anybody who has studied Dr. Adenauer's recent speeches realises that he feels deeply and will feel permanently, and so will his colleagues, that any such course would reduce the West Germans to a second-class people.
The third course is the reunification of Germany with guaranteed neutrality but with a general disarmament throughout Europe—throughout the world, if one wishes. This is a starter, but I do not wish to hold the House up by leading back once more to the great panacea of general disarmament. The first two courses are only half-way houses and seem to me to be full of disadvantages, in one case on our side and, in the other case, on theirs. The full-way house of general disarmament would provide a solution to the German problem but, of course, it would bring in many new problems of its own. But this is a decision that has to be taken.
Before leaving Germany, I should like to take up one point that the noble Earl made about the statements in Mr. Khrushchev's Vienna memorandum to President Kennedy. The noble Earl introduced these by saying that there was a duality in the Russian statements—in other words, that they contradicted themselves. Of course, so they do

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frequently, but in this case I do not quite see the contradiction and should be grateful if the noble Earl could enlighten me about it. Mr. Khrushchev said, on the one hand, that no one would interrupt Western freedom of communications with Berlin under the settlement he proposes, and he said, on the other hand, that the control of Western communications with Berlin should be passed from the Soviet forces to East German forces. Is there a contradiction here? If we take them together, it seems to me that this could be interpreted as a guarantee that, so far as Khrushchev is able to say, which is a very long way, East German forces would not interrupt Western European communications with Berlin.
Let me turn to the other matter I want to talk about—the test ban treaty, which is bogged down severely. There has been a great feeling, I think, on all sides of your Lordships' House, and in wider circles in the West, that this has been a grave setback to the cause of disarmament in general. There has been a great inconsistency of behaviour on the Russian side in this negotiation. We can all remember how three years ago they insisted on taking the test ban separately and the West wanted to engage in a general disarmament negotiation; how the Opposition in this country pressed the Government to take the test ban separately; how subsequently the British Government pressed the Americans to take it separately; how the Americans agreed to that and how negotiations then began. Now, after three years, the thing is upside down. Now the Russians want to take general disarmament and soak up the test ban in the bread, and the West want to take the test ban separately.
I very much agree with and should like to support what my noble friend Lord Henderson said about the immediate course for this country—so far as we can take it in the Western Alliance—not to resume testing and not to break off negotiations. It is clear that this is what should be done, and I have every reason to suppose that this is what the Western Governments will do. But not to test and not to break off is no way forward; it is simply a way of avoiding going backwards. This is good, but not enough. Where do we go forward from here?
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At this point, the Foreign, Secretary quoted a passage from Mr. Khrushchev's Vienna memorandum in which Mr. Khrushchev suggested that only after the abolition of all arms would he regard international inspection and control as being free a the taint of national intelligence—espionage. Here I would come back to what the Foreign Secretary said about duality in Russian statements, because in the very same document there is a passage where Mr. Khrushchev said:
"The Soviet Government will unconditionally"—
I repeat, unconditionally—
"accept the Western proposals for inspection and control, provided they are in the context of a general disarmament settlement."
And secondly, that the Soviet Government are prepared now to sign a document incorporating the Western proposal on the test ban agreement, provided that is in the context of general disarmament.
The point about this is that in the Western proposals on the test ban, as is well known, there is no Troika, but a single administrator. Equally, one may be sure that the Western proposals on general disarmament would contain no Troika; they would contain a single administrator. It seems to be at least possible that in this passage in his memorandum Mr. Khrushchev was leaving the door wide open to abandoning the Troika, along with many other things on which he insists and which we do not like, provided that all is in the context of general disarmament. I hope that the Western Powers will pursue this matter and take him up on it, word by word, sentence by sentence and text by text, and press him, to see what comes out round the conference table at the next Disarmament Conference which takes place in a month or two.
Lastly, on the matter of the test ban and disarmament, I should like to associate myself with everything that has been said from both sides of the House welcoming the statement of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, which, as I understand it, is not only the first statement on foreign policy to be commonly adopted by the British

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Commonwealth, as a whole, but is also very much the best statement which could possibly have been adopted, now or at any time during the last few years. I am glad to hear that it has been presented to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to be laid before the United Nations. I hope that it will be, colloquially speaking, "plugged" in season and out of season in the United Nations and everywhere else where it can be usefully "plugged", because the policies outlined in that statement seem to me to be the only ones which will solve not only the German question and the bog-down on the test ban, but many other tormented international problems of the day.
7.12 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, at this hour and after so many excellent speeches I can and will be brief. I shall not give myself the pleasure even of naming those to whom I feel special gratitude for what they said. I will confine myself to the problems raised about Germany and Berlin. It so happens that between the two wars, and during and towards the end of the Second World War, I gave much thought to Germany, and that thought led to the writing of two publications. The first was a book called The Price of Peace, written while the war was still on but published after the Yalta Agreement was known in full; and, secondly, a pamphlet in 1946 describing what I had seen in Germany during that year. I was glad on looking at these two writings to have the origin of to-day's problem about Germany recalled to me. In case any other Member of this House should care to glance at these writings, I have presented them both to the Library of the House. If anyone still wants further reasons for abolishing war completely, they will find them in the pamphlet called The Message to Germany.
To my mind the arrangements made about Germany after the Second World War illustrate two theses: first, that making a lasting peace is harder than winning a war, particularly when it has been won by a medley of nations forced into agreement and forced to work together, not by love of one another, but by fear; and, secondly, that leaders to
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victory in war are not always or naturally the best designers of peace, because they will have spent the last six years or so in planning war and feeling hate. They do not do well. They did not do well at Versailles; and I think they did even worse at Yalta. But Yalta, better or worse, is what we have to-day, and the problem is how we can do better from it now.
I will say at once that I agree with what the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary said: the way to a better Yalta is not by handing Berlin over completely to Soviet Russia and her satellites. I welcome completely the firmness of the United States to Russia on Berlin, as published to-day, and the firmness of our Government and of the Foreign Secretary to-day. But I would make two suggestions that might possibly lead to slightly better things, or lead towards them, if not so far as to them, because there is a long way to go.
There are two things that in dealing with Soviet Russia we ought to bear in mind about them. First, Soviet Russia in the Second World War received good reason for hating and fearing Nazi Germany. She is free to continue to hate the Germans if she thinks it right or necessary; but she will not have the slightest reason in the world to fear the Germans if the total disarmament which she herself proposes that is, the total disarmament of all countries—is achieved. Let us therefore call her back to that goal. Let us in everything we say to her always include, whenever we have a chance, our determination on this. Let us undertake that, once disarmament has been agreed, we will be prepared to use any powers that still remain to us—there are economic and other powers—to enforce total disarmament on Germany, as on others. That is my first suggestion.
My second suggestion is that we ought to bear in mind that Communism, as my old friend Beatrice Webb often said to me, is something like a religion. We in Britain may continue to hate Communism, as I personally do, not on economic grounds (oddly enough, I think she has some economic merits) but for her denial of essential human liberties of free thought, free speech, free reading and free teaching. I hope we shall show that, while hating Communism, we in Britain do not fear it, provided it is only being talked about and propagated

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by words and not by force or bribery. That is the end of what I have to say. Disarming is essential, and open, friendly argument is desirable as a means of building up communications with nations, even when we differ from them on any main point. Never let us fail to take every opportunity to mention total disarmament and our determination to take all stops necessary to secure total disarmament. There, of course, I agree so happily with my old friend, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. Secondly, never exclude free speaking in this country by those who seem to us foolish in their religion.
7.21 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in a debate so admirably begun by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and continued at so high a level. I am always well content to follow the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, and I have followed him frequently to my own benefit. He has never, so far as I am aware, followed me, although there was once a moment when I hoped he would follow me into the Labour Party. However, he made his choice otherwise, and I hope he has found that that also has benefited him and his colleagues. I think it should be said, when we are talking about Germany so much to-day, that the noble Lord was one of the first Englishmen—or Scotsmen, as I think one should refer to him—who showed real positive friendship towards Germany after the war. When I had the great honour of being made Minister for Germany by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, Dr. Adenauer knew nothing about me, but he said: "If the pupil is anything like the master"—that is, anything like Lord Beveridge" Germany will have reason to be grateful." Therefore, already by 1947 the noble Lord was highly esteemed in postwar Germany.
When one noble Lord said to me to-day, "I suppose you will be speaking about world government", I asked: "Why do you suppose that?" He said: "Because you always speak on world government in the Foreign Affairs debates". I said, "What I suppose you mean is that I always make the same speech on world government in the Foreign Affairs debates". He did not exactly deny that. I will not make precisely the same
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speech, if only because everything that can be said on that in a short space has been said so much better than I can say it by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee.
I should like to strike a rather critical note before going on to praise the Foreign Secretary very highly in another more immediate connection. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, paid full attention to the tensions under which a British Foreign Secretary of to-day must labour. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, my own revered leader, drew a distinction between the immediate handling of events and these far-reaching issues, sometimes called long-term issues, such as world government. The noble Viscount said, in effect, that we were not quarrelling very much, or at all, with the way in which the Foreign Secretary was conducting our affairs at the present time. But I think I am right in saying that, like the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, the noble Viscount wondered, as I wondered, What the Foreign Secretary has in mind for the future. It seems to me that the hardest of all tasks, and the greatest test of statesmanship, is to look some way ahead when you are faced with the most dangerous present anxieties.
I cannot help asking what, if anything, the Government are doing to promote world government. I do not want to adopt tactics that I have adopted once or twice before with the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne. I do not want to press him to make any further statements about the good will of the Government towards world government, but I do want to know—and I think one is entitled to ask, following the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and following pronouncements that have been made by so many Government spokesmen in the last year or two—whether, during the last year, the Government have taken any positive steps towards the establishment of world government. Do they contemplate any positive steps in the next year towards world government? Perhaps the noble Marquess would care to answer those questions, which at least are not as shadowy as 'those with which I have sometimes confronted him in the past.
I had the honour to be chairman, some years ago, of an All-Party Committee Which drew up and published a

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plan for a small standing International Police Force. I am sorry to repeat myself, but I think the noble Marquess was otherwise engaged. I do not know whether the gesture with the pencil means anything particular.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): I beg the noble Earl's pardon.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I willingly accept the apology. The noble Marquess must not treat this as irrelevant self-glorification. I was chairman of a committee which drew up a plan for a small standing International Police Force. That plan received its mead of praise in this House from the Government, and from the Foreign Secretary of the day, the right honourable gentleman Mr. Selwyn Lloyd. That was four years ago. Have the Government done anything since? We were told, if I remember rightly, that we must try to stir up public opinion. I think a great deal has been stirred up in pursuit of that ideal. But think what an advantage it would have been (and I hope the noble Baroness who spoke about the Middle East will agree) if there had been this permanent Force for the Kuwait trouble which "blew up" the other day. But no such Force has been established, in spite of the fact that a great stimulus to the whole idea has been given by the events in the Congo.
I do not think I am disclosing any secrets if I say that three or four years ago the Government appeared to be very worried, in any discussions we had with them, not only about the opposition of Russia but about the opposition of India to an idea of that sort. I doubt whether that is still the situation. It hardly can be, I should think, in principle, in view of the pronouncement of the Commonwealth Premiers, to which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, referred in his most interesting speech. So it really comes down to this—I am trying to make the question as concrete as possible for the noble Marquess, whether or not he can answer it this evening. What steps are being taken now to give effect to the strong support which the Commonwealth Premiers exhibited for the idea of an International Police
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Force? Is any Committee working out a scheme, or are the Government deciding how this idea can be pressed on the United Nations?
It may well be that it will not at first be accepted—it may run into trouble from the Soviet Union. But if we believe in this, we must surely believe also in the force of what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said: that no country is better suited, more naturally looked to, than our own to give a lead, even if that lead is not at first followed. If I am asked, "How can we make much headway with this idea, in face of the opposition of the Soviet Union?", my answer is that I am not certain that that opposition would be as strong as might be supposed. But let us assume that the Soviet Union were very difficult—and I think we must always take a rather reserved view about the Soviet Union's intentions in this sort of matter. Surely, one way in which we could make it almost impossible for the Soviet Union to refuse to support the idea of a limited force, would be if we could win the peoples of Asia and Africa for such a conception.
Therefore, I repeat, now that we have, in principle, the Commonwealth Premiers' pledge for an International Police Force, I ask the noble Marquess either to tell us to-night whether it is intended to push that idea further, or at any rate, at the very least, to give us an assurance that what has been said this evening will be studied with a view to a statement on a subsequent occasion. Whichever course is adopted, I need not say any more about world government, except to express my wholehearted support for what has been said by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee.
Then we come to the immediate issue which is centred in Berlin, though, as the noble Earl, Lord Home, brought out so well, Berlin is a kind of epitome of the struggle with international Communism. At the risk of being further reminiscent I think I can recall that, just as the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, was asked to undertake a mission by Mr. Ernest Bevin—that great Foreign Secretary—so I was also asked by him and the Prime Minister to undertake a mission. At the beginning of 1948 I suppose I was the first British Minister to say in Berlin that we intended to stay there permanently, and

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that nothing was going to turn us out. That, I am glad to think, is the course that has been pursued by all Governments, of every complexion, since that time. What has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, and other speakers to-day will, I am sure, give heart to the people of Berlin, and I need not add to it except to say that I am thoroughly, in every way, in sympathy with the firm stand that is being made.
I agree entirely with the general approach of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, to the question of negotiations, but one is bound to ask what will be the psychological climate in these negotiations. What will be the attitude of our own people if these negotiations become very tense and drag on for some time? I am one of those who believe that we shall never see any real peace until we see a reconciliation between the peoples and Governments of the United States, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union, on the other. I do not want for a moment to suggest that I regard the people of the Soviet Union as evil. I think that is, of course, a totally un-Christian point of view, whatever one may think of their policies. I remember, years ago, working on the Daily Mail, and when I arrived on the scene I asked the chief leader writer, under whom I was working, what was the policy of the Daily Mail. He said, "We regard the Germans as the cruellest people in the world, except the Chinese and, of course, the Irish". That did not really make the relations as happy as they otherwise would have been. That kind of approach, of course, is quite hopeless in application to international affairs, quite apart from being far removed from any possible idea of Christianity.
But when we are thinking of these two peoples, on the one hand our own great Allies who have, after all, protected us for many years, and, on the other, the Russians who, at any rate through their Government, have constituted such a threat that we had to rearm ourselves to defend ourselves against the danger that they represent; when we think of that comparison it seems to me that we in this country are not always fair to the Americans. I am bound to say (though this may not be thought everywhere) referring to the letter which the noble Earl,
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Lord Arran, wrote to The Times yesterday, in which he referred to the mass hysteria with which this very brave Russian Major Gagarin was welcomed, that this may be regarded just as an exceptional sign of goodwill. What I find harder to condone is a short piece of journalism appearing in the Evening Standard this evening, which refers to the second American spaceman. It is headed "Is his journey really necessary?", and it goes on to say
"Alan Shepherd's fifteen-minute journey may have been, in the political climate of ten weeks ago, necessary and justifiable. To-day's carbon copy ride into space is neither."
They are just trying to discourage our American Allies, on whom, after all, we depend for our safety, from embarking on these experiments on which the whole safety of the Free World may depend.
Compared to Yuri Gagarin's 108-minute orbit of the world, it is another flea-hop.
However, as I said, it is a free country—and as a matter of fact, the Evening Standard is often very kind about me. I am perfectly ready to take what they say about me, and they, I am sure, are ready to listen to my opinion about them. But I do think that this article is art absolutely monstrous example of pro-Russian, anti-American bias; and I think there are great dangers to the public mind in these days if this is thought to reflect public opinion.
There is a leading article in the Daily Telegraph to-day which makes one think a great deal. It asks what impression Mr. Khrushchev will be forming of public opinion in this country at the present time?
"What will he think",
they say
"about Britain. It will have been reported to him, accurately, that nearly all Britons show no sense of crisis. He will be in possession of every detail of Major Gagarin's reception over here. It must be hoped that he will not misjudge the British people as Ribbentrop did."
I hope that he does not read the Evening Standard (which, as a matter of fact, is almost my favourite paper: I have enjoyed it for many years), because I think it would be utterly disastrous if the idea got about that this sort of hysterical joy over the Russian success, and disparagement of anything the Americans may be achieving, represents the deep feeling of the British people. Let me say clearly that I do not think

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it does represent the deep feeling of the people, but I think there are dangers in the public mind at the present time, which, unless the public are, so to speak, warned of them, could develop into something fundamentally inimical to the interests of this country. That is one aspect of it. But, of course, no one can be satisfied with anything except a policy which not only carries us through the immediate crisis but carries us on to peace.
I went to the Russian Exhibition, and, of course, as noble Lords who have been there will know, you see this tremendous mural announcing "Above all we treasure peace", signed "Lenin". What meaning can one attach to that? I am quite sure that the ordinary Russian treasures peace as much as the ordinary Englishman. I do not doubt that. But can one really claim that the methods which Mr. Khrushchev is pursuing, or which any Communist has been pursuing, are those of a peace-loving Government? Obviously, they would rather not have war, but by their methods of foreign policy they are running great risks of producing a war. I believe that there is so much good in all peoples and in all individuals, that, in the end, we shall see a Government in Russia which can make that claim more genuinely than the present rulers. I believe that it should not be many years before we see a Government in Russia that can say, as honestly as this Government here, "Above all we treasure peace". But I believe it will be some time before that is true. In the meanwhile, great firmness will be necessary, great good will, great humanity; never forgetting that we are all, ultimately, children of the one God, whether we are Britishers or Russians.
I know that it is thoughts of that kind, however one expresses them, that govern the outlook of the Foreign Secretary. If I may say so, leaving out Party politics, I think there is no one in this country better suited to discharge those great duties which fall to him than the noble Earl, Lord Home. Like the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, I wish him well. But I do seriously hope that, somehow or other, he and his colleagues will snatch time
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from these terrible contemporary preoccupations to build a permanent peace for the future.
7.39 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, at this time of night one's inclination is to take one's name off the list, but I take a point of view about these matters which is rather different from that of most of the speakers this afternoon and I feel it only right to put it forward. I want to devote most of my remarks to the problem of Berlin. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, said about the importance of concentrating on one or two particularly important topics, and that, I think, is undoubtedly the topic of the greatest importance which confronts Europe and, indeed, the world at the present time. But before doing so I should just like to support what my noble friend, Lady Summerskill, said in respect of the. I think, slightly misleading account of the Kuwait incident which the Foreign Secretary gave us. What he said was, strictly speaking, accurate; but I do not think anybody would have gathered, from what he said, that the Iraqis have a claim to this place. It may not be a very good legal one, but it is one which I understand Nuri Said himself put forward. He was acclaimed as a very great friend of this country and was certainly a considerable statesman and one of the builders of the present Iraq. If it is wrong that he ever made this claim, perhaps the noble Earl would contradict it.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, it is perfectly true that a claim was made by Iraq a long time ago—a number of countries have claims on other bits of territory—but the thing on which one must insist is that claims should not be pursued by force. That was why we acted in the Kuwait situation: because force seemed to be imminent.
LORD CHORLEY: I quite agree with that side of it. General Kassem's attitude is indefensible, but it was a very appropriate time, if one may say so, for the claim to be re-formulated, for the Iraqis generally to make it, because it was the time at which independence had been conceded to Kuwait, and it is undoubtedly a fact, however legally indefensible it may be, that these countries which establish their self-government and

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independence, as in the case of Iraq lay claim to the territories round about them which were formerly ruled over by the Power which had domination in that particular part. In our own case, the Andaman Islands had never beer under any Indian Government that had ever been, but in the negotiations for the self-government and independence of India Pandit Nehru and his colleagues advanced a very strong claim, and it was one which, as we know, was accepted by the British Government. In the same way, the Indonesians are claiming territory in New Guinea which had never, in any sort of sense, belonged to Java in the past. Apart from this, it may very well be in the best interests of the people of that part of the world that Kuwait should eventually be incorporated with Iraq.
I should also like to support what my noble Leader said in answer to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, in regard to the speech which he himself said might be described with the adjective "fantastic", and which I feel did describe it very accurately, particularly when he went on to draw some sort of comparison between the bombing war between Germany and England—in a great war which was being carried on after declarations and in an orthodox fashion—with the murder (because it is very little more than murder) by the Portuguese authorities in Angola of all sorts of perfectly innocent people. And it is clear from the descriptions of the missionaries in those parts that educated men were just picked out and killed, on the basis that, being educated, they were more likely to cause trouble than those who were not educated. That, of course, is a type of conduct which is quite indefensible, and it seems to me a great pity that there is a section in our community at the present time which is attempting to defend it.
I felt that the whole of the analysis of the noble Marquess—I am sorry he is not here—of the situation as between what he called Western civilisation and Communism was really open to question. This tendency to see everything on one side as white and everything on the other side as black seems to me completely misleading. It is absurd, in my view, to describe Russian civilisation as something antagonistic to Western civilisation. Russian civilisation, although in many ways it has diverged since the
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Bolshevik Revolution, is essentially a Western civilisation, and no one who had the great pleasure of seeing the Russian Ballet at Covent Garden last week—ballet stemming from France and originally from Italy—and who had the equal pleasure of hearing Rostropovitch playing Shostakowitch's great 'Cello Concerto at the Royal Festival Hall could deny for a moment that the civilisation of Russia stems largely from the West. Putting a satellite into outer space, of course, is founded on Western European science. Even Communism itself was invented by Karl Marx, who came from the Rhineland, which I understand is claimed as the centre of Western civilisation.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, may I chime in for a moment? The walls of the Kremlin were built by an Italian architect in the fifteenth century.
LORD CHORLEY: I am very glad to have that support. It must be obvious to anybody who has spent a few weeks in Russia how very similar, except in regard to a small number of matters, the Russian civilisation is with our own, and I always feel that one of the worst disservices that one can do to the cause of peace and the cause of better understanding between these nations is to accentuate these differences and completely to overlook the basic similarities.
Of course the problem of Berlin is one which is particularly with us to-day. My noble friend Lord Henderson in his opening speech pointed out that almost exactly two years ago, in his opening speech in the Foreign Affairs debate at that time, he had devoted a great deal of his attention to this particular subject, and, indeed, the situation is extraordinarily similar now to what it was then. A meeting of Foreign Secretaries then had been going on at Geneva, at which the Soviets had been putting forward a plan for discussion between West and East Germany with a view to finding some solution of the Berlin problem. And Mr. Khrushchev himself had not very long before put forward the important proposal for making Berlin a free city, a proposal, of course, which had been rejected out of hand by Dr. Adenauer and which had been received almost equally coldly by the Western Powers. So the position now is almost

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exactly as it was then; the problem has remained almost equally untackled during this period, during which much water has flowed under the bridges.
On that occasion I devoted my own speech very largely to this matter, and I need hardly say I concentrated on the subject then because it seemed to me so very clear that it is over Germany, that the final war, if there is to be a final war, is most likely to be touched off; and Berlin is the centre piece, the very core, so to speak, of the controversy in regard to that matter at the present time. Now I do not want this evening to repeat the speech which I then made, although rereading it the other evening it seemed to me just as applicable, or even more applicable, to the conditions now as in 1959. The truth, of course, has been plain for a long time: the creation of this island of Berlin within the territory which was conceded as a Russian sphere of influence at Yalta was a blunder. It was an understandable blunder, at any rate politically, for it was intended as a temporary solution for a problem which was not expected to last for more than a very short time. And of course one of the reasons why Mr. Khrushchev, and particularly the East German Government, are so anxious to get some rather better solution of the problem than so far exists is that it is really completely anomalous that Berlin should, sixteen years after the end of the fighting, still be an island in East German territory in the way that it is.
It is less understandable strategically how it came to be left without any line of communication with the West, although I believe that General Clay, who was responsible for that, has admitted that it was a military mistake on his part. Actually the strategic blunder may not have been so bad in the end, because I think it would have made the present situation even more dangerous if we had a corridor through which we could march troops into West Berlin, a corridor which obviously would have been militarily exceedingly unsafe, and which might have tempted us to take a line of action which would have proved very dangerous.
Of course, the fact of the matter is that Berlin is not really defensible and any real attempt to defend it could be
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made only at the cost of starting the final war. It is only incompetent generals who refuse to face up to the realities of a military situation and continue to pour into a hopelessly indefensible city resources which would be better employed elsewhere. I think we have perhaps allowed ourselves to be deluded by the success of the airlift, which was a magnificent feat of organisation and courage. The result has been that the importance of West Berlin has been played up; its industrial importance has been built up; its population has been allowed to increase and its symbolic value to West Germany has been accentuated. Everything has been done to make it more difficult to face up to the fact that somehow or other we must extricate ourselves from this position before it is too late. The very courage and tenacity of the West Berliners themselves, which fills everybody in this country with sympathy and admiration, makes it go against the grain not to support them one hundred per cent. It is all magnificent but it is not practical politics.
What we ought to be doing instead of behaving in our present truculent way—because I can only regard the Notes delivered to Mr. Khrushchev as truculent, although I was very glad the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary himself this afternoon took a much more moderate and reasonable view—is searching desperately for some sort of solution which will preserve their way of life for the West Berliners, and yet holds out the possibility of agreement with the Soviets; and I cannot see that any such attempt has been made of a serious character by any of the Western Governments over this period of two years. After all, Mr. Khrushchev in the first instance gave us only six months to think about it, and in the end he has given us more than two years, which seems to me very reasonable indeed on his part.
I think the historian of the future, if indeed there is going to be any future to have a historian, will stigmatise this conduct of refusing to face up to the realities of the situation in respect of Berlin as little short of criminal. We ought to have taken the initiative and to have devised some workable scheme. Instead of that we have, of course, as always, left it to the Russians, who have

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advanced the only workable proposal which has so far been put forward.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? Could he explain to me exactly what is not workable about the present scheme?
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, does the noble Lord really think that the present scheme is workable? The mere fact that it has existed for sixteen years does not mean it is a sort of workable solution to the problem. As I have pointed out, the idea at the time was that it was a temporary expedient during the time when the peace treaty was being worked out; not that it should go on for sixteen years. I do not know whether the noble Lord is intending it to go on another 50 years. It seems to me completely inadequate and indeed a very dangerous way of looking at the problem.
The only practical solution, to my mind, which has so far been proposed is that of making the City of Berlin a free city. This, of course, had already been propounded in 1959 and, generally speaking, the West has refused to have anything to do with it. But recently we had a ray of light from the United States which, at any rate to me, was very welcome, when Senator Mansfield of Montana, the Democratic majority Leader of the Senate, expressed the opinion that the West should negotiate on this sort of basis, particularly advocating that the whole of Berlin, both West and East, should be treated as a free city. As I favoured this idea myself in 1958, I was naturally very glad indeed when such a prominent politician in the United States felt it was a reasonable and practical proposal. I am not, of course, saying that Mr. Khrushchev would accept it. I am not saying that the East German Government would accept it. But it is so eminently reasonable that they could not refuse to negotiate upon it, and my complaint is that in the West no real effort has been made to get negotiations going.
I have been very glad to hear from quite a number of speakers this afternoon the emphatic opinion expressed, including the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, that there should be negotiations, and the sooner we get them going surely the better from everybody's point of view. Senator Mansfield made some
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very sensible proposals for the setting up of an international garrison, perhaps a United Nations garrison during the transitional period, with guarantees by both East and West, and other matters of this kind, which certainly provide ample material for negotiation.
I must say that I find the argument of the Prime Minister's latest Note quite unsatisfactory. As I understand it, he has in effect been saying that we have been open to discuss a general peace treaty for quite a long time; but that is not really the same thing as saying we are prepared to discuss the specific proposals which Mr. Khrushchev has been putting forward. In the face of a really dangerous situation I think an argument like that really cannot be expected to cut very much ice. Nor do his fulminations about unilateral action carry greater conviction, because, as we know, it is now over two years since Mr. Khrushchev first put forward his specific proposals.
Even from the narrowest and most practical point of view the attitude is short-sighted, because unilateral action on the part of the U.S.S.R. does not involve them in any actual war. In effect they would be leaving it to the West to take the first steps which might result in that fearful calamity, and indeed it is significant that sabre rattling has started. Does the sabre-rattling mean we have made up our minds to fire the first shot if we think fit, or does it mean we are just trying to frighten the enemy by making a loud noise? Or does it mean that we are really going to initiate negotiations under the shield of this rather truculent attitude?
I now feel a little relieved, after hearing the Foreign Secretary to-day adopting a rather more moderate and conciliatory attitude. Of course, I realise that to negotiate about Berlin is difficult if not impossible without bringing in the East Germans, and that that involves considerable diplomatic difficulties with Dr. Adenauer. It means, in effect, the sacrifice of a pawn in the diplomatic game—perhaps more than a pawn. But would not this be a wise course to adopt if it holds out the possibility of winning the queen of peace in exchange? In any event, as a matter of practical foreign politics, it is quite absurd to go on ignoring diplomatically what is

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de facto a strong Power, a strong industrial Power, a Power with going on for 20 million people—perhaps potentially the fifth or sixth Power in Europe. West Germany, too, will have to accept this actual situation in the end and to negotiate, whatever Dr. Adenauer may be saying now—that is, of course, if he really wishes reunification between East and West to take place. I do not myself believe that Germany, her present rulers at any rate, envisages a military re-conquest of the East.
The State Council of Eastern Germany has indeed appealed, only within the last fortnight or so, to the West German Government to agree to negotiate on a peace settlement and on the terms of a reunification. This brings us to the greater problem which was at all times above and behind the problem of Berlin—namely, the problem of reunification. There are many who think that the peace of Europe requires the continued division of Germany into two separate States. I do not believe that that is a wise policy—indeed, on a long-term view I believe that it would be destructive from the very point of view which its adherents have in mind in advocating it: that is, the cause of peace. You cannot keep a great people permanently disunited in this way, and, with all their faults, the German people are one of the great peoples of the world. Moreover, the German people have a mystical temperament which makes a policy of disunion of this kind a peculiarly dangerous one. If they do not re-unite peacefully, which must mean by negotiation, in the end there will undoubtedly be an attempt to bring about reunion by means of war. As with Samson, it would result in bringing the whole house (of Europe) down not only on their own heads but on our heads as well.
Of course, on the short term and for a time, there is a great deal to be said for keeping Germany in two States. One can well understand that for the U.S.S.R., whose lands have been twice devastated within one generation and whose peoples have been decimated, that was, and had to be, a cardinal policy during the years immediately after the war. I think it was bound to be so. But already the U.S.S.R. is so strong that the fear upon which that policy is based should be passing away. Shortly it will
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become altogether a thing of the past, and Germany will no longer look like being a danger to the East.
It is enough, I think, to indicate that even when the problem of Berlin has been removed, considerable difficulties will remain to be solved before a final settlement of the German problem is in sight. The problem of Berlin is not yet even in the initial stages of solution. I suggest that the line of progress is to tackle that which is immediately before us, which will at any rate, if it can be done, give us a base from which we can go forward to handle the larger problems which lie so much further ahead.
8.5 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, we are reaching the end of a long and interesting debate. I think that almost everybody in the debate, from my noble friend, Lord Henderson, onwards, has spoken with a deep sense of responsibility and of the gravity of the situation which confronts us. As is quite understandable, a large part of the debate has been in connection with Germany and Berlin, and grave words were used by a number of speakers. My noble friend Lord Henderson referred to the "grave crisis", "deep concern", to Khrushchev's having "thrown a bombshell"; and the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary, in a speech which was full of restraint and understanding, spoke of "international anarchy". I was much taken with one expression that he used in his speech, when he said that one false step over Berlin could easily plunge the Continent into war. I would make only one correction and say "world" instead of "Continent". But it was a great comfort to me, and I think to most of us, that he realises this in his position.
This is a difficult debate in which to take part. I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strang, in what he said explicitly and what the noble Lord said by implication—namely, that international negotiations are, at best, extremely difficult and delicate, that this is especially the case in negotiating with the Soviet Union, and therefore, generally speaking, everyone is well advised to speak with restraint in giving detailed advice to the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary. I am glad that the Foreign Secretary has had remarkably little detailed advice

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as to how he should proceed with his negotiations. I was glad also that the Foreign Secretary agreed, and appreciated, that there were understandable fears of Germany.
I say—I have said it so many times before in these debates—that unless you can see the other person's point of view, even if you do not agree with it, you are not really in a position to carry on successful negotiations. I have sometimes referred to chess as a useful accomplishment in negotiations; but, at any rate, short of chess, I think you must really see what the other person has in mind and what are his views, even if you do not at all agree with what those views are. One other thing I would say is that I was glad that he recognises that rigidity in negotiation is dangerous to both sides.
I will make only a few comments on the German question. The first is that, in my opinion, not only is Russia actuated by fear of a militarily powerful reunited Germany—she certainly is—but there are other factors that I think we ought to take into account. She has considerable internal strains, resulting in pressure on Khrushchev to take a stiff line. I do not want to elaborate that, but I think that that is generally appreciated. There is also considerable evidence of disagreement with China; and here again there is some pressure on him to take a stiffer line, perhaps, than he might otherwise take.
Furthermore, there is the unsatisfactory situation of East Germany. Nobody can rest content with the situation there, certainly not the East Germans. I suppose that most noble Lords receive a periodical from Western Germany, and in one of the latest of their periodicals they point out that every year East Germany is losing to the West a population which is the equivalent of one of our very large towns. In one year it is the equivalent of a town the size of Bournemouth; in another year it is the equivalent of a town of the size of Swansea, and so on. Year by year they are losing populations of a quarter of a million or more. That is a very serious thing from the point of view of East Germany and of the Communist regime as a whole. It is therefore quite understandable, even if, as I said before, one does not agree with it, that this is a situation which they feel they must do something about.
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A number of noble Lords, particularly on this side of the House, have indulged in reminiscences, and I hope that I may be permitted to indulge in one very short one. In 1946–47 I was invited to go to Poland to discuss with the Polish Government the question of the reconstruction of Warsaw. Warsaw was then in such a condition that they were in two minds whether it was worth while building up Warsaw at all, or whether they should start building up a capital city elsewhere. That was their situation. I talked to a great many people, and I found that every single family I spoke to had lost one or more persons in the war; not as a result of the fighting, but as a result of the action of the Germans. I do not want to enlarge on that, but it is understandable that a country like Poland should have a legitimate fear of Germany rising again and starting up a war of revenge, or for the purpose of annexation of the territories of which the Polish Government are now in possession. I think that these are things which we have to understand.
In these circumstances, I think it would be dangerous to regard the position as a game of poker, or to see who can bluff best. I do not suggest for a moment that the noble Earl regards it in that way, but I have seen a tendency on the part of some of the Press, and particularly some of the American Press, to regard this as a game of brinkmanship; of seeing who can go nearest to the edge of the precipice. I believe one thing is certain: that is, that Khrushchev intends to recognise East Germany—or, rather, to enter into some kind of agreement with East Germany—before the year is out. That is a factor which we must take into account in our negotiations.
I am not presuming to give the Government any advice. For one thing, the position does not rest alone with our Government. We have Allies, and we have to work together with them. But I suggest that it would be wise, perhaps, not to rush the negotiations. Let the German Election pass. There is an atmosphere at the present time in which all Parties have to take a certain line, in view of the forthcoming Election, which might be toned down when the Election is over. We have that kind of experience ourselves. In my view, it would be much easier to get a common

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line with our Allies after the German Election than at the present time.
I spoke earlier of the fears of the Russians and the Poles of a reunited and strong, military Germany. I would express my own view that they have under present conditions little to fear from such a Germany. So long as Germany is integrated into N.A.T.O., and its forces form part of N.A.T.O., they cannot constitute a serious threat to anybody. One of the offers which I believe has been made in the past, and which I imagine is still open, is to give guarantees that Germany would never commit an act of aggression against anybody without bringing to the support of the country attacked, and against herself, those countries, even, which form part of N.A.T.O.
The true problem to be determined is that sooner or later Germany must be reunited and the terms of a Peace Treaty negotiated. I think everybody will accept that. In the course of that Peace Treaty we shall have to settle the frontiers of the reunited Germany and of Poland, particularly, and the Oder-Neisse line. So long as that is outstanding, and so long as it is possible for Germany to claim a revision of those frontiers and for Poland to fear that there will be a substantial revision, I think that of itself constitutes a source of danger. But I hope that that is a matter that could be dealt with in the course of the negotiations.
In the conditions of international anarchy such as the Foreign Secretary described, it is a matter for deep distress, and certainly for great disappointment, that the United Nations Organisation is powerless to do more than it has done. It has had moderate success in certain directions, but the high hopes which many of us entertained when the United Nations Organisation was formed have been doomed to disappointment. I hope that the Government will take to heart the powerful and moving speech of my noble friend Lord Attlee, with the support that he has had from my noble friend Lord Longford, and will do what they can to eliminate the use or threat of force in international relations, and to make the United Nations Organisation capable of adjudicating upon disputes or disagreements between nations and of enforcing their decisions.
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The House must have been impressed by my noble friend's wise appeal that we, the British Commonwealth, should take the initiative. My noble friend Lord Longford has put some pressure on the noble Marquess who is going to reply to make a pronouncement on world government. I imagine that my noble friend is a little optimistic in expecting such a pronouncement at this time of the night and at this stage in our history; but I hope that in the not too distant future it will be possible to hear from the Government officially what their view is about world government, and to receive some encouragement that they may be able to take the initiative in this matter. This is not a wild dream, because we have had great encouragement from specific statements made by the Prime Minister, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (when he was Foreign Secretary), by the Leader of the House, and, in a more moderate form, even by the Foreign Secretary himself; and other Members of the Government have from time to time expressed agreement with the idea.
I do not think it is too much to ask now, when the policy of world government was never more needed than it is to-day, that we should have some attempt at carrying the matter a stage further. It is, in my view, especially opportune, having regard to what has already been said about the recent resolutions of Commonwealth Prime Ministers on disarmament. We have also been encouraged by the Foreign Secretary's statement that we should use the influence of our country everywhere to maintain law and order—and that is exactly the object of world government. Cannot we best do this by taking the initiative and helping in creating an effective United Nations Organisation?
I have also been very much encouraged by the Foreign Secretary's assurance that he would persevere in negotiating on the abolition of nuclear tests and on disarmament. I am bound to say that a great deal of patience will be required in this perseverance. I believe that we may have to take some risks—calculated risks—if we are to achieve any agreement at all. At the moment, with the intervention of the Troika, I can see great difficulties; but I am very glad indeed that the Foreign

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Secretary is not giving up hope and that he will persevere.
I hope the noble Earl will feel satisfied with this debate and will be encouraged and stimulated by the general support he has received. It is not often that he will receive such general support from all sides of the House as he has to-day in this debate; but we realise that times are grave, and I hope we have not embarrassed him too much by what has been said. On him, but not on him alone, is a very heavy burden. We all hope that the present clouds will lift soon, that we may look forward to happier times in the future, and that he will take advantage of his great opportunities of becoming a really great Foreign Secretary by taking the opening steps, so that our lives are not repeatedly darkened by international threats and crises; and I regard the opening steps as the next stage in the development of the United Nations Organisation.
8.25 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has so properly said, all noble Lords who have spoken in this long and interesting debate have spoken with a deep sense of responsibility. They have spoken realising that we are debating foreign affairs at a more critical moment in our history than we have experienced for many years. As the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said, the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, makes the field for discussion so wide that almost any subject can be raised, and for that reason, the task of the Government representative in winding up is not altogether enviable. But once again I should like to express the thanks of Her Majesty's Government, and my own personal thanks, to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, for introducing this motion, and also for the manner in which he has once again done so—always with restraint, with thoughtfulness, and with a sense of history.
Now, my Lords, many points have been discussed, and I hope your Lordships will be indulgent if I am not able adequately to reply to all of them. On the subject of Berlin, as your Lordships will have noticed in the speech of my noble friend the Foreign Secretary, the noble Earl himself did not propose to
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comment on the observations made by noble Lords. Clearly Under-Secretaries should not rush in where Secretaries of State have decided not to tread, so I will not do so. However, I will say this: that I have no doubt that I am speaking in agreement with the Foreign Secretary when I say that the observations which have been made this afternoon on the subject of Berlin will all be considered with the care and the respect which they deserve.
I remember the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in a speech which, if I may say so, I found particularly interesting, reminding us that this Berlin crisis was the making of Mr. Khrusihchev. I think we should all bear that in mind. Many noble Lords have referred to the flight from East Berlin, and indeed this is a remarkable and disturbing phenomenon. Last week, if I may cap the figures given by Lord Silkin, no fewer than 6,000 Germans crossed from one side to the other. What does that mean? It gives emphasis to the great gulf that yawns between the ideologies of the West, indeed, the non-Iron Curtain countries, and of Russia. And although I would echo the words of the Foreign Secretary, that we should like to be friends of the Soviet Union—of course, we want to be the friends of everybody—at the same time I am sure the Foreign Secretary would agree with me when I say that we must not for one minute forget what Communism stands for, what ideals it represents.
In a speech last night, to which I had the privilege of listening, given by our Ambassador-Designate to Washington, Mr. Ormsby-Gore said some things which struck me deeply. With your Lordships' permission, I will quote a very short passage from his remarks:
"Western civilisation, which is now on trial, believes that individual man needs far more than physical satisfaction and nothing that has happened since the October Revolution in 1917 causes me to doubt this."
He also said:
"I know of no more striking statement of this fundamental conflict of ideas than that contained in Dostoievsky's parable of the Grand Inquisitor, which appears in The Brothers Karamazov. There the claim of all totalitarians is made, that mankind's real cry is, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'"
I do not suppose that any of your Lordships need reminding of this fundamental battle of ideas, but sometimes I cannot help wondering whether there is not a

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risk, both in this country and in the United States, of forgetting what the conflict is about and of thinking too much in terms of material well-being. I submit to your Lordships that if our great American Allies and we of the West lose sight of what are the real values for which we stand, we have little hope of resisting the cancerous spread of world Communism.
I will try to address myself to some of the points which have been raised in the course of this debate. As always, I was interested and impressed by the observations of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and by his obvious deep sincerity in putting forward his views. I think that all of us would wish ultimately to achieve a goal similar to that about which he, Lord Longford and Lord Silkin spoke. But, as I have said on previous occasions, I believe that that goal can be achieved only by the improvement and strengthening of the United Nations Organisation. I believe that that is the only vehicle we have through which to work for this aim.
The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, was good enough to say that he did not expect a pronouncement from me this evening. Indeed, he is right, but he may perhaps take comfort from this. I personally have sympathy with his ideas, and I believe that all men of good will who are capable of serious thought also have much in common with the noble Lords who have spoken on world government. But I would just add this. I think that the hopes of world government, if the "Troika" came in, are indeed slender.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, before the noble Marquess passes on from world government, can he say whether he is going to answer the questions I ventured to put to him, or have they now been disposed of?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the questions have not been disposed of, but I was relieved of the responsibility of replying to them through the kindness of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, at the risk of being called to order by my noble friend the Acting Leader of the Opposition, I do not think
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that my noble friend gave an absolutely blank cheque to the noble Marquess to say nothing whatever about the very concrete questions I put to him.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, whether the noble Lord gave it to me or not, I took it as such.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I thought it was perhaps a little unfair to ask the noble Marquess to commit himself tonight. To-morrow will do, if he likes to think over the difficulty over night.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships. As I think the noble Earl is fully aware, I do not wish to treat this with levity, but it is a very long subject, into which I could go at considerable length. I think it suffices to say to-night that, as the noble Earl knows, our efforts towards disarmament in fact comprehend much of what he wants. The idea of an international police force is an element in our proposals. Of that he is well aware. Perhaps he will be satisfied this evening if I do not go further with him into this interesting topic, but at any other time I am perfectly available to discuss it further.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am bound to say that I cannot imagine a more suitable time to discuss a major question of foreign affairs than a debate on foreign affairs. We are not likely to have a better opportunity. I do not think that the time is absurdly late. Here we are, if the noble Marquess feels able to dwell on this topic. He says that he could speak of it at considerable length. We ask for only five minutes.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, does the noble Marquess's negative attitude go for my specific questions also?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, if the noble Baroness would give me time, I will come to her. May I deal with the delightful and persuasive remarks of the noble Earl? I think that the time is late and I do not propose to pursue this subject further this evening.
Several noble Lords spoke on Spain and Portugal. I am sorry that the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, is unable still to be here. He apologised for his

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inability to stay on. I listened to his speech with the greatest interest. Perhaps I misunderstood the thought which he wanted to convey, but it seemed to me that he was almost suggesting that one should make any friend in time of need, that one should go to any part in a storm. I do not suppose that the noble Marquess can in fact have meant that. I am sure that among our friends there should be room for different forms of government. That I can see perfectly and fully appreciate, but at the same time I find myself wholly in agreement with the noble Lard, Lord Henderson, when he said in the course of his speech:
"It is in Britain's interest to use its moral authority in favour of the oppressed."
I hope that I am not misreporting him. With that, I certainly have no argument.
But when we come to the specific question of Angola, surely the first important thing is to be fully aware of the facts, and up to now I think we know far less than all the facts. I was a little surprised when the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, referred to the "cold-shouldering" of Spain and Portugal, and said we had treated them as if they smelt. Surely that is a terrible exaggeration, to put it mildly. We received in this country Señor Castiella and had valuable and useful conversations with him; and the Foreign Secretary has visited Spain and Portugal. Private conversations which take place between the statesmen of two countries are confidential, but I think that noble Lords in all quarters of the House know the Foreign Secretary sufficiently well to be satisfied that, if there were matters which he regretted, and which the Government regretted, he would not fail to bring them in no uncertain terms to the attention of the Ministers with whom he was speaking. And, in fact, it has been made perfectly clear on many occasions that we do not share the same ideas on colonialism as the Portuguese. But we must be sensible about these things, and I see the point that the noble Marquess was trying to make.
The real conflict is the conflict between the forces who stand for freedom against Communism, and there may be variants within the camp of the free. At the same time I do not believe that it can ever be wise for Her Majesty's Government to adopt policies which appear to
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savour of opportunism, by supporting régimes which in themselves are bad, but may appear to have a desirable quality in that they are opposed to Communism. If we do this, I submit that we shall lose the respect of the uncommitted world. Where we disagree, I am sure it is right that we should say so; but at the same time, surely we should take every opportunity of an exchange of views rather than indulge in public castigation.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Marquess, he spoke of the lack of news about Angola. I believe it was announced in another place that a British diplomat—was it not the Consul-General in Lisbon?—was to visit Angola. I should like to know whether that official has yet reported, and if so, whether the report will be published; and if not, when he is expected to report.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, I put this point in my speech, and I was about to rise to ask whether there is any further information and, if so, whether it will be given to Parliament.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lards, at present there is no new information available, but so soon as there is my noble friend the Foreign Secretary will see that noble Lords are made aware of it. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, is perfectly correct: at this moment the Consul-General and two others are visiting the Northern territory of Angola.
There was an intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, when he touched on the subject of Indonesia, and my noble friend the Foreign Secretary stated that I would say a few words on the matter. I am sorry that Lord Killearn is not in his place, nor is the noble Lord, Lord Rea, both of whom appeared interested in this subject. I will just say that Her Majesty's Government are very much interested in the development of Indonesia, and wish to be on friendly terms with this important country of some 95 million people, in a position of great strategic importance to the British Commonwealth, and one which can exercise great influence in South-East Asia. We have for some time been in close touch with the Indonesians, and I am happy to say that in recent months even closer contacts have been established.

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Earlier this month, as my noble friend the Foreign Secretary told your Lordships, we received a visit from General Nasution; he had conversations with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister of Defence and the Chiefs of Staff, and had an opportunity of meeting a number of British people of all sorts and kinds. In addition to General Nasution, we hope that we may receive visits from several other Indonesian Ministers in the near future. It may also be of interest to your Lordships to know that we recently sent a trade mission out to Indonesia, and a report on that trade mission was published in a publication of the Federation of British Industries, released on June 29. This is a stimulating and illuminating document for those who are interested in the subject of trade with Indonesia.
A number of noble Lords spoke about the European Economic Community. As the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, said in his opening, remarks, this is a matter which was discussed at great length on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Casey, on the subject of the Commonwealth, so I do not propose to go into great detail or to make long comments on what was said about the Common Market. However, I should like just to say this. I listened with great interest to the thoughtful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strang, in which he drew attention to his thoughts on the subject of the political content of the Treaty of Rome. I am quite certain that the noble Lord did not wish to give the impression that if Her Majesty's Government were to apply for membership there would be any suggestion of perfidy. I think that the object of the noble Lord's speech was honestly to declare what he believes to be a matter which requires close study and great consideration by the British people. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Strang, that Her Majesty's Government are taking into account, and have taken into account, the political implications of the Treaty of Rome.
Many noble Lords have spoken on the subject of Kuwait, and I am sure that it was a matter of great satisfaction to Her Majesty's Government to receive the unconditional support of the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, gave as a
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general warning "Do not overstay your welcome". Certainly the Government are aware of the risks involved. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, asked me a question (in fact, she asked me a number of questions, but this one seemed to me to be of particular importance) about the presence of British troops in Kuwait. I would refer the noble Baroness to the words of my noble friend.
The important thing we have to remember is that we must guarantee a security on which the Ruler himself can rely. Within that context, I can assure the noble Baroness, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, that we should welcome any international solution that could be found which would conform with the Ruler of Kuwait's ideas of security. As the noble Baroness told us, the Arab League are meeting again tomorrow. We shall have to wait and see how things turn out. But let me assure the noble Baroness once again that certainly there would be no resistance whatsoever on the part of Her Majesty's Government to finding any international solution which would guarantee the security of Kuwait as the Ruler sees it. I hope that that will set the mind of the noble Baroness at rest.
On the subject of Laos, little was said, but what was said must I feel have given great encouragement to my noble friend; for from all sides of the House, and again from the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, there was unqualified support for the great efforts that our Foreign Secretary is making, and to the patience and wisdom that he has shown. I do not wish to detain your Lordships much longer. I should like to refer to one observation made by the noble Earl, Lord Longford—nothing to do with world government.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: That must have been accidental.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: It was coincidental. The noble Earl referred to the hysterical reporting in the Press about Gagarin and about its running down of some of the American efforts. I agree with him wholeheartedly. It is reprehensible, and I am glad the noble Earl thought fit to squeeze in those observations while he was applying his mind so directly to the question of world government.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am obliged to the noble Marquess, but I would exchange such compliments for one answer on world government at any time.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Perhaps we shall be able to do a deal yet. I had not intended to speak at such length. In conclusion, if I may say this without embarrassing him, I feel that the Foreign Secretary must have gained strength from this debate. I think your Lordships know full well that we have a firm hand at the helm, and that that firm hand is directed by a fair, a clear, and an honest mind.
8.50 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, I would not dare to make a speech at ten minutes to nine, when the Parliamentary Under-Secretary declined to make one at twenty-five minutes to nine, and there are two more Orders on the Paper to be dealt with. I should like to make one general remark. I think—at any rate I hope—the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary feels that this debate has been helpful to him. We must all realise that he has some anxious weeks ahead of him, and while the House will have dispersed he will live with the troubles. My own view is that nearly all the speeches that have been made this afternoon have given some measure of support to what the Foreign Secretary is seeking to do. He must realise that we on this side of the House have given him more than general support.
I think the House, as I have said once before, can congratulate itself that we now have the Foreign Secretary in this Chamber. All his interventions enhance our discussions, and give them a far greater authority than they had earlier. I hope the Foreign Secretary will be able to proceed along the lines he indicated to the House this afternoon, and I think he will realise that the three broad principles which he laid down as the under-basis of British foreign policy are fully accepted on this side of the House. Indeed, they have been the basis of British foreign policy for a long time, even before the United Nations was set up. Indeed, the reason why we are having this position of crisis to-day is that, unfortunately, there are other members of the United Nations who do not
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work to the same principles. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION (No. 2) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

RIVERS (PREVENTION OF POLLUTION) BILL
8.55 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 11 [Restriction on proceedings]:
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I apologise that this Amendment should be put forward at this very late stage. But it was only recently observed that Clause 11, which provides that prosecutions under this Bill and under the principal Act require the permission either of the Attorney General or of the river board, is not strictly appropriate for prosecutions under Clause 12, which was introduced at a later stage after the Bill had been originally drafted. The intention of this Amendment is simply to provide that the requirements of Clause 11 shall apply to prosecutions under the principal Act, or under the earlier Part of this Bill, but not under the subsequent part—that is to say, not to prosecutions under Clause 12. It would be quite inappropriate to require the approval of the river board when in fact the person prosecuted under Clause 12, if there was one, would probably be a servant of the river board. I beg to move
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 33, after ("or") insert ("the foregoing provisions of").—(Viscount Simon.)
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will be glad to learn, and your Lordships may be interested to know, that this Amendment is acceptable to the Government.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12 [Restriction of disclosure of information]:
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, these next five Amendments, Nos. 2 to 6, all hang together, and between them they constitute the Amendment to Clause 12 which I undertook to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, during the Committee stage, we would endeavour to bring forward. Your Lordships will remember that the noble Lord introduced an Amendment to Clause 12 which I had to advise the Committee was unacceptable to the Promoters of the Bill. I gave the noble Lord an undertaking that we would confer with all the interests concerned and try to find an agreed Amendment. The noble Lord has asked me to express his regret that he cannot be here to-day, but to inform your 'Lordships that he is in agreement with this Amendment, which has also been agreed Ito by the fishing interests, the Salmon and Trout Association, the Anglers' Co-operative Association and, on the other side, by the Federation of British Industries and the River Boards' Association.
The effect, briefly, is that information which might relate to industrial processes and which could be gained from applications for consent or from the sampling of effluents from a works are protected against being passed over to third parties. Information which is obtained from routine sampling, let us say, of the condition of the water in the river, which might be of interest and importance to neighbouring landowners and fishermen, can be passed on without fear of prosecution. I beg to move the first Amendment in the group.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 1, after ("information") insert ("(i)").—(Viscount Simon.)
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am really in a position of saying "ditto". The Government are very happy about this Amendment, too. If I may, I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating my two noble friends on the satisfactory compromise agreement which they have managed to produce.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I beg to move No. 3.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 2, leave out ("the execution of") and insert ("an application for consent, or the imposition of conditions, under").—(Viscount Simon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I beg to move—
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 3, after second ("Act") insert ("(including the variation of conditions, and references and applications to the Minister); or
(ii) which is derived from a sample of effluent taken for the purposes of this Act or the principal Act,").—(Viscount Simon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I beg to move—
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 6, after ("obtained") insert ("or, in the case of information derived from a sample of effluent, of the person making the discharge in question").—(Viscount Simon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 17, at end insert—
("(3) Nothing in this section shall prevent the discosure of information derived from a sample of the waters into which an effluent is discharged.").—(Viscount Simon.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 13), Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

HIGHWAYS (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
9.5 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 6 [Power to fill in roadside ditches, etc.]:
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, this is merely a drafting Amendment in order to bring this wording into line with wording used elsewhere in this Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 21, after ("of") insert ("service of").—(Lord Molson.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON moved, after Clause 10 to insert the following new clause:
Overruling of objections to streets becoming maintainable highways
.—(1) Where by virtue of an objection made in pursuance of section two hundred and two of the principal Act (which provides that where street works have ben executed in a private street or part of it, the street works authority may by notice make the street or part a highway maintainable at the public expense unless the owner or a majority of the owners of the street or part object) a private street within the meaning of that section or a part of such a street is prevented from becoming such a highway, the street works authority may, within two months from the expiration of the period mentioned in subsection (1) of that section, apply to a magistrates' court for an order overruling the objection.
(2) If an order overruling the objection. is made in pursuance of the foregoing subsection and no appeal against the order is brought within the time limited for such an appeal, the street or part in question shall become a highway maintainable at the public expense on the expiration of that time; and where such an order is made or refused and an appeal, or an appeal arising out of that appeal, is brought against or arises out of the order or refusal, the street or part shall become such a highway on. the final determination of the matter in favour of the authority or on the abandonment of the appeal by the objectors.
(3) Any power, however worded, to enlarge the time for appealing or seeking leave to appeal shall not be exercisable for the purposes of this section.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it will be within your Lordships' recollection that on the Committee stage Lord Charley moved an Amendment. It was acceptable to me as sponsoring the Bill, but the Government took the view that, while they were agreeable to the general principles of the Amendment, it was not drafted in a manner that would be entirely satisfactory when it came to be interpreted by the Courts. For that reason, the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, withdrew his Amendment, on the understanding that the Government would provide a draft which would be effective for the purpose that he had in mind, and which the local authorities he was representing desired to see achieved. This new clause, which I am now moving, and which has been drafted by Parliamentary Counsel, implements the undertaking given to the noble Lord in Committee, when he withdrew his clause. I hope that, in view of the fact that the general
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principles appeared to be acceptable to your Lordships' House, and that this new clause has now been drafted, I hope quite accurately, by Parliamentary Draftsmen, it will prove to be acceptable to your Lordships.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 10, insert the said new clause. —(Lord Molson.)
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, may I just express my gratitude to the Parliamentary Draftsmen and to the noble Lord, and say that I am very happy.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 13):
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I have it in Command from Her Majesty the Queen to signify to the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, has consented to place Her Majesty's interest, so far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown, at the disposal of Parliament for the purpose of this Bill.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Molson.)
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, might I just say a word at this stage? At the Committee stage, I moved an Amendment on behalf of the Urban District Councils' Association, on the question of the maintenance of county roads in boroughs and urban districts. The Amendment was resisted by the noble Lord who is in charge of this Bill, on the ground that the County Councils Association had not been consulted. I have made inquiries and I am satisfied that there were certain consultations; there was no attempt to pass "a quick one", so to speak, by the urban districts on the county councils, though it is quite true that no agreement had been reached. I felt that that explanation ought to be given.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments and passed and returned to the Commons.