Lords Sitting of 1 August 1962

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of St.Albans

THE LORD ECCLES
The Right Honourable Sir David McAdam Eccles, K.C.V.O., having been created Baron Eccles, of Chute in the County of Wilts—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

STANDARDISATION OF TRAFFIC SIGNS
2.46 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, seeing the great increase in travel now actively taking place both in Great Britain and on the Continent, they will consider calling a conference of the Six Common Market countries and Great Britain to see whether they cannot evolve a system to standardise and unify road signs and directives when the existing ones have to be replaced.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, there is already a European Agreement on Traffic Signs to Which most European countries are signatories. The main point for consideration therefore is whether the United Kingdom should adhere to this Agreement. This is one of the questions that is being considered by the Committee on Traffic Signs, which is the answer to the noble Lord's second Question. Her Majesty's Government would naturally wish to await the Committee's recommendation before making a decision on this matter.
2.48 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether there is at this time any committee or conference giving special consideration to the standardisation of road and traffic signs in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so that as these are replaced they will become uniform.]
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are very conscious of the need to standardise and modernise the traffic signs in the United Kingdom to accord with present and future vehicle density and speeds. For this reason my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Transport jointly appointed at the end of last year an independent Committee whose terms of reference are
"to review traffic signs on all-purpose roads as distinct from motorways, including roads in urban areas, and to recommend what changes should be made ".
This Committee, which is under the chairmanship of Sir Walter Worboys, started work in January and hopes to report early next year. It will certainly include in its considerations the question of obtaining greater uniformity of traffic signs and signals in the United Kingdom.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask if he could state whether the Government are seized of the great urgency for the answer to this very serious problem? As London is approached from any direction within 100 miles, one finds half-a-dozen different signs calling for the same reaction. At the present time this is very unsatisfactory. This Report has been made and published, and I believe my noble friend will agree that the signs are good, but they need to be used. It is no good having them in a book; we want them on the road.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am glad to say that the signs referred to in the book which my noble friend has relate to the motorways, and the signs there are consistent with up-to-date practice including the practice on the Continent. I can certainly say that the Government are seized of the great urgency of this matter, which is the reason I gave for setting up this Committee; but because it is so important we should get the thing right.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that comment, but is he aware that in the Report itself the Committee say that the signs will serve not only for motorways but for other roads as well? In his comment just now I do mot think my noble friend referred to that.
LORD CHESHAM: No, my Lords, I did not refer to that, because the Committee whose Report my noble friend has in his mind had the terms of reference to consider the signs on motorways. It is the other Committee I mentioned that is now sitting which has terms of reference to consider signs generally.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for that answer? May I say that I hope there will be a great sense of urgency about getting these vitally needed signs put on the roads?
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, since a good many local authorities seem to be very unwilling to bring their signs up to date, may I just ask my noble friend whether there is any hope of fixing a deadline, by which date they will be forced to do so?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think that, pending the receipt of the Report of the Committee now sitting, it would not be possible at the present time to talk in terms of a deadline. I have said, and am happy to repeat, that the Government consider this an urgent matter, but one which must nevertheless be tackled in the proper manner.

R.A.F. AND WORLD AEROBATICS CONTEST
2.51 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: 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 why an R.A.F. team is not being sent to the World Aerobatics Contest at Budapest this year, and whether they will consider sending a team to similar contests in future.]
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, the Royal Air Force were not
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invited to take part in this contest, which was confined to light, pistonengined aircraft of the type normally used by civil flying clubs. These sporting events are not suitable for Royal Air Force participation.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for his reply, may I ask the First Lord whether the Air Ministry would reconsider this decision for the future? In the past, the Royal Air Force have taken part in such displays, to the great honour of themselves and to the great honour of their country.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think that the difference is that this is a competition, whereas what the Royal Air Force usually take part in are displays. That is exactly the point.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: May I just add that, while I will not dispute with my noble friend over this, the R.A.F. have, in fact, certainly in pre-war days, taken part in competitions.

THE KUWAIT OPERATION
2.52 p.m.
LORD KENNET: 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 what was the plan for our defence against Iraqi armour in the Kuwait operation in view of our numerical inferiority in armour.]
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it would not be in the national interest to disclose the details of our military dispositions. I can assure the noble Lord that the defence preparations were fully adequate to meet the known threat.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his Answer, and appreciating that one must be careful of the national interest in such cases, may I ask: assuming that there was a superiority of armour on the other side, and assuming that our plan was to hold it up by air-to-ground action, what sort of plan could there have been to deal with the fact that the Iraqi "Migs" have a higher speed than our own aircraft?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, that seems to one to contain too many assumptions for me to deal with it on this sort of Question.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships that my noble friend Lord Lansdowne will be making a statement on Malaysia at a suitable moment after 3.30 o'clock.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL
Read 2a (according to Order): Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 25), Bill read 3a, and passed.

BRITAIN AND THE COMMON MARKET
2.54 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER of HILLS-BOROUGH VISCOUNT ALEXANDER of HILLS-BOROUGH rose to call attention to the current negotiations with the European Economic Community; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name upon the Order Paper. There was a suggestion the other day that we might, perhaps, in the existing circumstances of negotiations concerning the Common Market, postpone this debate. I felt at the time, and I feel now, that this would have been very inadvisable. Your Lordships' House has not had the opportunity which has already been taken by the other place of discussing this matter at any substantial length. It is, however, of such importance that I feel in my heart, as I look back over my Parliamentary experience, that in peace time we have had no more critical a decision to take since Munich, in 1938.
We older people are sometimes charged with always looking backwards and not forwards. Sometimes we get our inspiration for stating what we really think from the events of the past. After the Munich decision was over, and we had that two-day debate, in which Mr. Churchill (as he then was) spoke so forthrightly, I had the task of winding
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up the debate, and I made this forecast: that, as a result of the decision taken, we were being driven into war, and that soon after we were in it we should stand alone. Therefore, when we are to take the kind of decisions that we shall be asked to take when the Government have finished their negotiations, and if it is (as is now being suggested) that the Commonwealth question is the greatest problem of all in the negotiations, I think it is as well to remember that when we did stand alone we had the most remarkable and spontaneous support from the countries of the Commonwealth; and without that support we could not have got through those first eighteen months.
The other thing that I should like to say is this. On such occasions, very often, Party loyalties are strained. They were strained then, in 1938. There were those Who wanted to be completely pacifist; there were those who wanted to negotiate for peace in any way, in any circumstances; there were those who wanted to prepare for what they considered was certain to be an armed conflict. There were great strains on Party loyalties—and there are in this case. I have to speak as the Leader of the Labour Opposition in this House. I have seen many of the strains on Party loyalties in my own Party: but neither are the Government without their strains. Apparently, the only people who ate actually united on the question of the Common Market are the Liberal Party, so far as I can tell.
The fairest thing I can do, therefore, at the opening, is, I think, to say that I heartily approve of the decision of the leaders of the Labour Party not to decide for or against until further information is available. In spite of the leading articles in the Daily Herald this morning, I believe that that decision was right, although it was quite contrary to what the Daily Herald wanted at the time. I think also that the broadcast which was made by Mr. Gaitskell on May 8 set forth quite conclusively what were the essentials that we should have to secure from the negotiations which, of course, were certain to take place as a result of the decision of Parliament in July, 1961. In those circumstances, we laid down, through the Party, the essentials.
On that occasion, Mr. Gaitskell said one or two very important things. He dealt first with the economic possibilities arising out of the negotiations. From the title of the Community, the European Economic Community, you would think at first sight that this was just a political conference set up by agreement, a permanent sort of conference, for economic purposes. You might well be misled if you thought that and that alone, as I shall hope to show later on. But the economic position has been heavily canvassed in both directions by different groups of economists.
I must say that in my pretty long Parliamentary life I have usually had a fair suspicion of economists—not about their cleverness in memorising and applying statistics; but when they come down to political dogmas then I usually distrust them very much. However, what Mr. Gaitskell said in that broadcast was this: that with all the close friends he had among economists (he being an economist himself) of whose views he had taken account, the average of the whole lot was that the economic effects of going into the Common Market might be regarded as fifty-fifty: we might lose some trade with the Commonwealth; we might gain a bit by going into the Economic Community: or vice versa. So that all the drive about the enormous economic gains that might be expected is as yet quite ephemeral. Whichever way our country goes, of course, we shall all hope and wish for the greatest blessing possible in the circumstances, and we hope that it will inure to our advantage. But that is not quite sufficient for me, as I shall show later on.
Then Mr. Gaitskell went on to say that we can lay down what, in the view of Labour, are the essential conditions which we think ought to be met before we go in; and he said, to be fair, that the Government also have laid down certain conditions. There is no doubt that going into the Common Market will mean a lot of changes for agriculture, and we could not see our entering the Economic Community to the ruin of British agriculture. We have not yet very much hope to build upon, so far as we are given information, for the adequate protection of agriculture. Mr. Gaitskell then laid down our commitments to our Scandinavian friends and
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other countries in E.F.T.A. He said, "We are pledged not to go in unless, in effect, they are satisfied too ". Then he went on to deal, pretty briefly, with foreign policy. So far as the actual terms of the Rome Treaty are concerned, he felt that, whilst that was not likely seriously to affect the independence of this country in dealing with its foreign policy, nevertheless we must be sure about it. We should not go in unless we are free to plan our economy for the benefit, as we see it, of the United Kingdom. You might very well be affected in your overseas lookout by decisions which some people consider could, and can, and already have been, made—decisions of the Commission or the Council or the High Court of the Common Market.
This brought Mr. Gaitskell to the final condition, which in his broadcast he stressed was perhaps the nub of the whole question; that is, the question of the position of the Commonwealth. He said: "We emphasise the Commonwealth." Why do we care about it in the first place? Remember that some of the Commonwealth countries, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, are very British indeed, and they remain British. I had an airmail letter from a cousin of mine in Melbourne, who is deputy headmaster of a very large public school, and in the course of his letter he said:
"We have had many additions to our population in the last fifteen years, but it is astounding how they are assimilated and what good Australians they become. So whilst we have been adding at the same time British settlers and populations, taking the two factors together I do not see any great change."
Canada is actually our active partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It has been ready at all times from the moment I first had discussions with the Canadian Minister of Defence, at the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1948, long before there was any wide extension of the NATO organisation in Europe as a whole, to share with us our liabilities, our growing responsibilities and our increasing dangers. That is one good reason., in any case, Why we are sticking to it. In the words of Mr. Gaitskell,
"There must be a proper satisfaction for the claims of the Commonwealth ".
I come next to the passing of one or two remarks to the effect: Where do we

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stand to-day in regard to negotiations? Believe me, my Lords, Still only a very small percentage of people in this country know anything real about what is going on; they do not know. The negotiations have now been going on for months. I suppose since last April they have been fairly intensive. We get a statement about the opening of the negotiations foreshadowed on October 10. I am bound to say that I think there was a fundamental error made by the Lord Privy Seal on October 10 last year. If you look at the Treaty of Rome, you will find that although in one or two cases existing members of the Community are safeguarded by name in the Treaty, the Lord Privy Seal said he accepted the Rome Treaty in toto and did not want to move any amendments to the Treaty.
When it comes to dealing with really important questions that we should like to see safeguarded by an international agreement which is the equivalent of a Statute, we could have had an amendment and put it in. So at the very start that was a mistake. Again, of course, we do not know all the facts. We do not know how far the application by the Government for our entry into the Common Market goes. They would not have been able to start conversations unless they had agreed in toto to the Treaty as a whole as it stood. If that is so, we ought to have been told at the time.
If we look at the situation as it is now, I think I have made a fair summary here. First, there was a deadlock on temperate zone grains, wheat and barley, with apparent disagreement on arrangements both for the transitional period and for the period after it, say from 1970 onwards. The Lord Privy Seal is back again to continue discussions on this matter on the basis used when he left off, if I remember rightly, somewhere near midnight last Saturday. I am bound to say that, after re-reading the statement made in both Houses last Monday, I am concerned about how far things have gone as yet, but we must have more information before we can judge.
Then, no serious discussion has yet taken place on meat and dairy produce. No agreement has been reached on overseas association between the Six and the
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existing A.O.T.s, let alone between the Six and possible Commonwealth association. There is only a vague and, we think, unsatisfactory outline of a comprehensive agreement for the Asian Commonwealth countries. I have seen nothing of this myself, except a short statement that was issued by the Indians, I believe, saying that conversations were going on and seemed to be progressing. Apart from Denmark, negotiations with our E.F.T.A. partners have scarcely begun.
Here we are, on August 1, at this very late date, and it is not surprising if I remind your Lordships that in Paris on June 13 M. de Murville said that perhaps we should know something more by the summer, but more probably by the autumn. To those of us Who are critical of the Government's handling of this matter, it seems that all the time the Government have been in far too great a hurry, to get in at once without further question and without an adequate assessment of what we are committed to. We ought not to be rushed; we ought to have time to re-examine our own problems in the light of the decisions which may be arrived at. It might be said that possibly there Will not be sufficient overall agreement for a statement to be made at the date at present suggested for the Conference of the Commonwealth Premiers, and it might well be that we shall have to postpone that date also. Rather than go like a gambler—and the whole thing is a gamble—to the next throw, we ought to know what our resources are for dealing with the matter. To me that is vastly important.
I should like to say a few words about agriculture. Speaking from this Box, it is necessary for me to say that I am a farmer and have an interest, but that interest is shared by 350,000 farmers and smallholders and 650,000 workers in the industry. It is unfortunate that we received additional aids to our study of the position of agriculture from the National Farmers' Union only this morning. They made a good statement last year, summarising their possible relation to an application to go into the Common Market. I have been able to study only a summary of what they say and I commend its study to all noble Lords who

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are going to speak before to-morrow evening. It is clear that the rather high praise that was given to an agreement recently is not scorned by the National Farmers' Union, but they are also clearly of the opinion that it does not go far enough and does not bring them the security which they want. As yet the question is largely organisational, and they have not come down to a real discussion of their general policy on the main commodities, their exchange and price.
Here again we were handicapped from the start by the admission of Mr. Heath on October 10 last year that he did not want any amendment to the Treaty of Rome and that the Government were willing to accept the basis of a common agricultural policy for the whole of the Community. So that whatever is finally agreed in the Commission or Council of Ministers, whether by unanimous vote or by qualified majority, the farmers are up against it. So not much progress has yet been made, and we cannot find out what is going on.
On July 25, the Minister of Agriculture was asked a number of Questions, but in reply he referred only to the preliminary statements made when the Government were going into negotiations and said that they had not announced at any time the Government's policy in these matters. Nobody in the industry or in the country at large knows what the position is. Again it is a question of "Wait and see." But many of the people concerned are greatly disturbed. When we study the Treaty of Rome, we can see that we may be brought up against damaging results. For example, if the Milk Marketing Board were treated as a State organisation with a monopoly, under the general legislative powers of the Treaty of Rome, what would happen? It is not to be wondered at that the Chairman of the Milk Marketing Board has asked exactly where we are going. With the assistance of the Government, and all sections of the milk producing and distributing industry, the Board have brought up the liquid consumption of milk in this country to a higher level than that of almost every other country in Europe. But now it may be faced with the threat of the importation of Liquid milk from Europe, certainly from France, which, so far as
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I can gather from the statistics, is turning not much more than 20 per cent. of its milk production into the liquid market. The rest is going into manufacture, and part of the surplus could easily be diverted into the liquid market here. This possibility gives cause for considerable doubts in the dairying side of agriculture.
Then during the last ten years we have been struggling to have Reviews of farm prices which would be likely to keep up the level of the standard of living in the industry. I think that the position of the workers is just about being met, but a large proportion of farmers' incomes today are less than they were ten years ago. When it comes, therefore, to dealing with questions of grain and other products these things are vastly important. We do not know what the Minister of Agriculture and the Lord Privy Seal are saying to them. We are not told what are the limits to which they can go. The general talk and conversation among the farmers as you meet them to-day is this: "What we fear is that we are going to be faced with a fait accompli in which the Government have made a provisional agreement and for which their excuse will be, ' We have done our best. It is not as good, perhaps, as it ought to be; but there it is; we go in on that basis '."
We go in on the basis of x industry perhaps being either reduced in prosperity or sent to ruin and another industry becoming perhaps 100 per cent. more efficient, doing better work and getting better profits. All this is a complete gamble in these matters and at this stage of the negotiations, so far as I can see them at the present moment. If I had the time I would say a lot more about it, but I have to be careful not to go on for too long. On the other hand, I have two or three very important things yet to say and the House must forgive me if I am a little longer to-day than usual.
I come next to the question of the Commonwealth. I must say that when I look back over the past and at the evidence of it, I am completely astounded at the volte face of the Conservative Government in relation to the Commonwealth. I do not know whether this particular quotation I am going to make was issued in the time of the Chairmanship of the Tory Party by the noble and

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learned Viscount the Leader of the House, or whether it was before, but this statement was certainly made since the war. It is from a document under the title Imperial Policy, issued by the headquarters of the Conservative Party. It says:
"The Conservative Party regards the British Empire of Nations as the supreme achievement of the British people. Throughout its vast area reign three of the four Freedoms—freedom from fear, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience. A great and unique brotherhood has been built up which has been tried in the white hot fire of the two great wars, and has stood the test. It is the most successful experiment in international relations which the world has ever known."
That is pretty strong. I wonder what the members of the Government feel in relation to that now? Does that still stand? Is the abolition of the Ottawa Treaty, in effect, by going into the European Community, something which they want? Is the destruction of Imperial Preference—to be replaced by special reverse preferences to those European countries with free entry; that is, to destroy one preference and put on another one in the other direction—likely to uphold what was announced as Imperial policy by the Conservative Party headquarters? I think it is exceedingly doubtful myself.
I have so much material here and I have not been able to cover it all, but if we look at certain other things and take first of all what was said by Mr. Macmillan at the opening assembly of the Western European Union in May of last year, we find this:
"Above all, there is the Commonwealth—not merely a point of honour and tradition and interest to us British people, but an important, indeed vital, element of strength and stability to the whole Free World.
"This association of peoples of many races is buttressed by its trade pattern. Moreover, the Commonwealth includes countries with a strong claim upon our help to enable them to develop—diversify their economics and build a better standard of living for their own people.
"We cannot just create our own prosperity and ignore their interests which over the years have become more interwoven with our own."
That is pretty specific. It is not much wonder that Mr. Menzies felt he had to get rid of the one black sheep in his Cabinet who apparently held a view in favour of what the British Government
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were doing now and to leave them united upon their ordinary basis of feeling about the Old Country. This is a case that wants a lot of answering. And if we are going to be successful one way or the other—either successful in keeping out because it is going to be better for the Free World, or in going in with the largest amount of success, not only to the economy of our own country but in enlarging the powers and interests of the Commonwealth countries—we had better look at this case pretty carefully all round and insist that we get the conditions which have been demanded, and, therefore, restore that point of honour which the Prime Minister himself referred to in his statement of last year.
The effect upon British industry is difficult to assess, but I think that, because of the cheap food we have been having, for two reasons—first, by our agricultural support system, the burden of which is spread over the whole community by taxation, and, secondly and largely, by the Imperial Preference granted to foodstuffs from the Commonwealth countries—we have had lower costs of living than have many of the other countries which have been in competition with us. This we shall largely lose in one direction, at any rate. It has been suggested from time to time that, of course, we should gain because we should add to our imports a great deal of food from the European Economic Community area and there would be some compensation therefore in that direction. But when you consider the external tariff on food which will be insisted upon by the European Economic Community, and which has been variously assessed as being from 3 per cent. to 10 per cent.—certainly much more than 3 per cent. on overall commodities and 10 per cent. in one or two specific instances only, but varying from 3 to 10 per cent.—you realise it is bound to add to the cost of all our industrial production in this country, as it will, of course, increase the cost of living and the demand for wage increases. And that is not going to help us.
Another factor I am concerned about is the general assumption of some of the people who support the Common Market in these matters that we are

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going to do much better in trade by joining the European Community than we do by sticking to our basis of world trade, with the heavy buttress to our world trade by our business with the Commonwealth. It is surely common knowledge that, although the figure may have decreased a little this year, we have at least been maintaining an export to the Commonwealth countries of something like £1,400 million—the figure varies between £1,400 million and £1,500 million—compared to the trade that we have been doing this last year with the European Economic Community which, so far as I can gather, has been increasing in our favour while we are still climbing over its tariff barriers. I believe the figure has been increasing in our favour by quite a percentage each year and amounts now to something over £500 million. Nor am I yet persuaded that putting these disabilities upon the maintenance of our trade to the Commonwealth is likely to be beneficial all round. We have heard a great deal about how, as a result of the war, we have lost many of our, what I call, hidden exports—general services, insurance, interest, shipping. And let me say this; from all the information I can get, whereas our overseas Commonwealth trade is carried as to two-thirds of it by British ships, in the case of trade done with the European Economic Community the proportion is two-thirds in exactly the opposite direction; in that case two-thirds of that tonnage is carried in foreign ships. And it is likely that principle will be extended. I feel bound to draw your Lordships' attention to these facts.
Now I come to say this. I still think, in my own mind, that, not only as important but probably much more important in this matter is the political issue. Are we wise, in the light of what has been happening in the last few months, for example, to be ready to rush in on purely economic grounds, without knowing what the political consequences are likely to be? The political position is exceedingly difficult. Take the Articles of the Treaty itself. I am quite sure of this: that the Government may have examined them carefully and think it is all right: they can accept the whole lot. But there is Article after Article in which different rulings can be given. I
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have set down in the different spheres Article 37, right the way through. I have put down Articles 67 to 73; and I have put down the Articles from 85 to 94 and from 101 to 105. Whilst, of course, they are very cleverly drawn, there are competent lawyers in this country who cannot guarantee to us that if, as is most likely, we have to have regard to every decision of the High Authority—whether it goes first of all as a regulation of the Commission, or a decision of the Council of Ministers or, maybe, a decision by the High Court— it will not become, ipso facto, law in this country. And that may be quite serious.
The other point I should like to draw attention to is: what is the real objective? In order to save time I am going to try to put it from memory, although I have the quotations if anybody wants to look them up. There was the statement about three months ago, in reply to a question put to Professor Hallstein in the Press Club in Washington, in which he said that of course they had talked about the British Commonwealth; they had felt that it was not only a great trading organisation but was also valuable to the Free World. But, on being further pressed, he said that there is a school of thought in Europe which takes the line that if the Commonwealth comes with Britain into the Market, the Market is finished; if England comes into the Market without the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth is finished. That is the view, apparently, of the President, or at least of those he was quoting on that matter.
But, my Lords, he went even further than that some months before, when he was lecturing at Harvard University, When he said, in essence: "It is an economic organisation; we are not in this for trade or commerce; we are not in this for that; we are in this for politics." So you see the things that emerge from time to time. I go back again in my mind to the speech of Mr. Couve de Murville, on June 13, in Paris, When he said exactly what General de Gaulle had said as long ago as May 30, 1960. You remember that General de Gaulle said he was for a powerful confederation of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. Note "the Urals ", my Lords. If you examine what Mr. Couve de Murville said in Paris, you will find

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that he agreed with that, in principle, at any rate, although the words were not exactly the same. If you read the bulletins issued to you from the German Embassy, the German bulletins, you will find an article which says, "One Germany—the bridge". To the completion of what? That Community, from the Atlantic to the Urals? The restoration of Europe? At what cost? Who knows? What risks can you conjecture, what likely military expenditure? Nobody can say. The political aspects of this thing are staggering until you really get down to it and sit and think and think about them, as some of us have done.
So we wait for the further report as to the negotiations in Brussels. We are waiting. Nobody knows what they are going to be. But I hope that we shall all pray that whatever is done in this matter we shall not have to put our own country into further depression and danger and we shall not have done as Mr. Macmillan thought we should do in 1957 on this particular matter—damage our Commonwealth permanently if we were to go into this European Economic Community. Let us pray, whatever we do, these things will not occur. I beg to move for Papers.
3.37 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, the House, I am sure, will agree with the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition that it is timely that we in this place should debate the issues of the Common Market, because so far we have not been able to do so. Nor (because I know how strongly the noble Viscount feels on this matter of the Common Market) have I any complaint about the tone of his speech and the way in which he put his case to the House. I must just remind him, and the House, of one thing, and that is that on August 3, 1961—that is, a year ago almost to-day—the House approved a Resolution which supported the Government's decision—and I read the words [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 234, col. 217]:
"to make formal application under Article 237 of the Treaty of Rome in order to initiate negotiations to see if satisfactory arrangements can be made to meet the special interests of
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the United Kingdom, of the Commonwealth and of the European Free Trade Association …"
We start from there: that we have the leave of Parliament to go and negotiate. The question, therefore, is not whether we should try to get into the Common Market; Parliament has decided that we should try to enter, if the terms are right. The real question to-day is whether we are likely to get a good or a bad bargain.
The noble Viscount opposite described the decision to try to enter the Common Market as a gamble. I think I should reject that. I would say that it is not a gamble, but it certainly is an adventure. There is a great deal of difference between the two. For better or worse, then, we have applied for membership; and we are at present in negotiation to see whether we can find terms of entry which will be acceptable.
As I listened to the noble Viscount, it seemed to me that he was warning your Lordships that if we went into the Common Market nothing would ever be the same again for this country. But if we do not go in, nothing will ever be the same, either. I think we must recognise that, because the Common Market is here: it exists, and it is already having an increasing influence on the structure of Europe. It is not some theoretical exercise in political and economic relations conjured up by a number of intellectual busybodies; it is not that. The European movement towards economic and political union is on. It is at present taking place and taking very solid shape, too.
It has already altered the facts of life. It is altering the facts of life in such a way that other countries will have to react to the action which the Six have taken and, because of geography and history, the United Kingdom is one of the first which will have to react to the new situation. Nor can others possibly ignore these events on the Continent. As the noble Viscount reminded us, the Commonwealth has been involved in two world wars owing to the divisions of Europe. The United States was sucked into both these wars, and now has a permanent garrison on the Continent. All the other Commonwealth countries are basically projections of Europe overseas. Neither they

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nor we can be indifferent to events which have had such a continuing impact and influence on our lives. After the Six got together and created the Treaty of Rome, nothing for any of us could be quite the same.
As the noble Viscount has truly said, it is a most complicated matter. It is a matter in Which in many ways it is easier to see the trees than the wood. Therefore, if I may, I am going to follow the noble Viscount in two respects and to divide my speech into two parts. First, I shall attempt to deploy some of the arguments against those which he used in the wider aspect of the question, and then to give an account of the state of play of the negotiations as I know it, and as I should like the House to have it. These are some considerations which I want to put forward, which I think we in this country, the Six in Europe, the Commonwealth and all those Who are responsible for guiding public opinion and making decisions should certainly have in mind.
The British Government must in the first place look at this Common Market situation through British eyes. I make no apology for saying this at all: that the first duty of a British Government in this matter is to see where British interests lie. I want to state that plainly, because although sentiment may play a legitimate part in this matter, the British Government cannot ignore the fact that we are responsible for the lives and well-being of 50 million people packed into an over-crowded island and we have got to look and see what our fortunes are likely to be in the next 50 years. Our people in this country have a very high standard of living which they want to see not only sustained but expanded; and they are people, let us remember, who have exercised power in the world. Although we have not got the power that we had at one time, nevertheless our people want to see our country still exercise its influence.
And the noble Viscount did not deal with this part of the question: what has made Britain great in the past? I am going to reply, despite the danger of over-simplification, in a sentence. It was the decision, through generation after generation of British people and British Governments, that Britain should always be at the centre of markets and
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at the centre of power. That is what has made the greatness of Britain. If you isolate Britain from the centre of markets or from the centre of power she will become an off-shore island, and her economy will either he static or will weaken. But if you keep her in the mainstream of markets and power, although we have not got the physical or military power that we had, nevertheless we can hope to sustain enough power to carry great influence in the counsels of the world. I said in another context the other day that I thought it essential, wherever great matters of peace or war were discussed, that the British voice should he heard. If that is true, then we have to determine the broad: are we to enter into a market which is rapidly expanding—there is no doubt about that—or are we to remain outside, outside the external tariff of the Six, outside the external tariff of the United States, with the great difficulty, which noble Lords know perfectly well, of being able to trade with the Communist bloc where trading is strictly circumscribed by State trading? Therefore, whether we go into Europe or not, we must take into account, in making our decision, this question of whether or not we are going to place Britain at the centre of markets and the centre of power.
The noble Viscount quite rightly insisted that when we were coldly calculating, as we must do, British interests, we should take into account our obligations to the Commonwealth. That is perfectly right. I was Commonwealth Secretary for five years and I am not likely to neglect that obligation. But I do suggest that the Commonwealth countries themselves have got to do some hard thinking in terms of hard reality, because it seems to me that their own expansion in this time of the 20th century is directly concerned with the expansion of Britain, and if Britain has limited opportunities for expansion, then we are not going to be much good to them, or indeed they to us.
Where, in the next twenty or thirty years, are going to be the centre of markets and the centre of power? The answer is quite clear so far as the Free World is concerned—in the United States and in Europe. The Commonwealth has many good aspects and I am going to speak about them in terms, I hope,

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no less enthusiastic than those of the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition. But the Commonwealth is not a centre of power—it cannot be. It has always refused to institutionalise itself It is certainly a wide political influence, but it is not a centre of power; and if as is certain, power is to lie in Europe, then I think it is there that Britain ought to be. We are already deeply committed in the military field, as the noble Viscount reminded us, through the NATO Alliance, of which he was one of the architects, to meet the challenge of Communism. The question that we have to ask ourselves to-day is: can we stand aloof from economic and political associations of a more intimate kind?
Economically, too, I think we have to be clear what we are doing. As I have said, we have to maintain our population at a very high standard of living. If we could not enter the Common Market we should have to do our best. I listened to the noble Viscount and I thought he rather under-estimated the effect on Britain of staying outside the Common Market. Surely there are two things which would happen. First of all our exports would have to climb the tariffs. They might be able to do that. But our expansion would obviously be much slower than if we had not to do so. But, surely, is not the real point that if we were not in the Common Market we should have to compete in other markets, with a trading community which has a much larger industrial base? That seems to me to be one of the arguments which is most telling. Instead, therefore, of our people and industrialists being able to rely on a base of some 240 million people, we should be thrown back upon the 50 million people in our own island. That seems to me one of the most telling economic arguments in favour of our going in.
I do not want to be trapped—I must not be trapped, and I hope none of us will be—into posing alternatives between Europe and the Commonwealth. I believe, with the noble Viscount, that the Commonwealth is a unique contribution to the art of living together, and I endorse, therefore, the statement of the Central Office and the statement of the Prime Minister that that still holds. It is also a real political influence, giving
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an example of how different races can in fact co-operate constructively. The economic association in the Commonwealth is certainly a great part of its strength, and, as the noble Viscount has pointed out, there is an immense trade between the United Kingdom and the different Commonwealth countries. And, of course, we shall never forget that they stood beside us in two world wars.
My Lords, where I differ, I think, from what I would call the "go-it-alone-in-the-Commonwealth" school is that I do not believe that the Commonwealth is a sufficient answer in itself to Britain's needs in the next 50 years; nor are we a sufficient answer to the Commonwealth's needs in the next 50 years if we stand alone. In this connection there are certain factors which we ought to recognise and which must enter into our calculation. The Commonwealth is no longer held together by authority, and therefore it has developed in a way in which each Commonwealth country now has legitimate interests beyond its borders and beyond the Commonwealth circle. Canada has to take account of its proximity to the United States; that has had very severe repercussions on British trade. Australia must consider selling her goods in Japan and South-East Asia; that has meant an erosion of British preferences. Australia and New Zealand are very dependent on the United States for defence, and the Asian nations are greatly in need of United States capital to finance their development plans. The African countries in the Commonwealth are now looking for indigenous solutions to their own particular needs.
My Lords, the Ottawa arrangements—my noble friend, Lord Swinton, will remember this very well—one must remember, were an answer to the conditions of slump in the 1930s. They were good. But the Commonwealth then got together to stimulate trade among the Commonwealth countries, and it was an exclusive arrangement; the preferences were for Commonwealth countries only. Therefore, I think that it would be a mistake, although Ottawa was immensely valuable, to elevate at this stage the Agreements into, so to speak, the Tablets of the Law, because the organisation and structure of world trade have changed and the modern Commonwealth is essentially an extrovert

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organisation, and an extrovert organisation it must remain.
The noble Viscount should not forget, I think, that every country in the Commonwealth is an importer of capital, except the United Kingdom, and they must remain so for years ahead. Therefore, each Commonwealth country, including Britain, has its own interests in different parts of the world, for which others must make allowance; and none can be introspective, and none can be exclusive. I was trying to think, while the noble Viscount was speaking, how I would put this rather wider aspect of Commonwealth/British/European relations which I am trying to visualise. I think I should put it something like this. Europe needs the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth needs Europe; Britain needs both, and both need Britain. Now if that is not complicated, I do not know what is; but it is no more complicated than the Common Market!
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am enormously interested in the argument and I will read it very carefully, but there is one thing which has not occurred in the remarks of the Foreign Secretary. I know all about the population and industrialisation of Europe, but how far is that going to increase in terms of population, or how far can it increase compared to the increase in population of the Commonwealth which is certainly bound to come, with the primary and industrial products arising therefrom? We could have the leadership of that Commonwealth, if we liked. One other thing, my Lords. The noble Earl has overlooked in his answer so far something which I think he might tell me. How do you propose to assess the value of the changeover when you are going to give free entry to those large industrialists of Europe into your own market, and how far do you think you are going to be recouped?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I do not think I necessarily find myself alt difference with the noble Viscount here, because, of course, I recognise that Britain's trade with the Commonwealth will go on, and "I hope it will expand. But there can be no denying—and I do not think that anybody who looks at the facts can deny—that this European Market has the most enormous potential,
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and the base of it is something like 240 to 250 million people. But I still have quite a bit of my speech left to make, and I think that some of the questions the noble Viscount asked will be answered as I go along.
Therefore, it was on these broad grounds of policy that the United Kingdom Government decided to try to negotiate entry, knowing that we might fail, but hoping that we may succeed. I should like to turn, if I may, at this point—it will enable me to answer some of the noble Viscount's questions—to the main considerations which are in the minds of the Government's chief negotiator, the Lord Privy Seal, who conducted these negotiations with the greatest skill——
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
THE EARL OF HOME:—and also to the state of play in the negotiations. I would divide this very short report into sections: the political considerations, on which the noble Viscount touched; the objectives we hope to achieve in respect of British agriculture; and the assurances that we seek for Commonwealth trade.
My Lords, taking account of the political considerations, we must distinguish very clearly indeed between the political implications of joining the Treaty of Rome—that is, the Common Market—and the discussion now taking place among the Six, which is for European Political Union. A distinction must be made there. The Treaty of Rome is an economic instrument with some political overtones. The European Political Union would be a treaty of political co-operation. To-morrow the House will have the great advantage of hearing a speech by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, who will deal with many of the questions raised by the noble Viscount in regard to the political implications of the Treaty of Rome, and in particular the impact on the sovereignty of the member countries. I think it will be valuable to the House to have that.
In the meantime, I shall be content with saying this. The obligations we accept in the Treaty of Rome itself are precise and defined, and, once in it, they cannot be altered without consent. But, my Lords, nothing in them that we have seen could affect the position of the

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Crown—there has been great anxiety in this country about the Monarchy—and nothing that we can see could infringe the sovereignty of Parliament, except in the field laid down in the Articles of the Treaty. The noble Viscount has said, quite truly, that that is quite a wide field, and I remember that the same point was made a year ago by the noble Lord, Lord Strang. That is perfectly true, and I have no doubt myself that Parliament will feel that it is right within that field to make certain surrenders of sovereignty from time to time. But I would judge that each of those surrenders of sovereignty at the time will be judged in the light of whether or not there are compensating gains. The matter will therefore be in Parliament's hands.
The second separate but, nevertheless, important question is that raised by the possibility of a European political union, about which the Six have now been talking for a year. In a sense this is the political counterpart of the economic arrangements in the Treaty of Rome. We have not taken part in these discussions, although we have been informed at all stages of progress. One thing I should like to make clear is that the documents we have seen, which have been given to us by the Six, bear no relation to federalism at all, nor do they seek to introduce any federal institutions. So there is no question that we should be asked to put our signature to a federal structure already agreed between the Six, and we hope to have a hand in shaping the final political solution, whatever it may be. Her Majesty's Government have welcomed the efforts of the Six towards greater political union, and we look forward to joining in the task if and when we are members of the Community.
My Lords, I will now turn, if I may, for a short time to the second section of this review, and that is British agriculture. I may tell the noble Viscount that, although I do not have much time for it, I am a farmer, too, and so these are two farmers putting, perhaps, opposite points of view although engaged in the same activity. I want to put this broad consideration, that the farmers' increasing prosperity in this country, and our ability to maintain a healthy population on the land, depend directly upon
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the increased purchasing power of the consumers who are earning wages in industry. That must be so. Therefore, if we are to improve the state of British agriculture, and not just allow it to remain static, we must raise the income per head of our population or find new markets, or have a combination of both. Nor do I believe that, provided conditions of production are equal—and this is one of the objectives of the Treaty of Rome—there is any reason at all why our farmers should not produce at competitive prices. In fact, if we were not to go into the Common Market it would be a very poor look-out indeed for the farming community in Britain if they could not make their prices competitive. So I have no reason to think that the broad objectives of the Community, so far as agriculture is concerned, differ from ours.
This, I think, is rather confirmed by the fact that it has been provisionally agreed to proceed by the method which we ourselves have adopted, and that is by the method of an annual review. The object of the review would be the same as the object of our annual agricultural Reviews—namely, that the farmers in all areas of the Community should be guaranteed a fair living from the soil. Our own national Reviews would continue, and they would provide the basic information which would enable us to ensure that the needs of our own agricultural industry were taken fully into account in determining Community policy.
It is true, as the noble Viscount has said, that we are still discussing arrangements for individual commodities, and on a number of those commodities the Six have adopted regulations for themselves, particularly pigs, eggs and horticulture. The beef policy is still to be formulated by the Community. We are anxious that in these matters our voice should be heard. I cannot give further details, and all I can say is that on all these matters, and for all these commodities, the Lord Privy Seal is fully armed with the facts; the Minister of Agriculture is, of course, a party to his negotiations, and any further provisional agreements that are made will be made with the full knowledge of the importance of a flourishing agriculture to this country as part of a flourishing agriculture of the whole.

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The final section to which I would come, then, is the whole complex of questions which the noble Viscount raised, related to Commonwealth preference and Commonwealth trade. In the context of industrial manufactured goods, it has already been widely recognised that preferences, which already have been much eroded, could not be maintained at their present levels in perpetuity, and therefore, it is envisaged that by degrees—and the House knows this—the common external tariff will apply. Turning from industrial goods, the focus was then turned on two further aspects of the matter, the aspects of the Common Market which affected the Asian and African countries and the dependent territories, with the emphasis on tropical foodstuffs; and, secondly, upon the old Commonwealth countries and their particular problem of the imports of temperate foodstuffs into the United Kingdom and the Common Market.
So far as the African and the West Indian countries are concerned, countries both independent and dependent, we hope that they will be able to join the Community as associate members. They will thus enjoy the benefits on exactly the same terms as the ex-French territories enjoy benefits under the Community now. As one reviews the opportunities in an expanding European market, it would seem to give them opportunities for increasing their trade, provided their prices are competitive. So far as India, Pakistan and Ceylon are concerned, we are seeking several things: adjustments in the application of the common tariff to their exports; in certain cases to reduce to zero the tariff, for instance on tea and spices; special arrangements to cover their export of textiles, and to remedy damage that might be done to them. Detailed arrangements will be subject to trade negotiations between those countries and an enlarged Community. I believe—and I have looked at this fairly carefully—that the opportunities for expansion which this will give them, and the opportunities to earn additional foreign exchange which they so badly need for their development, will be increased as a result of their association with the Common Market.
Now I come, if I may, to the nub of the matter; that is, the prospect for exports of temperate foodstuffs to the
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Community, both in the transitional stage, between now and 1970, and thereafter. When we are thinking in terms of commodities like wheat, butter and meat—all of which the noble Viscount has mentioned—there are certain factors that I think we must keep in mind. The first of these is the price policy of the Community, which is all-important. If the Community were to fix the price of agricultural produce very high, there would clearly be little room left for the import of comparable goods from outside. So the object of the Community must be to fix prices which are not so low as to deny the farmers of the Community a fair return for their labour, but not so high as to stimulate production to a point where there is no room for outside sellers. This is the centre of the problem, and the attitude of the Commonwealth countries towards the Common Market, and British membership of it, will be very much affected by the language in which the price policy is expressed as forecasting the practice of the Community. This is of really overriding importance.
There is a special and particular vocabulary which is used in G.A.T.T., in connection with trade arrangements of this kind, where the word "reasonable", for instance, has a much more precise meaning than it has in ordinary language—such as when used between me and the Leader of the Opposition, for example. The words, therefore, my Lords, will be very important, and our aim must be to give confidence to the Commonwealth in the intentions of the Community whilst still allowing room for movement to take account of changing circumstances within and without the Community.
The Commonwealth countries have for a very long time been interested (and I know that a number of your Lordships, too, have been interested) in world commodity arrangements, because stable prices for primary producers are very much better than aid. Of course, they are very difficult to contrive—immensely difficult; but, still, the existence of the Common Market is, I think, going to give additional urgency to exploring their possibility. Not only is there great interest now in the Commonwealth about the possibility of these world arrangements, but there is increasing interest, I think, in the United States

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of America, which is very significant. But, pending such world agreements, I agree with the noble Viscount that what we have to do is to try to ensure access for Commonwealth temperate foodstuffs and to make sure that, if world-wide agreements are impossible, suitable alternative arrangements are made.
My Lords, there has been a great deal of talk in the last few days of a deadlock in the negotiations in Brussels. I hope that your Lordships will not look on it as that, and for this reason: that there is an intellectual and a practical problem here to which the Commonwealth countries, ourselves and the Six must give their attention. It is this: how can words be found to give reasonable assurance to traditional sellers, Commonwealth countries included, without importing an absolute rigidity into world trade? That is the problem, and it is a real problem, about which we must think. It is obviously quite impossible to-day to fix world trade at the levels of to-day for all time. We cannot do that. Nor can we fix compensation for damage so certainly that it can be claimed from the Community, even if the fall-off in exports from a particular country is due, for instance, to inefficiency or other causes. We could not do that. Therefore what we have to do, as I say, is to take account of a problem which is very real, and the Six and the Commonwealth countries must help us in this. The problem is to contrive the maximum assurance and safeguard for Commonwealth producers without putting world trade into a strait jacket. That is what the problem is about in Brussels now, as the Lord Privy Seal negotiates. It is not a deadlock: it is a problem to Which all of us must apply our minds.
My Lords, I do not know that your Lordships will wish me to go into the question of the individual commodities. I probably ought to say something, but I will say it as fast as I can. So far as wool is concerned, which benefits Australia, no import tariff or quantity restriction is envisaged. There is no tariff or preference on wheat in the United Kingdom market, and the problem here, therefore, is one which is related to the fact that Australia, under a gentlemen's agreement, brings 750,000
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tons of soft wheat into the country every year. That competes with the soft wheat of America and the soft wheat of France; and it is a question of accommodating the Australians on this. So far as wheat is concerned, as the Community external tariff is to be abolished, no problem of Commonwealth tariff preference is involved.
Apart from the wheat, therefore, the commodities most important to the Commonwealth are meat; milk products, particularly butter; and mutton. Those, of course, are the problems which are of particular concern to New Zealand, and, therefore, problems in which both Houses of Parliament, I hope, will be particularly concerned. In the Commonwealth context, too, there are processed foods, tinned fruit and vegetables, fish and raisins, and other products. We want to ensure—and this is the objective of our negotiations—that fair trading facilities will remain open for these.
It is all immensely complicated, my Lords. The noble Viscount says that this has taken some time, and probably it ought to take more. Possibly; but I should just like to illustrate to the House the trouble which we have taken to go into these problems. We have gone into the problems of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which are dependent on meat, grain, wool and dairy produce. The African States are dependent on coffee, cocoa, oil seeds and tropical fruits, like bananas. We have gone into the problem of sugar, which affects the West Indies so much; of Hong Kong, which is entirely dependent on the export of manufactures; India, Pakistan and Ceylon, where a substantial proportion of their export is textiles; Malaya, which exports rubber and tin; and Cyprus, which is concerned with fruit and other things. I can promise your Lordships absolutely that the problems presented to each of these countries have been foreseen by us. We have talked to their representatives on every possible occasion about the solutions that might be made. And, although, of course, it is very unlikely that we shall get all that we want, we are going out as hard as we can to get a fair deal for these countries, so that their people will be able to sell their goods in fair competition.

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What we want from the Community, my Lords, is something which we have been able to give to the Commonwealth countries, and are able to give them now. We have never been able to say to the Commonwealth countries, "We will guarantee markets for a given proportion of your produce in perpetuity ahead." We have never been able to say that ourselves, to our own Commonwealth countries—never. But what we have been able to give them is the reasonable confidence that Commonwealth traders can plan ahead in fair competition, and that their plans would not be interfered with by the British Government by arbitrary action: and that is what we want the Community to do.
So far as EFTA is concerned, we are confident that if we reach success at the conclusion of our own negotiations there will be the will on all sides to bring about successful arrangements for the EFTA countries. The noble Viscount mentioned, I think, one of the EFTA countries. But Norway and Denmark, like ourselves, have applied for full membership; Sweden and Austria are making their opening statements for association now; Switzerland intends to do so after the Summer Recess; and Portugal has asked to establish appropriate relations. My Lords, to complete the picture, we have opened negotiations to accede to the European Atomic Energy Community and to the Coal and Steel Community. So we are now in negotiation over the whole field of the existing European Community.
Then I return to the question that I asked at the beginning: where do the wealth and power of the Free World reside? Because where the power of the Free World resides there the economic development will be; there the political influences will be concentrated; and there Britain must place her weight. Some feel that Britain might fall so much under the influence of Europe that we should lose our special relation with the old Commonwealth countries, and that we might drift apart. My Lords, it would be a terrible thing if that should happen. But I do not believe it to be true, because I do not know what Britain has been doing in the last 300 years unless it is to equip ourselves to lead this wider form of interdependence. Therefore I do not want to talk in terms
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—and I hope we shall hear nothing of it in this debate—of the Commonwealth versus Europe, because in an interdependent world we are all on the same side, and our objective is to create a design in which Europe and the Commonwealth will come closer together in a Community which is outward-looking towards the world. I look forward to this debate, and to the benefit of the penetrating analyses which the list of eminent speakers promises to bring to bear on this historic occasion; and I am grateful to the noble Viscount opposite for having put the Motion on the Paper, and for having opened the debate himself.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I just ask a question? If the Lord Chancellor is to speak to-morrow, should he not also perhaps deal widely with such legal questions as to whether the British Parliament is going to be able to move Amendments to measures during our membership of the Community, if we go in? What would be the position of the British Parliament in regard to moving an Amendment?
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I think my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack will have heard the noble Viscount's question. In this House one can communicate with one's colleague on the Woolsack only by means of Telstar. I hope that the "come-back" will be coming in due course.

FEDERATION OF MALAYSIA
4.20 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, I think it may be to the convenience of your Lordships if I repeat a statement which was made some little time ago in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
The British and Malayan Governments have received and studied the, Report of the Commission under the chairmanship of Lord Cobbold which visited North Borneo and Sarawak

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earlier this year to ascertain the views of the inhabitants on the proposal to create a Federation of Malaysia embracing Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei. The Report is being published to-day and is now available in the Printed Paper Office.
The two Governments are most grateful to the Commission for their valuable Report and have accepted almost all the recommendations on which the Commission were unanimous. The two Governments have noted in particular that the Commission were unanimously agreed that a Federation of Malaysia is in the best interests of North Borneo and Sarawak and that an early decision in principle should be reached.
In the light of this Report and of the agreement reached between the Government of Malaya and the Government of Singapore, the British and Malayan Governments have now decided in principle that, subject to the necessary legislation, the proposed Federation of Malaysia should be brought into being by August 31, 1963.
To give effect to this decision, the two Governments intend to conclude, within the next six months, a formal agreement which, among other things, will provide for: first of all, the transfer of sovereignty in North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore by August 31, 1963; second, provisions governing the relationship between Singapore and the new Federation, as agreed between the Governments of Malaya and Singapore; third, defence arrangements as set out in the joint statement by the British and Malayan Governments dated November 22, 1961; and fourth, detailed constitutional arrangements, including safeguards for the special interests of North Borneo and Sarawak, to be drawn up after consultation with the Legislatures of the two territories.
These safeguards will cover such matters as religious freedom, education, representation in the Federal Parliament, the position of the indigenous races, control of immigration, citizenship and the State constitutions.
In order that the introduction of the new Federal system may be effected as smoothly as possible and with the least disturbance to existing administrative arrangements, there will be, after the
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transfer of sovereignty, a transition period, during which a number of the Federal constitutional powers will he delegated temporarily to the State Governments.
An Inter-Governmental Committee will be established as soon as possible, on which the British, Malayan, North Borneo and Sarawak Governments will be represented. Its task will be to work out the future constitutional arrangements and the form of the necessary safeguards.
The Minister of State for the Colonies, who will be the Chairman of this Committee, and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya, Tun Abdul Razak, will proceed shortly to Sarawak and North Borneo to conduct discussions.
In order to maintain the efficiency of the administration, the British and Malayan Governments axe agreed on the importance of retaining the services of as many of the expatriate officials as possible. The Minister of State will discuss with the Governments of the territories and with the Staff Associations how this best can be done.
The British and Malayan Governments have informed the Sultan of Brunei of the agreement they have reached and have made it clear that they would welcome the inclusion of the State of Brunei in the new Federation.
4.25 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I thank the noble Marquess for the statement. May I say to him, on behalf of all my friends on this side of the House, that we give a very warm welcome to this statement—a welcome, I must say, with some relief. There is a lot that could be said, but in view of the debate that is taking place in the House this afternoon I will be brief. We have had some experience of Federations in different parts of the world. We have had considerable disappointment. But it is significant that in this particular case the urge of federation has come from the parties concerned, and is not, shall we say, being imposed by the United Kingdom Government.
Under the section in which there is to be provision for the protection of religious rights and education, I think we can all be satisfied that these will be

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well safeguarded, because I believe—and I am quite sure the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, would agree with me—that Malaya has set an example to the would for a multiracial society. When some of us talk of multiracial societies we think in terms of Europeans living with the natives of the country; but in Malaya there are the Chinese, the Malays, as Moslem and the Hindu Indians, the Singalese and some of the Dyaks from Borneo, apart from a number of European countries, and all live in great happiness and contentment.
I believe that Malaya will set this example, and will set the pattern for the whole of the Federation. I believe that Singapore itself will gain from joining this Federation. But in giving this welcome, I think we must take into account the special burdens Chat the Federation of Malaya will be taking upon their shoulders, because Singapore has very grave economic problems. It has considerable unemployment, and the countries of Brunei and Sarawak are still to be developed. I therefore am glad that the other day the noble Marquess announced that the Colonial Development Corporation is to be changed and that it will be able to continue its work in these new territories. I would beg the Government to recognise that the Federation Government is taking on a very heavy task, and I ask that the Government will see that What aid they can afford is quickly given. I have only one last point. I hope that the Sultan of Brunei, when he has consulted on this Federation, will feel that he can bring his own country in. I believe this new Malaysia will be a great bastion for freedom and tolerance in South East Asia.
4.39 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I, too, on behalf of the noble Lords on these Benches, wish to welcome the statement and to confirm what has been said so aptly by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. I feel that to-day is an historic occasion in your Lordships' House. We are debating matters here to-day which will affect the future of Europe and of a great part of the world. This statement also will affect a great part of the world. It will affect the stability and the well-being of South East Asia, and I feel certain that if there is no arrangement along
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the lines proposed for South East Asia then we cannot guarantee in any way either the stability or the welfare of that most important area.
I should like to congratulate the noble Marquess on being appointed Chairman of the Inter-Governmental Committee and wish him well in that highly important task. In view of the importance of it and the fact that time is short, may I ask him when he proposes that the first meeting of this Committee should be held? May I also ask him to bear in mind, when he is discussing with the various Assemblies concerned the future of the expatriate officers, the point I have often put to him—namely, that the only real solution for this vexed question is that Her Majesty's Government should make them all part of the Home Civil Service, and then they will not have to bother about their future and pensions? Finally, may we have an indication of whether His Highness the Sultan of Brunei has made any reply to the information which has been given to him by both the Malayan Government and Her Majesty's Government?
4.32 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I am not sure that it is very proper for me to comment, but I want to add my congratulations on the statement and the success that it means for the Governments concerned. I want to do this because at the time when this all started I was in the position in which the noble Marquess is now. I want to make two comments: the first is that when one thinks of the Commission who have made this Report, the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, the former Governor of Sarawak and Sir David Watherston, who have the interests of these countries so much at heart, it is good to think that their recommendations have been adopted by the two Governments. Secondly I am delighted that the recommendations include a transition period to enable North Borneo and Sarawak to catch up, as it were, with Malaya and the other countries before they go into full Federation.
4.34 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am most grateful for the way in which this statement has been received and for the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Shepherd and

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Lord Ogmore, and by my noble friend Lord Perth. I was particularly glad that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, referred to the example set by the people of the Federation of Malaya of how a multiracial society can live happily. I remember very well my first experience of it alt a multiracial dinner at Kuala Lumpur and how conscious I was of the total absence of any racial feeling whatsoever. Of course the noble Lord is perfectly right when he says that the Federation of Malaya is assuming additional burdens. Her Majesty's Government are aware of it, and in our discussion with the Tunku we have made it clear that we wish to play our part in seeing that the future of this Malayan Federation is as successful as it can be. In this connection the changing of the Colonial Development Corporation into the Commonwealth Development Corporation is of great significance.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, referred to the Sultan of Brunei. I understand that His Highness has already expressed his desire to enter this Federation, and, as noble Lords are aware, we have communicated with him to signify how welcome his country would be. J would thank the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for his congratulations. As he may perhaps have guessed, all this entails certain alterations in the plans I had made, but, none the less, I go into this job realising how important it is, and satisfied that, working with the Tunku Abdul Rahman, I shall have a most co-operative colleague. It is his aim, as it is ours, that the special interests of the peoples of the territories shall be safeguarded. The noble Lord asked me the approximate date of the first meeting of the Inter-Governmental Committee. I cannot give this precisely, but I expect to be leaving the country myself within the next fortnight.
As regards the expatriate officers, of course this is a matter of vital importance and it was referred to in the statement of my right honourable friend. One of the first things which I would attempt to do on arrival in the territory is to speak with the various associations, explain what arrangements we have made and work out further arrangements. We have given an undertaking
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that there will be compensation and we will work out the details together. We will do everything in our power to see that as many as possible of these vitally important people remain in the country for as long as possible. In conclusion, I should also like to thank my noble friend Lord Perth. It was a kind and friendly thought of his to speak on this occasion, for I know full well that he had very much at heart the creation of what we all hope will be a happy, a successful, a prosperous and a free federation of peoples.

BRITAIN AND THE COMMON MARKET
4.36 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD MCNAIR: My Lords, having regard to the vastness of this subject and the smallness of the time at our disposal, I do not intend to deal with its economic aspects; I propose to confine myself to its political aspects. In other words, I am prepared to make the assumption that the Government will not lead the country into the Common Market unless they can make a good economic bargain, a bargain that will be good for our industries and agriculture and will give due weight to our obligations towards the other members and parts of the British Commonwealth. However, I cannot refrain from saying that it sounded rather quaint to me when I heard the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition accusing noble Lords on the opposite Benches of neglecting the welfare and interests of what we used to call, in the days of the Free Trade debates, our Dominions and Commonwealth.
There is one aspect of the decision which confronts the country to-day and which makes it unusually difficult. The noble Earl, Lord Home, has referred to it, and I venture to stress it. Most political decisions involve a choice between making a change, on the one hand, and remaining as we are, on the other—for instance, the decisions whether or not to nationalise the coalmines or the railways. But the choice in this case is not between making a change and remaining as we were in the status quo. If we do not join the European Economic Community, in my

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opinion we shall not remain where we are but we shall have to submit to a major change, a change in a different direction and a change for the worse.
It is now obvious to all of us that the European Community is not going to consist only of six States, but that the number of countries inside the Community or closely linked with it by agreements will be very many more than six and will probably comprise nearly the whole of free Europe. It seems to me inevitable that if we stand by and watch our nearest neighbours welding themselves into this truly formidable economic unit, with every prospect and intention of developing it into some kind of political union as well, we are running a very great risk. Even together with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the Commonwealth we should find ourselves, in my judgment, dangerously isolated and in an economic ally weak bargaining position. Not only do we run the risk of a decline in our economic position, but I regard it as more than probable that we should run a similar political risk.
It is being argued in certain quarters that if we enter the Community and make an advance towards the political unity of Europe we shall sacrifice much of our influence. I believe that argument is based on a fallacy; it is based on the assumption that if we remain outside we shall remain as influential as we are to-day. My judgment is that if we turn our backs on this powerful European movement we shall soon find they can get along without us and that our political influence will decline, as well as our economic position; and the best hope of maintaining our influence lies in entering the European Economic Community and exerting it from the inside.
I must give your Lordships an example of what we have already done in that respect. Your Lordships will remember that in the years 1948, 1949 and 1950 the Prime Minister and a number of your Lordships, including the noble and learned Earl, Lord Kilmuir, my noble friend Lord Layton and others, took part in a movement for the founding of the Council of Europe, and one of the most important achievements of that Council of Europe which was started at that time was the negotiation of the European Convention
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of Human Rights. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Kilmuir, was rapporteur of the Committee which prepared that Convention; and that Convention contains a remarkable code of human rights which is now in force in fifteen European States and is being administered by a European Commission and a European Court at Strasbourg. If anyone were to examine that code of human rights he would see in nearly every article of it the spirit of the English Common Law.
The expression "human rights" is new to us in this country because our human rights have grown up imperceptibly throughout the centuries as the result of the application of our law; so much so that it has been quite unnecessary for us to legislate in order to give effect to that Convention. But there is no question that on that occasion we were able to exert a very great influence by persuading our Continental colleagues to adopt numerous safeguards for human rights which have been part of our heritage for many centuries. And the influence of this Convention does not stop at Europe. It is arousing (he greatest interest and attention in Africa. A very large part of it has been adopted and incorporated into the Constitution of Nigeria and many other African States are showing the greatest interest.
I regard the present proposal for the expansion of the European Community and for the development within it of some measure of political unity as merely a culmination of many partial steps since the last World War, such as Western European Union, the Council of Europe, O.E.C.D. and, above all, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Each of these steps has reflected the same need for closer co-operation for economic, political or military reasons; and it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between these reasons. Our participation in these activities is due partly to a feeling that we were needed and wanted in this steadily developing European partnership.
A number of noble Lords and Ladies, Members of this House, have participated in the work of the Council of Europe and of the other European organisations. I believe that, avoiding all false modesty, they would agree

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with me that British participation in these activities is warmly welcomed and that it is recognised that we as a country have a definite contribution to make. Possibly by reason of our Northern blood we can take things more coolly than some of our Continental friends and are able to play down situations Which might otherwise become explosive. Possibly, also, our centuries-old tradition of self-government in the parish, county and Parliament has taught us some of the unwritten practices and restraints which living amicably together implies. My experience of cooperation in Continental activities is that our opposite numbers watch our public affairs much more closely than we do theirs and that they envy us our stability, our toughness and our practical outlook.
To-morrow the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, will tell us about the legal obligations that would be involved by entering the Common Market and acceding to the Treaty of Rome, so I shall touch only very lightly upon them. By the Treaty of Rome the parties agreed, I quote:
"to establish among themselves a European Economic Community";
that is to say, they have created a new international organisation limited in its functions to the economic and social purposes specified in the Treaty. Article 240 of the Treaty provides that
"this Treaty shall be concluded for an unlimited period"
I am not prepared to say that there are no circumstances in which a party to the Treaty could resign from the Community except by a general consent, but it is clearly the intention of the Treaty to create a permanent commitment and it would be unrealistic to discuss this matter on any other assumption.
No State would be prepared to make the economic and legal changes that flow from admission to the Community except in the belief that it was entering into a permanent economic partnership. The provisions of the Treaty of Rome do not go beyond the economic and social purposes mentioned in it. But in its Preamble the parties state that they are
"determined to establish the foundations of an ever closer union among the European peoples".
That is a recognition by the parties that
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some measure of political union is desirable, and I think one may add that it is an almost inevitable result of the success of the Economic Community. But nothing is said in the Treaty as to the form or degree of an eventual political union; there is nothing about federalism or confederation, for the parties have wisely decided to be guided by the experience to be gained by their economic co-operation.
There are four reasons why I want to see an advance towards some kind of political unity in Europe. The first is that, either in spite of, or by reason of, the fact that the number of States has doubled in the last ten years, the world is tending to crystallise out into large groups or blocs of neighbouring States. More and more we find groups of States acting in concert, instead of in isolation, for purposes of trade, industry and defence, or for the sake of some other common interests. We have NATO, SEATO, CENTO; we have the Soviet bloc, the United States of America, the West European bloc, probably two African blocs, a bloc calling themselves neutralists and a not very uniform Latin-American bloc. I have grave doubt whether the United Kingdom, even in association with certain members of the Commonwealth, forms a strong enough unit to resist this process. Our ties with our ancient Dominions are, in sentiment and tradition, very close; but can we afford to remain outside the powerful unit represented by the European Economic Community and the other free States in Europe that are likely to be associated with it? My fear is that if we turn our back on this Community of our nearest neighbours we may find ourselves out on a limb and in an isolated position. And, of course, it is only while we are strong and prosperous that we can give service to our fellow members of the Commonwealth.
My second reason is the maintenance of peace in Europe and for Europe. The relations between France and Germany, in face of a common danger, seem recently to have improved. But three times in the past 100 years Europe has been rent by outbreaks of their old quarrel, and until some measure of political unity in Western Europe can be achieved that smouldering fire remains a continual danger, both for Continental

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Europe and for ourselves. My belief is that we can greatly reduce, and probably banish, this danger if we make a contribution to the unity of Europe. Our closer association with both of them could do much to confirm and make permanent the present happier state of their relations, and perhaps keep Germany with her face towards the West.
My third reason is the strengthening of NATO. Though military in origin, it has encouraged the development of many political, economic and cultural links. It is the nucleus of a true Atlantic Community and it may become the bridge between Europe and the North American Continent. I commend to your Lordships, as strong evidence of the development of such a Community, the Declaration signed in January of this year by the delegates to a meeting called, "The Atlantic Conference of NATO Nations". This so-called Declaration of Paris is not a Governmental announcement. It gives further evidence of this widespread desire for an advance in the unity of the free countries represented in NATO. If we allow ourselves to be squeezed out of the European Economic Community, or fail to secure the terms for entry, I think that we shall have lost an opportunity of a further strengthening of the NATO Alliance. I would also remind your Lordships of the Eisenhower-Macmillan declaration of 1957, which was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne, in our debate on NATO in January of this year—namely:
"The concept of national self-sufficiency is now out of date. The countries of the Free World are interdependent and only in genuine partnership by combining their resources and sharing tasks in many fields can progress and safety be found."
My fourth reason is that when mankind can be persuaded to realise the necessity of creating some kind of international authority for the control of the use of armed force it will be easier to bring that about by negotiation between representatives of four or more large blocs of States than it would be among representatives of more than 100 States. We are already within sight of a situation in which any Government that can scrape together the sum of money required can go into the market and buy nuclear weapons capable, even accidentally, of causing widespread disaster. So the sooner we can place some control
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on this proliferation of nuclear weapons, the better. As the noble Viscount the Leader of the House said to your Lordships on our debate on disarmament in June [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 241 (No. 94), col. 998]:
"The logic of modern weapons—-perhaps even the logic of the continued absence of success of our disarmament negotiations—points inevitably towards some form of international police force and to some form of world authority."
I believe that a powerful European Community would make both of those objectives easier to attain.
Lastly, my Lords, I come to the sovereignty bogy. The word "sovereignty" was originally used to describe the unlimited internal power of an absolute French monarch, and was later, unhappily, transferred to external affairs and invoked to bolster up the claim for the unlimited independence of the State. No State can be completely independent because its independence is circumscribed by the correlative independence of other States and by the law. Sovereignty has become a term possessing an emotional content and raises the blood pressure of those who are fond of using it. It means simply independence; and that is a much better word.
It is being urged by some of the opponents of our acceptance of the Treaty of Rome that such a step would impair our sovereignty or fetter our independence. It is in the exercise of its sovereignty or independence that a State concludes treaties. Every time a State makes a treaty agreeing to do this or that, or not to do this or that, it limits to that extent its sovereignty or independence, just as an individual who enters into a contract of service or partnership or sale limits thereby his freedom to do what he likes. No State can live in isolation to-day and it cannot co-operate with other Stales, either in defence or in economic matters, without to that extent limiting its freedom of action.
Let me remind your Lordships of what Sir Winston Churchill has said upon sovereignty in relation to the European movement. There is no man alive who is more jealous of, and more vigilant for, the sovereignty of this country than he, and no man has done more to preserve it. Your Lordships must allow me this quotation. Speaking at the Congress of Europe, held at The Hague in 1948 in

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the early days of this European movement, he said:
"It is impossible to separate economics and defence from general political structure. Mutual aid in the economic field and joint military defence must inevitably be accompanied step by step with a parallel policy of political union. It is said with truth that this involves some sacrifice or merger of national sovereignty. But it is also possible to regard it as the gradual assumption by all the nations concerned of that larger sovereignty which can alone protect their diverse and distinctive customs and traditions, all of which under totalitarian systems, whether Nazi, Fascist or Communist, would be blotted out for ever."
Such is the opinion of Sir Winston Churchill.
My Lords. I sincerely hope that the Government will not be deterred by newspaper clamour on this point, and that once they consider that a satisfactory economic bargain has been made they will launch a strong campaign for the purpose of convincing the country that, in the long run, the economic, and eventually political, advantages of joining the European Economic Community are so great that it would be an act of folly to reject them.
5.3 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord who has just resumed his seat formerly sat upon the Cross Benches, and understandably, in view of the eminent legal and judicial positions he held in various international authorities. He is now free from those responsibilities and has decided to sit on the Liberal Benches. So this may be regarded as his maiden speech in this House from the Liberal Benches. T should like to congratulate him on the confidence, the ability and the relevance of the speech which he has made, with the general run of which I find myself in agreement. I am to be followed by my old friend Lord Mills. I should like to say to him that all of us feel some degree of sorrow that he has departed from Her Majesty's Government, and T should like to express our appreciation for the courtesy with which he always treated us who sit on these Benches, as well as others, and for the great patience and painstaking way in which he replied to arguments on legislation or questions which arose from the House. I trust that he will have a happy and not wholly unoccupied
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future in life. Anyway, it will be nice to have him following me.
May I say at the beginning that I am afraid I shall, as my noble Leader in this House knows, differ somewhat from the views he has expressed? But he will know that if I differ from him it will be with sincere regret. I have the highest respect and regard for Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. He made an able and, I know, conscientious speech from the points of view which he sincerely and deeply holds about this matter, and if I differ from him he will know that it will not be out of any pleasure but because I think it my conscientious duty so to do. In fact we are all, I presume, in both Houses of Parliament, bound to be in somewhat of a mess about this question, for there are on this matter many differences of opinion in the Conservative Party, and perhaps a few more differences of opinion in the Labour Party. That is a pity, because unity in both Parties on big issues is desirable from the point of view of the management of Parliament. But on this question it cannot be helped, perhaps in the nature of the question, because it is a big matter, involving the future of our country, of Europe and of the British Commonwealth of nations, all of which are very important indeed.
At this moment the Lord Privy Seal is negotiating. There was talk the other day about deadlock; that may be partially true. I hope it is not true. I want to see the negotiations succeed. But I must say that, as it has worked out, it is a pity, in a sense, that this debate takes place at this particular time. It is not a good situation that, when the Lord Privy Seal is negotiating, apparently on a sticky wicket, under some difficulty, Parliament should be debating the matter. But if all of us, in both Houses, can exercise a reasonable restraint, perhaps it will not do much harm. Then I think it is a pity that this and the other House of Parliament are debating this issue on the same day, because one or other House is not going to get reported adequately, and I think probably it will be us. That is unfortunate. But these are manifestations of not too successful Parliamentary management.
I do not know how much time the Leader of the other House spends in

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that capacity, and how much time he spends on our pay roll as Chairman of the Conservative Party organisation. I thought at the begining that he would make a good Leader of another place, but I am beginning to think he is not a successful Leader, and that this is one sign of not very good Parliamentary management. But I think my noble Leader was right yesterday, this matter having got so far, to resist the understandable request or suggestion of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, that perhaps it was unfortunate that we were having a debate at this time, and could not something be done about it. I do not in any way criticise Lord Swinton for having put the point; but neither do I in any way criticise my noble Leader for having resisted it, because it had got so far and he has been so involved in the discussions leading up to the debate, that I am afraid it was too late to do anything else. Nevertheless, the Government must shoulder responsibility for having got themselves and Parliament into a somewhat difficult situation.
The two Parties are in some difficulty. There are differences of opinion in the Conservative Party—quite a number against "he Common Market so far. I dare say they will see the light "he Government holds out to them before "he decisive Division takes place in Parliament. And there are a lot of my people—I do not know who has the majority at the moment—who are divided about this issue. I think this could have been avoided if the leadership of "he Labour Party had faced the issue on a reasonable basis earlier and had said, "We are for negotiations, but reserve our right to agree or to disagree with the results of the negotiations when completed ". That, I think, would have been wise and I think it would have been carried.
But, when thinking of all the inhibitions with which we have tied ourselves up, in italics, let it be remembered that the Government have done exactly the same; and those, including my noble friend, who criticise the Government on "he ground "hat they may not be living up to the cast-iron promises they made about British agriculture, the Commonwealth and EFTA, may prove to have a genuine grievance against the Government on that point. It just shows that in politics it is desirable to control the
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end of things. We cannot do so in inter-national negotiations. I wish we could, because it would be better for the world if the British could control the end of international negotiations; but we cannot. That is what makes the Foreign Office different from any other State Department: you are partly at the mercy of the other side and you cannot control events, as you can in domestic State Departments. In those circumstances it is most foolish for a Government to tie itself up in italics so that it has no room for manævre in the international field; or else, when it has bent its "alias back into Romans, it has no room for manœuvre in the Parliamentary field. That is the fault of the Government in this matter. I say these words only in the hope that they may be helpful to Ministers of all Parties in the future—but I doubt it.
My Lords, the negotiations are going on, and I should like to make a very sincere appeal to the Governments, the nationals and the political Parties of the Six European countries to understand the real problems and difficulties with Which the British are faced in these negotiations. Our European friends can approach these negotiations either in the spirit of "The British want special flavours; they are unreasonable; they want it all ways "; or in the spirit of, "Will, we understand British difficulties, real difficulties, real problems, problems of their own agriculture "—the history of which they either know, or can easily find out—"as well as their real problems about the Commonwealth and the EFTA countries."
I want this thing to succeed, so long as the conditions are reasonable. I believe that in principle it is right, but I would urge upon the European countries, upon their Governments and their political Parties to make a real effort Which I am sure they have done, at any rate in part, to understand our particular British problems and to so try to shape "he negotiations that it will be relatively easy for the British to go into the Market—Which I would wish the British to do. I make that appeal very sincerely, and out of a feeling of deep regard and respect for the nationals and the countries of the Six, towards all of whom I feel a friendship, as I am sure

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we all wish to do. So I hops they will try to help Her Majesty's Government to reach an agreement with them in the common interests of Western Europe, and, in the end, in the interests of the world, and, I should hope, of the Commonwealth as well.
My Lords, I admit that I approach this subject in the spirit of a Socialist, but I am not suggesting to your Lordships opposite that you are bound to do the same—in fact, I do not want to do any harm. I believe in the brotherhood of man, the Parliament of the world, sooner or later, when we can get a decent Parliament of the world, which we cannot yet get. I believe in international co-operation, and I believe in a reasonable limitation of national sovereignty which can be helpful to the common good. Therefore, as a Socialist, it does not seem to me that I can easily be opposed in principle to this idea of the Common Market. But I do not want to prejudice noble Lords opposite, and they must find their own reasons of principle for reaching this same conclusion—which I have no doubt they will, and if they want any help I shall be glad to give it to them. I believe ultimately in World Government, but I do not believe it is practicable at this stage, because there is the difficulty of the Communist and non-Communist world, and we cannot run risks of Communists getting on top: our liberty is too precious. But, in principle, at the end of the day, it is right—though when it will come I do not know.
Being in favour of a World Government, I do not see how I can oppose the Common Market and European cooperation, which is a big step on the way. If I am going to be sticky about national sovereignty to an excessive degree in Europe, however am I going to get on when we come to questions of national sovereignty in the light of possible World Government? Therefore, it seems to me that it would be quite inconsistent if one were to adopt that attitude.
The other point of criticism of the Government which I would make—and I do not want to "lay it on too thick" in this debate—is that the Government seem to have an extraordinary inability to explain themselves. This is
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not an easy subject to understand. I am an experienced politician and I have had something to do with economic administration in Government, but it took me quite a time to understand the merits of the Common Market controversy. In the end, I came down in principle in favour of it. But if that be the case with me, as it has been with many another experienced politician with whom I have talked, how much more difficult is it for the man and woman in the street to understand the complexities of this problem. If that be so, and I think it is, it is an elementary duty on the part of Ministers, patiently, with courtesy and friendliness, to explain what it is all about and what it all means—and in simple terms, as my noble friend reminds me. But can anybody say that the Government have adequately fulfilled this task? Therefore, if they are in some trouble about it, it is largely their own fault.
Certain newspapers, rightly exercising their freedom, have opposed our entry hot and strong; so have the politicians who have been against it. Is it to be wondered at that the people of our country even now do not follow the matter entirely, although excellent impartial articles on it have appeared, either in the Daily Telegraph, on the one hand, or in our excellent Daily Herald, on the other. One of my noble friends is not so sure about "impartial". I thought they were impartial.
There is one question I should like to ask, and I would particularly direct this to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. Sometimes when treaties are agreed to by a country, and possibly signed subject to Parliamentary challenge or ratification, that is the end of it. I hope that the Lord Chancellor will be able to advise us, or the Leader of the House now, if he likes, that this will be the subject of legislation. This is too complex and difficult a matter merely to be dealt with on the basis of a Treaty and the "Yes" or "No" of a Parliamentary institution.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, if it would help the noble Lord, he is certainly right about that. It is unthinkable that this thing could be effected without legislation in some form or another.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House. I thought that that would probably be his answer, and I am glad that that was so, because this is too big, complicated and serious a matter to be dealt with merely by the "Ayes" and the "Noes", or the "Contents" and the "Not-Contents", on the ratification of a treaty.
My Lords, I first came to a conclusion in principle about this before the question was put, on my first visit to the United States of America in 1936. I have been there eight times since, so that makes nine in all, but others have been more frequently. I thought to myself: Here are 49 States, theoretically supreme States, subject to the powers of the Federal Government in Washington. Suppose these were really full-fledged independent States. Suppose they all had protective tariffs against one another. Suppose, still worse, they had armies (they could not very well all have had navies, but they could have had air forces) against each other. Then I said to myself: "Would the United States be as prosperous as it is, if there were tariff barriers between each of those 49 States? "That seems to me to be the most simple illustration that we can have, showing that in principle the Common Market in Europe—if we get over the difficulties, and we must reserve judgment about all the difficulties—is right.
Last night I saw on the B.B.C. a very fine C.B.S. film on Europe called The Barriers Come Down. It was a first-class piece of work, except that when the makers of the film came to find a British politician to express the British point of view, they chose my Right-Wing friend Dick Crossman—'and I say, "right-wing" deliberately. He put his point of view, but they really ought to get somebody else, with a more progressive point of view than Dick Crossman, to put the other point of view. However, they did not mean any harm: this was just a little bit of American misjudgment that does happen. If a British citizen has gone to the fore in attacking the United States (I am not sure that Dick Crossman has, but I suspect he has; it will be a wonder if he has not), then he will get preferential treatment in the United States over any steady friend of the United States.
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This is one of the charming characteristics of the United States of America, of which country and of whose people I am very fond.
But, subject to that reservation, which does not matter, they took a big commercial lorry, one of the Minister of Transport's too-big commercial lorries. They started it from the city of Manchester with some important goods which were going to Milan, in Italy.
LORD LATHAM: Carborundum.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I am much obliged to my noble friend for his help. A journey of the same length would have taken two days in the United States. The lorry starts at Manchester, it gets to the Port of London where our Customs people have to look at the papers and keep a record. It gets through and in due course it gets on to a ship and goes to——
LORD HENDERSON: Milan, Italy.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: No. It got to Belgium, where the Customs people set about it, and there were papers and delay. It got through to Luxembourg, because (I think it was said) there is a Customs Union between Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. There was some delay. One stop meant that they had to stay all night, because the Customs "boys" had gone off, after their eight-hour shift, and were not on until the next morning. The lorry crew then went to France, and the French Customs had a good time, as noble Lords will remember they can have from time to time. So they were held up there. They then had to go to Germany and were held up there. There was a reason for its being a roundabout journey: the lorry men were trying to dodge somebody. I think it went to Austria, and then finished up in Italy, with delays all along the route. As a result this journey, which in the United States, without tariffs, would have taken about two days, took somewhere near ten days. My Lords, that means a shocking addition to the cost of transportation of the goods from Manchester, and a shocking addition by all these Customs duties that have been imposed on the way, and so on. Therefore, if we are to be competitors in the European Market it is not in our interest that we should be held up

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in this way by that method of doing business. I think that television film was very impressive, indeed.
I think, also, that the common Market has something to do with peace. I am sure that the Communist countries think it has something to do with peace. It is interesting how the Communist countries oppose the Common Market, though they have something of the same sort behind the Iron Curtain. What is their motive? They are afraid that Western Europe may become economically stronger. They were taught by Stalin that military strength depends upon economic strength, and that is why the Communist Powers are opposing our entry into the Common Market, though they have something like a Common Market themselves. But I think this Common Market of 200 or 250 million people—bigger than the population of the United States or the Soviet Union—means a greater possibility of economic expansion on the part of those European countries and ourselves, if we can go into it. I think that is to the good—both economically and from the point of view of potential military strength. Indeed, I should like to see it extended to the NATO area, to include North America.
Now we come to the Commonwealth problem, the solution of which is not clear at the moment. I recall that my noble Leader has talked about the value of the Commonwealth in our struggle in 1940 and the succeeding years. He and I were members of the War Government, and we know what it meant. I do not want the Commonwealth to be upset, and I want us to do all we can to enable friendly economic relations with the Commonwealth to continue. But having said that with great sincerity, especially in relation to New Zealand which is in a dangerous position under all this, I would go on to say that we are entitled to our own Dominion status, and that the Commonwealth countries themselves erect tariffs against us. We understand their reasons, and we do not complain about it.
India, a country which I visited last year, and where the people were most kind to my wife and myself, has recently been discussing with the Soviet Union the supply of Mig, military aircraft from the Soviet Union to India, which, from the point of view of international defence
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and foreign policy, is a little embarrassing, quite apart from British economic interests, But Mr. Nehru said: "This is our business, and do not let anybody else interfere ". I am not complaining that Mr. Nehru should say that. He has a right to say it. Nevertheless, if the British, in going into the Common Market, are in part actuated by the furtherance of British interests and the promotion of British prosperity (which I do not think can be a bad thing for the Commonwealth in itself), then I do not think the Commonwealth countries ought to be rough with us. We shall, of course, do our best to protect Commonwealth interests. We all want to maintain the Commonwealth. We all believe in it, and I hope, at any rate, that it can be done. Nevertheless, the situation of the Commonwealth under an agreement is bound to be a consideration.
In addition to the Russians, there are the Communist Party of Great Britain and some other people fairly near to them in political philosophy—those who have not been notorious for their British patriotism or for their love of the British; who have not frequently said that the British are right and the foreigners are wrong, but usually that the foreigners are right and the British are wrong. Some of these "jokers" have suddenly become extraordinary Commonwealth patriots, and I do not recognise them in their new guise. I do not understand it. Really, there is an element of terrible humbug about this. If there is anybody who does not care tuppence about the British Commonwealth and who hates it, it is any Communist Party throughout the world, or in any part of the Commonwealth. So their sudden Commonwealth patriotism is not impressive. Others, however, including my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, are absolutely genuine about the Commonwealth—as, indeed, is the great bulk of the political Party to which we have the honour to belong. I do not know that entering the Common Market necessarily involves an abandonment of the Commonwealth, and I think we must do all we can to see that it does not. But, if it does, then Parliament must face that issue and come to a decision in the light of it and taking full account of it. We must do our best for all of them, I quite agree.

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My Lords, naturally, it would be right for the Opposition—and, indeed, for the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party—to reserve their decision until the end. I think that when the negotiations are concluded, or are substantially concluded, the Government would be wise to publish a comprehensive White Paper summarising the discussions, setting out the conclusions and, I would hope, honestly facing the pros and cons of the conclusions which have been reached. That is important. And let them, for goodness sake!, frame it in popular language; or, if they cannot do that (which I am beginning to suspect), then let them hand the White Paper over to the Central Office of Information and tell them to turn it into faithful, popular language, which I am sure that admirable institution could do.
The European Socialists themselves should play a part an all this: indeed, they are in favour of the Common Market. It is the most curious thing: it is the British Labour Party which is divided about it. But it is a bit "sticky". These men and women in Europe, the Socialists, suffered invasion and they suffered under the Gestapo. For all our bombs—which were bad enough—they had a rougher time than we did. Nevertheless, these European Socialists favour, in principle, the Common Market, and they cannot understand the British—but there is nothing new about that. They favoured NATO at first—at any rate, they started by supporting the European Defence Committee, although the French, who were leaders in that, did some backsliding about it before we ultimately got the thing fixed up. But it is not for us, as an enlightened and progressive country, to be more "sticky" about it than the Europeans, who suffered a very great deal.
There are, of course, some inhibitions about it. Some people (I do not know why, though if I were a German Socialist I might feel the same) cannot stand Dr. Adenauer. I do not care for him as a politician: he is a Conservative. He calls himself something else, but that does not prevent him from being a Conservative—and he is. But, on the whole, he has been a good European. He is not a bad friend of our country, and he was not an ally of the Nazi Party. I do not understand this prejudice, some of
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which I think is rather mean and childish: for instance, to mention the name of Adenauer with a sneer and say that you cannot have anything to do with it. Now de Gaulle, I find it more difficult to be fond of. It is not that I am very fond of Adenauer, but I respect him. But de Gaulle is like a Scots Covenanter. He is not typically French. Indeed, I understand that his great-grandmother or grandmother was a Scots Covenanter herself. He is an able man, but he is awkward with the British, difficult with the British, and I think that is a pity. However, he rescued France from Parliamentary chaos—by dictatorial methods, admittedly, which I do not like; but I must say that the French Parliamentarians had been asking for it for some time. I should hope that de Gaulle, who was here in the war (perhaps that is the trouble; I do not know) would become more friendly to the British point of view m all these matters, and as helpful as he can. But these are not reasons for disagreeing with the Common Market. They are too personal, and go above these matters.
My Lords, I must refer to the political side of the Common Market, and here again I make an appeal to the Europeans to try to understand British hesitancy on the question of a political, Federal Europe on the lines of the United States of America. The trouble between us is that the Continentals, as I found in the Council of Europe, will accept the principle of a big idea and will say, "We accept it ". Then, months or years afterwards, when it comes to the particular application of that idea, they wild say "No" on particular points; and they sincerely do not realise that they are going back on the acceptance of the idea. It is no good being rude to them; they just do not realise it. The British, on the other hand, say, "We do not reject the ultimate big idea, but we prefer to go to it by experiment—this problem, (hat problem, the other problem. It may lead to the big idea, but it may not; we do not know. We think we should be a little dishonest if we swallowed the whole thing before we could see daylight through experiment in these things ".
So on the political side, there is that gulf. From the point of view of the United States of America, it was quite

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right; but we in Europe are separate nations; we have separate political mentalities; we have different opinions, and in a number of ways we have different political philosophies. The best course, if the Europeans will agree, would be to try it out step by step, through the cooperation of Governments rather than a Federal State with a Federal Parliament. It will be quicker for them, in the long run, and easier for us. I hope very much that it may be possible for our European friends to see that point.
My Lords, our prosperity largely depends upon the right decision in this matter. What is happening now? A number of British manufacturing or productive concerns of one sort or another are setting up factories in the Common Market area of Europe because of the common external tariff designed to be possibly injurious to anybody who either will not or cannot enter the Common Market. That will continue if we are not in the Market. There will be an increasing export of British productive energy, British factories and British economy to the Continent of Europe, in order that they can make money there because they are not making enough here—or, at any rate, because they cannot make it here consistently with exporting into the Common Market area. These are very serious things for our people.
There are, I agree, some disadvantages, or possible disadvantages. This Common Market area, with a population of between 200 and 250 million, will be a big market to go for and to get, so far as possible, even if it is not possible to get the whole of it. But it will be a highly competitive market, my Lords, and there will be some disadvantages to British industry in meeting that Continental competition on completely equal terms. I am sorry about that; but, on the whole, I am inclined to think that a little competition may shake the British capitalists up in directions in which it is desirable they should be shaken up—and all of us, all sections of society, will have to shake ourselves up if we are to survive in that international competition. So, although it will be a nuisance, it is not entirely an unmixed blessing. We must do our best and get the best terms that we can for our agriculture, EFTA
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and the Commonwealth; and I reserve judgment, as all my noble friends do, till the end of the day, when we know in fair detail what the proposition really is. But that does not prevent my feeling that, if it be practicable, in principle it is right that the British should go into the Common Market.
5.41 p.m.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I am indeed grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, for the graceful and generous way in which he brought myself to the notice of your Lordships, and I should like to add that I have had the privilege of listening to a speech which should help our negotiators in Brussels in the way they would like to be helped. I am not sure that it is entirely wise for one who has just left Her Majesty's Government to speak so soon on matters of high importance, particularly when legitimate and honest opinion is so divided on the question of these negotiations in Brussels. Nevertheless, I decided to say a few words on the subject, because after very careful consideration extending over a long period of time I can do no other than to wish that our negotiators in Brussels will be entirely successful and that in the end the Government will be able to come to Parliament with a plan which provides as well all the safeguards for the Commonwealth, the connection with which we all prize so highly.
I must confess than when I first heard of the Common Market proposals—and that was long before the Treaty of Rome was finalised—I was full of doubts and apprehensions. I myself have traded and manufactured for a great many years on the Continent of Europe. I asked myself, was this not what Napoleon had tried to do? Surely it could not now be achieved without our co-operation, without our participation. Why should we try to take any part in it? We could recover our former position and our strength. But I had forgotten that the state of the world had fundamentally altered since the war. As Winston Churchill once put it,
"We live in a period happily unique in human history when the whole world is divided intellectually and to a great extent geographically between the creeds of Communist discipline and individual freedom."

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Faced with this situation, the six nations in Europe now comprised in the European Economic Community saw the need for closer political and economic cooperation, and so there came into being the Treaty of Rome. It was this great change which had overtaken the world, this great division in the world Which had appeared, which compelled me to look at what was happening in Europe in quite a different light. Our main preoccupations are now clearly seen. Perhaps I could enumerate them: how to ensure our security; how to increase our prosperity; and how to maintain our influence in world affairs. I suggest that our relationship with Europe must be a great factor in the answer to these questions.
First of all, security. We can no longer defend ourselves alone; nor could any other country. Interdependence is essential to our survival, and I am sure that the Atlantic Alliance must remain the cornerstone of our foreign policy. As the political integration of the European Community develops they will surely develop also their point of view on defence matters. If we join, our influence will be very important on this development. We must ensure that a united Europe strengthens the West as a whole. If we join the European Community we will be much more equal partners with the United States, and I believe the United States would welcome this development. I think it will strengthen the stability of the Free World.
Then there is the question of increasing our prosperity. Our prosperity surely depends on trade, and trade is expanding much more rapidly in the highly industrialised countries of the world. The removal of barriers, which the Common Market is out to secure, should stimulate trade and will have, in my view, an important psychological effect on industry. The availability of a vast home market of some 240 million people is a challenge and an opportunity, and it is a challenge which I feel that our industrialists will gladly accept. But to Britain what is also important is their trading connection with the rest of the world. We must have trading connections with the food-growing countries and with the countries which produce our natural raw materials. The Community with Britain as a partner will
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be much more dependent on foreign trade than it is to-day, and together we can solve the problem of providing markets for the goods of the developing countries and thus help them too along the road to prosperity. If we can solve the problem of Commonwealth trade and thus make it possible to join the Community, we should have accomplished a major step towards solving the problem of dealing with third parties.
Then I mentioned the question of our influence in international affairs. This depends upon our experience, which is great; upon our democratic institutions, which are sound; and on our close trading relations with other countries, which have been developed for so many years. None of these sources of our strength can be lost or weakened by our joining the Common Market. I believe that we would have a great influence on our Continental partners. The opponents of our entry into the Common Market cannot have it both ways. They say that we would be devoid of influence, that we would be dominated by the Continent. How can they expect us to retain any influence in the world at all, if the Community becomes a major force without us?
I do not underrate the difficulties. Of course, there are difficulties. It is not easy to solve the complicated economic issues raised by our application to join the Community. But at the same time we should not allow ourselves to overestimate them. We have much in common with the Six in our attitude to world affairs and I think that the Commonwealth issue must also be faced in its politic aspect. My noble friend the Foreign Secretary, in his speech to us this afternoon, referred to the fact that the Commonwealth was an outward-looking and not an inward-looking organisation and that they, too, needed to develop their trade with the world and were going about that particular task with efficiency. But Britain's entry into the Common Market cannot loosen the basic ties which bind the Commonwealth, always assuming—and we are pledged to this—that we do not let the Commonwealth down.
Then, there is the question of sovereignty, which worries some people. As my noble friend the Foreign Secretary said, the loss of sovereignty must

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be judged by whether there is a compensating gain, and I thought that my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth dealt with that subject very adequately. Surely the Rome Treaty is an opportunity to combine with other like-minded countries in seeking common solutions to common problems. Interdependence does not apply to defence alone. It also applies to foreign affairs and to economics as well. It is tempting to be obsessed with the technical difficulties. We should keep in mind the picture of a co-operative and harmonious Western Europe, working with the Commonwealth and with the other members of a Free World. And I can do nothing better than to hope that our negotiators will have the success they deserve. Then, when they come to Parliament, we should be well satisfied.
5.54 p.m.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, those of us (and I may say that they included quite a number of noble Lords on both sides, or perhaps I might say on all sides, of this House) who proposed in May, 1961, that the Government would be well advised to accept the institutions and the political implications of the Treaty of Rome—in other words, to apply for membership and thereafter to negotiate their way in by obtaining some satisfaction as regards home agriculture, the interests of our EFTA partners and Commonwealth trade—I repeat, those of us who took that initiative never suggested that we should sign the Treaty of Rome unless we secured such satisfaction. Nor do we propose that now. We did not say, either, that the path of negotiations would be at all easy; still less that success would be assured. We do not think so now. But what we did believe was that to make every effort to join the Six on anything like reasonable terms was by far the best way, not only of overcoming our own periodic economic ills and crises, but also of ensuring the maintenance in being of the Commonwealth and, indeed, of ensuring the peace of the world. And this we still firmly believe.
If, for some reason—improbable but still possible—the present negotiations were to break down, then it would shortly be evident to all that our present
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economic foreign—political and, indeed, defence policies will have to be reviewed in the light of some inescapable, though not entirely palatable, decisions, such as (and I make no bones about this) whether we could continue to meet the cost across the exchanges of the maintenance of our troops in Germany. No doubt we should get along somehow. Certainly there would not be any immediate disaster as some people say. The danger, frankly, would be a slow decline. Only a really galvanic effort, involving the scrapping of a great number of age-old customs and traditions, and no doubt the temporary acceptance of a lower standard of living, could put us firmly on our feet. And it is highly doubtful, I think, whether such an effort, in a democracy like ours, would be practical politics, anyway in time of peace. I need scarcely add that in the regrettable event of a failure of the negotiations very grave dangers would then confront the Six as well.
Speaking in your Lordships' House on February 9, 1961, I said (I hope that your Lordships will not mind if I repeat this) that there were, broadly, speaking, three possible ways in which this nation might develop in freedom. The first was to go on more or less as we were developing our Commonwealth system in accord with EFTA, in special relationship with America, financing by ourselves alone our Commonwealth system, our Welfare State and our independent deterrent, as well as a considerable number of under-developed countries, always trying at the same time, to fix up, if we could, some kind of free-trade area relationship with Europe. In Other words, it was the famous doctrine on the three overlapping circles—the classic doctrine, if you like to put it in that way. Secondly, we could get ever closer to the United States and work in the direction of some form of Atlantic Union, and perhaps end up with some kind of merger of the United Kingdom and the United States. Thirdly, we could join some eventual European or Western European Association on an equal footing with France, Germany and Italy, and with full respect for the interests of the smaller European nations. Short of, fourthly, being taken over by the

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Soviet Union, I could see no alternative future for these Islands.
That is the gist of what I said then, and I added that, rightly or wrongly, we were in a historic period in which larger industrialised States could pay their way only if they were based on, or associated with, some vast internal market—a point very well emphasised, if I may respectfully say so, by the Foreign Secretary again this afternoon. Later in my speech, I argued, basing myself on arguments which I shall not repeat, that the first solution—that of the three circles—was not possible in present conditions; that the third solution, joining Europe, was the best; and that the second solution, that is to say, Atlantic union, was, unfortunately, the most likely. It may well have been that I was too pessimistic in saying that, but that is what I said.
If we may judge from the apparently growing and ever more vociferous opposition to the present pursuit by Her Majesty's Government of the third policy—that is to say, joining Europe—which has been stirred up by those escapists who live in the past and refuse to face the facts of the modern world, quite a number of the people of this country are now being misled. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, says he does not believe that, but I think it is true. They are being misled into thinking that; the first policy of the three circles is possible, when in fact it is not. It might be possible, of course, if a Commonwealth machine could be created which would transform the Commonwealth from a fraternal association into a World Power; but that is really a grotesque delusion. Nothing can alter the fact that the Commonwealth is a collection of totally independent States who are bound together by a strong sentiment, on the one hand, and, on the other, by a system of exchanges based on preferences, which, as we all know, owing to the increasing industrialisation of the ex-Dominions, are in process of being demobilised, whether we go into European Economic Community or whether we do not. That is, I am afraid, a fact.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I hope my noble friend will forgive me for interrupting. But because this is very important I should like to ask him a
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question. Surely he does not think that the achievement of a measure of Western European Union rules out the ultimate possibility of a wider measure of Atlantic Union—because that seems to be the impression.
LORD GLADWYN: Of course I was not suggesting anything of the kind. I imagine that, if given the chance, this Western European Union will be much, the best way of laying the foundation of a wider Union which, though it could not exactly embrace America for a very long time, could act in close association with her—in fact, the only foundation for the famous Atlantic Community which we all desire to bring about.
On the question of whether the Commonwealth is a Unity or not, an allusion to which has already been made by the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, the fact is that the Indians, for instance, propose to equip their air force from the Soviet Union; that Canada has absolutely no hesitation in putting restrictions on the import of our motor cars as soon as she thinks things are not going too well for her, and so on. Nobody blames the Commonwealth countries in the least for doing these things. We really must recognise things for what they are and not entertain any illusions on this matter.
The real hope, as I see it, for the future development of the Commonwealth—and, here I agree entirely with What has bean said: that it is essential to preserve it as a buffer against Communism and as an niter-racial body based essentially on freedom—is to associate it in a general way not solely with the United Kingdom, but also with the immense economic and cultural factor of some Western European Association of which our country would be a leading and quite possibly the leading member. And that, of course, is the main object of the critical negotiations which are now going on in Brussels. So far as I can judge, much good progress has already been made in Brussels on home agriculture. As has been said to-day, the Six have already made certain concessions to our point of view, and they may well make more.
On raw material exports to the European Economic Community from Commonwealth countries—and, of course, 90

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per cent. of these raw materials come into the Community free—some additional zero tariffs have been fixed, and we may hope with some confidence that others will be fixed during the negotiations. On exports from low-wage countries, such as India, Pakistan and Hong Kong, the Six have, as it seems, been very reasonable; and that is a very good thing. It is an extremely important matter. Nobody thinks that the problem of the association of the Commonwealth countries which produce tropical goods will really result in any very grave difficulty. We have made our own contribution as regards the gradual abolition of preferences on imports of industrial goods from the Commonwealth. The Ceylonese, we are told, have acquired tea and sympathy, which goes for India, too. There is no real reason to suppose that the articles of association for those EFTA countries Who for political reasons cannot join the Community cannot be worked out, though it must be admitted that there is a difficulty which has not yet been faced. But before the main decision of principle can be taken by Her Majesty's Government there is one last outstanding hurdle, which is to secure assurances for the continued importation into this country, and hence into the Community, if we join, of substantial quantities of temperate zone foodstuffs, whether from the Commonwealth, from the United States, or from South America.
We do not know exactly—at least I do not—what the formula is to which the Lord Privy Seal has presumably been trying to get his colleagues of the Six to subscribe, and therefore we are all largely in the dark. I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, that it would perhaps have been better if we could have had this debate when Mr. Heath was in a position to make a real report. But if the rather full reports in the newspapers are any guide—and quite often they are—it is, after all, possible to take stock of the present position to some extent. One of the first things one notices is that even in the sphere of temperate zones foodstuffs the real difficulties have been narrowed down to very few. Hard Wheat from Canada, for instance, we are
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told, will probably come in to the enlarged Community, even if there is some small tariff against it, because it represents something which cannot be produced in Europe. Mutton and lamb from New Zealand will equally be largely irreplaceable; and for these products, too, certain alternative markets will exist in ten years' time, notably in Japan.
What is really at risk presumably, so far as the Commonwealth is concerned, is New Zealand and Australian dairy products and Australian soft wheat, and I suppose, to some extent, beef as well. And what goes in respect of Australia, obviously goes in practice for the United States and Argentina, too. It is on our opinion whether the policy of the Community will be such as to facilitate the imports of these commodities from those countries in, broadly speaking, similar quantities to those exported now, and on the prospects for world agreements governing the disposal of the surpluses which those commodities represent, that our final judgment must rest. Our doubts, apparently, are chiefly Whether the Six will not insist on the maintenance of a price level for these products in Europe that will result in the Community being largely self-contained and hence, obviously, in grave distress to the outside countries producing these commodities, and notably the ones I have already mentioned.
May I just say, at this point, that I feel sure that there will be no question of actually nailing colours to the mast of one side or the other during the next few days. I was very glad to hear the Foreign Secretary say that such words as "crisis", and even "deadlock", were quite inappropriate at the present moment. A period of reflection would clearly do no harm, and there are, after all, other procedures which have not as yet been tried, such as meetings at an even higher level. All the more so since it is, I think, possible that the negotiators on both sides may have arrived at a temporary impasse through concentrating too much on questions of principle. The last thing that anyone, least of all myself, would wish to do would be to prejudice the position of our splendid team, who are obviously sticking out for something which they believe to be immensely important, as indeed it is. But perhaps in

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this connection I might make some observations of a more practical nature.
Whatever declaration of intention the Six may be induced to make—and I quite agree that they must make a really valid declaration of intention, notably as regards the level of internal agricultural prices—they cannot absolutely guarantee What is going to happen to temperate zone foodstuffs imparted into Europe eight years from now, after the Community has been finally established at the end of the temporary period. It is just not possible for anybody to give hard and fast guarantees on that subject. Also we have to reflect, surely, that important as this is, it is not only a question of the Six declaring that they will both in principle and practice be liberal, as the saying goes, as regards imports from outside the Community and hence as regards world trade generally; it is the enlarged Community when it is formed, with our participation, and, presumably, that of the Norwegians, the Danes, the Irish and Icelanders, which will have to decide whether the policy is liberal rather than illiberal. Internal agricultural prices, after all, wild be part and parcel of the common agricultural policy to which we are committed in principle if we should ever sign the Treaty of Rome.
But this common agricultural policy, so far as we are concerned, will in practice simply have to take into consideration the major and essential needs of such countries as Australia and New Zealand. We could not, we would not, willingly agree to this common agricultural policy unless it did. And this is the point. It is extremely unlikely that we should actually be forced into agreeing to a common agricultural policy against our will—that is to say, of course, if the revised voting formula in the Community is going to be broadly analogous to the present voting formula, whereby a country such as Germany, for instance, can prevent any policy, other than that actually connected with the establishment of the Common Tariffs, being adopted if it is opposed and has the support of only one other smaller country.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord. He has obviously studied this. It is all mixed up together. But let us take British agriculture.
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If I understood correctly the Answer of Mr. Soames on July 25 in the other House, in reply to a Question by Mr. Turton, it was this: there is to be a review of prices. We shall be allowed to have a review of prices in our country. There is no compulsion on any other constituent country to have a review, but there is to be a review of the community as a whole for certain, and then what? He says, of course, "You will be able to speak through your Government," but when it comes to making a decision of the Commission on the Community review of prices, then the British farmer has to go over and meet this foreign community to decide his fate in this country, how he stands. I think that is an abortion.
LORD GLADWYN: Why should he not? I do not think it is such a terrible thing to go to Brussels and to meet a body of community officials on which no doubt there will be somebody who will be an old friend from the Ministry of Agriculture. He will know him very well and he will discuss these things with him as frankly as in his own country. I cannot see that it is terrible.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: And then the decision of the Commission counts against the British farmer in this country
LORD BOOTHBY: So it should.
LORD GLADWYN: The point is that the Commission arrive at a decision by majority, but they are supposed to be impartial people, and I think they are, and they regard it from the Community point of view; but when they have made a recommendation it goes to the Ministers and they have to decide by a constitutional majority, and the majority at the moment has to be very large.
I am going to develop this point a little further, if I may, because I think it is important. I said that it is extremely unlikely in practice that we should be actually forced into agreeing to a common agricultural policy against our will. I say it is unlikely in practice if the formula is what it is now. In other words, it seems to me that the voting formula is likely to be just as important as the declaration of intention. As I

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understand it, the negotiators have not as yet got around to discussing the voting formula at all.
With great respect, therefore, I wonder—I only wonder—whether on both sides we are not perhaps tending to exaggerate the horror of the present situation. If we come into the Community it will, in practice—and I repeat in practice—be found that all the major objectives of the Treaty of Rome (which include, as your Lordships know, not only a common agricultural policy, but also a common transport policy, a common social policy and even, no doubt, eventually will include a common fiscal policy) will no doubt have to be arrived at by agreement between the four major partners in this great enterprise. As the new common tariff, the tariff wall, however, is slowly constructed, and as all impediments to trade within the area are abolished—and this, under the Treaty of Rome, cannot be held up except for a brief period—so, as I say, the common interests of the major participants in the Community will become clearer and clearer, and what are essentially compromises will inevitably be arrived at and achieved.
The truth is, I think, that even the most passionate advocates of Commonwealth unity, who maintain, as I understand it (perhaps I am wrong, but this is as I understand it), that all the interests of every Commonwealth country should always have precedence over any of the interests of the United Kingdom, ought to welcome, not oppose but welcome, our presence in a Community, whose policy can be influenced to a great extent in a manner helpful towards them if we are in, whereas we certainly could not exercise such influence if we stayed out. Nobody can possibly say what the exact position will be in 1970 as regards the whole world production and distribution of temperate zone foodstuffs. But if I had to bet on anything I should bet on our ability to see to it, for instance, that New Zealand and Australian producers of dairy products and soft wheat are not, by one means or another, put out of business. Of course we must get a declaration from the Six which will at least give proof of good intentions in this regard; we must get a firm declaration. But, equally, we should not underestimate
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our own ability to see to it by our own action within the Community itself that our own blood brothers are not put at any serious disadvantage.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I just ask the noble Lord this? I am sure he will be interested. He says we have got to see to it. If a Labour Government come in and we want to make long-term contracts with New Zealand for that purpose, would it be subject to control by the Market?
LORD GLADWYN: I should think that is open to doubt—whether we can make long-term contracts; I would not deny that. But what we can probably do toy our own action in the Community is see that the level of prices is not such that it would exclude dairy products and soft wheat from Australia and New Zealand.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we have already lessened our relations in general with the Commonwealth by cancelling the long-term contracts the Labour Government used to have, and we have been drifting ever since. If we go back and we want to be able to go into long-term contracts, is this going to stop it?
LORD GLADWYN: I do not know; I do not see why the Market itself should not conduct long-term contracts. I am not ail that expert, but I do not see why it should not.
Before I sit down, I would make two other points briefly. The first is that if, for any reason, we cannot get agreement with the Six in broad principle during the next few months, we are quite unlikely ever to get it at all. We shall pass next year, as we all know, into a pre-electoral period in which the issue will become completely confused by other considerations, and when and if an Election is held and another Government installed, whatever its political complexion may be, it will find it very difficult, as a result of the pledges it will have given during the electoral campaign, to accept conditions rejected by Her Majesty's present Government.
The second consideration is allied to this one. It is that there is a gentleman

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in the wings eagerly awaiting the confusion, the recrimination and the inevitable cracks in the whole Atlantic Alliance which will follow a permanent breakdown in the present Brussels talks. Has name is Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev. He is lying very low now and for very good reasons. For the precipitation of an international crisis would be the one thing likely to rally the West and produce almost instant agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Economic Community. Once he is persuaded that the negotiations have really broken down, however, it is as certain as anything can be that he will renew really heavy pressure on West Berlin, no doubt with some hope of success, because the whole West will obviously be divided. It may be that he also would favour the unification of Europe "from the Atlantic to the Urals", Which disquieted the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, and rightly so, though I think it all depends on what lines this particular area is unified. But one thing is certain: Mr. Khrushchev will not be able himself to unify Europe from the Urals to County Donegal, which he might otherwise hope to do if, as I say, the West is really divided.
So, as it seems to me—this is my final word—we really must, all Seven of us, in the interests of the entire Western World, think not only in terms of the exact formula governing importations of agricultural goods from the temperate zone eight or nine years from now, when the whole face of the world will be totally different—important though that is—but revert to the first principle, which is that we and the Six, by a process of give and take, have jointly got to agree on the construction of a wider and more coherent Western European Union. And the sooner the better.
6.23 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. ALBANS: My Lords, my first thought at this stage of our negotiations with the European Economic Community is of our debt to those who are presenting the British case. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, has referred to "our splendid team", and at this moment I would wish, particularly speaking from this Bench, to express the thanks many of us in this country feel to the Lord Privy Seal, and
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those with him, who are giving such intelligent, dedicated and concentrated service to our country. I have been informed, by one who speaks on these matters with considerable knowledge, that the European Economic Community with respect to its permanent civil service is almost unmatched for sheer idealism rooted in reality. Whatever the immediate outcome of the negotiations may be, I am hopeful that our representatives, together with the representatives of the European Economic civil service, will continue to work together to the advantage of the West.
I would endorse something the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, said when he referred to the inability of the Government to explain themselves in simple terms. I suppose this is an inability that most Governments experience. Yesterday in another place reference was made to a White Paper that was shortly to be published on the subject of the European Economic Community: but I would hope for something rather more popular, something comparable to Britain and the European Community, making good the gaps in this particular document and easily available to the many people who want to see the picture set out in relatively simple terms.
I am glad that the noble and learned Lord Who sits on the Woolsack is tomorrow to make a statement on certain legal aspects consequent upon our entry into the Common Market, and that he is referring to the issue of sovereignty. I apologise that I shall not be able to be present here to-morrow to listen to his speech, but I shall read carefully what he has said. I believe that many of us would welcome a full Government statement on these points: if we join the Common Market, shall we have a written Constitution for the first time? Is there anything in that question in people's minds? Secondly, as many others have already mentioned, to what extent in the Government's view, will the sovereignty of Parliament be curtailed? Here I appreciate What the noble Earl, Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary, said on this subject, and I would again thank him for a most helpful exposition.
Whatever agreement may be made with respect to the Commonwealth, there must be some loss of trade; and

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reflecting on this, and keeping in mind the immense debt we owe to the Commonwealth for their support in two world wars, I want to ask critics of the Common Market to look ahead and face the issue that noble Lords have already mentioned, that more sharing of trade between European countries is already making for more unity in Europe, and greater unity increases our hopes of peace. If, by joining the Common Market we appreciably reduce the chance of a third world war, is not this a great contribution that we can make, not only to the Commonwealth but to all mankind? Common Market or no, within the next fifteen or so years we are bound to see a different grouping of countries. In this fluid situation must not the primary question be: where can our influence best be excited to increase the common wealth, the common well-being of mankind?
We have long realised that some surrender of sovereignty is the price of peace. The Treaty of Rome clearly visualises the transfer of certain aspects of national sovereignty to a European structure; but the practice of the Six equally clearly shows that the steps in this direction must be worked out so as to preserve the best in each State and spread it to the others. For example, family allowances are high in France, whereas West Germany has the best provision for old age of any country in the would. Every single institution, including the Churches, must be affected by the Common Market. Relatively few people in the Church of England know much about church life on the Continent. In this respect the insularity of our national Church is going to present an emotional difficulty, and we must do more now to prepare to take our part in the cultural life of Europe.
It has been said that the Channel could be bridged without the British Church noticing it. At one time all Europe was treated by the Archbishops as part of the Diocese of London. Now we find more and more nationals coming into London. The vicar of a Central London parish states that the population of his parish is so transitory that those who compile the register of voters reckon upon a total turnover of people in five years. We are seeing in London increasing
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immigration from Commonwealth and other countries because of the passion for education among all races and nations. We face here an ever more highly educated multi-racial society. This tree has leaves that we recognise fairly easily—for example, loneliness and detachment and a root that is harder to discern. Is it true to say that dissatisfaction with the world as it is, and with human resources as they have shown themselves, can be related to the poverty of spirit that Our Lord commended? Do more educated men now recognise that man cannot live by bread alone? Whether we join the Common Market or not, we must increasingly reckon with Europe.
In 1940 William Temple often spoke about our hopes of a new world, and I heard him say that we must work to reconstitute Europe as a co-operative Commonwealth, and to do this we must become part of a co-operative Commonwealth. Has not the European Economic Community already shown signs that it has this vision? Consider, for example, its aid to under-developed countries as set out in Part IV of the Treaty of Rome. I understand that the leaders of the Six clearly recognise that the European Economic Community must, for its own economic, social and political health, become known as a power which helps others. The receiving countries are also more ready to accept help from Europe than from the United Kingdom alone, especially help in building up their social and political institutions and developing technologies in industry, commerce and agriculture. The fundamental principle upon which this help is being given is that the areas concerned must be assisted to help themselves. My Lords, dependency upon Europe is for technical, cultural, political and capital aid in such forms that the needy areas become independent of Europe, create their own institutions and deal with the rest of the world as equals.
Not very much has been said so far about the views of young people, but they face a future which many of them believe holds little [promise for them at the present. They want more emphasis upon quality, and they long for encouragement to be outward-looking. The Common Market, one would think, should satisfy some of these outward-looking instincts. I am grateful for the

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thought in a letter in Tuesday's Times that the twentieth century adventure lies in Europe, in refashioning its vitality. Many industrialists are articulate in their support of the Common Market; young people, inarticulate, may need the stimulus of the Common Market more than we know.
My Lords, may I end on a rather different note? In the nineteenth century our Empire rapidly expanded, Christian churches enlarged their commitments and sent missionaries into many lands. We shall never fully understand Why, in one century, the wind of the Spirit kindles into flame the fire, in some particular words of Scripture, so that men become alive to their responsibilities and go into the world and make disciples among all the nations. In the fallowing century it is other words that possess the hearts of Christians, and there is a simultaneous and spontaneous response to Our Lord's prayer for unity—that His people may be one—and the (Ecumenical Movement wins strong support throughout the world. My Lords, I see our entry to the Common Market as related to men's hunger for unity; I see it as a means of developing a unity of purpose Chat could strengthen and stimulate our country and our Commonwealth.
6.32 p.m.
LORD CITRINE: My Lords, the Labour movement has long believed in international co-operation and association with other countries. In the trade union movement we have striven for many, many years for what we cal international trade union unity, and I spent a good many years of my life trying to spread that unity over as wide a field as possible. Indeed, I was the President of the first World Federation of Trade Unions, after some eighteen years as Chairman of the International Federation. We believe strongly in the United Nations, and Would seek to endow that Organisation with a good deal more power than up to this stage it has been able to display. Many of us believe in would government, and I think it can be said, with a great measure of truth, that the driving force behind that conception very largely originated in the ranks of Labour.
As with all aspirations of such a broad character, it is not always easy to take the second step and to see just how the
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ideals that you have in mind will be attained. I do not think anyone would urge, as a practical possibility, that world government, for example, would come suddenly; that the nations of the world, on some given day or month or something of the kind, would become converted and so want to sacrifice their national sovereignty that they would be ready to take that immense stride. It seems to me logical to expect the approach to the ideals that I have mentioned to come about by smaller groupings, always with the proviso that those groupings are not allowed to develop into what I would call militarily aggressive blocs or even economic blocs.
The British Commonwealth itself is, however loosely constituted, broadly an attempt to bring about a closer association of many different nations, as it is now developing, some of which of course have had common origins, but none the less are very widespread. I would be the last to say any word which would impair the strength of development of the British Commonwealth. I think most of us can see that its character is changing; that the acquisition of independence by so many different countries has perhaps brought on problems and considerations which were not present in the earlier Commonwealth. But I think most of us would agree that anything which helps to bring countries into a closer, regular association is more likely to remove misunderstanding between them, and indeed that is one of the strengths which we attach to the United Nations.
We use the phrase so commonly, "The Common Market". I would infinitely prefer to use the official title and think in terms of the European Economic Community, because, to my mind, the word "community" connotes something rather broader than purely market considerations; and I believe it is a portent for what the present Community may eventually become. When the Rome Treaty was first drafted how many people really believed it would work as efficiently as it has done? I think most people—even informed people—would have said that there were so many differences of tradition and habits and one thing and another within the Six countries that the whole thing would be a valuable experiment, but

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not something one could believe would assume a permanent character. At all events, I myself, not without international experience, was, to say the least, dubious as to the extent to which this miracle has been performed, because so I regard it.
Yet the Labour movement, with its broad outlook, which I earlier spoke of, with this desire to get into close association with the different nations, is now assailed by doubts and hesitations, in regard, of course, to this particular project. I was looking at the agenda of the Labour Party for their forthcoming Conference. There are 58 resolutions down on that agenda. Of those 58, only 3 are in favour of the—
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Hear, hear!
LORD CITRINE: The noble Viscount may say "Hear, hear!" I would take the other view, and rather deprecate such a decisive view being taken by so many Labour Parties before they have had the full facts of the circumstances in front of them.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Who has kept them away?
LORD LAWSON: Who stopped us from getting the facts?
LORD CITRINE: My colleague the noble Lord says, "Who stopped us from getting the facts?". But I think we must all look at this question as realists. I have been engaged in my lifetime with negotiations that it would have been fatal to have reported at each stage. It would have completely frustrated the results that we were all trying to attain. I do not think it should be lightly assumed that there has been no sort of information imparted to bodies, who may have serious decisions to make in this matter. In fact, I know to the contrary.
As I was saying, at the Trades Union Congress out of ten resolutions, only one is for entry to the Common Market. Now why is this? I think, first of all, there is genuine concern on certain aspects of this problem. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, this afternoon has voiced quite a number of them. I wish he had seen just a little more of the merits in the project
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of our entry than he seemed to observe. But, unquestionably, the thought that is running through the minds of so many people is: "What is going to happen if we go into this Community?" There is fear of the unknown and, I may add, mistrust of our present Government. I am genuinely sorry to add that, because I think in matters of this kind it is a great misfortune, that issues can be prejudiced by actions which may be entirely unrelated to the grave subject under consideration. Why do I talk about hositility to the Government, mistrust of the Government?—because of its recent action in the sphere of labour relations. I have several times in this House tried to warn the Government of where an attempt to compel the trade union movement in any respect would carry them. No notice has been taken. The result is that we have now had two developments, which cannot fail to affect the thinking of trade unionists in this country. We all know their reaction to the wages pause. We have yet to see their reaction as a movement to the Incomes Commission. It is being interpreted as an attempt to castigate the trade union movement in those cases where, after proper negotiation with employers, it has secured advances in wages which seem to the Commission—and no one knows who they will be, how wise they will be, and with what quality they will be endowed, to know what is right and what is wrong in this circumstance!—to be excessive.
I was not present in the House the other day, but I understand that it was suggested that if there were some infringements of that general conception of what was fair and proper in the national interest, the parties concerned would be subjected to the "open air cure". That seemed to me a little bit like Oxford Union debating. That has no reality at all in the present circumstances. Who, with any experience of the trade union movement, believes that it will be intimidated by any suggestion of that character? Instead of approaching on the line of persuasion, and trying to get the good will of the trade unions, something has been imposed upon them; and we all know that when imposition takes place we resist it. I do not know where the advice to the Government came from. I know there are very competent people

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in the Ministry, of Labour and elsewhere, who could have foreseen the consequences of this. But it may be that the Government have come to the conclusion, that it is better to impose their will upon the (industries of this country in regard to this matter of wages. They may feel that they would progress more rapidly that way, than by the normal means of agreement. I repeat that I deeply regret this development, because I believe it will prejudice the consideration of this vital issue; I sincerely hope that it will not, but that is what I fear. If any words of mine could influence the trade union movement, I would urge them to consider this subject of the European Economic Community as objectively as possible.
The real root fear, of course, is of loss Of control over our own affairs. It seems to me that you cannot have any organisation of any kind that is going to do anything without the members of that organisation sacrificing, to some extent at least, their complete liberty of action. It seems to be so axiomatic that I almost apologise for stating it. It is surely a matter of the degree to which sacrifice is entailed in the way of what might be described as self-government or autonomy.
These very same considerations must be applied to the members of the Six. They, too, may have felt that they were going to be dominated by some of their larger and more powerful members in the Community, and I can imagine that just the same kind of considerations as are uppermost in the minds of our people and our trade unions here would apply to the members of the Six at the time the Treaty was being negotiated. Yet the Governments of those countries, so far as I know with the full support of the trade unions, accepted the Treaty believing it was in the best interests of their people. It is surely a very common experience, when bodies are brought together with some idea of amalgamating or associating them closely and vesting more power in the organisation that results, that there are fears of the same kind. When business mergers take place, does anybody believe that some, at least, of the companies merging, their directorate or their shareholders, have not exactly this same kind of fear of loss of control?
In the sphere of local government, is
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that not equally true? When ideas of that kind are put forward to amalgamate various bodies—and I am certainly not talking about the L.C.C. scheme now, but in more remote terms from London—one invariably finds one unit or group of people saying, "We do not want to have this. We want to manage our own affairs." I know, from the point of view of amalgamations in the trade union movement, that amalgamations have been held up for years because of that same intangible fear of Joss of power, loss of authority, in the amalgamating organisation. I am glad to say that, while it is still an obstacle, it is gradually giving way to more reasoned understanding of the advantages of combination.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Take-overbids.
LORD CITRINE: I repeat that it is ultimately a matter of degree. What do we lose? What do we gain? Does it enlarge our opportunities—and I think this is important—from the point of view of the Labour movement? Does it enlarge our opportunities for a healthier economic life and a more prosperous community? These are matters of fact which have to be judged on the merits, and we have not yet seen in full what those merits really are. I do not believe for one minute that the political unification of Europe is immediately practicable. I doubt whether that issue will be raised in a generation, much less a decade, because the difficulties are so very considerable. I cannot see any nation completely abandoning its sovereignty within that period.
From the trade union point of view two main issues are raised in this question. The first is the maintenance of full employment, and the second is the improvement of labour conditions. The Trades Union Congress has asked that there should be a declaration in the Rome Treaty which would make it clear that it is the object of the member States in the Community to establish full employment.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: In the Treaty.
LORD CITRINE: It may be, of course, that any attempt to revise the Treaty would be mat with counter-proposals for

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revision from other people. That has to be remembered. I know that most people, having formed an agreement, are extremely anxious about revising it at the request of any parity. It is a danger, and I freely admit it; but, at the very least, there should be some declaration on full employment, and it should be so specific that there can be no doubt of the intentions of all the parties concerned.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: In a protocol.
LORD CITRINE: My noble friend suggests a protocol. I do not know what mechanism might be used, but I am sure that the end is desirable.
I ask myself, would the British Government be ready to accept some such proposal? I cannot see that any other objective in the Treaty is more desirable than this one. It may be said by some that this is academic because full employment exists now. They may say that the Six are committed to accelerating and improving the standard of life and that that is the object of the Treaty; but that is no assurance that they will get rid of unemployment in any practical sense. I would call attention to that Mecca of private enterprise, the United States. They have a higher standard of prosperity in the purely material sense than most other countries, yet they have 5 million unemployed as an almost regular occurrence. In the years of the depression from 1929 to 1931 the number rose to 12 million.
So British workers, recalling what happened between 1929 and 1931, when we had 3 million out of employment, recalling that in certain parts of our own country now, in Scotland, in Northern Ireland in particular, and, I believe, on the North-East Coast, there are still serious pockets—as they are described in technical language—of unemployment are not sure that unemployment has been banished for ever. I have said before, and I repeat it now, that this is the sort of fear Which clouds industrial relations. It lies at the heart of restrictive practices and the curse of demarcation. So I say, if it is a desirable object, let us state lit as desirable, quite clearly, either in the Treaty or, if that is not practicable, in a protocol, or by some such device.
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I do not profess to be an economist and I could be stood on my head by the technical experts in economics, but I happen to understand something about them because of the 22 years I was Secretary to the T.U.C. I cannot see, looking the problem in the face, that any single nation, however well disposed, can guarantee a permanent state of full employment, and I feel convinced that the prospects of ensuring full employment would be much greater if we joined with the members of the European Economic Community than if we remained outside.
Then I come to mobility of labour. This is dealt with in Articles 48 to 51 of the Treaty. I have heard it said by responsible people in the trade union movement that they are afraid of a flood of foreign labour coming into this country if we join the Economic Community. Is it a real danger? First of all, there are safeguards in the Treaty itself. It emphasises that the first attempt to fill vacancies must be through indigenous labour. That, to my mind, is a very important consideration. Secondly there is the experience of the working out of the various Articles of the Treaty I have mentioned. I will not go into them, but it seems to me most important to ask ourselves what has happened to the Six. Has there been a flood of labour from one country to another during this period since 1957? They are all equally exposed to it, and yet the latest information shows that there is a shortage of labour in practically every one of those countries. Holland, Germany and France are all seeking workers, although they have tried over the years to induce workers in their hundreds of thousands to go to those countries. They are still asking for more and more.
It may be said that the attraction of British labour conditions would in themselves be a big inducement to foreign workers to come here. Such things as wages, conditions of labour, and social insurance are regarded by most people in this country as being immensely superior to what obtains on the Continent of Europe and in particular in the countries of the Six. I want to say, quite emphatically, that although that was the case some years ago a great levelling up has taken place

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in the last few years. To-day those who are very well qualified to make an estimate on this matter would say that the conditions of this country and those of the countries in the Common Market are about equal in that respect. So I would say that the fears are exaggerated.
On general principles, British workers should support the Common Market. They have long been linked up with the free trade unions which comprise the labour force of the Six countries. It seems to me that British trade unionists should have more confidence in the integrity and strength of those people, and be ready to combine their own influence to theirs, so that altogether they can be, inside the European Economic Community, a really powerful force for good.
I would also, if I may, presume to make a request, perhaps an appeal, to the trade unionists of France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, with whose predecessors I worked so intimately for so many years, to try to understand the approach of the British people and the British trade unions. On the Continent, it seemed to me, they attached an enormous amount of importance to the logicality of people's actions, almost more than to what came out from the machinery. I have had more time wasted in making sure a formula fitted the ideas of particular people than I have spent on what actually arose from the formula. I have had that kind of experience. I would ask them to remember that the British people are an empirical people, that they judge things on their merits, whenever their real interests are affected, as I believe they are in this particular case. So I would hope that our Continental friends would understand more closely the conditions we have here.
Finally, I would say to my colleagues in Great Britain that I hope they will not do anything in the weeks to come which would impair fair and objective consideration of these vital issues. I hope they will try hard to join their strength with that of their international colleagues in the European Economic Community, and I hope that, in supporting entry into this market, they will, not hesitantly but firmly, take this long step
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along this road to true international cooperation, without which the peace of the world can never be indestructibly established.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships that it has been found necessary to postpone the time of the Royal Commission from 7 o'clock until 7.45.

BRITAIN AND THE COMMON MARKET
Debate resumed.
7.0 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I am for joining the Common Market, and in this I have been very much encouraged by listening to the debate to-day, because of those who have spoken I think the numbers are: eight in favour of it and one, if not against, at any rate very hesitant. I am in favour of it not only because I believe that it will benefit ourselves but because it will benefit, and benefit very greatly, the Commonwealth. It is on this particular side that I want to talk to your Lordships a little this evening. Why do I believe it will benefit the Commonwealth? It is because I believe that a larger European Community will lead to an increased demand for Commonwealth products. Furthermore, it will mean that, if we are prosperous, we shall be able to do more to provide capital for the Commonwealth countries—and that they want from us above all other things. Furthermore, I think there will be a fair chance of the European Community itself also helping in the provision of this capital for the development of the Commonwealth and of the Colonies.
Why do I believe that a larger unit will increase prosperity? Very simply, for this reason: in this day and age, as the noble Earl, Lord Home, has said, we must have larger home markets. In our great industrial nation, agriculture is important, but let us remember that, in spite of all that it does, it is only 4 per cent. of the gross national product. Basically, our agriculture and everything else depends on industry, and industry to-day takes a new form. Vast amounts

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have to be spent on research and on tuning up for new products, whether a motor car, supersonic aircraft or products for the use of space. For all of these things we have to have larger units.
What have we to-day? The United States of America numbers nearly 200 million; and it is the same for Russia. The European Economic Community as it is to-day has not far short of that number. We, even with EFTA, would have less than a half that number; and if we were alone we should have only a quarter of the number in these other units. I just do not believe that in this day and age we, as an industrial nation, could continue on that basis. On the other hand, if we can join the European Common Market, then, with 250 million of us, indeed the outlook is good. We have, or would have, a greater number of skilled men than any other unit in the world, and that, I believe, would offer great prospects. Of course, all of this would involve change, and in changing some will suffer and others will benefit. But even those who suffer have until 1970, in many cases, to make their adjustment.
The important thing from the point of view of the Commonwealth is that we should protect their vital interests, and again and again we have said that we would do this. If one looks very quickly at what has happened so far, I think we can say that, for the Colonies and for the recently independent Commonwealth countries, there will be the chance of the status of associated overseas territories. Then there are the Asian countries. I know that useful talks have been held already about those countries; and if one wants proof that the European Community already recognises the importance of the Asian countries, it is in the announcement only yesterday of the further help that is coming from Italy, France, and so forth, for Indian finance.
There remain what I would call the old Dominions: Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is on them that at this present time the main problem arises. Negotiations are going on, as we know, about wheat, meat and dairy products. Many people have argued that what we should ensure is that for these products there should be guaranteed comparable
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outlets. We have already heard several noble Lords say that the idea of a guarantee is just not "on"; it is not something that we ourselves have ever given: so I think that the idea of guarantee is something which should be dropped. Then the question arises about comparable outlets. I am not quite clear what "comparable outlets" would mean, but I suppose it would mean that they should be able to sell the same amount of products to the European Community as they have been doing to ourselves over the last years.
My Lords. I think that if we examine that we realise how tremendously things change. Let us take the example of meat—of great importance to Australia. Two years ago (I think I am right in saying) our imports of Australian meat were some £46 million and those of the United States were some £22 million. Look at the figures to-day: they are exactly the other way round. Or, again, let us take the case of wool. What was the position in regard to wool before the war? We took five times as much wool from Australia as Japan did. What is the position to-day? They get twice as much as we do, although we still take some £45 to £50 million worth. That shows how one cannot or should not seek comparable outlets. But, even if you wanted to, what does it mean? Does it mean the quantity or the value? In 1959, I think it was, New Zealand exported some £59 million worth of dairy products to this country: last year she exported some £36 million worth. In tonnage the amount was exactly the same. Is this what is meant: that the quantity should be the same? New Zealand would certainly say, "No". I think the only certain thing there is about the export of these products is that it will not be at all the same in 1970; and it will be the greatest possible mistake to put the Commonwealth or ourselves into a straitjacket, which was the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Home.
Now, what do we want? I suggest that we want assurances that the European Community will be outward-looking in its policy. It is precisely on this point that our delegation, led by the Lord Privy Seal, has done such great work already. I very much agree with the right reverend Prelate who spoke and who expressed admiration and good

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wishes to the Lord Privy Seal. He does, indeed, deserve the thanks of us all for the skill with which he has conducted the negotiations so far—and we have made very real progress. After all, (the Six have accepted and recognised publicly the great importance of the Commonwealth. Furthermore, they have said that if, as a result of our joining, any member of the Commonwealth got into difficulty or was hurt—and, of course, we all have in mind, as they have, the possible case of New Zealand—then they will talk about the measures to be taken to remedy this. Moreover, they have said, in more general terms, that if they cannot get commodity agreements (which is What they seek for these types of products) by 1970, then they are ready to discuss with those Who want to take part in those commodity agreements measures to embrace them in them, and they have said that particularly in regard to the Commonwealth. So there we are: great progress has already been made.
All the same, it is right and we should continue to press for further assurance on these points. It is no good trying to get all the i's dotted and all the t's crossed and have all the pressure groups satisfied about what is going to happen to them now and afterwards. Rather—I agree with so many noble Lords who have spoken—what counts is the spirit behind this and the trust that we may have in those with whom we are hoping to work. Trust in them, trust in the Europeans, is something which, for example, the isolationists find difficult. They are therefore opposed to, or nervous about, going in. I would only say this to them: they should think very seriously of the implications of the fact that the Russians are against our going into this European Community.
Then, another group who are against this are those who are afraid of change. I think that that should not be, and is not, the spirit of this country. Here we have a great chance, after 900 years, of seeing Europe and ourselves together again after the tragic divisions of all that time. Naturally, such a tremendous step gives cause for hesitation. It needs great thought before we make the move. But supposing we miss—what happens? If we miss out, then the United Kingdom must decline relatively and become—I
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think the expression was—an off-shore island. We should have to try to go it alone, and in doing that we should surely not be able to play our part with the Commonwealth either in taking their products or in giving them capital for development. So, my Lords, I feel it is essential that we in EFTA should try to join with the Common Market.
Then let us not forget that we all have a great opportunity to play our part in influencing the policy of the Six. As the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said, we have a vote, and while we may think of it partly in a negative way so as to protect ourselves, we shall—this is more important—have a positive rôle to play, and I for one believe that we shall be able to play it for our own benefit, for that of the Commonwealth, and indeed, in time, for that of the whole world. I am all for this adventure—the term used by the noble Earl, Lord Home—and I have confidence in ourselves and in our children in being able to carry it out.
7.13 p.m.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, one of my friends in your Lordships' House, scanning the list of speakers at my side this afternoon, turned to me with unfeigned surprise and exclaimed: "Que diable faites-vous dans cette galére?" My presence here is essentialy due to the fact that his comment reflects a widespread view that the Common Market is the concern solely of politicians, of lawyers, of economists and of industrialists. But the Treaty of Rome has profound implications for all those professions in this country which are registrable under the law of this country: for doctors and dentists, for nurses and midwives, for vets, for pharmacists and indeed for all those whose professions demand a registrable qualification, and these should be more widely known. Yet in no debate on the Common Market in this House or in another place have the implications of the Treaty for professions been mentioned on a single occasion.
Let me stress at the outset that it is not for doctors or for dentists or for any industrial or other group to seek in their own interests to deflect the Government from a course which they believe to be right in the national interest and which will make a contribution to the prosperity

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and peace of the world; and yet it is right that those of us who have experience and responsibility should make known on behalf of our colleagues some of the anxieties which are in our minds. Briefly, for professions, and especially for the medical profession, the disturbing article is Article 57. Section 1 of Article 57 lays down—and I quote from the old version, since I have not had an opportunity of reading the new:
"The Council … shall, in the course of the first stage by means of a unanimous vote and subsequently by means of a qualified majority vote, act by issuing directives regarding mutual recognition of diplomas, certficates and other qualifications."
This may mean that a medical or other professional qualification obtained in any of the member States of the European Economic Community will be acceptable without scrutiny in this country as a criterion of a registered medical practitioner; and vice-versa we shall be recognised in the Six. I do not propose to deal with other articles of the Treaty, which are concerned with the practice of medicine, although there are many dealing with the right of establishment and with the health and social welfare services and their harmonisation. But I feel that I should confine my comments to Article 57, because this has given rise to grave disquiet in the medical and the dental and the paramedical professions in this country.
From the medical viewpoint—and I speak as President of the General Medical Council—I should like to sketch in a few sentences the historical background to our misgivings. Your Lordships will be aware that in "his country any unqualified person can practise medicine with certain limitations, and this led in the past to such grave consequences that for a period of nearly 40 years there was great discussion, and before Parliament were at least eight Medical Bills—all of them, I regret to say, abortive—which took note of this anxiety. But in 1858 there was passed the first Medical Act, and its purpose is explained in its Preamble. Its Preamble said that it was expedient that persons requiring medical aid should be enabled to distinguish qualified from unqualified practitioners. For this purpose the Medical Register was set up and the General Medical Council was established.
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Perhaps I should here interpolate, since much confusion arises, that the General Medical Council is not the British Medical Association. The British Medical Association is a voluntary association of doctors with like purpose and like interests and they work to advance the interests of the medical profession. The General Medical Council is the body charged by Statute with keeping the Register and with maintaning standards of medical education. Notice that the control is in the hands of a statutory body. It is not, on the one hand, in the hands of a Government Department, although the General Medical Council has close relations with the Privy Council; nor, on the other hand, is it in the hands of a purely professional organisation.
Subsequent Acts, those subsequent to 1858, the last being the Consolidated Act of 1956, have underlined the purpose of the General Medical Council to protect the public. They have widened our scope, and in fact for nearly 80 years on the basis of reciprocity we have been able, through our particular machinery, Part III of the Medical Act, to recognise suitable qualifications in any Commonwealth or foreign country. That does not mean that we recognise the country. We recognise those qualifications which we think in that country are comparable to our own standards. We do that by appointing visitors who are not members of the Council, or inspectors, to report on the facilities for medical education and on the standards of examinations of the medical schools. We apply this machinery almost daily to the recognition of qualifications in Commonwealth and foreign countries.
If existing or analogous machinery were allowed to determine the suitability of medical qualifications for practise, if and when the United Kingdom join European Economic Community, then the public could be satisfied that any doctor so recognised from a Common Market country possesses a qualification and experience which furnish, in the words of Section 20 of the Medical Act,
"a sufficient guarantee of the possession of the requisite knowledge and skill for the efficient practice of medicine, surgery and midwifery."

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But it follows that if mutual recognition of qualifications ware accepted indiscriminately, then there might be some threat to the standards which the General Medical Council has existed since 1858 to achieve.
Let me remind your Lordships of but one example of the potential hazards. One of the present members of the E.E.C. applied for reciprocity with this country after the war and a very distinguished medical inspector reported. First, he said that the entry to each of their medical schools was nearly 1,000, except in one or two smaller schools, Where the number was about 200 per year. These are one or two extracts from his report:
"The students entering were utterly without any admissable primary educational standard, the selection for education in the last ten years being practically entirely on political grounds.
"The standards of education everywhere were farcical.
"The want of professional knowledge was deplorable."
And so on, in like vein.
In 1948, the question of reciprocity with that country was revived from high quarters and a further independent report was obtained. Let me quote one or two items from that:
"The oral examinations had degenerated, generally speaking, to a complete farce. Series of pupils are often examined and passed in classes.
"I know of other cases in which students have taken a medical degree. They have told me quite candidly that, although they have been awarded a medical degree and could take up practice, they had never in fact walked a hospital ward during their whole training.
"The gaining of a degree in medicine, therefore, means very little at the present time. The man who gains it may or may not be a competent doctor. His degree is really not a measure of his ability to practise medicine."
It may well be argued that no such adequate evidence exists at the present day because the General Medical Council has not been invited to inspect the schools of this country; but let me remind your Lordships that those who qualified under that régime, if we have indiscriminate recognition of their qualifications, have a potential life as doctors for another 25 or 30 years, and we should have to recognise those also. They may well be able to have their qualifications recognised in other countries and we should not have the same ease of recognition of Commonwealth
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qualifications as we have had in the past.
Now you might say that this is an extreme example, but there is another independent yardstick by which we can compare medical education in this country with that in the Six—namely, the examinations which are conducted by the State Board of Medical Examiners in the United States. They conduct examinations of all those who wish to obtain licences to practise in certain States of the United States. In 1959, which is the last year for which I have figures, 80 English doctors took this examination and 75 passed—that is a failure rate of 6 par cent. Those who ware graduates of our own medical schools had a failure rate of only 3 per cent. The failure rate for the Paris medical school was 30 per cant. For the larger Italian schools, the failure rates ware—Rome, 30 per cent.; Naples, 51-9 per cent.; Bologna, 351 per cent., and Milan, 71· 4 per cent. Moreover, it may not be without significance for our National Health Service that in that one year 396 Italian medical graduates took their licenciate examinations in the United States of America. For Brussels the failure rate was 37·5 per cant. In West Germany, out of 343 candidates, the failure rate was 34 per cent. This is not due to differing systems of education or differing languages, because there are countries in Europe whose medical education approximates in some measure to our own and who had similar striking success. For Spain, for example, the failure rate was practically our own—7 per cent.
It seems to the General Medical Council that the only safe procedure is that which is embodied in a resolution which the Council adopted at its May session this year, which said that, in the event of our joining the Common Market,
"It is desirable in the public interest that any arrangements made in pursuance of Article 57 of the Treaty of Rome to admit medical practitioners from other European countries to practise in the United Kingdom should have regard to the standards hitherto secured by Part III of the Medical Act, 1956."
This resolution and relevant passages from my presidential address ware communicated to the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Health. We did not expect other than a formal aknowledgement; and, indeed, our expectations were satisfied.

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On March 5 last, in another place, the Minister of Health was asked whether he had been in consultation with the British Medical Association and the British Dental Association about their anxieties that signing the Rome Treaty would have an effect on professional standards in this country and might also affect National Health Service Standards. The Minister replied [Official Report, Commons, Vol. 655, col. 31]:
"I have had consultations with those two bodies and will have them in future, but there are specific safeguards about these matters in the Rome Treaty ".
These safeguards I confess that a careful study of the Treaty has failed to reveal, unless the Minister is referring to Section 2 of Article 57, which if I interpret it aright, would require all doctors, whether native or immigrant, to practise in conformity with the laws of the country. I hope that line noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, in his summing up of this debate, will inform me, and through me the members of my profession, what these safeguards are
Let me explain quite briefly why anxiety exists. Our English system has been followed, in greater or less degree, in nearly all the countries of the Commonwealth. One finds it in Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, South Africa—until a very short time ago a member of our Commonwealth—in Malaya, Hong Kong, Malta and, in somewhat modified form, in Canada. In nearly all of these countries there are controlling bodies analogous to the General Medical Council, and in most the university medical curricula have close associations with our own. We have long enjoyed close and friendly association with these bodies in the Commonwealth. We could, indeed, with confidence, echo the words of Burke: we hold our Commonwealth countries
"in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection."
and
"these ties which though light as air, are as
strong as links of iron ",
are not to be lightly thrown away.
Our British and Commonwealth system of medical education, registration and professional discipline differs from most, if not all, the Continental systems. The
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Continental systems tend to lay much more stress on Government control, especially in the field of medical education. They have no analogous higher qualifications to ours. They often do not provide the public with a readily accessible medical register. Here we select our students so that the numbers of medical students in our universities can be counted in hundreds, whereas abroad, in the Six, they can be counted in their thousands. The position of specialisation in Europe is, as has recently been described, chaotic.
It is in matters of professional discipline and conduct that there is a profound difference between the Six and ourselves. We have in this country no code of medical ethics. Through the Disciplinary Committee of the General Medical Council, we are accustomed to judge each complaint of conduct on its merits guiding ourselves by precedent and by circumstances in the spirit of the Common Law. The Continent has its strict codes of deontology which seek to define, both positively and negatively, all the responsibilities of the medical practitioner and the breaches of privilege for which he may be punished. There is to many of us an odd omission in most of these. A practitioner may be accused by another practitioner, by a trade union, by a public body or by the disciplinary body itself; but he cannot be accused, and no complaint can be laid against a doctor, by the patient or the patient's friends. Our disciplinary proceedings are conducted in public. You will notice, my Lords, that they have not been neglected in the Press. Moreover, the decisions of the General Medical Council are subject to an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
My Lords, if I believe in our British system in such matters, it is not simply because it is British, nor because it is necessarily the best sub specie æternitatis. But that system enshrines our experience, our national way of life, our belief in diversity and experiment (I am thinking here particularly of medical education) and our belief that medical ethics and discipline should not be an esoteric secret but are matters in which the common man should have every opportunity of making himself heard and to know and understand what is done. How do these matters stand in relationship

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to membership of the European Community? Here we encounter a difficulty. The noble Earl, Lord Home, referring to the Six members of the European Community, said on June 21, 1961[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 232, col. 628]:
"I think it … inconceivable that any of them or any of us, if we all came together, would surrender sovereignty to a point where it infringed and was harmful to our own national institutions."
Let me quote the noble Earl again, speaking exactly a year ago in this House in relation to the Common Market, when he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 234, col. 119]:
"… the field … is clearly defined and restricted to economic matters."
The question which naturally arises is whether the control in the public interest of standards of medical education and conduct—a control which, I have reminded your Lordships, is secured by Act of Parliament—is included in Lord Home's assurances and later assurances. We do not know. We have not been told. We have to proceed to a large extent on hearsay. It appears from statements made by Ministers that our Government have in principle made no reservations on Article 57 if we join the Common Market, or to its implementation by 1967. Moreover, if rumour be well founded, it appears that a sharp distinction may be in mind as between the Commonwealth, on the one hand, and the Common Market countries, on the other, in that the General Medical Council will continue to sift Commonwealth qualifications according to its present procedure; but under the rigid system of the Rome Treaty, the Council may find itself prohibited from exercising any similar power or discretion in regard to any medical qualification, however, questionable, granted in any present or prospective member of the Economic Community. If that is intended, are we certain that it is in the public interest? Can such an invidious distinction be acceptable to Commonwealth countries? As your Lordships will appreciate from what I have said earlier, the existing safeguards embodied in the Medical Act are devised in the light of long experience to ensure that no registered practitioner Will be free to practise medicine in this country unless he
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possesses a qualification and experience which furnish
"a sufficient guarantee of the possession of the requisite knowledge and skill for the efficient practice of medicine, surgery and midwifery ".
My Lords, I have confined my comments to medical education and cognate matters because they illustrate a general theme which applies also to dentists, nurses, vets, pharmacists and other registrable professions. Our traditions are flexible and experimental in nature with a limited degree of Government control. It seems that the systems with which we may find ourselves integrated are of a somewhat different nature. If that is so, we must surely ask ourselves: Must we, if we enter the European Community, sacrifice these systems, born of and evolved from our unique experience? Are there not things of great value in this country which we should seek to preserve, and among these should we not wish to see retained, until we are persuaded that they can be bettered, our system of medical education, which has been a signpost to countries all over the globe, our system of clearly defined registration of professional men, designed to assist and to protect the public in many fields, and our standards of professional ethics and discipline administered judicially in accordance with British traditions? These are doubly valuable: they are valuable in themselves, and also on account of the part they play in our links with the Commonwealth.
There is much truth in the old adage, festina lente. The decisions which appear to have already been taken concerning the mutual recognition of professional qualifications within the European Community by 1967 are precipitate. There has been no consultation with the professional bodies most intimately concerned and in the best position to advise. Clearly, there are certain decisions concerning the European Community which urgently press, such as the need to promote trade and investment without impediment between the Common Market countries, and the defence decisions which will save the Community from the hazards of diplomatic and military isolation.
Let me concede once again that it is not for any sectional interest to demur at any sacrifice if, with knowledge Which must of necessity be more complete than

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ours, the Government hold that both our national interest and the prosperity and peace of the world demand our entry, and there may well be powerful reasons why we should not resist the ultimate aim of political unity. But ultimate unity will be hindered, not fostered, not helped, by imposing uniformity prematurely; and this is the risk to which Article 57, which envisages the mutual recognition of qualifications, exposes both professional education and practice in this country. As Colin Clark, who is a supporter of the Common Market, and who wrote an admirable book, British Trade in the Common Market, says—and this surely instances it:
"there is danger of the central authority of Brussels attempting, amidst a Parkinsonian profusion of officials, to concern itself with local affairs which should be left to national government."
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, the time has come when I think we should adjourn during pleasure for the Royal Commission.
House adjourned during pleasure. House resumed.

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

Finance,

Appropriation,

Transport,

Education (Scotland),

Law Reform (Husband and Wife),

Air Guns and Shot Guns, etc.

Landlord and Tenant,

Licensing (Scotland),

Penalties for Drunkenness,

House of Commons Members' Fund,

Trinidad and Tobago Independence,

Lotteries and Gaming,

Local Government (Records),

Uganda Independence,

Pipe-lines,

Road Traffic,

Glasgow Corporation Order Confirmation,

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Tay Road Bridge Order Confirmation,

Leith Harbour and Docks Order Confirmation,

Maidstone Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Order Confirmation,

Pier and Harbour Order (Great Yarmouth New Britannia Pier) Confirmation,

Pier and Harbour Order (Great Yarmouth Port and Haven) Confirmation,

Pier and Harbour Order (Langstone Harbour) Confirmation,

Letchworth Garden City Corporation,

Dartford Tunnel,

Orpington Urban District Council,

British Transport Commission,

City of London (Various Powers),

Regent Refining Company,

London County Council (General Powers),

River Dart Navigation,

South Staffordshire Water,

Scotswood Bridge,

London County Council (Improvements),

London Bridge Improvements,

Port of London,

Northampton Corporation,

Manchester Ship Canal.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

BRITAIN AND THE COMMON MARKET
Debate resumed.
8.2 p.m.
LORD COHEN OF BIRKENHEAD: My Lords, my theme when we adjourned was the mutual recognition of medical and other para-medical qualifications, and I was expressing my anxiety at their acceptance for practice in this country, irrespective of merit or needs, which is envisaged in Article 57 of the Treaty of Rome, for in this field we cannot rely

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on the qualified majority decision which is there needed; and such mutual recognition is not, either by history or by precedent, a necessary part of even a political federation. The United States of America constitutes a political and economic union much closer than anything now existing in Western Europe. Nevertheless, each individual State retains its control of licences to practise medicine in that State. With a New Yank licence you cannot practise in California, and vice versa; and the same is true of the Provinces of Canada and of Australia. Each State and each Province, too, has its own disciplinary arrangements. My plea is that if there is to be any substitute for present procedures in this country it should seek to maintain the safeguards which they provide.
My Lords, I fear I have spoken at too great length, and I have not touched on how, in my view, the situation might even now be righted. This is a matter for further consultation with other bodies, which I hope will take place as soon as possible. Yet I make no apology for having dealt with a topic which might appear to your Lordships to be negligible and even expendable, in relation to the vast canvas of our national scene. For I hope that in our negotiations for entry into the European Community our Ministers will never forget that this is a matter of vital importance to tens of thousands of the citizens of this country who believe, with deep conviction, that the evolution of our standards of medical education and practice, of our unique standards of entry into the medical profession, and of professional conduct, reflect the peculiar genius of our people to pattern a way of life according to the needs of our nation as a whole. Since I cannot emulate the sparkling and persuasive oratory of the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House, I can, at least, plagiarise him. May I, substituting medicine for law in some words which he uttered only a fortnight ago in welcoming the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, remind the House that the practice and ethos of medicine in this country
"is not something that you study; it is something more than knowledge; it is something that has given to this country much that makes it itself."
8.5 p.m.
LORD COUTANCHE: My Lords, I feel that I should crave your Lordships' indulgence if I speak briefly upon the interest of the Channel Islands in the present negotiations rather than upon the much larger field that has been covered in the debate up to this moment. The export of the produce of the Islands is of vital importance to their economy. Those exports we in the Islands call agricultural, but in fact I think scientifically they are horticultural. I know that at the present time the position of horticultural exports in the whole Common Market scene is most uncertain—not uncertain in the sense that those who are negotiating do not know exactly where they are going, but in the sense that many people who are affected by those negotiations are not yet fully informed as to what will happen.
I should like to point out that in accordance with the Charters which we in the Channel Islands are privileged to possess, we are entitled to export into this country goods of the growth and manufacture of our Islands free of any customs duties. I remember some time ago the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, who leads the Opposition, raised in a previous discussion the question of the Channel Islands, and I felt that it would be right that I should come here to-day, on his Motion, to express exactly, as I understand it, the position of the Channel Islands in these negotiations. In virtue of our—may I call them charter "privileges", rather than "rights", we are entitled to export into the United Kingdom the goods of the growth and manufacture of all the Islands, free of all duties and customs. These rights flow from historical reasons. They are of great antiquity. The greatest of all the Charters is the Charter of Queen Elizabeth I; but it was only one in a long line of Charters, the first of which began with King John and was granted ten years before Magna Charta. So that there is at least antiquity in our claim.
What is the effect at the present time of that position, secured to us by innumerable Charters and always observed by Her Majesty's Government in this country? For a long period of time the existence of these Charters, whilst always known and respected, was not of any

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great practical importance; but suddenly, in the year 1932, this Parliament passed the Horticultural Products (Emergency Customs Duties) Act and a large number of horticultural products became overnight liable to duty. The position of the Channel Islands was at once accepted, thanks to the kindly intervention of the Home Office, by the Board of Customs, and little, if any, difficulty arose. The Islands responded—and I had the honour to be in a position of trust at the time—in a way which I think was very right and proper. We passed laws, which were confirmed by His Majesty in Council, which imposed upon the import into the Channel Islands of similar goods exactly similar duties, so that any encouragement to use the Islands as a "back door" into this country was obviated. At the same time, and in token of the same spirit, the Islands declared their desire to increase the import into the Islands of goods of what we then proudly called Empire origin; and we passed the necessary laws to impose duties upon foreign goods on their introduction into the Channel Islands. These were exactly similar to the duties charged in this country upon similar goods of the same class and description from the same place of origin.
From 1932 onwards a period of great prosperity for the Islands has resulted. The United Kingdom is our only market. Our goods, owing to a happy climatic situation, are early and hardly enter at all into competition with United Kingdom-grown goods. But the authorities of this country—and I say this with great thankfulness—have always so operated the import duties and, when there are such things, quotas (and may I say, with great thanks, that the National Farmers' Union have always helped us) that the administrative and fiscal arrangements arrived at, while not hurting in any way the agriculture or horticulture of the United Kingdom, have been of immense help to the Channel Islands. For that we are exceedingly grateful.
My Lords, that is the present position. I am old enough to remember that it was not always so. I am not going to weary your Lordships with a tale of woe, but before 1932, when we were
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in intense competition with the neighbouring coast of France, where exactly the same goods were grown under conditions exactly similar to our own, many a year was for us a time of great agricultural adversity. The position I have outlined was the position when the United Kingdom started to think of negotiating on the question of entering the Common Market. I had the honour at that time to be still Bailiff of Jersey and ex-officio President of the Tariff Council entrusted by the States, or Parliament of Jersey with the conduct of these negotiations. I was closely concerned with them from the very beginning.
In this context I should like to express the thanks of the Islands for the wonderful help that we have received from the Home Office and the Ministry of Agriculture in all these consultations. These consultations have continued right up to the present time. Indeed, not many weeks ago my noble friend Lord Waldegrave was in the Island giving us what help he could. I am quite sure that in those who have followed him we shall have some good friends. May I particularly welcome my noble friend, Lord St. Oswald, who will help us in future, if for no other reason than that he counts among his forbears a distinguished Jersey ancestor.
That is the position, a very favourable position. The United Kingdom is our only market. I was in the Islands until this morning, and I made such inquiries as I could in order to bring my knowledge up to date. My Lords, it is quite firmly the view of the Islands that we have no option whatever but to follow the lead of the United Kingdom in this way. I wanted to say to-day that Parliament and Her Majesty's Government, in the negotiations which they are conducting, are conducting them not only on behalf of those Who live in this country, but also on behalf of those of us Who are proud to live in what is the most ancient possession of the Crown of England. We are full of absolute and complete faith in the fact that our interests will be watched and safeguarded as Closely as those of Her Majesty's subjects in this country.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am very interested in the noble Lord's speech. Could

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the noble Lord tall us whether the inquiries he has made show any signs of anxiety among the growers of the Channel Islands as to what will be the effect on their exports to us of the free entry eventually of goods from the Six?
LORD COUTANCHE: Indeed, I can say there is great anxiety, but, as I have said, for reasons which are well known we are so closely associated with the economy of the United Kingdom that it would be impossible for us to take another course. There is, as I say, anxiety, and I am grateful for the fact that the consultations which we are continuing to have are helping to alleviate that anxiety to some extent. In that connection, it is my earnest prayer to Her Majesty's Government at this moment——
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. As the noble Lord knows, as a former Home Secretary I took a strong interest in the wellbeing of the Channel Islands. Would the noble Lord be good enough to say whether, if Her Majesty's Government were disposed to bring in legislation to establish the Channel Islands as part of the United Kingdom, it would be likely that the Channel Islands would object? If this happened, it might help in this situation. I hope the noble Lord will be able to say whether he feels the Channel Islands would, or would not, like it.
LORD COUTANCHE: I think the answer to that question is this. I had the great privilege of working with the noble Lord when he was at the Home Office. I think the position of the Channel Islands in this matter is beyond dispute. A political friend of mine in Jersey used to say, with great truth, that constitutionally it must be remembered we were "on the winning side in 1066". We are content to stand upon that position, and, so long as Her Majesty's Government are good enough from time to time to spare distinguished members of their ranks to come to talk to us and help us and reassure us, we have no fears. But I think that to follow the course suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, might present very great difficulties. I am glad of these interventions, because I ask that these consultations shall continue.
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Having said that on behalf of the Islands, may I just express a personal opinion? I live in a place in the Islands (as my noble friend Lord St. Oswald knows, from his own sight quite recently) from where I look out of my window on to the neighbouring coast of France practically every morning of my life. I have lived all my official life, in fact nearly all my life, in very close contact with the Continent. My official work has taken me on missions to many countries of Europe and I think, with great humility, I may claim to know something of the conditions as they exist on the Continent. For myself, I believe that it is to the long-term advantage of this country to join the Six in the European Economic Community. In saying that, I should be failing in my duty if I did not say that I believe there will be a difficult period of adjustment, which may be long, but I like to think that in the long term it will be worth it. But I cannot believe, if reasonable terms and conditions can be worked out, that it can be anything but to the lasting good of this country and also, therefore, necessarily of the Islands, that we should be part of the Community.
To that, my Lords, I would make two reservations and they are very solemn ones. I was brought up to believe in the greatness of the British Empire. I accustomed myself afterwards to believe in the greatness of the British Commonwealth, and I should be very loath to do anything, however advantageous it might be to this country or to the Islands, which could possibly weaken the Commonwealth in any way. Secondly, I was brought up to believe in the greatness of the British Constitution, and in the sovereignty of this Parliament. It is a long time since I studied Anson and Dicey and the great constitutional writers of this country, but whatever advantages there might be for this country and for the Islands, I should be very unhappy if I felt that any action we were taking could in any way detract in an essential part from the sovereignty of this Parliament.
8.22 p.m.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, it is refreshing to have a subject like this, which is not as yet a Party political issue; in other words, we can say and lead out our convictions and our

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prejudices, without any embarrassment to the Party Whips. But the thing I would stress more than anything else is that this is not only a matter of economics, and it would be a great mistake if we tried to decide it entirely on the price of butter. I very much appreciated the speech of the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary, which seemed to put the whole subject in perspective. I should like to say how much I agreed with him, and I would emphasise the point that it is not a choice between the Commonwealth and Europe: it is something quite different.
The second thing we should remember is that, so far as I know, there has never been any question whatsoever of a Common Market in the Commonwealth. There has never been a question of free trade.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Quite right.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: There has never been any proposal for an economic tie-up of any sort, kind or description. Therefore, we are really faced with the choice, while keeping the links with the Commonwealth, either of joining what one might call the new Europa, or of standing alone from the Continent, as has already been said in the debate, as an off-shore island. I yield to nobody in my admiration for the Commonwealth as a great institution. Indeed, one of the things of which we in this nation should be most proud is, I believe, the fact that we converted what was an Empire gained chiefly by force into a Commonwealth which has held together by voluntary ties, by friendliness and, to a certain extent, by mutual interest. I am very proud of that. But we should remember that these ties are fairly fragile, tenuous, loose ties, and recently we have lost one of the great Dominions. Who knows when we may lose another?
I think we should remember, too, that as time progresses these big countries will become increasingly industrialised—that is inevitable; and the more industrialised they become, the less will they want to buy our manufactured products; the less, also will there be a need for them to give us preferences. As has been
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said this afternoon, preferences will in any case, probably, ultimately wither down, and almost cease to exist. Those are the facts and the background we must remember, when we make, if we do make, our great decisions on these steps. But I suggest to your Lordships that, if we do join this Common Market, we should do so wholeheartedly.
As I understand it, because of the difficulties of the Commonwealth trade—and particularly, I think, New Zealand, which presents probably the most difficult problem of all, because of its exports of butter and other things—it is obvious that the nations of Europe must give us time to adapt. That we must ask for. Otherwise, we must not try to make too many exceptions. As I understand the scheme, which is complicated enough, goodness knows!, the idea behind it is that there is this unity of nations, which will ultimately abolish the Customs and frontiers between each other, will have free trade and so forth, and will have a uniform tariff around them. Their gigantic size gives them a very strong bargaining position in the world. But every time an exception is made, their bargaining position becomes less and less, and if too many exceptions are made there will be no advantage in this scheme at all. I believe that we must remember that, before we put too much emphasis on trying to press these European countries to give us concession after concession. We must accept the scheme, but, naturally, having regard to our own special interests, and to the necessity of having time to adapt the economies of ourselves and other countries.
As I said earlier, I do not think this matter which has been very thoroughly explored, is entirely an economic one. I think we are witnessing here the birth of a great new force, a great new power. It is a power which I think it was said if the United Kingdom joins in, will have 250 million people, which is an enormous number. It will be a force much more powerful than the United States, and possibly more powerful than the Soviet Union. It is a tremendous force, and I myself feel that it would be a great pity, a great tragedy, if we were left out; if England with all her knowledge, experience and political wisdom, did not take some hand in shaping

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this new development. It is, as the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary said, a great adventure, and I think that to be left out of this adventure would be not only economically disastrous but sad, from the cultural point of view, and from every other point of view that can be imagined. Therefore, again I give it my support.
Some people are agitated, I gather, because they are frightened of joining what are in some cases, perhaps, rather reactionary and difficult régimes. One hears people saying: "Do we really want to joint in, perhaps under the influence of de Gaulle, who has almost a dictatorship in France? Do we want to be under Adenauer, in Germany?" But, my Lords, those are very temporary; after all, we are all temporary inhabitants of this world. So the present set-up will not last for very long. We are building something for the future, not just considering the nature of the political set-up in each individual country at the moment. That will change, and I do not see why it should not change into unity on progressive lines.
My Lords, I was trying to remember—and I think that this is a wholesome thought—whether there was anywhere in history an instance in which a number of countries had joined together without achieving great benefit to themselves, in prosperity, security, power and influence. They have not always used the power to the best advantage of their neighbours; nevertheless, it has always been the case, I think, that they achieved it. We can think of England. What should we be like now if we had continued as a small country fighting Scotland and Wales? We should not have had the great events of our history of the last century or so. Then there was France with her dukedoms; and Italy with her little states; Germany divided, and so forth. Would any of those countries have become great if the smaller states within them had not united? Above all, there is the United States of America, which is one of the greatest.
That is why, as we have heard, the political talks are going on; and I think that in those political talks there is a tremendous opportunity for a tremendous future. We are in the position now of the inhabitants of some such State as Virginia or Massachusetts before they
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were united. We are frightened, as they were, of giving up sovereignty to a Federal Government. But, my Lords, if we look back on the years which have intervened, if those States could have foreseen the results of Union when they were fearful of it, would any of them have said, "We should like to remain small, isolated States "rather than join in the Union of the great continent of America? People naturally have very isolationist tendencies: they are frightened of giving up sovereignty, even a small amount. But I suggest that by giving up these little bits of sovereignty we really get a much larger sovereignty and a more important one.
I do not want to repeat what I said the other day in the debate on International Affairs, but I should like to remind your Lordships of the fact—it is a formidable fact—that we have here a great alliance between Germany and France, a gigantic coalition coming into being. I should have thought that this country would be very much safer as one of those working in that alliance than an island outside it, watching this huge force in Europe, growing and possibly coming into economic—and even military—conflict with us. That would be a disaster. Lastly, there is this great thing about the unity of Europe. In it we build up great strength able to face Russia. We know that the Russians are very much against the Common Market. They see in it a threat to them, and that it will curtail their arguments. I should have thought that that would be no argument against the Common Market. My Lords, I do not wish to keep you at this late hour, but I would say again that if we do not go into this, it would, in my view, be a tragedy, and our descendants, if there are any, would blame us for ever and ever.
8.33 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, at the outset I should like to wish the Lord Privy Seal every success during these coming four days of difficult negotiations. I feel confident, however, that he will assert himself as an able negotiator in the same pleasant way that, according to certain French authoritative sources, he has become appreciated and esteemed on the Continent. I will assume, then, my Lords, that he will be able to negotiate equitable terms for this

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country, and I shall therefore took ahead in my consideration of this matter. As was said last week by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, our entry will bring a new surge of opportunity and a new wave of competition. It is, therefore, to that aspect of the problem that I shall direct my attention this evening, particularly with regard to the rationalisation and adaptation which will become necessary for smaller businesses.
Experience on the Continent has shown that joint action by grouping undertakings offers most advantages for the solution of problems which arose during this period of evolution. Some people in this country, as has been stated, have certain misgivings about our entering the Common Market, and that is why I feel that greater consideration might be given by Her Majesty's Government, and also by industry at large in this country, to this aspect of the matter. I feel that it is not too early for small and medium-sized undertakings to consider the rational planning which will be necessary and which will involve a process of adaptation. I do not propose to go into the question of large undertakings, because they have adequate economic potential, and shall confine my remarks to undertakings which employ, say, fewer than 500 persons.
I feel it may help—and I crave your Lordships' indulgence in this respect—if I mention what has been done in one member state of the Community— namely, France. I believe that similar action is being taken, or has been taken, in Germany and Belgium also, though I am mainly aware of what has been done in France. The French Government, recognising the need for the development of industry, trade and agriculture, and the need for their adaptation to the European Economic Community, felt that it should encourage and facilitate the grouping of smaller businesses—that is, principally smaller businesses—in order to improve productivity, on the one hand, and to lower their costs and prices, on the others. Therefore, the efforts to that end which have been made in France have been due to sponsoring by the Government or to initiatives taken by trade associations.
I would classify these under four headings. The first is co-operation
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between large groups and smaller firms. I understand that that form of activity has developed along the following lines; that is, the organisation of production, commercial expansion, management, human relations, and social problems. Secondly, there is Government initiative, which has taken the form of starting regional working parties of heads of firms, under the guidance of an experienced monitor, in which the discussion and solution of problems relating to management and increasing production have been aired. Thirdly, there are sub-contract exchanges. Such exchanges have been set up in various provincial cities for the mechanical and metallurgical industries, and these exchanges advise and assist with detailed information on production capacity available within the firms of their members. For instance, specialisation and co-operation between large groups and smaller businesses has been facilitated in that way.
Fourthly, I would come to what I feel is a very important point: Government assistance. This is provided in the form of fiscal and financial advantages to associated firms who have subscribed to an agreement concluded between the State and themselves. To qualify for this form of fiscal and financial advantage, the aims or objects of these associated firms must be market research, sales promotion, the adaptation of one's products to the new market conditions, the granting of a warranty of quality and, finally, those improved managerial methods which correspond to these objectives. I would add that the basis of this joint action is that firms should retain their independence; and I feel that that is true, knowing Frenchmen fairly well and how individualistically-minded they can be—which is borne out if one remembers that around 50 groups of firms have entered into such agreements with the State. The essence of such measures is that they should be of a reasonably temporary nature, and that they should constitute the best means of coping with the phenomena of adaptation.
When the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, spoke on Monday he referred to competitiveness in private industry and said that this had not come about without some help and influence from the Government. However, he went on to say, further, that he would guess that there

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was much more (that could be done and would be done. In one respect I would agree with him; in another, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will consider carefully tile problems of small and medium-sized undertakings which will necessarily arise if, as I hope, we enter the Common Market. My Lords, I feel that this is an important aspect of the general problem. It is one which was considered this morning at a meeting of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, a meeting which I attended, and it is one which they intend to look into very fully.
To end, my Lords, I should like to refer just for a few minutes to a matter which was not mentioned in the Lord Privy Seal's statement of October 10 last year but which was in the one he made at Luxembourg on July 17 this year. It is Cmnd. 1790, and is on the question of transport. Paragraph 7 of that Command Paper mentions the question of transport charges in relation to coal and steel and says that E.E.C. discussions may affect our transport policy as a whole. Therefore, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to refer to two recent decisions which would seem important in this context. First, the E.E.C. Commission has recently submitted to the Council of Ministers a fairly comprehensive action programme, divided up into seven chapters, for a common transport policy. That is not a decision; it is more of a statement: but what is a decision is a recent ruling by the Community's Court of Justice on the necessity of publication or communication of schedules, prices and tariff arrangements. This ruling of the High Court has made it possible, I understand, for the High Authority to take up their work again in the field of transport, because I understand that their work has been held up for the last three years on account of a difficulty in the interpretation of Article 70 of the Treaty of Paris—not the Treaty of Rome, but the Treaty of Paris.
The point I wish to make concerns the transport of coal and of other commodities or products by pipe-line. It is a fact, I believe, that a large number of gas or coal pipe-lines, and also pipelines for the carriage of petroleum products and so forth, are in operation, under construction or being projected in
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various parts of Europe. A few minutes ago the Pipe-lines Bill received the Royal Assent, and I therefore feel that the day cannot be too far distant when we shall be exporting commodities by pipe-line to E.E.C. countries. I know that, for one, the Coal Board (I think it is no secret) are keen on transporting coal by pipe-line, and it may well be that coal could be exported to the Continent by such a means. Therefore I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are now in a position to contribute to the formulation of a common transport policy regarding transport by pipe-line, or whether, till we join the three Communities, we can act only as observers.
As I understand the action programme to which I referred earlier, it proposes to tackle certain problems arising out of the extension of pipe-lines on the Continent. I presume, therefore, that this will be in Chapter V—I saw no mention of it under the various headings; pipelines are not specifically mentioned, but presumably it will be in Chapter V—on
"An approximation of operating conditions and structures as between different types of transport."
In conclusion, on this point I would therefore sincerely hope that development on both sides of the Channel will proceed harmoniously, for it is essential that there should be intelligent planning and co-operation with regard to the development of pipe-lines.
8.48 p.m.
LORD ROBERTSON OF OAKRIDGE: My Lords, I feel that by this time of the night all the arguments for and against our joining or not joining the Common Market have been well paraded, and that the noble Lords who are still here will not wish me to parade them all over again. I feel that I must just state my point of view on the general question briefly, as a prelude to what I really want to say at the end of my remarks, which is something which I think has not been said already. I will state my point of view very bluntly and without much argument, but I hope that noble Lords will understand that I am doing it for brevity and not because I think that the problem is an easy one and that I know all the answers, Which I certainly do not.

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When everything has been said, it seems to me there remains one plain, cold fact, and that is that if we do not join the Common Market, the Economic Community, the Community will go ahead without us; it will succeed without us; and it will grow in exclusiveness, to our detriment, because our voice will not be heard in its councils. That is how it seems to me. Through the ages we have prided ourselves on our insularity. That has now virtually vanished before the advance of modern invention. The strength of our sea power has diminished in consequence for the same reason. Our Empire has gone, not to return, and the Commonwealth is not a substitute for it, as some people seem to think.
So it seems to me that in this modern world these Islands are too small to stand alone. I think the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition said it was a very fine thing to stand alone—and so it is; but if one stands on a burning deck too long the effect is inevitable. I feel that if we try it we shall just become an economic backwater and a political lightweight. I think that the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary said we shall just be an off-shore island, which is much the same thing only a more polite expression. Of course, as Foreign Secretary he has to be careful what he says when the Government are still at the negotiating table, whereas a humble Cross-Bencher like myself can scarcely do harm by saying it. It might even do a little good at a time when so many distinguished gentlemen—men for whom one has great respect, and in one case, at least, coming from my own erstwhile profession—are trying to frighten the daylight out of the Government and to push them in exactly the opposite direction.
Not only do I think that we have to enter Europe, but my own opinion is that we made a mistake in not accepting the invitation to go into Europe when it first came to us. In 1951, when the European Coal and Steel Community was set up, we were offered the leadership of Europe on a plate; I am sure of that. Germany had only just regained he sovereign independence and escaped from the clutches of the military governors; France was distraught. The other countries were openly saying that
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they would like Great Britain to join the Community and to take the lead. But no; we were too haughty. The leaders of industry and commerce in the country looked down their noses and said, "It will never work", and the great Departments of State shook their heads and said it was much too difficult; and our political chiefs, with great respect to them, were far too busy with two General Elections following swiftly one after another to pay much attention to this difficult problem. And so the offer was not accepted and the chance was not taken.
The offer that comes to us now is a very different one. We are not offered the leadership of Europe specifically—I repeat, specifically—but I will come back to that at the end of my remarks. Of course, as the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition said, we must not rush at it. Festina lente was another expression which was used. Certainly we must not rush at it; but if we wait another ten years the offer that we are likely to get will be a great deal less palatable, I think, than the one that we have in front of us now. That is how it seems to me.
Of course, we must not consider just our own interests. As the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, said, we are entitled to think of our own interests. Of course we are; but we must not think only of them. We must think also of our friends and their interests. Australia, New Zealand and Canada are the best friends we have in the world. We cannot possibly, of course, afford to lose them, and we must see that their legitimate interests are not gravely damaged. And it is very right that at this time there are very close negotiations going on over in Brussels, and in those negotiations we must be firm. Of course we must be firm and see to it that these interests are properly safeguarded. We must be firm, but not, I think, unreasonable. As the Daily Telegraph so rightly and timelily, I thought, said to us last week, we are, after all, negotiating not with enemies but with friends, and if we seek to have 100 per cent. guarantees for every interest in this country and in the Commonwealth there will, of course, be no agreement.
We are told that these negotiations may fail, and one accepts that; they

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may fail; but I feel and I submit that we must also accept that if they do fail it will be a calamity for this country. That is, at least, how I feel about it. I should like to join with the many others who have expressed good wishes to our negotiating team in Brussels and to say, as others have said, that I feel very happy that we have been able to field such a first-class team. I have the honour of knowing one or two of them, and I am sure that it is a first-class team under a first-class captain, which gives me hopes in other directions: possibly Ted is a good name for a captain.
But while all this is so, I do not myself feel that it is right to speak of these problems concerning the trading relations of this country with Australia, New Zealand and Canada as if they put the whole of the Commonwealth in peril. Surely it is not quite like that. The Commonwealth—and in this I share the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Citrine—at the present time is in the melting pot. It is very difficult to see what is going to happen in the future, and a lot of wise statesmanship will be required to guide it to a future of permanence and strength, and a lot of care is necessary at this critical time in our dealings with the Commonwealth. But whatever does happen to it or does not happen to it, it is not at this time, and is not likely to become, a rigid trading cartel—not even Mr. Diefenbaker says that—any more than it is likely to be a military alliance. It may be right to say, as Sir Winston Churchill said, that the Commonwealth is buttressed by our pattern of trade within it; but that is not to say that that pattern can never vary. It has varied from time to time in the past and it no doubt will vary in the future.
As to the question of sovereignty and its effect on the Commonwealth, I think that the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary has really dealt with that; but, for myself, I have always felt that anything that President de Gaulle is likely to accept for France is unlikely to cause us much indigestion, either in this country or in the Commonwealth. On the whole Commonwealth question I feel this: that the future of the Commonwealth, whatever it may be, is not likely to be enhanced by an altruistic sacrifice on the part of this country of the future prosperity
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and political influence of Great Britain.
That is my view, which I felt it necessary to state not because I think it very important but because it is a background for what I want to end with. I believe that the biggest difficulty in this matter, the biggest difficulty which we shall encounter if we enter the Common Market (as I believe we must), lies within ourselves and our national character. We have, as I have said, for years prided ourselves on our insularity. That is of much less consequence now, and, in parenthesis, will be of even less consequence when the Government comes off the fence about the Channel Tunnel—Lord Gladwyn is not here, I see! Geographical insularity has vanished in consequence, but the psychological insularity remains.
I give you as an example the behaviour of our troops, Army and Royal Air Force, in Germany at this moment. I am not thinking of the misdeeds of a few young men in the streets of Minden or elsewhere: I am thinking of the attitude of the officers and men of our forces in Germany. With very few exceptions, they hold themselves aloof from the people and life of the country in which they are serving. They imprison themselves in their own insularity and self-sufficiency. Your Lordships do not expect to hear me criticise the Armed Forces—I normally do not do so—but I give this as an example of what I believe is a national characteristic, almost a national philosophy. "I hate all ' wogs ', and they start at Calais "—that is at the back of it, and at the back, I think, of a little of the opposition in this country to the Common Market. I naturally wish it to be understood that I am not referring to anything said in this Chamber.
Moreover, we think that we understand the Europeans, but we do not; not nearly so well as they understand each other. We forget or ignore the fact that these countries have lived side by side through the centuries, with no Channel separating them and with common frontiers, frontiers which have ebbed and flowed, and it is only natural that they should understand each other very well indeed. This is what leads us into being greatly surprised when these countries suddenly come to an agreement with each other, almost, as it were, behind

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our backs, and when we never thought they would do it—and not only come to an agreement, but make that agreement work.
My Lords, I feel vary strongly on the subject. These things must change if we are really to make a success of ourselves when we enter the Common Market. I hope that the Government are thinking about these things and are prepared to give the country a lead. In these days we never do anything unless the Government give us a lead. I know that the Government are planning the consequential measures that it will be necessary fox various Ministries to take to implement our agreement to enter the Common Market. We are told that they are planning a campaign, when agreement is reached, to put the whole of the facts before the people and to get the people behind them. That is, of course, a very right and proper and necessary thing to do; but I hope that the Government will go further: I hope they will speak to the people in no equivocal voice, and will point out to them that this is a turning point in our history, and that we really have to reorientate our philosophy as a nation, if we are going to make a success of it and of ourselves.
Not only must the Government do this. The great political Parties will be having their meetings in a month or so, and by then it may well be that the basis of an agreement will have been reached. If they feel that that basis is satisfactory, I hope that they will say much the same things to their followers. Of even greater consequence is the T.U.C. I listened with great attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, had to say about the attitude of the workers to this matter. There is no doubt that there is much scepticism and a great deal of reserve among them. But I believe that if their own leaders, men like the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, will put the real facts to them, and tell them that this is a turning point in our history, the workers will readily accept the logic of the facts. That goes for my old friends, the railwaymen, who are among the most sceptical of the lot at the moment.
That is what I particularly desire to say to your Lordships to-night. To sum up, I feel that if we are going to join the
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Common Market, as I am sure we should, we shall have to learn to become good Europeans. We shall have to learn to speak as Europeans, not as "they" but as "we". If we do that, I feel very sure that there is before us a future of increasing prosperity and that politically there is a future before us of a leading position in Europe and in the Commonwealth.
9.5 p.m.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Longford has asked me to take his place at this point in the debate, and this I gladly do. Many of your Lordships who have taken part in this debate have indicated the public confusion that exists to-day over the problem of the Common Market. No doubt confusion does exist. At one time there was a complete lack of information concerning the Common Market, but to-day we can almost complain that there is too much. But all the information that is circulated is intended to promote preconceived ideas. My own view is that, whatever may be the merits or demerits of Britain's joining the European Economic Community, the reasons for the nations of Europe joining that Community are not hard to find. For generations they have suffered from nationalism, trade barriers and distrust that left a legacy of hate that culminated in two great wars.
As the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, said a few moments ago, Britain had an opportunity of taking the leadership of Europe at the end of the war, when the nations of Europe not only felt the need but had the deep desire to get closer together. We did not accept that leadership. At that time many thought that the Common Market and the association of the European nations could not succeed. Well, so far they have given indications of success. I know that it is easy for us to job backwards, but we have to remember that the traditional attitude of Britain over the years, to prevent the emergence of any one, single dominant Power in Europe, must have had some influence upon our attitude at that time. Probably in the light of the circumstances at that time it might have been right for Britain not to jump into the Common Market.

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As more than one speaker has indicated and as the noble Earl, Lord Home, made clear in his speech to-day, the economic and industrial conditions of this country have changed radically. We have now a highly industrialised economy geared to a larger population than that of the 50 million of these islands. In the days since the end of the war, recurring crises over our balance of payments have given clear indication of the need to widen the area for the sale of our goods. In close geographical proximity to Britain we have the European Economic Community, which offers a market of 170 million people. The attraction does not lie in the possibility of exports to those 170 million people, but in the fact that it provides the necessary wider basis for our own industrial economy.
I recognise that many of my friends who oppose the Common Market argue with some force that outside Europe there is a great potential of nations with great populations who need the goods that Britain can produce. I make particular reference to the emergent nations. According to the critics of the Common Market, they offer opportunities for the development of export trade greater, in the ultimate, than those of Europe.
We have all recognised, as has been expressed many times in this House, the need for providing assistance and aid to the under-developed countries. We recognise that such aid is in our long-term industrial interest. At this moment, however, those nations offer little or no opportunity for substantial development of trade with this nation. I have had the opportunity on many occasions over past years of visiting many of those countries, often in the hope of being able to stimulate and develop trade. Until it is possible to secure a substantial economic development of those nations, trade in any substantial quantity is not possible, because trade is a two-way operation. It depends upon what they can sell as well as upon what we can supply.
This House has, quite rightly, devoted considerable attention to what, to my mind, is the major problem in all this consideration of the Common Market, and that is the Commonwealth—the Commonwealth that is rooted in the
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British sense of things deeper than anything presented by trade and all its possibilities. We have to ask ourselves at this point in time whether the Commonwealth offers a ready-made alternative to the Common Market. Can we, indeed, describe the Commonwealth as an economic entity that would provide Britain with a basis for an expanding economy? If the answer is, "Yes", and then we should have seized the opportunity long ago.
From the figures of trade, which I shall not weary the House in presenting, we see that Commonwealth trade is, indeed, a substantial proportion of British export and import trade. There is, however, something that we must observe about these figures as compared with the figures of trade with countries within the European Economic Community. Unfortunately, the figures of trade with the Commonwealth have shown a steady decline over the past few years. The figures of trade, both import and export, in countries of the European Economic Community have shown a slow but steady increase. It is also clear, and we must recognse it, that entry into the Common Market would disturb the existing preferential trade system Which was created at Ottawa in 1932. But the Common Market apart, even if there were no consideration of the Common Market, it is doubtful whether this system has any great future. In the post-war period, the percentage of Commonwealth trade covered by preferences decreased steadily. In 1948, between 54 and 56 per cent. of our imports from the Commonwealth benefited from preferences. By 1957, the figure had fallen to 47 per cent.
Another aspect of the problem which we have to recognise, in consideration of the Whole question of Britain's entry into the Common Market, is the fact that both Canada and Australia, two members of the Commonwealth, will have need to develop their own manufacturing industries behind tariffs and that, at the same time, it will not be possible for Britain to absorb all the commodities that the Commonwealth can export. Even if we were able to develop a new concept of a tight entity of Commonwealth trade, to which some of your Lordships have referred, I am positive that it would not be, and could not be,

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acceptable to the Commonwealth. At the same time, lit is only right that this House should have clear recognition of the fact that it is indefensible to regard Commonwealth relationships solely on a trade basis. The links constitute a much deeper attachment and, to my way of thinking, are rooted more in a political than in a trade concept. The noble Earl, Lord Home, has referred to the danger of presenting to the country the alternative of Commonwealth or Europe. If by any mischance this problem was presented to the electorate as one of Commonwealth or Europe, there is no doubt whatever what the public answer would be.
In the consideration of all these matters, I wonder, frankly, whether our British negotiators—and I, too, have personal knowledge of at least one of them who is a capable economist, with whom I was associated many years ago and for whom I have the greatest respect—recognise to the full, and express it in powerful arguments to those with whom they are negotiating, that Britain has as much to give as to get from the Common Market. I often wonder, as I am sure many electors wonder, whether the negotiations have been bedevilled by the extraordinary anxiety and haste on the part of Her Majesty's Government to find both a carrot and a whip to solve our economic problems. I hope that that is not the case, but I am quite sure that there are many in industry to-day who believe, probably wrongly, that the Government are actuated by those considerations and would appear to demonstrate it by their extraordinary anxiety to bring the discussions to a rapid conclusion.
I recognise that, as many speakers have indicated, the Common Market is no automatic solution for our ills. Entry into the Common Market would merely intensify the changes that we would have to make industrially and economically in any event. I believe that many of the difficulties which have been expressed in newspapers and by speakers throughout the country over past months have been grossly exaggerated. I know that there are great problems. One outstanding home problem is that of agriculture—and I speak as one who is a director of an organisation which probably has the largest farming interests in Britain,
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farming no less than 34,000 acres. We are quite conscious of all the problems that will result from participation in the Common Market, but we believe that those problems can be solved, and solved satisfactorily.
The question of sovereignty, which has been raised, is one that I simply cannot understand, because I see nothing new in restricted sovereignty. Indeed, I recognise that this country cannot pursue any independent trade policy, particularly in consequence of its obligations under G.A.T.T. Similarly with regard to defence, communications, currency and fisheries—all are restricted under treaty obligations. That is my non-legal approach to that problem.
There is, however, one aspect which deserves the attention of our negotiators. That is, how far we can be sure that the decisions that are made by the supranational authorities are truly democratic. We, at least on this side of the House, are particularly concerned with that aspect of the problem. That leads me to what I regard as an important point. How far does the Common Market offer benefits, as it obviously should to be successful, in terms of a higher standard of living for the ordinary people? How far does it offer protection for the consumer that ensures that the consumer secures the benefits that can be created by closer association with the European countries? The evidence is that in the European Economic Community, consumer interests have gone by default.
Over recent months, I have had close association with German co-operatives, and I have learned much of their reaction in that regard, to which, with your Lordships permission, I will presently refer. But at a time when Her Majesty's Government are declaring an increasing interest in the consumer I think it would be as well to have some declaration of protection of the consumer under our association with the Common Market. I make particular reference to the Molony Report, which states:
"The biggest question-mark hanging over consumer affairs is the possibility of the United Kingdom entering the European Common Market."
Quite recently in the issue of June 23, from which I quote, a German Co-operative publication, Der Verbraucher, has

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this to say in making reference to the fact that agricultural marketing regulations under the Common Market are being drafted in such a way as to cause price rises in bread, bakery goods, eggs, poultry and pigmeat. A fortnight earlier the same journal had drawn attention to the probability of substantial increases in the price of rice. In many cases, so it stated, prices of rice are expected to go up by at least 10 to 20 per cent. The German consumer may face a 35 to 40 per cent. price increase, if not more. I quote:
"Clearly, these regulations reflect the voice of the European Economic Community farmers' organisations rather than that of the consumers!"
If I have, to give added weight to that—and I do so not in opposition to the suggestion of entry into the Common Market but because of the need for protection of consumer rights—I quote from a speech made but a few months ago by Dr. Mansholt, the Vice-President of the E.E.C. Commission, When addressing the first conference of consumers' organisations. It is exceedingly interesting to read his speech. This is what he said:
"… the consumers "—
that is, the European consumers—
"were not well organised, as far as their representation within the Community was concerned. Consequently, they were not in a position to defend themselves against endeavours which were contrary to their interests."
Dr. Mansholt went on to state that in the first three years since the Treaty had been signed
"the consumers had hardly enjoyed the advantages of the Common Market, in price reductions, which should have resulted from the decrease of duties, abolition of quotas, and rationalisation. On the other hand, he said, the producers did not miss any opportunity to attempt to make their influence felt by means of price agreements, cartels and monopolistic ties."
My Lords, that is the position in Europe to-day; an indication that monopoly interests are becoming dominant. Yet, in spite of that, it is only fair for me to say that the German Co-operative Movement, recognising all these dangers, recognising the necessity for those in their organisation to fight against these interests, would welcome the association of Britain and the support of the British Co-operative Movement in urging our own country's entry into the Common
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Market; because, in spite of difficulties that exist at the moment, the possibilities are great.
I mention this merely to indicate the dangers that we feel are apparent in the present organisation of the Common Market, and I would hope that Britain herself, in the negotiations, and after the negotiations, would be quite conscious of the inherent dangers that can lie in organisations of that kind. I sincerely hope that Her Majesty's Government would not be associated with a Common Market created solely for the interests of monopolies. Speaking personally, I welcome any move that will break down trade barriers and create a closer unification of Europe. I recognise, too, that Britain cannot live alone; and neither can the Commonwealth. But we must not consider the Common Market as a funk-hole for a beaten and perplexed Government. I believe (that we should approach it rather in the larger sense, with recognition that it does offer opportunities of greater expansion and development of our own community.
I believe there are two fundamentals that must influence the attitude of our negotiators. The first is that Britain can give as much as she can get; and, secondly, I believe, and I should hope, that in all these negotiations, trade conditions and considerations apart, Britain will recognise the emotional basis of our attachment to the Commonwealth The concept of co-operation with Europe is in keeping with my philosophy, and I believe that a Britain associated with the Commonwealth, and retaining her Commonwealth links, could make a far greater contribution to the European Economic Community than a Britain bereft of such links. As more than one of your Lordships have stated, Britain cannot opt out of the mainstream of European development, and I believe that this is our opportunity. Let us make sure that, in seizing that opportunity, we make our true contribution in the sense of our recognition of democratic responsibilities in our association with the Market.
9.26 p.m.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, before I start off on filling one or two holes, I should like to say something which, to my surprise, has mot been said before. Many of us have lost some of

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our greatest friends and our relations in two world wars, As Omar Khayyam says:
"Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best"
I think if the dead could rise again now and see that Teuton and Frank have buried the hatchet they would say. "We have not died in vain". It is a remark able change on the European landscape.
I speak as a farmer and a retired economist, though perhaps I ought to say, as so many real economists are here, that I only taught the subject. The farming of this country has been transformed since 1947. Previously to that it was in decline for well over a hundred years. It is interesting to me that in 1846 a Conservative Government repealed the tax on imported corn, and it was not until 1947, apart from periods of crisis and war, that a Government under the Labour Party began the rehabilitation of British agriculture from top to bottom; and I think great credit is due to the Government of which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who is here to-night, was Leader, that that initiative was taken in that particular way, because it was not a way which is peculiarly a Socialist way. It was supported by all Parties and the Conservative Party have continued, extended and improved the measures in support of British agriculture.
I can still, however, point to land which has not been ploughed since the Crimean War and still other bits which have not been ploughed since Napoleon. The naglect was very great and it was largely in favour of the creaming of virgin lands in a way which would be regarded in this country now as arrant bad husbandry. The United States, as I understand, have mismanaged their land in such a way that an area one-and-a-half times the size of England has been eroded and made useless. That is dust bowl husbandry.
I personally have never thought that it was prudent even in our own interests to encourage that form of husbandry which plunders the earth. As we have reached such an advanced stage of rehabilitation of the farms of this land, it is a puzzle to me why people are afraid of joining a Community in which French farmers predominate as the farming community, because the French have protected their farmers from the time of
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Napoleon to this day. Why farmers should fear to come under the auspices of the French, when I think they would be 20 per cent. in the Community instead of 4 per cent., is a very great mystery to me.
Moreover, I do not understand what the National Farmers' Union is objecting to in general terms. It seems to me that if we let the French have their way—that is, if our negotiators let the French have their way—they will get a higher price level (that is what all the propaganda and argument is about) than we think proper. They may even make the Community largely self-sufficient in agricultural products. I understand that has been stated as the fear. Why should we English farmers object? There may be all sorts of objectors, but I cannot see why the farmers should be among them. I hope that this effort to stop the Community from being self-sufficient in agriculture will not be carried to a point Which brings us below the rewards to agriculture which we have had in ten years or more—fifteen years—of Labour and Conservative Governments. I do not think that any decision could possibly be based on what is best for British agriculture, but I merely put the point that I have been unable to see why representatives of British farmers should be anxious at joining a farming community which is largely French, with all that long history of protection.
It is quite obvious from what has been said in this House to-night, and what has been said elsewhere, that much of the particular form of help which the farmers get in this country it is politically impossible to continue for ever, even if it is necessary to keep up the price. Nobody minds if there is a threat to set an ad valorem duty on a Volkswagen that comes into this country, but here we have to go cap in hand for deficiency payments and grants every year, and every year it is a political issue; and the tradition of this country is cheap food. Therefore, I foresee (and I think it was clearly implied in what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Home) that we are not going to get this continued help if we are not in the Common Market. Therefore, I hope it is perfectly clear to all farmers in this country where their bread and butter lies.

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I have just said that what happens to our farmers in this country cannot be a decisive factor. We are 96 per cent. an industrial country. Therefore it is a question of what is good for the rest. So much has been said that all I would do is to call attention to two points. Our industrial prosperity seems to me to depend more than almost any other country's on what is called the balance of payments, equating our exports and imports. To the best of my belief, we have been in recurring difficulties on the subject since the end of the First World War. There was that business of reparations, then there were the return to the gold standard in 1925, the "economic consequences "of Mr. Churchill, the gambling, the excessive optimism, the abandoning of the gold standard in 1931, the system of free imports without free trade put to an end in 1932, the traditions of a century abandoned. We have been in chronic difficulties over this because we have not a large, stable home market. That seems to me the basis of the trouble.
But I wish to reinforce and support what the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, said. I happened to be teaching economics between 1931 and 1936, and I did my best. It was the worst possible period of our industrial history in modern times. I came to the conclusion that the evil of mass, prolonged, urban unemployment was greater than the evil of war. We have had two terrible wars, but that was a period where a man might not get a job, when he was 25, 26 or 27 years of age and had never had a job, and that was true of many whole communities; one has seen them propping up lamp posts. I have often thought, after that, that this is the worst scourge in this country. We have avoided famine; we are not poor or hungry; but we have suffered some of the consequences of war and we have suffered the devastating, soul-destroying periods of mass unemployment. That seems to me the factor which should determine our going in—is it advantageous for the equitable management of regular employment?
I was wondering whether, in order to reassure the sensitiveness of the trade unions, the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, might be adopted, that something should perhaps be added in Article 117 where it talks
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of assuring living and working conditions and equalisation in an upward direction. It mentions living and working, but it does not mention that scourge. I think that every legislator ought to have up in front of him, in letters of fire, an adaptation of Milton's famous line: "They do not serve who only stand and rot".
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am most interested in the noble Earl's speech and the period to which he refers. It must be remembered that from 1931 until the war broke out there was grave unemployment in this country and all these balance-of-payments difficulties occurred. Agriculture was left to rot then terribly, while the same kind of deflationary method that some people want to-day in this country was pursued. Might I also point out that since the war the Labour Government started a policy of full employment and an assisted agriculture, and the result has been that the balance of payments has been greatly helped to the extent of £400 million to £500 million a year by British agriculture production saving imports.
THE EARL OF IDDLESLEIGH: My Lords, I should like the noble Viscount to know that we who normally sit on the Cross Benches realise very fully the great work that was done by the Labour Government.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: I am extremely gratified that the noble Viscount has been pleased with anything I have said on this subject, as it was he, after ail, who opened the debate in a speech which was, to my mind, a tour de force of emotional vigour and which has really made this debate, because there are not so many others who have agreed with him, on the whole.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I have got one beside me though.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: I am in support of the Common Market. There is one matter which I should like to mention with regard to the Dominions. I have noticed in most of the speeches in this House and in most of the Press that what people mean when they use the term "Commonwealth" is Canada,

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Australia and New Zealand: most of them do not think of anything else at all. I think that altogether there are 47 members, and the members they mention are the rich. They are the countries with the highest standard of life on this planet to-day. I am not against the rich. May the rich prosper! As a hill farmer I always say that my prosperity depends on the vale farmer being really prosperous. I am not against the rich; I like them. Nevertheless, I think that the time has come—and they also have been moving towards it with great deliberation, not thinking too much of us—when they will be independent.
I should like to read the inscription at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbour:
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
"The wretched refuse of your teeming shores.
"Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, to me."
That is not particularly good poetry, but as a sentiment its magnificence resides in the fact that it has been fulfilled. That is what has made the greatness of the United States. I always think of the United States as the firstborn of our many beautiful daughters, and I rejoice accordingly in her strength and greatness. But it is through the open door that she has become prosperous. But take Canada, Australia, New Zealand and such countries as the Argentine and Brazil. What is their attitude to the man who comes to the door? He has to prove that he is rich and healthy, and has something behind him.
I do not think that any of these countries will follow and reach the destinies of which they are obviously capable
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unless they have a more liberal policy. Only one of them, so far as I know, is entirely free from race prejudice—I refer to Brazil, for which perhaps the greatest future of all lies. It is a country of 50 million, in the basin of the Amazon, which could perhaps accommodate a thousand million, so great are the possibilities. Nevertheless, unless this is done in Australia and Canada at a greater pace they will be left behind. It is not our affair, but I believe that they have reached the point of coming of age, and cannot be tied to our apron strings. There is another part of the Commonwealth which is extremely poor and of which one third, I suppose, goes to bed hungry every night.
I see the possibilities in the Community, and not in any other way, so far as we are concerned, of an expanding economy such as we had when we were the leaders in the 19th century of a continual expansion of exports over imports—and I know of no other way of helping people. The balance is then lent and is invested, by one organisation or another, so producing an investment in capital development—dams, and all those things which are necessary to get these new nations launched. They then become consumers and buy more. I see that Article 129 provides for a development fund which I think is intended for that sort of purpose. But what obviously is necessary is either some form of Marshall Plan or Point 4, which only the Americans are doing. But that is something we should do for the benefit of those we have launched on independence in Africa and Asia. We ought still to be their mother. They need it. I do not really think that the mature white Dominions do. They have gone their own way, and may they prosper! My Lords, it is getting late, and I will not continue.
9.45 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, to a certain extent this debate reminds me of the philosopher's cat. Your Lordships will remember the saying that the philosopher is like a blind man in a dark room, looking for a oat which is not there. I think that the Continental Powers of Europe are like blind men in a dark room looking for a cat which is not there yet, but which is expected. This is not surprising. When a lot of people are getting together to try to work out What is likely to happen in the future, and What can be made of the future, this is the natural situation. When you are building from nothing, all men are blind, all rooms are dark and all cats are absent. But when we in this country see a collection of our friends together in a dark room, looking for a cat Which is not there yet, I think that the least we can do is to go in and help them look for it.
I attended closely to and took fully the point of what the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary was saying about the distinction between the Treaty of Rome, which is there—anybody could read it; we know roughly what we are talking about—and the future developments towards political union, which are only beginning to be talked about, and we are not even in on the talks. If I interpreted the Foreign Secretary aright, in the first part he said that at the moment the negotiation's rested on the interpretation of the word "reasonable" Which is used in GATT and other economic international organisations. This is natural enough. It is the sort of thing that negotiations do rest on at any given day at 6 o'clock in the afternoon and it makes it difficult for one to debate too concretely on negotiations in progress. One can only say—at least, I can only say—that I think the Government is right to be doing this, and that when it makes its report to the nation the nation will decide in the usual way whether it thinks the terms are good enough to go in. I hope that they will be good enough for us to go in.
But I think it is clear to everybody in Europe Who has thought about this matter that the Treaty of Rome is only the first stone in an edifice which as yet has no shape. Something is going to be built in Western Europe. It is
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not as if there were no precedent. The history of the Western world is full of small units which fused to make bigger units. I think something can be learned from what has happened in those cases. One thinks at once of (the creation of the State of Germany, out of tiny princedoms. It was first a customs union, exactly as we have now; later there was the growth of the German Empire as we remember it, punctuated three times by war. Germany was forged in war. Again, Italy is a fusion of tiny princedoms, based on various attempts, less successful, at a customs union, but again born in war. The United States itself, the Federation of the American States, emerged out of a war. The precedents are hopeful, in that there are now living Federations on those places which had tiny units; but they are also depressing, as the normal midwife of a close political union is battle.
We have to think carefully about this. There are so many sorts of Western European union that we could have—a mere customs union; the twice yearly meetings of heads of Government, as General de Gaulle has proposed; a confederate structure, a federal structure, or even a super State with Pan West European parties, so you would have one Socialist Party for which you could vote in any constituency from Sicily to the Shetlands. I think myself that we shall probably have all of them in order, one after the other. It would not be a bad thing. It is a most attractive prospect.
But let us, before we do anything else, think of the Martian in his saucer. He has heard on the interplanetary news bulletins that there is talk of a unified Europe, and he comes closer to have a look. He sees Europe, which is a complicated feature sticking out between two seas—fertile, heavily populated, bristling with industry, with transport systems. He then thinks that these earth men are quite right; that this place is crying out for a bit of political unification; that they could well have done it before. There is ice in the North, in the South the sea, in the West a bigger sea, and in the East mountains and deserts. It is an obvious unit. Then, when he gets into a little closer communication on the local radio, he finds that this is not what we mean at all. We

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do not mean Europe up to those mountains and deserts in the East. We mean Western Europe, stopping half way at a medium-sized river called the Elbe, in the middle of a flat plain and south of that at some gently undulating wooded country in Central Germany.
I think the Martian goes home puzzled: "Why do they unite only up to there?" We know the answer well enough, of course. We have to live with the political and military facts of life as well as the geographical and economic ones. But, although Western Europe is a convenient political unit, it is not a natural unit at all; it is not a natural geographical unit; it is not a natural economic unit. It is simply a unit fortuitously defined by the line where two great military machines met each other in 1945.
We have to look rather far ahead on this one. What is our long-term hope and policy? Is it victory over Communism in war? Obviously not. Is it a perpetual stalemate, lasting for centuries and centuries, without any softening of the political struggle and without any reduction of the military threat? We hope not. What is left? Surely one thing only, and that is that the two sides in the cold war should simply get bored with the struggle between capitalism and Communism and go on to the next thing, whatever that may be. We do not know yet. It is another cat which has not arrived in the dark room. To our noble and Christian predecessors who began to sit in this House, it was intolerable to think that Jerusalem should be in the hands of the infidel. It still is, and many of your Lordships are still Christians; but we do not now worry about that any more. We have simply become interested in the next thing. And so it must be with this struggle between Communism and capitalism, if we are to survive. Everything we do now ought to be reconciled with this distant aim—and it is distant; and nothing we do now ought to make it more difficult for East and West to grow out of the present perilous deadlock, just as Christendom and Islam grew out of it 500 years ago.
How do the political and military potentialities of the European Community square up with this long-term
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overall need? A single Federal State of Western Europe, a United States of Western Europe, is a rather seductive idea to us, while to the Americans it is absolutely irresistible. If we were to adopt it in the long run, it would justify their whole history. They would be able to feel, "You see, we were right all along. Our way of doing things has been proved the best, even to the countries we ran away from in order to do it ". It would be like the boy whose father first of all disapproved of his wearing hipster pants, and who a year or two later, found the father himself wearing them.
This thing has a very strong appeal to the Americans. The Americans want us to have a really close union in Western Europe for three bad reasons and one good one. The toad ones are: first, because they did it themselves; secondly, because it might finally put an end to the Franco-German wars in which they keep getting mixed up; and, thirdly, because it might strengthen NATO. My Lords, I say that these reasons are bad because the first refers to the eighteenth century, the second refers to the last war, and the third refers to the next. Whereas our political purpose should now be to find peaceful ways of living in the twentieth century.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, but is the noble Lord in favour of not strengthening NATO?
LORD KENNET: It seems to me that the military capacity of NATO is, in most relevant fields, two to three times greater than that of the opposing bloc. I believe that we could rest easy for a moment on strengthening NATO absolutely.
The good American reason for wanting us to have a close union in Western Europe is that our British presence in a closely united Western Europe would act as a bridge between the United States and the Continent of Europe and would tend to prevent a polarisation in economic and political affairs between the Continent and the United States. This is obviously desirable. For this, and for various other reasons, I hope that in time we shall come into a very close union in Western Europe, even a Federation. I see no terrors in that. The Comet and the Caravelle, and Euro-vision, have already made it extremely difficult not to go in that direction.

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But—and here I come to the point—let us leave hooks out for the Yugoslavs, and the Poles, and the Czechs, and the Russians. Let us remember that we have no right to talk of a European Community; only of a West European Community. I was very interested in what my noble Leader, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, had to say about the German and French utterances in favour of a European Community stretching up to the Urals. I think he saw these utterances as a suggestion that in the course of time Communism might be rolled back to the Urals and you would get a capitalist democratic union from the Atlantic to the Urals. This idea is, of course, of almost unspeakable danger. But, equally, if we were to think of the world as it would be after disarmament and after a German settlement, such a Federation would, on the contrary, be a profoundly beneficent thing for the people concerned and for the rest of the world too.
Let us, above all, keep defence out of the Western Europe Community which we are about to build—and I believe that we are about to build it. We already have an alliance, and (with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn) a very strong Alliance. Let us keep defence there where it belongs. There is no reason to suppose that our military affairs will be better conducted if we have a sort of two-tier system, as the French dream of at the moment, consisting of Germany, France and Italy and ourselves on top, and a sort of milling plebs of Norway and Turkey and the rest in the second tier. Such an arrangement would do nothing to reconcile the inherent contradictions of weapons of mass destruction in a small crowded Continent, about which I bored your Lordships last week. At its best, it could only infuriate the outsiders; at its worst, it might make much more difficult the German settlement and the disarmament settlement, which must be our first aim, as surely as getting to a doctor must be the first aim of a very sick man. In fact, military needs are already affecting the Common Market. I believe that the marked lack of interest shown by the American and British Governments in the proposals for a zone of disengagement in Central Europe, which the East have once again been
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making, may have something to do with securing German intercession with France for acceptable terms on which this country could enter the Common Market.
All that is necessary to keep defence out of a Western European Community, and to keep it in NATO, where it belongs, is a decision to do so. There is no law of politics which says that if a supra-national Community is to be built, even if a Federation is to be built, it must have a common defence staff, common armed forces, a common strategy, or a common defence policy. It will have what it is given, and it is quite possible simply not to give it those attributes. We in this country, especially, have experience of working Constitutions where defence is a reserved subject. It is difficult to see immediately why it is any easier to reserve defence upwards to the Colonial Government than it would be to reserve it, as it were, both downwards and upwards to the constituent States in a European Community and to a wider alignment of States than that Community—namely, NATO.
To buttress the peaceful nature of the Western European Community which I hope we shall build (because in these days weapons creep into everything, unless you stop them), I hope that we shall do all we can to bring EFTA neutrals, and other neutrals, into as close a relationship with Europe as France and Germany will permit. I say "France and Germany" because the Americans are as keen to keep the neutrals out as they are to get us in. I think this is a short-sighted part of American foreign policy—a hangover from the age of massive retaliation, when Dulles said "It is immoral to be neutral ". If Sweden, Austria and Switzerland (and it is good news indeed that they are making their first statements to the Community) can be brought close in, and Finland and Yugoslavia, too—and why not, because we do not have to ask the Russians' permission about this?—or nearly in, it will do a great deal to forestall the increased military rigidity which one may otherwise fear.
Let us have a strong and peaceful Western European Community, and let us leave the defence, as I say, in NATO, until the day when we can dismantle

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NATO and the Warsaw Pact, following on a disarmament agreement. At that time, let us make the Western European Community truly European. In the meantime, let us make this Community the embodiment of the Europe which builds the cathedrals and the bridges, not the Europe which knocks them down; of the Europe which studies man, not the Europe which burns him and gasses him; of the Europe which can fly a drug to a sick child in an hour, not the Europe which can fly 20 "Hiroshimas" to someone else's city in an hour.
I do not think we need worry unduly about the Commonwealth. Whatever butter we eat, and whoever eats their butter, the New Zealanders will still talk English. In 40 years' time I should like to see this country no longer the special consumer of the white Commonwealth's exports, but the special university of the whole Commonwealth, white, brown and black equally. The Britishness of the Commonwealth, which we all value, does not reside in tariff preferences, not even, I think, in law. It resides in the English language, which is an instrument of understanding. If we do not use our Britishness for that, we can have no pride in it; and if we do not use our Europeanness for building and healing, we can have no pride in that either.
10.2 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord who has just spoken has won in recent times a reputation as one of the most thoughtful Members of your Lordships' House, and I should like, if I may, respectfully to congratulate him on the speech he has just made. He said something which I did not quite follow, but I think perhaps that was because I misunderstood it. He said that many Members of the House of Lords were still Christians, but that we do not bother very much about that nowadays—though I may have that wrong.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, my point was that many Members of the House of Lords are still Christians, but they do not bother very much about Jerusalem still being in Moslem hands.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Perhaps I ought to be bothered more than I am
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about Jerusalem being in Moslem hands. But, to be candid, I do not bother about it; and I daresay that it does not keep other noble Lords awake. At any rate, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord on the Whole speech, now that I understand it perfectly. Of course, I should like to congratulate all speakers; and if I single out the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, it is merely because he is the leader of so many so-called European aspirations. I would take the unusual course, too, of congratulating all those who have stayed to listen. I think that really represents the highest art of all, the divine gift of perseverance.
I feel in a certain difficulty, because it would be impossible for me to pretend that I am (in total agreement, or even in partial agreement, with the speech of my noble Leader, whom I revere in a way which, through modesty, he would perhaps hardly recognise. But I cannot be said to be in total or even partial agreement with his speech. I sought inspiration, in trying to explain my point of view to him, from a book with which I know he is much more familiar than I am—namely, the book of Ecclesiasticus, which I think he knows by heart or, at any rate, a great deal better than I do. I think this sentiment from it might possibly help me in replying in advance to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee:
"Where older men than thou are met and wiser, take thou thy place and give thy whole heart to their teaching. Old tales of God's wonders thou shalt hear, and sayings of much renown."
I have listened to some old tales which are not in all respects relevant to the problem with which we find ourselves confronted.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: One of the follies of youth.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I stand to be corrected, but, if I may, I ask the noble Viscount to take note of this sentence also, which comes in his favourite book:
"If a poor man would speak to thee, lend him thy ear without grudging. Give him his due and let him have patient and friendly answer."
If the noble Viscount is precluded from answering me himself tonight, I have no doubt that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will take that up tomorrow. But I am consoled by the thought that other very

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senior noble Lords of my own Party have addressed us—the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, the noble Lord, Lord Citrine—and their speeches must be put, at any rate, against those of the noble Viscount and of the noble Earl, if he takes the line we expect of him tomorrow.
It seems to me, my Lords, that we have had an altogether friendly debate. I think Sir Winston Churchill once referred to a certain Election as a demure Election—not as a term of praise—and I suppose there has been very little disagreement today. I do not think anybody has, as it were, dragged the Roman Catholic Church into it. But I am glad of that, because at times there has been a fear among some Members of the House that the Treaty of Rome was especially associated with the Pope. I would gladly accept any amendment Which had the effect of turning it into the Treaty of Canterbury, but it is perhaps a little late in the day. However, I am perfectly ready for that. I know there is some feeling, which may be justified, that the Pope has had something to do with the appointment of the manager of the British team to Australia; that of course may be true. But I speak with an almost infallible knowledge, when I say that he has bad really nothing to do with the very complicated economic issues which have been explained to us so clearly by the noble Earl, Lord Home.
It seems to me, my Lords, that there are two main issues before us. One is an issue of principle, which was in fact before us last year, and noble Lords who have spoken will not think I am disparaging them if I say that many of (the speeches today have confirmed and developed (shall I say?) arguments that were, in fact, highly relevant last year and are relevant still. Obviously the whole question of whether this idea of the European Community is an elevated one, and whether we ought to desire to find an association with it, is in itself a major issue of principle. I will say a word, but only a word, about that at the very end of my speech.
There is also the question which has arisen during the last year, and especially during the last few weeks: the question of the precise stage that the negotiations have reached. Here, if I offer thoughts, they are my own thoughts and
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may have no especial validity, but I feel that those who believe as intensely as I do in the desirability of our entering the Common Market have a certain duty at this time to make plain where they stand in regard to what we understand to be the present state of negotiations. But on my general attitude, I have really very little to add to what I said last year, when I said that I was 100 per cent. in favour of our joining the Common Market—and one cannot, I suppose, be more than 100 per cent. in favour of joining something. If that were intellectually possible, I would adopt that stance but, at any rate, I stand in that matter Where I stood. But if we take the present state of negotiations, it is obviously not enough for us to say, "I am in favour of the Common Market," and then leave it to someone like the admirable Mr. Heath and hope for the best. He has, I think, earned the admiration of everybody by his labours, but I think it is only right to offer just a few thoughts about the present situation.
It seems to me, my Lords, that negotiations are obviously at a critical stage. I feel rather happier today than I did when I came here, because the noble Earl, Lord Home, did not allow any note of crisis to creep into his speech. Therefore, I think it is reasonable to assume that some of us, in reading the Press over the weekend, have perhaps overestimated the dangers of the situation. But, surely—and this was brought out in one way or another by various speakers: certainly by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn—nobody expected such a complex and varied operation to be carried through without a moment of crisis of some kind. It would be inconceivable, I suppose, that the whole thing could go smoothly through without any danger of anything that looked like a break at any time. Certainly the Six themselves, in their own negotiations, relating both to the Treaty in general and to the agricultural arrangements last winter, have been through such crises and have survived them. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, will bear me out there.
It would be very feeble on our part automatically to assume that an approach of crisis indicated an approach of failure. At the same time, we must, I suppose, standing here, outside the intimate details, but listening and reading

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as we can, envisage the possibility that the terms which the Six are prepared to ofler for temperate foodstuffs might in our view be inadequate. They might not be sufficient, in our view, to enable us to discharge our obligations to the Commonwealth, and we must accept that possibility, if we are forced to break off negotiations for a time. I should like to say as strongly as possible that, in my opinion, if that were to happen it would be a tragedy. It is what I feel one must say at this stage. It is, of course, no good saying that we should accept anything presented to us, sign it on any terms. But that is not the situation; and if it is our conviction, as certainly it is mine, and the conviction of most Members of this House, I fancy, that it would be a tragedy——
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: It may be to my noble friend a tragedy, but Mr. Gaitskell, in the broadcast to which I referred earlier today, said that if we found that we could not go into the Common Market it would not be a disaster.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I do not think everybody would agree, with exaggerated respect to my noble Leader——
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: And Mr. Gaitskell.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD:—that would equate that view of Mr. Gaitskell with the view of my noble Leader, or would see any resemblance between the view of Mr. Gaitskell and that of my noble Leader. And if my noble Leader, with his great responsibilities, is prepared to divert in one direction, I may, perhaps, with my smaller responsibilities, be allowed to divert in the other. Mr. Gaitskell has said that, on balance, it would be a good thing to enter the Common Market. I cannot, therefore, equate my noble Leader's point of view with the statement of the Leader of my Party.
LORD GLADWYN: It might be a tragedy, but not a disaster. A tragedy and a disaster are different things.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am grateful for that synthesis in this difficulty of reconciliation: the noble Lord,
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with his years of displomatic training, has come to the rescue of the Labour Party.
It would certainly be a great shock to business opinion if the negotiations were broken off. It would be a psychological shock to the whole country if they were broken off for any length of time. It would lead, as I would think, to a period of turning into ourselves. We should begin by blaming foreigners, assuming that all the fault was theirs, and priding ourselves on our innate wisdom. I personally should suppose (I do not know whether or not Mr. Gaitskell would agree with this) that the whole West would be facing a decade of mutual recrimination. We should blame the Six; some of the Six would blame us, and some of them would blame one another. To take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, it would certainly be wonderful news for Mr. Khrushchev and to everybody who wished this country ill. The United States would probably also come in for their share of blame. We cannot tell what effect it would have on their policy, but it could not have a good effect in any way.
It is difficult to suppose that it would draw us closer towards the Commonwealth if, as a result of trying to meet the wishes of the Commonwealth, we felt compelled to destroy the chances of an agreement which was recognised as being to the advantage of this country. I can hardly believe that it would do anything but harm in the long run to our Commonwealth relations.
If we look at what has happened, particularly over temperate food, which is very much at the centre of our minds, we may reflect that Imperial Preference has existed only for thirty years— the noble Earl, Lord Home, put that in perspective very well it seemed to me—and during the whole of that time it has been steadily reduced at the wish of the outer Commonwealth countries themselves. The average Preference of British exports was 12½ per cent. in 1937 and is now down to 5 per cent., and in large parts of the new Commonwealth it does not exist at all. It seems to me at least likely that, even if the Community had never been heard of, Imperial Preference would have died of its own volition by 1975.

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What is a matter of importance, of course, is the level of agricultural prices within the Community. If they are very high they obviously maintain a lot of inefficient producers—the Foreign Secretary set all that out with great clarity this afternoon—and though that would be to the advantage of British farming it would not for the unfortunate producers overseas, and would affect the level of food prices everywhere. The crucial thing, of course, is that the Commonwealth should develop a fairly low level of agricultural prices, and I see no reason why they should not he obtained; but I do say, speaking as one who yields to no one on the idea of our joining the Common Market, that clearly there are conditions which must be satisfied, and it cannot be certain as we stand here that they will be satisfied without any suspension of the talks. I hope they will, and I pray they will, but one cannot be certain they will. But it seems to me that, even if the negotiations have to be temporarily broken off, we cannot fail to achieve success this year if we are really determined on the objective.
I have paid, I hope, proper tributes to those who have achieved vastly more than I have for this country and for the Labour Party, particularly the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and my noble Leader beside me, but I must point out that this is something desired by those much younger than they are or than I am. There are in the Labour Party today two very strong movements, one associated with the aim of nuclear disarmament—and I shall say nothing about that tonight as it has not at the moment, perhaps unfortunately, any champions here—and the other the Campaign for Democratic Socialism which has received the patronage of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and has done so much to establish among the young a firm and patriotic foreign policy supporting the defence of the West.
In conclusion, my Lords, I would quote one or two sentences, certainly not more, from the last document issued by the Campaign for Democratic Socialism, because it is, on the whole, representative of all that is best among young Socialists, if we leave out for the moment the nuclear disarmament movement. This is what the writers of this document say:
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"From its inception the Campaign for Democratic Socialism has been firmly in favour of Britain joining the Common Market."
They comment at the end of this particular manifesto:
"If we are socialists,"—
this has reference to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth—
"we can hardly be deaf to the conviction of every Socialist Party in the Six that the Common Market is a spur to social progress, or to their unanimous desire to have us in."
Note that, my Lords: the "unanimous desire" of European Socialists to have us in the Common Market. They go on:
"If we are internationalists, we can hardly believe that a fastidious determination not to soil our English hands with the dirt of the Continent is a suitable progressive posture for the end of the twentieth century."
That is the point of view of young Socialists who have done more than any group in the Labour Party for Socialist aims in the Party in the last year or two.
I feel certain that those people who believe in world government, which must be the aim of all of us, will find it very difficult to disagree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord McNair. He pointed out that if we really believe in the establishment of an international police force, and if we really believe in the establishment of an effective world authority, it is very difficult not to agree that the European Community is a step in that direction. I said this last year, and on the next day the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, replied, sweeping aside, if I may say so, these arguments. If the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, whose words are followed all over the world, is to speak to-morrow, I hope that he will reply, if not to me, at any rate to the noble Lord, Lord McNair. How can he really convince anybody who follows the argument that, if one believes in world government, one should reject the European Community? I recognise that there are many shades of emphasis, but in the last resort, faced with these complicated economic difficulties—and I am certainly not saying that we should accept everything we are offered—the question is: do we believe that this is a great ideal worth pursuing, or should we prefer to see the negotiations fail? This, in the last resort, is the only question which faces us.

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I have no doubt that if we are determined, as I believe we are—and as, indeed, I believe the majorities of both the great political Parties in this country are—then, in the words of Sir Winston Churchill, we have only to persevere to conquer: but it will not be the conquest of any other human beings; it will be a conquest only in the sense that it will be the achievement of a partnership—a unique partnership of infinite value to this country
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and to Europe; and an untold promise to the Commonwealth and the whole world among generations yet unborn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(The Lord Chancellor)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes past ten o'clock.