FOREIGN AFFAIRS

§ Mr. Denis Healey (Leeds, East)

One striking feature of yesterday's debate was the wide extent of agreement between both sides of the House, which, I think, is reflected in agreement on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, that the danger of war in Europe is receding and there is a growing possibility of reconciliation between Russia and the West, at least in so far as the security of Europe is concerned, in co-operation on some form of arms control.

On the other hand, the danger of war outside Europe is patently growing. In fact, war is a reality in many parts of the world. At this very moment British troops are engaged in fighting in Borneo 1287 and South Arabia and in recent months they have been fighting in Cyprus and East Africa; and American troops are heavily committed in fighting in South Vietnam. I think that we must all admit that this is bitterly contrary to our hopes. All of us believed that Britain's military commitments overseas would be reduced by the end of our old Empire and the creation of an independent Commonwealth, but, in fact, the military burden falling on us has, if anything, increased in recent years.

I have myself, during the last few weeks, had the opportunity to see British troops fighting in the forests of Borneo and among the crags of Southern Arabia. Like everyone who has seen them there, I have been impressed more than I can say by their gallantry, courage, patience and good humour. But it is right that we should ask the questions: why are they still fighting there; and what legitimate purpose do we serve by asking our young men to make these tremendous sacrifices?

Two answers are commonly given to this question: first, that our troops are overseas to protect Britain's national interests; and, secondly, that they are overseas to prevent the advance of international Communism. In my view, neither of these answers is fully adequate. If we look at the argument that our forces are protecting our interests overseas in the narrow national economic sense, I think that we should learn, from the events of 1956, that it will be rarely right or possible for Britain, or any other country, to use forces on foreign soil simply to protect its economic or commercial interests.

Moreover, I think it highly doubtful whether, if we define interests in this narrow economic or commercial sense, the value to our country of the present system under which we obtain oil from the countries around the Persian Gulf and obtain tin and copper from Malaya is really sufficient to justify the enormous cost of our overseas military capacity. If the protection of our economic or commercial interests there were our only concern I think that we might well decide that it would be wiser to rely wholly on diplomacy to win consent for the retention of our interests in foreign countries, because we might well discover 1288 that the losses we would risk by relying solely on diplomacy would probably be less than the cost of maintaining a military establishment overseas at anything like the present level.

The other argument which is often used to justify our military presence overseas is that we must retain our base in Aden, or in Singapore, and large military establishments which go with it, to fight the advance of international Communism. At first sight, this is a more plausible explanation. We see at the present time the use of force by Communists in Laos and Vietnam to extend their territorial control, but in Borneo this is not the problem we face. Nor was this the problem we faced when British troops went to the independent Commonwealth countries of East Africa last January.

If we are honest we must admit that many of the conflicts in Asia and in Africa in which we have been called on recently to intervene have nothing whatever to do with international Communism. They arise out of the political instability which is an inevitable consequence of the revolutionary changes now sweeping the continents of Africa and Asia and which may shortly be spreading also the continent of Latin America. Many of these conflicts have nothing whatever to do with Communism. They arise, in some cases, out of the legacy of imperialism and in other cases out of local power politics. The conflict between Algeria and Morocco, the conflict in Ruanda between the Hutu and the Watutsi, the conflict between the two communities who live on the island of Cyprus and between India and Pakistan over Kashmir—in all these conflicts, and hundreds of others like them, Communism is not a major factor.

At worst, Communist parties or Powers may wish to exploit the instability, but are not themselves the prime cause of this instability which is so common and which, alas, in many parts of Africa and Asia, seems to be increasing rather than declining and presents a major danger to world peace. I believe that it presents a danger to the Communist Powers no less than to the Western Powers.

The idea that international Communism is the problem which we face 1289 in Africa and Asia is a nonsense from the start, because, as the Foreign Secretary pointed out yesterday, Communism internationally is no longer, as it once was, a single monolithic bloc. The solidarity of the Communist world movement has been shattered beyond repair and the process of distintegration will go a great deal further before it is finally halted. We all in Britain, I think, have accepted, and a large part of the American people have also accepted, the fact that polycentrism, as it is sometimes called, is a reality in Europe, a reality which, in many respects, produces a more favourable situation for world peace, a reality which we can seek to encourage although we should not seek to exploit it overmuch.

But this polycentrism is no less a reality for Asia, too. Every single Asian Communist Party today is split in the ideological struggle between Moscow and Peking. A few days before I arrived in Tokyo the Japanese Communist Party split and a courageous member voted for the Test Ban Treaty. Even those Communist Parties in Asia which sympathise with China in the international Communist schism show themselves extremely reluctant to accept subordination to China in the conduct of their national policies. Even the Communist Parties of North Vietnam and North Korea, which support the line of Mao Tse-tung in the great ideological dispute, have shown themselves most unwilling to accept the Chinese view on how the ideological argument with the Russians should be conducted.

For this reason, in those parts of Asia where Communism is clearly at work, subverting institutions of the non-Communist world, it would be a mistake to assume without evidence that that Communism is centrally directed from Moscow or even from China. There is much evidence to suggest that even the Vietnam Communist Party, although it holds heavy responsibility for Laos and South Vietnam, is not acting as a satellite of Peking.

In this respect, I think that we might take some warning from the recent revelation of the Yugoslav Communist, Mr. Djilas, that during the Greek civil war of 1944 and 1945 the Soviet Communist Party was, in fact, trying to hold the Yugoslav Communist Party back and that the main external sponsors of the revolt were in Belgrade rather than in Moscow.

1290 I believe that the real justification for the British military presence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East is that Britain can make an indispensable contribution to the stability of these great continents, a contribution which, at the moment, no other country in the world is capable of making, certainly in the vast area between Suez and Singapore. The presence of British troops in these areas in itself can act as a deterrent to local conflicts and can reduce the risk of war; and if war breaks out, the commitment of British troops can prevent avoidable human suffering and, above all, can help to prevent a small war from turning into a large war in which the world Powers become directly engaged.

I suggest that we have not only an interest but an obligation to make a contribution in this field, above all because we are a key member of an international Commonwealth which has important members in these continents, many of whom are bound to us by treaty. The interest which we are satisfying by our presence in these areas is not only a British interest, not only an interest of the local peoples, but an interest of the whole world.

If I may be permitted a digression—this struck me very much during my recent visit to these countries—when we offer a country such as Malaysia assistance against external aggression, we are not simply fulfilling a juridical obligation. In this case we are protecting a society which, in Asia, is a shining example of human welfare and racial co-operation in striking contrast to the country which at present threatens it. In this sense we are performing a human responsibility as well as a national and juridical one.

But if this is the real justification for our presence in these continents, if our rôle is essentially peace keeping and a contribution to international stability, as I believe it is and as, I think, right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite believe it is, then we are performing a rôle which is at least as worth while as, and in my view infinitely more worth while than, any rôle which we have performed in these continents in the past. But we must accept that it raises problems with which we are totally unfamiliar and in which our imperial 1291 tradition can give us little guidance. Inevitably, when one travels among British troops in these parts of the world one finds impatience and frustration at the limitations imposed on British action.

Before I come down to detailed cases I should like to offer some tentative general thoughts on the nature of this problem. First—and I do not think that anybody can deny this—if British troops operate in these Asian-African areas, we can do so only with the consent of the local peoples. We could not, even if we wished, any longer impose our will on these peoples as if they were still British Colonies. Moreover—and perhaps this is more difficult to accept—we shall very rarely find ourselves in a position to decide an issue ourselves. Our rôle is to provide support for independent Governments, and the success of our contribution will depend primarily on their ability to meet the challenges which face them. If they fail, there is nothing that we, or for that matter the Americans, can do.

I agree very much with what the Foreign Secretary said on his recent tour, and, if I may say so, I found that he had left the most happy and favourable memories behind him in Tokyo and Manila. I agree very much with him when he said that only Asians can find solutions to Asian problems. I hope that he will agree with me, too, that only the peoples of the Middle East can find solutions to Middle Eastern problems.

On the other hand, if we assume the responsibilities of this peace-keeping rôle not for selfish national gain but as a contribution to international stability, then I think that we can justifiably claim certain rights to go with our responsibilities. We must be able to give advice to those whom we assist. We cannot unconditionally commit ourselves to act as a police force if we have no part whatever in decidinig the laws which we are upholding.

This is particularly important if, as I hope will very rarely happen, we are called on to assist in keeping internal order, because if ever British troops find themselves committed to preserving internal order in a foreign country they must be satisfied, and the Government 1292 who send them there must be satisfied, that the order which they are protecting is a just one.

The other general point which I should like to make is this: when British troops fight in Borneo, or perform a rôle in Africa or the Middle East, they are operating not just on behalf of Britain, or even on behalf of the local people, but on behalf of all those who have interests in stability in the area. I think that we also have the right to demand the relevant co-operation from those other Powers which have interests in the area the stability of which we are seeking to preserve, whether those countries are, as in the Far East, Australia and New Zealand, or, as in the Middle East, America and Western Europe.

Nobody who has thought about these problems or has looked at them on the ground can deny that the problem of creating the right political framework in which to operate is one of daunting complexity and difficulties. For this reason, as well as for many others, I believe that whenever possible our operations should take place within a United Nations context and under United Nations auspices, athough we must accept that in many cases we shall have to act first in response to a request and seek later to construct the framework of United Nations support which will enable us to stay there, as indeed we did, although in the view of this side of the House belatedly, in the case of Cyprus.

Moreover, I think that it will usually be in our interests to encourage cooperation on a regional basis between the local powers. As the Foreign Secretary said when he was in the Far East, the concept of Maphilindo may prove to be very fruitful in helping to end the conflict in Indonesia and Malaysia. I believe, for example, that many of the problems in Indo-China might be rendered easier to deal with if the Mekong Valley development scheme could be got under way.

Unity among the Arab peoples would be a most valuable contribution to stability in the Middle East and one which we should always make it our aim to encourage. The problem is one of great complexity. Our rôle essentially is to create the conditions of peace in 1293 which others can seek political solutions, not to find, still less to impose, a solution ourselves. The major responsibility must always lie on the people of the area themselves.

But, besides the contribution which we can make towards creating stability in Africa and Asia, Britain, as a world Power, has certain opportunities to ease problems by seeking agreement with other world Powers, above all with Russia, to assist in achieving stability in these continents. This point has been made before, but I return to it because I am more convinced than ever of its importance.

If the great industrial Powers of East and West could get together and agree on limiting their arms deliveries to the countries of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, they would make an enormous contribution towards a reduction of the instability which now torments those continents. It seems to me that it is a criminal diversion of scarce resources from the battle against poverty to encourage the local Powers in Africa and Asia to enter upon a spiralling arms race against one another, whether Egypt against Israel, or Indonesia against Malaysia. I hope that either the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary will be able to give us his views on this issue.

I believe, also—I think that there is no disagreement between the two sides of the House on this—that it is very desirable to try to reach agreement with the Russians that neither they nor the West will seek military advantage from the political changes which are inevitable in Africa and Asia. We had one such example of a neutralisation agreement, though it was rarely recognised as such, in the agreement between Russia and the United States over Cuba in 1962. As I understand that agreement, it involved an American undertaking not to try to overturn the pro-Communist régime in Cuba by force, in return for a Soviet undertaking not to try to take military advantage of the existence of such a régime in Cuba. The only other example we have so far is the agreement in 1962 on neutralising Laos, to which I shall return in a moment or two.

However, if we are honest, we must admit that Russia's power to decide what happens in the Far East is now very limited. The key to any great Power 1294 understanding in the Far East is some sort of understanding between the West and Communist China. I admit that the isolation of Communist China today is partly self-imposed. Nevertheless, the Chinese quarrel with Russia has given us opportunities for improving our relations with China as dramatic as those we all recognise it has given us to improve our relations with the Soviet Union. It is a great mistake to assume that everything the Russians say about the Chinese in their ideological argument is true. Much has changed in the Soviet Union since the death of Stalin, but one thing which has not changed is the totally dishonest and unscrupulous nature of inter-Communist polemic.

If we look at Chinese behaviour and compare it with Soviet behaviour, we are struck by the fact that the only obvious risk of war between a Communist Power and the West was that taken by the Soviet Union over Cuba in October, 1962. China, on the other hand, has conducted her relations with the West with extreme care. She has not even laid a finger on the Portuguese colony of Macao, which is right inside her own territory.

We must do our best to establish more normal diplomatic relations between the West and China. I believe that the time is long overdue when the Communist régime should take China's seat in the United Nations. I realise that this feeling, which, I think, is shared on both sides of the House, still causes deep revulsion in the United States, but I believe that many Americans are beginning to recognise that, whether they like it or not, their position on China and the United Nations is likely to become untenable in the next few years. It is not too early, even though we disagree about this question, for us to consult with our American allies on some of the contingent issues which will arise if the United Nations votes to elect Peking to the Chinese seat, particularly the right of the people of Taiwan to self-determination and a revision of the structure of the Security Council to take account of the tremendous changes in the world since 1944, when the United Nations Charter was first drafted.

After these, I hope not too boring, general comments, I turn to the central problems which threaten peace today, the 1295 problems of the three Indo-Chinese States, the confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia and the problem in South Arabia—all areas which I have been fortunate enough to visit in the past few weeks. I realise that my acquaintance with these problems is of necessity very superficial, but I have been rather heartened to find that even experts who have lived in the areas for 30 years disagree with one another about the solution of them, so perhaps an attempt at a disinterested outside judgment may not be entirely without value.

First, Indo-China. On both sides of the House, we all hope that it will be possible to neutralise Cambodia and Laos. We should use all our possible influence to this end. I believe that there is no disagreement about this between the Foreign Secretary and hon. Members on this side. But it is very difficult—I confess this to my hon. Friends—to apply the same solution to Vietnam at this time. In the first place, it is very difficult to apply a Laotian solution to Vietnam if the Laotian solution is not seen to work, and, at present, the neutralisation of Laos is still very much an uncertainty.

Secondly, we must accept that Vietnam presents a problem of unique difficulty. Incidentally, the uniqueness of the situation in Vietnam should be warning against assuming that what happens in Vietnam must necessarily set a pattern for what happens in other parts of Asia. Vietnam has a large and old Communist Party, the leaders of which were trained mainly in Moscow and France, not in China, a Communist Party which has been totally committed to guerrilla warfare for the last 20 years, first against the Japanese, then against the French, and then against the Government of South Vietnam and their American supporters.

It is a Communist Party incredibly skilled in all the tactics of guerrilla warfare. For example, when I was in the Mekong Delta, I heard of its guerrillas talking down an American helicopter, a type of problem which, fortunately, we have never faced in our experience of guerrilla warfare. It is a guerrilla movement which is extremely well led by General Giap who, one must confess, is one of the outstanding 1296 guerrilla leaders of all time. Moreover, Vietnam is a country artificially divided by international agreement in 1954.

The central problem in South Vietnam is to win the confidence and support of the local population. It is now universally admitted, I think, that, under the Diem régime in South Vietnam, appalling errors, both military and political, were committed, and the price was paid in full after the inevitable fall of the Diem régime last autumn and the capture of almost two-thirds of the country by the Vietcong guerrillas in the administrative chaos which followed the end of the Diem régime.

My impression, from a very short visit during which I visited two of the so-called "new life" hamlets, one near Cambodia and the other in the Mekong Delta, is that many of the mistakes made in the past have now been corrected. In particular, the "new life" hamlets, or strategic hamlets as we used to call them in Malaya, are now being established intelligently, by persuasion. Hamlets are not being established until the security of their inhabitants is totally guaranteed. The troops do not move on from one hamlet until they and the local population are quite satisfied that its inhabitants can afterwards fend for themselves.

There is no doubt that the very rapid decline in the situation which followed the collapse of the Diem régime was slowed down considerably in March on the adoption of the new pacification programme. I believe that the decline can be stemmed and reversed on one condition, and that is that the South Vietnam Government continue to offer their people a simple, consistent and patient policy, roughly along the existing lines. It is impossible at present to say whether the policy is being successfully applied. We shall know better in the autumn. But, certainly, the United States can do no more.

If I may say so, I thought that it was an extraordinary ungracious slogan which the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) used yesterday, that the Americans are leaving all the chores to the British and keeping all the plums to themselves. No one who has seen the way the American soldiers are facing the problem which faces them in 1297 Vietnam can doubt that the Americans are making sacrifices in this field certainly comparable with any which so far we have been called upon to make. Certainly, the United States can do no more. The essential responsibility now for the situation in Vietnam lies with the Government in Saigon.

Now, if I may pass to Malaysia and Indonesia, here we have a totally different problem. The Federation of Malaysia was set up by the consent of all the peoples concerned, a consent which was verified by the United Nations' mission. All the territories in the Malaysian Federation are healthy, thriving societies. Co-operation has been achieved, to a degree which many would never have conceived possible, between the Malay and Chinese peoples and the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak. Singapore, I think, presents an example unique in Asia in democratic socialist government, achieving standards of housing and welfare for its population which many European countries would envy, and we have a secure base in Singapore with the full consent, given again and again, of the local population.

The problem which faces us in Borneo today is very unlike the problem in Vietnam. There is a flagrant violation of an international frontier by forces of the Indonesian regular army. Incidentally, the irregular forces which the Indonesians sent in have proved so incompetent at their task that, I understand, a larger and larger proportion of Indonesian regular forces is now being committed. It seems to me rather extraordinary that an admitted violation of a frontier by regular armed forces should be accepted with such equanimity by so many countries in the world.

Nevertheless my impression was that the small number of Malaysian and British troops now engaged in protecting that frontier do have effective control of it, although 10,000 men are trying to control 1,000 miles of mountainous forest, and so far there has been no internal response of any consequence to the Indonesian attempts to subvert the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak. Indeed, there is some evidence that it is the strain on the Indonesian forces at this time which has persuaded President Sukarno to call for a Summit conference and he is attending the one now taking place in Tokyo.

1298 I sincerely hope—I think that we all, on both sides of the House, must hope—that President Sukarno will now recognise that he miscalculated the situation in Borneo, and that he is facing there a united population, and that a continuation of the confrontation is no more in the interests of Indonesia than it is in the interests of Malaysia, though I must say that the auguries for agreement were not encouraging when I was in Borneo.

The day I arrived there was an incursion of between 70 to 100 Indonesians into central Borneo, and I believe that there has been another major incursion since. Here again, I think that it is just conceivable that the outside Powers, by supporting the concept of Maphilindo, particularly in supporting the concept of a Maphilindo economic development plan, might perhaps provide an incentive for co-operation between the three local States which would help to overcome their political rivalries.

If I may, I should like just to make a brief comment on the military situation, though I promise the Secretary of State for Defence that I shall make it very short and, I believe, not very controversial. As I said earlier, I think that the courage and ability and patience shown by the Malaysian and British troops in this situation is well-nigh incredible. I think that we have learned certain lessons from Borneo which we could well apply in any war of this nature. One lesson, which I know the hon. and gallant Member for Norwood (Sir J. Smyth) would agree about, is the supreme value of Gurkha troops in such a situation. I say no more about that. The second is the quite exceptional value of unconventional forces such as the Special Air Services, the eyes and ears of the Army. I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will consider expanding this force considerably.

Thirdly, and perhaps most important of all, is the crying need for helicopters. One of the local commanders has said that one battalion with helicopters is worth a brigade without them, and, if anything, it seems to me that that is an understatement, because in this type of country one can travel at 60 miles an hour in a helicopter but can only travel one mile a day without it. Quite frankly, it would be a waste of time putting more is evolving very fast; something, let me 1299 needed, unless one can provide them with helicopters at least on the scale on which they are provided at present in Borneo, although I would say that scale is still inadequate.

One of the lessons which I think one learns in South Vietnam and also in Aden is the irrelevance of expensive sophisticated weapons in this type of war. Even the replacement of the Javelins by Lightnings is likely to present a problem of control in Borneo which would render these highly sophisticated aircraft almost useless. If the Secretary of State for Defence is right, as I believe he is, in saying what he has so often said, that the main weight of Britain's military efforts should now be overseas, the balance of our arms production requires very substantial correction compared with the type of production we organised when we saw the main problem as the defence of Europe.

Finally on Malaysia, a political point. Tremendous efforts are being made by the Indonesians to win over the tribes in Sabah and Sarawak and to subvert the Chinese population, and there is also in Sarawak a very formidable clandestine Communist organisation of about 800 to 1,000 members who have recently been receiving military training from the Indonesian army in Kalimantan. I believe that Malaysia has nothing to fear from confrontation by Indonesia so long as the local peoples in Borneo get fair play and equal treatment. If they get fair play and equal treatment there is no danger of subversion by the Indonesians, and I have every confidence provided that this is achieved. Unpleasant and disagreeable as is the task of defending Sarawak and Sabah from incursion it is a tolerable one, and it is a duty we must perform as part of our responsibility to a Commonwealth ally and as part of our general contribution towards supporting the Afro-Asian world.

I want to deal, finally, with the situation in Southern Arabia. Anyone who travels from Malaysia to Southern Arabia must be struck by the very disappointing situation in Southern Arabia compared with Malaysia. I think that the problems of these two areas are today very similar. In both areas we have separate units of the population, on the one hand, detribalised city dwellers working in a 1300 base area which is totally separate from its hinterland, and, on the other, a hinterland of traditional rulers, Malay princes in Malaysia, tribal sheikdoms in the case of Southern Arabia, but in the case of Southern Arabia, still tormented by many internal conflicts among one another.

A third similarity which springs to mind is that in both cases one has pressure on these political units from a neighbouring State which has nationals in the base areas, Yemenis in the case of Aden, and sympathisers also in the sheikhdoms.

One of the problems that we have all been bitterly condemning in recent months is the tribal conflict inside the States of the Protectorates. The Radfani tribe, against whom the recent operations have been mounted, have resisted administration for 80 years. It is extraordinary to look back on the history since 1882 when the Radfani first announced their unwillingness to accept the authority of the Emir of Dhala.

There is no doubt that in recent months, partly, I think, owing to the inadequate resources of the Federal Government—I believe that the Secretary for Defence now will bitterly regret what he said about the irrelevance of economic questions in a situation like this—many of the Radfani went over to the Yemen because they were offered military training and rifles and were paid by the Yemen out of all proportion to what they were offered by the Federal Government in the Protectorates.

As I say, a military operation has been mounted, and all the evidence is that it is now over. I had the extraordinary experience last Friday of helicoptering up to the top of the Djebel Huriya, which had just been taken by the East Anglians—I doubt whether the East Anglians have ever fought in territory more unlike that where they were recruited—and looking down on almost the whole of the Radfan territory with not a single human being or animal in sight other than, of course, the troops who were occupying the area.

The real test now is that of the political wisdom of the Federal Government and their British advisers over the next six months, and the real test of the wisdom and success of the military operation which has just been concluded 1301 is whether the Radfani now return to their lands and whether they remain loyal when the harvest is over and the British troops have gone. I believe that the military job is now done. There is now a tremendous political and economic job facing Britain and the Federal Government in providing incentives for the Radfani to remain loyal citizens of the Federal State.

The troops have done their job magnificently, but I think that it still has to be seen how far these people can be offered the incentives to return. Nothing is more sad, incidentally, then to stand on the top of Djebel Huriya and look down on the incredibly ingenious terracing of these barren mountain sides and to see the green crops springing up in the fields and not a soul in sight because the whole of the local population has fled and dispersed in fear into neighbouring territories.

I hope that either the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary will have something to say later in the date about the steps which are now being taken, now that the military operation is over, to win the Radfani back. Incidentally, I hope that one of them will comment on the report in the Guardian today that in October last year seven petitioners from the Radfani tribe approached the High Commission or the Federal Government with requests for changes in the constitution, particularly in the relationship of the Radfani to the Emir of Dhala, and that the petitioners were arrested and all but one are still in gaol, and that one was let out of gaol only on condition that his son took his place as a hostage. I really cannot feel that the political aspects of the problem have been handled in the past as they should have been, and I hope that we can at least get some assurances for the future when we get the Government reply to the debate.

I turn to the broader issues of the South Arabian Federation and the Aden base. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) repeated yesterday, we on our side of the House believe on the information that we now possess that the Aden base is necessary to Britain's military rôle in 1302 Africa and the Middle East. The facilities which it now provides could, I suppose, be replaced or recreated elsewhere, but I am very doubtful whether the cost of recreating those facilities would be in proportion to the political and military advantages of recreating them.

Clearly, we must try to keep a military base in Aden, but we must accept—surely we have learnt this lesson again and again over the last 15 years—that a military base is useless without the consent of the people who live and work in it. It is no good at all having a military base if one has to commit so many troops to protecting it against local attack that one is not able to spare any troops to use from it, and, in particular, in the Middle East it is no good having a base if the steps that one takes to maintain it make one's friends unwilling to call on one for military help.

This, I think, has been a real danger in recent weeks as far as Kuwait is concerned, as the Prime Minister will recognise in the light of the statements made by the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister during his recent visit to London. The consent of those living and working in the base area is indispensable to the retention of the base, but what strikes any visitor to Aden is that those living and working there are Adenis, and that the base area is as separated—both Little Aden and Aden itself—from the hinterland as Gibraltar is from Spain.

The key to our position in Aden is the good will of the population of Aden Colony themselves. I myself cannot resist the conclusion that we should have followed in Southern Arabia the path we followed with such success in Malaysia. That is to say, we should have won the good will of the Adenis by giving them self-government as we gave self-government to the people of Singapore, and then, with their good will, we should have sought to construct some relationship between Aden and its hinterland.

The Government, as we all know, took the opposite course. They halted political development in Aden in order to force the Adenis into a federation with the hinterland, a federation of a type which put this comparatively advanced population of Aden under the control of the traditional rulers of the Protectorates. I believe that the main reason why the 1303 Government have called a current conference on Aden is to correct these errors and revise the constitution accordingly.

It seems to me that three steps are absolutely indispensable. The first is that elections should be held in Aden to produce a more representative Aden Government. I was disturbed to find, when I was there last week, that so far only 6,000 people have registered out of the 24,000 qualified to register for the election and out of a total population of 220,000 in Aden Colony.

Secondly, there must be a looser relationship between Aden and the hinterland, perhaps on the model of the Malaysian relationship, so that Aden would be one unit in the Federation and the other combination of the Protectorate States would be a separate unit. A thousand years of history separate the societies of the hinterland from the society in Aden Colony, and it seems to me on my brief acquaintance with the problem to be just as unrealistic to think that one can make the Adenis march at the slow pace of the sheikhdoms in the Protectorates as to think that one can make the Protectorates march at the much more rapid pace of the Adenis in the Colony.

Thirdly, no independence agreement must be reached for the Federation until this revision is achieved, otherwise we shall be doing in Southern Arabia what we did in Zanzibar, where we gave independence to a State where the balance of constitutional authority did not represent the balance of opinion at all. If we take these measures—I am sure that it is not too late—I believe that we shall get the willing consent of the Aden population for Britain's retention of the base. I think that they all recognise that the base is necessary for their prosperity. Many of them feel that it is necessary for their security. One of the striking consequences of recent events is that enthusiasm in Aden, even among the Yemenis, for immediate union with the Yemen is very much on the wane.

§ Mr. Charles Loughlin (Gloucestershire, West)

Will my hon. Friend explain what he hopes to achieve from the London conference when the personnel invited to the conference are sheikhs, sultans and nominated members by the British authorities with no representatives 1304 of the population? How can the London conference achieve anything in the context of the present situation in Aden?

§ Mr. Healey

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition will be dealing with this problem in more detail later this evening. If the Government are not now aware of the feeling of the Aden population, they jolly well ought to be. They ought to take the feeling of the Aden population, as it is being presented to them unofficially by the opposition parties, into account in reaching any agreement in the conference.

The long-term security of the base in Aden—I think that this cannot be stressed too strongly—must depend on the nature of Britain's foreign policy in the Middle East as a whole. One of the most extraordinary remarks I have read in years was one made by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies when he was in Aden a fortnight ago. The hon. Gentleman was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as saying that the British base in Aden was a purely 'domestic matter between Britain, Aden and the Federal Government. He was not interested in what the Arab world or others thought about it. Surely, by now, the Government know that when a colonial problem is solved an international problem is created. It is impossible, especially if one is considering giving independence to South Arabia, to expect South Arabia to remain totally immune from all the currents and tides of opinion in the rest of the Arab world.

The Government's whole policy in the Middle East in recent years seems to assume that the wind of change in Africa stopped dead when it reached the western shores of the Red Sea. The fact is that the wind of change in the Middle East is older and stronger even than the wind of change in Africa. In the Middle East, Nasser's Egypt, whether we like it or not, is as important as Mao's China is important in the Far East. British policy in the Middle East must not be continually distorted, as it has been in recent years, by a guilty jingoism or by the psychological trauma which the Government inflicted on themselves at Suez eight years ago.

It really is an extraordinary fact—I confess that I had not been conscious of 1305 it until I was in Aden—that at one time last year we had no diplomatic relations with any of the States bordering on the South Arabian Federation. I am glad to say that we have restored diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in the last 12 months. We still have none with Somalia or with the Yemen. A basic reconstruction of our attitude towards the Arab peoples is absolutely essential if we are to continue to obtain oil from the Persian Gulf on reasonable terms and if we are to continue to maintain a base in the Middle East. I think that the Kuwait Government see this very much more clearly than the Government in London. Incidentally, in 1961, when we did intervene in Kuwait, we had the support of the Arab League and we handed over the responsibility later to troops from Egypt and from South Arabia.

The political genius of Britain has always been best expressed in our ability to adjust ourselves to change and to accept realities for what they are. If we can apply this genius to the Middle East as we have already applied it in Africa and Asia, then we can guarantee ourselves a central rôle in fighting the great battle against instability and poverty in Africa and Asia and in the Middle East as well. I believe that it is the part we play in these battles which will make Britain once again truly great.

§ The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home)

One of the most agreeable aspects of yesterday's debate was that the House had the pleasure of hearing the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths). My hon. Friend made a speech of real distinction. There was a great deal of original thought expressed in it, with the maximum economy of words. When an hon. Member can achieve that, he will always have the ear and the respect of the House. I would only add that, if my hon. Friend had ever written my speeches, they would have been even better than they were.

I think that the House will agree that we have listened to a very thoughtful review of his Far Eastern and Middle Eastern tour by the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). I was very interested in it, and I do not find that 1306 I quarrel in any way with the analysis that he made of the policies which should be directed towards solving the problems either in Laos or in South Vietnam or as regards the Malaysian-Indonesian conflict.

The House will have been encouraged to have had from the hon. Gentleman as a witness the very encouraging statement that he made about the progress of the multi-racial State of Malaysia. I myself have always thought that a final settlement in this part of the world would be covered broadly by the word which the hon. Gentleman used, namely, "Maphilindo"—an economic and political plan, and perhaps a defence plan, covering the security of that area. The timing of it would have to be extremely carefully worked out, and this is not a solution, I think, at this moment which could probably be put forward with advantage.

I will ask my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to answer some of the detailed questions which the hon. Gentleman put about the Middle East. I have no quarrel with the hon. Gentleman's statement that it is essential for us—and, indeed, for the free world, I would suggest—to retain the base at Aden. Nor would I quarrel with the hon. Gentleman when he went on to say that it is necessary now to find a political settlement which will make that base secure. I think that that is right, and it would be agreed.

I think that the best service I can do to the House is to try to bring together now some of the wider ranging themes which ran through the speeches which were mad; by hon. Members yesterday and by the hon. Gentleman today. When my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary opened the debate yesterday he was able to mark a new flexibility in international relations. All the speeches which followed my right hon. Friend's were consciously seeking ways of escaping the old confrontations of the cold war which have consumed so much of our resources in recent years and have threatened us from time; to time with extinction since the end of the last war.

Our debate—I am glad that this is so—is an extension of a debate which is now being carried on on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and, indeed, far further afield. There are two aspects 1307 of it which, I think, perhaps struck hon. Gentlemen, as they struck me, which are both connected with the contrast which there is between this debate which we hold now and other foreign affairs debates which we have held in either House in recent years.

One aspect of this which has struck me in particular—this was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) and by my noble Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton)—is that it is no longer accurate to talk of an East-West confrontation in terms of two blocs. That is new. Russia is now divided from China and the countries of Eastern Europe are now questioning the right of the Soviet Union to take decisions which will control matters which they consider to be of their own national interest.

The right hon. Member for Smethwick had some experience of this when he visited Roumania. I marked this change almost two years ago when I was at the Foreign Office, and we were able to take certain steps to improve the contacts between this country and the countries of Eastern Europe, with the exception, which he made, of East Germany.

The right hon. Gentleman said that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary had said little that was new, but these two facts are new: that Russia and China are divided and that there is a new flexibility in Eastern Europe. The implications of them are profound for the future of humanity everywhere in the world. Just as significant as this fact is, I suggest, the cause of the breach between the Soviet Union and China, and to that neither the right hon. Gentleman nor some other speakers gave perhaps enough attention. I think that it is partly a physical pressure over thousands of miles of frontier, largely, let us remember, undefended, of a country which has a population which is increasing very fast—China's population is increasing at an Asian rate while Russia's population is increasing at a European rate—and also the proximity to a neighbour which has a history of expansion.

Both these things must be causing the Soviet Union great anxiety, but I 1308 suggest that the change in attitude of the Soviet Union is mainly because the Russian leaders have a new knowledge of what nuclear war means. In particular, they have gained that since Cuba. The Chinese still refuse to admit this, but the Russians have understood now that one cannot risk brinkmanship with nuclear weapons because to do so would be catastrophic. Mao Tse-tung still believes that he can threaten with nuclear weapons, but the Russians know better. And this situation, again, is new and of profound significance to the world.

One of my hon. Friends laid his finger on a point which, again, is of immense significance, because this new interpretation by the Soviet Union of Communist doctrine which has hitherto included the use of force, means just this: that the Russians have admitted that the nuclear strength of the West is a deterrent power and is likely to remain so. The second admission is that in their eyes the scale of nuclear power now commanded by the West has made nonsense of the Communist doctrine, which has so far been a religion of the Russians and Chinese, that force is a legitimate instrument to gain political ends.

If I were to make a long-term prophecy—and I go not very far from the hon. Member for Leeds, East in this—and speculate as to the attitude of the Chinese, I believe that they, in turn, will come to recognise, and recognise before it is too late, that the sole result of a nuclear strike by any nuclear power is immediate annihilation by the second strike of another. That is a fact of modern power, and two things about it are worth noting. First, that that situation will prevail so long as there is a threat and so long as the nerve of the West holds. Secondly, that in any threat by China which might start a nuclear war it is worth remembering, as we look forward, that the interests of the Soviet Union and the West would coincide and would be as one.

I hope that we shall never come to that terrible day, when the Chinese might be tempted to use a nuclear weapon which they will acquire. Far better, as the hon. Member for Leeds, East said, that China should be in the United Nations, that there should be increased contact between the West and China and that 1309 China should be gradually weaned away, as we have weaned the Russians away, from this policy of including force in Communist doctrine [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I think that hon. Members opposite will not quarrel with what I am saying, for it is true.

The right hon. Member for Smethwick—

§ Mr. William Warbey (Ashfield)

rose—

§ Hon. Members

Sit down.

§ The Prime Minister

I will give way, but I want to complete this point first.

The right hon. Member for Smethwick said yesterday that when I spoke of the effect of nuclear weapons and stressed its impact I always stressed its impact on the Soviet Union's thinking but never stressed it on that of the United States. He is mistaken. In another place, in February, 1963, I said: Nuclear power is putting its restraints on national ambitions. Even the giants are not in these days wholly independent. Interdependence is working on them, and if it is true of the Russians and of the United States it is certainly true of us."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords. 6th February, 1963; Vol. 246, col. 607.] I said that also at a dinner of the Pilgrims in the United States. I have said it many times, so the right hon. Gentleman does not always think of everything first.

However, that does not imply, if I may follow up what he said—as I suspect it does in his mind and in the minds of his colleagues—that Cuba had an equal effect on the United States and Russia, because at that time, until Cuba, Russia had been advocating a policy of force and the United States had rejected any such doctrine. At Cuba—and this is the important point to remember—Russia tried to upset the balance of power which was keeping the peace and the United States was determined to retain it. So since the purposes of the two protagonists cannot in that case be equated, I suggest that the effects cannot be equated either.

That leads me to put renewed emphasis—and I believe that hon. Members must make up their minds about this, because I believe it to be true—on the fact that it is the nuclear balance of power which keeps the peace. I say 1310 that because hon. Gentlemen opposite so often give the impression that they want to change the balance between the nuclear and the conventional. Let us say—and I think that this is what they would do—that they would add to our conventional forces. I do not know how they would do it without conscription, but, having added to our conventional forces, other countries—[An HON. MEMBER: "What about equipment?"] I am coming to the subject of equipment—would follow suit. But is that not exactly what other countries did before 1914 and 1939, and is this not the pattern of armaments which failed to prevent war twice in my own generation?

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) said yesterday that if there is a reduction in tension it is not because of benevolence; and that is quite true. I do not know how many serious wars there would not be at present if we had not got the nuclear weapon to deter. In these circumstances, therefore, I feel bound to tell the party opposite that its proposals to discard our nuclear arm and, at the same time, to increase conventional forces would contribute nothing either to avoiding war or to adding to collective security.

§ Mr. Warbey

I should like to follow the Prime Minister's argument that it is the threat of the use of nuclear weapons that has produced a state of stability and the prospect of peace in the world. Has he given thought to the fact that Mao Tse-tung is maintaining his power and, in the view of the party opposite, continuing the threat to the peace of the world, not by using nuclear weapons at all, but by failing to use them?

§ The Prime Minister

The hon. Membe starts with a misapprehension. I have never said that the peace of the world depends on the use of nuclear weapons. What I say is that it depends on their, not being used—on their deterring effect.

I must say that the strangest argument that I heard used yesterday in this connection was that our deterrent is under the control of the United States. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite are apparently willing to discard our Polaris submarines and, in so doing, 1311 hand over the total security of this country to the United States, but they are not prepared to trust the United States to deliver the machinery for the submarines. Not surprisingly, the country finds this attitude very difficult to follow.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe) said yesterday, it really does not matter who makes the weapons; it is who controls them that matters. I might point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition that when he is increasing his conventional forces—tanks, armoured cars, and all the rest—they are, after all, as is every one of our armaments at present, run on imported supplies. Let him remember that.

The point is that our control over our nuclear arm is absolute—

§ Mr. Harold Wilson (Huyton)

This is a very interesting argument. Would the right hon. Gentleman say how many tactical nuclear weapons we control in Europe that are not controlled by the Americans owing to their control of the warhead? Will he give us the number? [HON. MEMBERS: "Security."] There is nothing secret about it. Will the Prime Minister tell us the types of tactical nuclear weapons—which, in his argument, are of fundamental importance—that we uniquely control in Europe?

§ The Prime Minister

As is well known, we operate under the key-of-the-cupboard system for nuclear weapons—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] As is also well known, when we get our Polaris submarines—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]—we shall have our own warhead. I am talking about the nuclear deterrent; the right hon. Gentleman is talking about tactical weapons. If he wants the figure of tactical weapons, I can no doubt supply him with that, but I am now talking about the nuclear deterrent, over which we have complete control and for which we shall have our own warhead—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] That is what I understand the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends are to discard.

The second change that I think the House noted yesterday—perhaps a little less controversial—is that Soviet society is evolving very fast; something, let me 1312 suggest, that those who are hottest to act against other political systems of which they disapprove might do well to ponder. As the Russian people get more, they will want more. What is more, they will be less ready to risk what they have. Therefore, on the evidence before me, I have persisted in my view, put rather crudely, perhaps, that a fat Communist is to be preferred to a thin Communist. These arguments seem at long last to be making some impression on the United States of America. [Interruption.] I did not think that right hon. and hon. Members opposite quarelled with that. I thought that their whole purpose—and in this I believe that we feel the same—is that we should increase trade with Russian, and try to take advantage of the fact that I have recorded that society in Russia is evolving very fast.

The difference, if I may say so—and I believe this to be true—between the Russia of Stalin and the Russia of Mr. Khrushchev is that though one was and the other is a Communist—and we must never forget that—the people in Russia today are able to express their views and wishes. I have the strongest impression that any move by Mr. Khrushchev makes towards conciliation or co-operation with the West, to reduce tension and avoid conflict, will have the strongest support of the Russian people; indeed, that they are urging him on.

This we should mark, and did mark yesterday in speech after speech, as one of the significant features of the new world into which we are moving. Therefore, I welcome the increasing contacts, both political and social, that we are making with the Soviet Union. I want them to be multiplied, and I want them to be multiplied, too, with the countries of Eastern Europe.

Therefore, I feel that the foreign policy of this country—which, for the sake of shortness, I have often described as a two-handed foreign policy, is basically right; strength on the one hand, and conciliation on the other. By strength, I mean total firmness when Communist countries do, or try to do, things they ought not to be doing, and dogged determination to find out, or rather to create, common, ground on which we can agree and co-operate.

The result of the foreign policy of strength is shown, in the N.A.T.O. area, in 1313 which we have not, let us remember, lost an acre or a free man to the Communist countries. There will, nevertheless, be in the N.A.T.O. Alliance arguments as to how many divisions we might wish to put on the eastern frontier of Germany, or what weight of weapons, or penetration of weapons is to be allocated to SACEUR, but those are quite secondary matters.

What matters, and what matters most, is that N.A.T.O. is fulfilling its primary purpose of preventing the invasion and, therefore, the destruction, of Western Europe. The answer to the fuller use of the N.A.T.O. Alliance lies in two things—the fuller use of the Council by the allies and, as I think the right hon. Gentleman indicated yesterday, the fuller use of the nuclear committee both for nuclear planning and targeting and for nuclear matters in general.

To sum up this section of what I have to say, I think that it is the policy of nuclear strength, above all, that is keeping the peace, but that the policy of conciliation is showing results in the marked reduction of tension between the Soviet Union and Western Europe. The House will have marked the contrast between the urgent, strident demands made on the allies on behalf of Germany and Berlin only two years ago—I remember that very well, because I had to sit with Mr. Rusk at a very dangerous time, when Russia was threatening the Berlin Corridor—with the treaty signed the other day with the so-called D.D.R.

There is less tension, too, between the Soviet Union and the United States since the withdrawal from Cuba. The House will have noted that, though the Cuban crisis is only a short distance in time away, the United States is today selling wheat to Russia. We have been able to agree the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty for banning tests in the atmosphere, there is the outer space agreement and the agreement on fissile material. We have been able to develop Anglo-Soviet trade to quite a significant extent and, as I have said, we have been able to increase the official and social contacts between our two countries.

The hopeful thing is—and this is my strong impression—that both in the Soviet Union and in the West we greatly prefer today to yesterday in our new relationship. But, on the evidence before me, I 1314 think it is legitimate to conclude that we are through what I might call the first stage of the trial of strength with this part of the Communist world. A condition of success was that the nerve of the West should hold during the cold war, and it did.

This is no time to weaken the deterrent, but it is time to negotiate, and that, rather than going for the increase in the number of conventional forces all over the world, is the use that I would make of the umbrella of the stalemate of nuclear power. So I claim that we can say that the results of strength and conciliation and diplomacy are with us today, and not the least of the credit for this goes to the British who have played a large part in the N.A.T.O. Alliance.

A number of speeches, particularly from hon. Members opposite, encourage me to say a word about psychological diplomacy when we are dealing with the Russians. We in the West—I think it is worth noting this—are in a hurry for results; the Russian is never in a hurry. I can give several examples of this out of my own recent experience. I have constantly pressed the Russian leaders to tell us what is needed to complete the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, that is to include the underground tests as well. I have suggested to them—I think that this will seem a sensible suggestion to the whole House—that Russian, United States and British scientists should get together to tell the Governments what is required for this purpose. They will not do so; and they will not do so because they are not yet certain that they want it. When the time does come probably we shall have to move with speed, but it is not yet; they take their own time.

It is the same with disarmament. We have come forward with many ideas on disarmament, many of them very reasonable, but so far the Russians have countered them all with the objection that they require inspection—the two right hon. Gentlemen will have found this—and that they equate inspection with espionage. This is an excuse—it is not the reality—and it is, I believe, because, faced with the Chinese, they cannot make up their mind yet whether they want disarmament at all. I judge in this context that, with his problems at home and the difficulties that he has with his friends, Mr. Khrushchev has not a great deal of time to spare at 1315 the present moment for long negotiations with the West, and it would be very unwise, if this is so, to press him. Nevertheless, we must use diplomatic channels to the full and have our plans ready in case the opportunity arises.

Under the general heading of disarmament, and in another field to which the hon. Member for Leeds, East referred, I should like to say a word, because I made a suggestion in a speech at Toronto not long ago and invited the Russians to explore the possibility whether they could not join with the United States and the United Kingdom in joint action to assist the developing countries of the world. I made this suggestion because they are neither members of the International Bank—I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition knew this when he was in Russia. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Well, the right hon. Gentleman did know.

I was going on to say that they are neither members of the International Bank nor are they members of the International Development Association; they are members of neither. I think that it would be a very good thing if they would come into these international organisations and therefore show that they could give disinterested aid to the developing countries.

§ Mr. H. Wilson

While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his interest, I may say that he will find this very fully dealt with in the epilogue to a book called "War on World Poverty", which I wrote in 1954.

§ The Prime Minister

The right hon. Gentleman always remembers all that he has written and all that he has spoken and is always able to produce it at very short notice. I am making here a serious point that I believe that it would be a good thing—I hope hon. Members opposite will not dissent—if the Russians were able to join with the United States and ourselves in these international organisations which give aid.

I shall not dwell very long on the individual possibilities in the field of disarmament, but there again, following the right hon. Gentleman's visit to Moscow, I must say that he is less well informed 1316 than I think he is if he is really convinced that the initiatives with which he returned are new. I read them through and through, and I really cannot find any that are new. I would never belittle any suggestions, but I know the frustrations in this field of disarmament. Let me say that, as far as nuclear free zones for Africa and South America are concerned, this, of course, has been before everybody for a very long time, and there is no obstacle except that the countries concerned cannot agree whether they want them or not. This is true of the Middle East. I am perfectly willing to consider if we can restore in this field some kind of regulation of armaments into the area. We tried to get it once, but Israel and Egypt managed to find ways of buying arms.

Then again, there is the question of the bonfire where we could burn obsolete weapons and, we would hope, be able to add to the obsolete weapons some coming off the production lines; but the difficulty here is that it has always broken down, and this, I think the right hon. Gentleman knows, is because the Russians will not allow inspection, and if there is not inspection in this field we cannot possibly tell when weapons are burned that they will not be replaced from the factory the next day.

There again, if I may take another question which he raised, and that is the earmarking of troops for the United Nations, I would only say on this that, in a way, our British troops are always earmarked in that they are trained and at short notice, up to date, ready to be moved to any part of the world at any moment. Should we agree that the purpose of the United Nations is one that we would wish to see fulfilled, we can immediately supply the Secretary-General with troops on any occasion.

§ Mr. Arthur Henderson (Rowley Regis and Tipton)

What is the objection to Her Majesty's Government following the example which has been set by the Canadian and other Governments, not specifying particular units necessarily, but giving an undertaking, in effect, to the United Nations that a certain number of troops would be available on call without specifying particular units?

§ The Prime Minister

We have told the Secretary-General that there will be 1317 no difficulty about this if he wishes to have troops on any occasion. What I am doubtful about is earmarking in the sense of saying that they will come out of the German theatre or some strategic reserve at home or from some other geographical area. That I am not sure is a good thing to do.

The right hon. Gentleman is interested in this. I think there are two suggestions which are worth following up and which we have been at a long time but, nevertheless, on which I hope there might be progress one day. The first is observers against surprise attack. This is practical. It also has the attraction that it is, I think, the only way to create enough confidence to arrive at the thinning out of forces at some later date. I think that if there were observers in position that people on both sides of the frontier would begin to say, "Why do we need so many troops here for so long?" But one cannot get a definite plan unless one first has observers in position. The difficulty about that is that the Russians equate anybody in East Germany with spies.

On non-dissemination, whatever the real Russian reason is for rejecting non-dissemination arrangements, I think that it cannot be because of the possibility of a M.L.F. at some future date. I think that the right hon. Member for Smethwick agreed yesterday that the only result of the M.L.F. would be that with this proportion of the deterrent one would have more fingers on the safety catch than one has at present. I tried in New York to persuade Mr. Gromyko to go ahead. I believe that we must go to the Russians and ask them seriously to consider non-dissemination arrangements and that if the multilateral force ever came into reality we could fit the multilateral force into the arrangements, because there is no question of the multilateral force disseminating nuclear weapons to other people.

I cannot leave this question and the subject of the United Nations without one reference, and I regret it, to the speech of the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) last night. He accused Britain of paltry, ridiculous, mean contributions to the United Nations. I seldom in politics feel the emotion of anger, and I hoped never to do so with the right hon. 1318 Gentleman, but I feel bound to support the protest of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew), because the right hon. Gentleman was grossly unfair to this country.

The assessment of our contribution to the United Nations is 7.58 per cent. of the total United Nations budget. Except for one item, out of 22, on which the right hon. Gentleman picked, the United Kingdom contribution exceeds what is required of us by a very considerable percentage. It is sometimes up to 15 per cent. The one on which the right hon. Gentleman picked was the contribution to U.N.I.C.E.F., which deals with assistance to children. We cannot feel guilty as a party and as a Government on this when we take into account, for instance, United Nations operations with which we did not wholly agree and when I tell the right hon. Gentleman that for the Congo operation, for example, the United Kingdom produced £10 million and that the total annual contribution of the United Kingdom to the United Nations runs at around £24 million a year.

In the one case on which the right hon. Gentleman picked, I agree that our percentage is 5.2, but when his party was in power the contribution which it gave in 1949–50 under this head was nil. It rose to £100,000 in 1950–51, and then it was reduced to nil again in 1951–52. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] Right hon. and hon. Members opposite cannot possibly fling in our teeth that we are ungenerous to the United Nations, and the most charitable thing that I can say about the right hon. Member for Derby, South is that he had a very bad off-day.

§ Hon. Members

Withdraw.

§ Mr. Philip Noel-Baker (Derby, South)

Far from withdrawing, I repeat that a country like Great Britain, which is the second richest in the world, ought to be setting up much higher standards for other nations. Many of the contributions which I quoted last night, like the £35,000 for U.N.E.S.C.O. for education in Africa, are a shameful sum. I believe that the Prime Minister is quite wrong in saying that our total contribution is £24 million; it is £12 million, and much of that goes towards 1319 liquidating responsibilities which we had in the past. The sum of £2 million goes to help Arab refugees. Who ruled Palestine for 30 years?

§ The Prime Minister

With all respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he has his figures wrong. The 12 million that he is quoting are 12 million dollars and represent the contribution which we made under the United Nations bond system. The annual sum which we expend towards the United Nations budget is £24 million or thereabouts each year.

There is only one other subject arising from speeches made from the benches opposite yesterday on which I should like to say a few words, and that is the question of South Africa. Our emotions on this side of the House—and I ask hon. Members opposite to credit us with reasonably human emotions—are just as deep and just as concerned as theirs with the enforcement of the policy of apartheid under arbitrary laws. But when we come to ask what in addition to what we are doing in protest we can do, I find myself very largely in agreement with the right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson). I do not believe that we should employ sanctions, and for the reasons which he gave. I hope that his Front Bench will be as explicit as he was. [Interruption.] I am glad to hear it. I am glad to know that the Socialist Party does not believe in sanctions.

§ Mr. H. Wilson

Is the right hon. Gentleman talking about economic sanctions?

§ The Prime Minister

When they talk about an arms embargo on South Africa, I beg hon. Members to remember, before they commit themselves, that an arms embargo would be the end of the Simons-town Agreement. I beg them to ask themselves, if we get involved in a war in the Persian Gulf or in the Indian Ocean or in Malaysia, how we can get to that war if the Suez Canal is closed, which is likely, without staging posts for the Navy and the transport routes which we have today under the Simonstown Agreement.

§ Mr. Wilson

I shall be dealing with this if I catch your eye tonight, Mr. Speaker, as I have dealt with it many 1320 times. Will the Prime Minister now give the House an assurance that during his premiership no arms have been shipped to South Africa other than those specified in the schedule to the Simonstown Agreement?

§ The Prime Minister

We do not export arms to South Africa, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, which we think will be used in any way—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]—I am asking the right hon. Gentleman before he goes the whole hog and says that his party will put an arms embargo to consider the strategic position and strategic interests of Britain.

I shall not deal with Europe today. I have answered so many questions on this, and there is no political issue now. I am doubtful whether there will be a political issue in the next Parliament. I tell the right hon. Gentleman that when he goes thrashing about outside on this question he is beating a dead duck and I do not think that he will get a quack out of it.

On the evidence then, I think that we are justified, looking at the international situation as a whole, in being optimistic, but we must guard against euphoria. I have always thought that one of the great tragedies of history was that the beginning of the Communist Revolution coincided with the emancipation of the colonial territories, because Communism became identified with the struggle for self-determination and independence when in fact, of course, it is the biggest suppressor of both. I think that as the situation has worked out the feature which is prevalent today, as far as the independent countries are concerned, is not so much of allegiance to Communism as to nationalism. I follow the point very closely made by the right hon. Member for Smethwick yesterday and touched on by the hon. Member for Leeds, East, which has been very much in my mind for a long time.

The danger is that, as we move out of the Soviet-Western conflict, Russia, because she cannot drop the habit of subversion, and China, because she desires it, and both because they are rivals for leadership in the world and see in subversion a card which may be advantageous to one or the other, will play this card ruthlessly and cause total confusion in Asia, and perhaps in Africa. But the danger of this is, 1321 perhaps, not quite so much nationalism as this total confusion which will result in a racial division of the world.

I think that there are plenty of people abroad who would delight to see such a division and would do a great deal to promote it. I have been thinking in particular—[An HON. MEMBER: "South Africa."] Certainly South Africa is one country in which the habit of apartheid contributes to this racial feeling. I have been thinking in particular of the poor nations and the coloured nations as against the rich nations and the white nations, but that is not the only division. There is the division between negro and Indian, which we see in British Guiana, and between Arab and Jew, which we see in the Middle East. This is why this rash of trouble, to which the hon. Gentleman referred and of which he saw a lot in his tour of the Far East and Middle East, is so deeply disturbing to anyone who looks to the peace and stability of the world.

The hon. Gentleman asked the question, perhaps a little rhetorically, because he answered it a good deal in his speech, why do we send our own men overseas? The answer is because we have treaty obligations in S.E.A.T.O. to keep the stability of that area, and because we have obligations to Malaysia. He did not actually say because of our obligations, but it is really because of our defence obligations that we send them overseas. We have an obligation to Malaysia and we have a rather more unwritten obligation to the members of the Commonwealth who ask for our help.

Finally, we are seeking a political settlement with Nasser, and it should be possible to make a political settlement for him to withdraw from the Yemen; and with Sukarno it ought to be possible to make a political settlement so that he ceases confrontation on the frontiers of Borneo. Unless we get these settlements there is no alternative but for British troops to be out in the field defending our obligations and helping those to whom we have a duty. Of course, as long as they are there, we shall see that they get the tools for the job, including the helicopters about which the hon. Gentleman spoke.

While we must, of course, do our duty, we must use our influence to divert these 1322 national racial energies from sterile strife and try to produce co-operation for the common good, and Britain is particularly well qualified for this rôle. In Geneva we made a supreme effort. When hon. Members see the White Paper which my right hon. Friend is going to produce they will realise that we made a crucial contribution persuading the developed countries at Geneva that they must cooperate in trade policies that well help the economies of the developing countries both to expand and to earn; and to do something to persuade the developing countries that they must produce a climate of confidence if investment is to thrive in their countries.

We have made a promising beginning and will follow this up in the United Nations. At the end of a long meeting—and I think that we should mark this in this foreign affairs debate today—the gain was that North and South produced a practical programme of work rather than airy resolutions which sound well and mean nothing.

Finally, we have, of course, the Commonwealth, and again I think that we should do well to mark that the Commonwealth consists of coloured and white, of rich and poor, and of the powerful and the weak. It consists of countries with experience in harmonious living, and on this we must build. We will try very hard to do so at the coming Prime Ministers' Conference, attempting to increase our service to each other and, collectively, to give an example of stability and peace to the world. I hope that the July meeting will result in definite progress in this way.

I have spoken of broad things. All of us are searching for peace in a more peaceful world. While there is danger, strength will be maintained. I repeat that we cannot escape the fact that it is the nuclear weapon which holds the peace, although I balance that by saying that the spirit of conciliation today is abroad. To those who say that Britain has lost her way, I would say that Britain has played a crucial rôle in lessening the East-West conflict and is playing a crucial new rôle in averting conflict between North and South, the developing and the developed. These are our aims. If people are searching for a new rôle for Britain, this is it.

§ Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (Bristol, South-East)

One of the hopes which we all had in the House as we contemplated the advent of this foreign affairs debate was that we would get away from the over-simplicity of analysis which has characterised debates on foreign affairs ever since the cold war began and try to analyse in depth the real changes which have taken place in the world since the last major foreign affairs debate in the House.

I can only say, after listening to the Prime Minister, that he has produced more and more dangerous new myths than any we had in the past. Somehow, the cold war having subsided, the right hon. Gentleman confides to the House that it was his steadiness of nerves during the difficult years that frightened the Communists and he is happily now able to report to the House that the troubles are over. If we keep nuclear weapons which the Americans will supply to us—and which we do not produce ourselves and cannot even test ourselves—then in this way the peace of the world can be maintained.

I think that the House will lose a great opportunity if it limits itself to the narrowness of the analysis which the Prime Minister has given. If he underestimates Mr. Khrushchev as much as he under-estimates my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, it is very unlikely that he is as frightening to Mr. Khrushchev as he thinks himself to be. Did the right hon. Gentleman by any chance tell Mr. Khrushchev that the Russians were not in the World Bank?

The point is that there have been some fundamental changes, and I want to begin by trying to give a slightly different angle on the way in which these changes have developed. The first one is, of course, that the two colossi have become very much greater relative to the other countries of the world and much more powerful than they were only five or 10 years ago. The argument which the Prime Minister produced, that it was the possession of British nuclear weapons that brought the Russians to the new sense of reality of the world situation, is, I think, to overestimate the rôle of British nuclear weapons.

1324 The fact of the matter is, and nobody is surprised at this, that for this Government to maintain a nuclear posture they have to go to the United States. They claim that in getting the Polaris submarines from the United States they will establish independence from the United States. I only want to put to the right hon. Gentleman a point which ought to be in our minds today and which we all very much hope will not take place, the possibility that Senator Goldwater might become President of the United States in the autumn. Is it then conceivable that a British Conservative Government, depending on President Goldwater for the supply of Polaris submarines, would be able to pursue an independent rôle at all in world affairs? Of course not. Indeed, President Goldwater's first ultimatum would be, "Do not send the buses to Cuba or you will lose your Polaris submarines." The realities of the world make it clear that the two super-Powers are themselves maintaining the balance and that whether this country has Polaris submarines is largely irrelevant to it.

The second point is that the détente of which the Prime Minister spoke is more than a détente. It is a recognition by both the United States and the Soviet Union of a common interest in certain clear items of policy. One is the test-ban agreement. That is why it was brought about, because it was in the interests of the United States and the Soviet Union. Similarly, the non-dissemination of nuclear weapons is in the interests of both those countries. It adds point to the rather curious postscript to the Cuba story that the Americans may be a bit safer if the Russians stay in Cuba than if they leave, because the Russians have to some extent exercised a moderating influence on the excesses of the Cuban Government.

The next development which the Prime Minister should have mentioned is that the break-out of argument in the Communist bloc is paralleled by an equally fervent argument in the Western world as well. If Mao Tse-tung does not accept the Test Ban Treaty, neither does Senator Goldwater, who voted against the Test Ban Treaty in the United States Senate. A man who is capable of coming as close as he has done to the Republican nomination for the 1325 American Presidential elections this year is a force to be reckoned with.

What we want to know from the Government, and what we have not had during this debate, is a clear indication of the way in which they intend to strengthen the forces inside both East and West which are now dedicated to developing the detente and carrying it a stage further. I greatly regret that the Prime Minister has not done what his predecessor did in March, 1959, when he went to Moscow. It was not popular with the Americans at the time, but the Russians recognised that the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) was trying to use British influence. It had electoral advantages for him as well, but he was genuinely trying to use influence to develop and build up the possibilities of detente.

When the Prime Minister talked about polycentrism, he confined himself entirely to Eastern Europe. We are all familiar with the story of Eastern Europe—of Tito's break with Stalin, the Polish moves to liberalisation and the interesting potentialities of Rumania. The Prime Minister, however, was able to make a foreign affairs speech without once mentioning General de Gaulle. The blindness of the British Cabinet towards the realities of French policy in the world astonishes me, particularly when I remember that the Foreign Secretary yesterday, in one of his many bromide phrases, said that although we were kept out of the Common Market, we were doing all that we could to see that policies between this country and Western Europe did not diverge. There is hardly any point on which British and French policies are in agreement. Polycentrism in Western Europe is infinitely as interesting and as important in the development of British and world policy as the polycentrism in Eastern Europe.

If we really are to look at the new situation of a Western Alliance that is no longer united in this sense, or an Eastern Alliance that is no longer united, we must consider the implications of alternative courses of policy. It is all very well the Prime Minister saying that the multilateral force does not involve dissemination of nuclear weapons. He had that wonderful phrase which he used in another connection about our tactical 1326 nuclear weapons in Europe being kept under what he called the key-of-the-cupboard theory—a nursery tale analogy. If, however, the Russians are convinced that the multilateral force means a German-American nuclear force which makes it that much easier for Germany to acquire control of nuclear weapons, they may well take the view, which the Americans took at the time of Cuba, that this goes a stage beyond what they are prepared to tolerate.

The Prime Minister makes a great mistake if he thinks that there would be a wide body of British or Western European—and certainly not Eastern European—opinion that would be prepared to see a German-American multilateral force set up against bitter Russian opposition. The Russians would have the opportunity in Europe of conventional pressure of the kind that the Americans had around Cuba at the time of the 1962 crisis. Nothing of this was said by the Prime Minister. All we had was merely an assurance to the Russians that if they signed the anti-dissemination agreement now, they need have no anxiety about the multilateral force.

The question of the Oder-Neisse line was not mentioned by the Prime Minister, and yet anybody who knows anything about the fears of the Eastern Europeans recognises that the anxiety that the Poles and the Czechs have about the feeling of the Germans that they must get back to their pre-war frontiers is one of the greatest forces which keep the Eastern countries under the Russian umbrella. Although the British have been very negative upon this, General de Gaulle has said that for his part the Oder-Neisse line represents the eastern frontier of Germany. That has not prevented General de Gaulle from entering into close relationships with the West Germans.

One of the causes of paralysis in our European policy is still the fear that if we do anything it might weaken our capacity to get into the Common Market. I could understand this in the past. A rabbit sitting in the way of a motor car might be paralysed by the headlights, but the Prime Minister must be the only rabbit who is paralysed by the tail lights of a receding vehicle. It would be different if British entry into the Common Market were to become a reality, but the 1327 Prime Minister said that it was a dead duck. I did not know whether that was an autobiographical phrase.

What is wanted in Europe is a British initiative. Whatever one may say about General de Gaulle—there are many aspects of his domestic and foreign policy which I do not like—he dreams of a world in which Europe holds the balance, of the Six dominated by France, led by General de Gaulle. That is his view, and I understand it. But his policy in Asia and in relation to China, however, is a lot more realistic than that adopted by our Government, who on this issue, as on many other issues, are ambiguous.

The third development which the Prime Minister never mentioned in his analysis of the world was the growing importance of the non-aligned States as a force in their own right at the United Nations. It is a great mistake to think that this is the end of the anti-colonial battle, because the anti-colonial battle is not yet finished. One of the consequences, however, of the deadlock in the Security Council was that power passed increasingly to the General Assembly.

If I try to analyse the point in time at which the Prime Minister began to have doubts about the United Nations, it would be the point at which, owing to the arrival of new members of the General Assembly and the failure of the Security Council to be effective, power began to move more and more towards the General Assembly. That was not the idea of the United Nations that the Prime Minister had in mind.

It is interesting to see the way in which the controversy about the United Nations has altered since the war. At the end of the war, it was thought of as a continuation of the League. It was primarily a white organisation with an international civil service in the League tradition. We hoped that it would work better. That was what Lord Avon meant when he spoke about "humanity's last hope". The United Nations has, however, evolved in a quite new way. At every stage, the Government have been stepping back stage by stage reluctantly accepting the development of the United Nations.

The things that the non-aligned countries care about in the world are the remaining anti-colonial issues. Southern Rhodesia united the whole of Africa 1328 against the stand that our Government have so far taken on the Southern Rhodesian issue. Issues like the British support for the French in the Algerian war are the issues that the non-aligned countries care about. They reflect their anxieties and their power through the United Nations. The racial issue, to which the Prime Minister referred—in Mississippi, South Africa, Rhodesia, Notting Hill and Smethwick, and all over the world—is the predominant one. It is on these issues that the British Government are, at best, neutralists.

One cannot justify the continued supply of arms to South Africa without, at the very best—but this is the kindest thing that can be said—being neutralist on the question of human rights in terms of colour.

The next great development since the war has been the way in which the United Nations has been able to make itself felt even against a major Power. It was not the United Nations itself which stopped the Government at Suez, but the United Nations was the only body capable of taking over from us. Hon. Members opposite say that the United Nations has never scored any successes against the Soviet side, and they cite its ineffectiveness in Hungary. I am not so sure about that. The Soviet Union suffered enormously as a result of its actions in Hungary in 1956. It also suffered a major defeat on the troika. Mr. Khrushchev had set his mind on three Secretaries-General and came up against the united opposition of the non-aligned world and had to capitulate in favour of their pressure.

The United Nations is a reality in the world today, and one of the tragedies about the British Government is that they do not see the opportunities which the United Nations offers for the exercise of British diplomacy. They think of the United Nations as being a separate and outside body and not a forum where British ideas and initiative can be well deployed. I say nothing against Sir Patrick Dean, but nobody in London takes very seriously a permanent civil servant, sitting at the end of a telephone line, in the United Nations. We take him seriously in the sense that he is a man capable of transmitting messages both ways, but not as a man capable of negotiating in the sense in which the 1329 Foreign Secretary will be able to negotiate when he goes to see Mr. Khrushchev in Moscow this summer. Would it be as good to send Sir Patrick Dean on this mission which the Foreign Secretary is to undertake? Clearly not. Why? Because what is required is negotiation and discussion at the highest level.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in saying that he will send a Cabinet Minister to the United Nations, will be doing the first essential. He will be putting there a man whom other nations will wish to consult about all the issues which come before the United Nations.

The second thing is to strengthen the Secretary-General. If we do not recognise fully the rôle of the Secretary-General, the non-aligned countries do. One of the things which impressed me most when I visited New York not long ago was talking to an official at the Secretariat about the hot line. It is well known that this country wanted to be on the hot line. It presented its V-bombers and said, "Look, we have a ticket on the hot line between Moscow and Washington", and was disappointed to discover that this nuclear ticket did not get us an extension on that telephone line. However, if we had used our influence to try to get the hot line to go through the Secretary-General's office, we could have succeeded, because the non-aligned countries want to be consulted if ever the world reaches the brink. If Britain, which had its own V-bombers, had thrown itself in with those countries which wanted to see that there was some international check on the last words of goodbye said between the White House and Red Square, it would almost certainly have succeeded.

I now turn to the question of peacekeeping and the mockery poured by hon. Members opposite on the idea of the British Navy having a special United Nations rôle while, at the same time, entering into discussions on a multilateral mixed-manned nuclear force. What is wanted is a mixed-manned peace force—that really would make some sense—in which the United Nations adopted the multilateral idea in order to make available forces which were genuinely international in character. Until such a thing can be developed, the next best thing is that Britain should make available on a 1330 much more regular basis forces which might be needed for peace-keeping operations. Hon. Members opposite say that the United Nations acts too slowly. If our forces were always available, it would be able to act almost as rapidly as if we were acting on our own.

The final function of the United Nations is to provide a place where people can talk. The Prime Minister has rather played down the idea of regular Summits, saying that they do not do any good. Listening to debates here, one sometimes wonders whether they do any good in the sense of reaching agreement. But the continual dialogue, argument and discussion and getting to know each other is one of the most essential developments in international affairs as the United Nations increasingly becomes a sort of Parliament.

I come now to the rôle of China. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) referred to it in his speech. If ever there was a time when the Chinese issue had to be looked at seriously, it is now. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary, in their analyses of the new factors in the world, took account of the enormous power of China in her own right. They said that there was a split between Russia and China and seemed inclined to the view that this was all to the good and that in a way it made things easier for us that there should be disagreement between them. But what is important is not only the disagreement but the fact that China should be beginning so clearly to stand for certain things in the world.

I hope that we do not under-estimate the Chinese: revolution and its technical capacity for development in the way in which the West consistently underestimated the Russian revolution from 1917 onwards. I was in America just after the first Russian Sputnik went into orbit. It was like a hammer blow for America to realise that Russia had the technical Capacity to put a satellite into orbit. Why? Because the American Press, for years, had convinced the American people that Communism was not only evil but was also a total economic failure, and they were not led to appreciate what was happening.

Although China has many difficulties, such as crop difficulties, and has not 1331 developed as fast as she would have liked and is losing her help from Russia, we should not under-estimate her capacity to be a major force in a short period of time. The challenge to Russia is partly ideological. It is also about co-existence and whether it is possible to co-exist. But no one seems to ask why China doubts the value of the coexistence policy. The answer is that she does not enjoy the benefits of coexistence. There is that part which the British Government recognise as part of China, Taiwan. The Cairo Agreement, signed by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), said that Taiwan should be returned to China. If there is an American force there maintaining a defeated army in a civil war, why should the Chinese believe in the possibilities of peaceful coexistence?

If we allow China to be isolated, what possible advantage can that bring us, even if we accept—and I do not accept it—the crude language of the Prime Minister about fat Communists being better than thin Communists? Does not this apply to China too? Or does China come into a separate category? What justification is there for maintaining a much more comprehensive embargo list against China than against the Soviet Union? The only answer is that the British want, on this issue, to keep in step with the United States.

I think that it is time that we tried to help the Americans to overcome some of their own mythology about China. Perhaps one of the best ways to do it would be to refer the Americans to the State Department memorandum handed to President Truman when he took over the Presidency in 1945. He quotes it in his book "Year of Decisions". This is what it said about China: Political. Towards both the immediate objective of defeating Japan and the long-term objective of peace and security, we seek to promote establishment of a broadly representative Chinese government which will bring about internal unity, including reconcilement of Kuomintang-Communist differences, and will effectively discharge its internal and international responsibilities. That was the first reference. But there were other references, too, one of which said: 1332 We are also seeking to bring about vitally needed Chinese military unity through integration of the Communist forces with those of the National Government. This was the view of the American State Department and of President Truman in the summer of 1945.

It still remains true that, unless