EUROPEAN SITUATION.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)

My Lords, I would ask your permission to intervene for a few moments in this debate at this stage. In doing so I shall do my best to answer such of the questions of the noble Lord as are in my power to answer, and my noble friend Lord Stanhope will be prepared to answer any other points that any of your Lordships may raise in the course of the debate which will follow. This is the first occasion on which this House has had the opportunity of a debate directly addressed to the examination of the matters that have been in all our thoughts during the last month. I should be the first to acknowledge—as, indeed, was done in another place—the great restraint and consideration, arising out of public spirit, that have been shown not only to His Majesty's Government but also to the welfare of public affairs by the representatives of the Opposition, and indeed by all sections in this country. The noble Lord, I am sure, will also be the first to recognise that anyone in my position invited to speak on rather difficult and delicate subjects which are not immediately within his own department must be excused if he approaches them with a certain measure of care and prudence in order, if possible, to escape the charge of making a difficult situation more difficult than it is in any case bound to be.

The noble Lord began by asking me certain specific questions, some of which, indeed, fall into the natural structure of what I have it in mind to say and to which, perhaps, I might give the answers in that form. But before I come to them 514 I think I may say a word or two about one matter that he raised, which lies perhaps a little outside the actual terms of the Question on the Paper but which concerns affairs in Europe: the present position of affairs in Abyssinia. With regard to the general facts of the state of the machinery at Geneva, I do not know that I have anything to add to what was said by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, the day before yesterday in another place, about the actual state of the remit to the Committee of Thirteen and to the action that the Committee of Thirteen had up to the date when he spoke taken on it. As the noble Lord will be aware the Committee of Thirteen is meeting to-day in Geneva, when I have no doubt my right honourable friend will put before them the general considerations to which he gave expression in another place two days ago.

May I remind the noble Lord of one sentence in the speech which my right honourable friend there made? After reminding the House of Commons of the passage of events since last February, he went on to say that in March he made it clear on behalf of His Majesty's Government that on the whole they were of opinion that an oil embargo should be imposed, and at that point he reminded his hearers that a proposal was made that one further opportunity should be afforded for conciliation before the embargo was put on. He went on to say:

" Conciliation was accepted by both parties, but in the interval since the acceptance of that conciliation the Italian Government have intensified their aggression."

Then I would call attention to these words of the Foreign Secretary:

" In the view of His Majesty's Government it would be intolerable that we should at Geneva merely speak of conciliation while war continued. There must be real conciliation, that is to say, conciliation which results in a given period in a cessation of hostilities, otherwise the Committee of Eighteen would have to face its task once again. The position of His Majesty's Government remains exactly the same as it has been throughout the dispute. We are prepared to take part with others in economic and financial measures, if others accept them and carry them out in the same spirit and the same measure."

This discussion, as I say, is proceeding to-day at Geneva, and I am not in a position to add anything to what is before 515 the noble Lord or indeed before anybody else at this stage in regard to it.

I must, however, say something about one or two comments of the noble Lord in his speech with which I am bound to differ. He asked whether His Majesty's Government were prepared to allow the League, if I remember his words aright, to be completely disgraced or completely humiliated, or something to that effect. At the end of his spech, however, he said he was greatly gratified to feel that the League had not in fact failed and he condemned the words of those who would argue that the League had failed. That is entirely my view. Where perhaps, when he began to speak, I might have felt that I differed from him was in feeling, as I do, that he made insufficient allowance for the fact that both the League and the conditions in which it has had to function have been essentially different from the League and the conditions in which its fashioners made it and thought it would function. I do not develop that at any length because it will be present to the minds of all your Lordships. Membership of the League is obviously different, the conception of its duties is different and the state of the world in which it has to function is essentially different from that in which those who made it looked forward to its functioning. And I should say that a League that is 50 per cent. or 60 per cent. representative cannot be expected to be 100 per cent. effective. It is unjust to the League to expect that it would be so. When the noble Lord went on to say that in his judgment His Majesty's Government must accept responsibility for tortured Abyssinia—

LORD SNELL

I said that they might have to share in the responsibility, not take the whole of the responsibility: I did not suggest that.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

I understood the noble Lord to say that in his view the Government must accept responsibility.

LORD SNELL

Share.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

Yes, share, but accept responsibility for tortured Abyssinia. I am not prepared in that form to admit responsibility at all. What does the noble Lord mean? It maybe true to-day, and it may have always have been true, that the only way of 516 preventing this war and the only way of stopping it would have been to have taken action that involved the direct risk of bringing this country into war with Italy. May I ask the noble Lord and his friends directly, would they have been prepared to throw this country into war with Italy in order to stop war between Italy and Abyssinia? Unless he is prepared to say that, and unless he would have been prepared in office to make that his policy, then the charge, against His Majesty's Government of not having done all they could within the limits open to them to prevent and to stop this war, in my humble judgment, does not lie. Certainly speaking for ourselves that was never our policy, nor if it had been our policy should we have been able to secure the general assent of the League of Nations Members in support of it. I am perfectly content to place the record of His Majesty's Government, given the instrument at their disposal, before the judgment of any impartial men or any impartial critics, and challenge them to say at any given point where and in what direction His Majesty's Government might, with general support and with general collective assent, have done more than they have done to stop a state of affairs for which I admit I have as warm and keen a sense of condemnation as any noble Lord sitting opposite. To say that we merely protested our virtue and then stood aside is, with all respect to the noble Lord, rather to be accounted one of his flights of imagination than one of his arguments of reason.

I turn now to the main matter to which the noble Lord directed our attention and I find great identity of purpose in everything that was contained in his speech with that which I find in my own mind. We both have, we all have, the common purpose of trying to the best of our ability to contribute to European peace. It has been frequently said that peace is the greatest British interest. Of course it is far more than that. It is the only interest of the whole world that is worth striving for, because in the interests of peace nearly everything else is contained and by it sub-served. The promotion of peace has been the constant end to which all the efforts of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and His Majesty's Government have been continuously 517 directed. And I do not find in the speech of the noble Lord, although he asked questions that I shall seek to answer, any great difference as to the method by which we have sought to ensure that end.

What do we, in fact, when we speak of peace, mean by it? It is sometimes spoken of as if it meant merely abstention from open warfare, but I think peace that was merely that would deserve the name of peace as little as a system of morality would be entitled to claim our loyalty that aimed no higher than the avoidance of open ill-doing—and I think it would be as insecure. Indeed, I believe that one of the contributory causes of 1914 was perhaps the fact that our policy of that day was not sufficiently positive. The point that I wish to make to your Lordships is that peace is no mere negative thing, because in this great struggle as I see it—the great struggle of the world and of human nature—the forces of good that make for peace and the forces of evil that make, for war are perpetually ranged against each other. In that warfare there is, and there can be, no armistice and no neutrality. If we want peace we have to work always for the understanding which may make possible the adjustment of differences, and also may give vitality to any terms of settlement. And I venture to think that so long as the path is blocked by fears and by resentments and by mistrust progress is at the best uncertain and at the worst impossible.

Now, the world to-day is standing at the cross-roads, and a hundred years hence, if the world survives, we shall all be judged by the direction that we now take; for upon the choice that we take at the cross-roads depends much more than the issue of our immediate difficulties, and the price of wrong judgment will be a very high one. Though the crossroads have long been in sight it is, I think, true to say that the world has been brought right up to them by the recent action of Germany and by the inevitable reactions from it. The history of those events is of course fresh in our minds, and I do not recapitulate it. It is quite undeniable that the method which was chosen by Germany to force her claims upon the world's attention has dealt a wounding and very far-reaching blow at all the foundations on which the international 518 order has to be reared. Germany has justified her action on the plea of past grievances, and there will be, no doubt, in sympathy with the noble Lord, a general desire that what I may call this era of grievances should be closed. But if and when that can be done and has been done, we must, I think, be sure that in future, as there will be no justification so there will be no intention in any circumstances to resort to that method again; and there will be no hope whatsoever of a settlement unless of that we can be positively and absolutely sure.

I need not remind your Lordships that confidence in the observance of international undertakings is as vital to the life of nations as confidence in the observance of contracts is to the conduct of their business and economic life. Therefore, the first thing that my right honourable friend had to do was to re-establish the foundations before he or anyone else could set to work at building the new house which we all desire to see. I have seen it suggested that the fact that my right honourable friend laid great stress upon the importance of what he has often called this interim period implied that he was unduly obsessed by the technical spirit, and was not sufficient alive to the greater project of the building of permanent peace. But that of course is quite untrue, because the due liquidation of this interim period was the essential condition of getting on to the permanent work which we all desire to see undertaken. And it was therefore for that reason that the efforts of His Majesty's Government infallibly fell into two compartments, first of all, of course, the attempt to devise conditions for the period intervening before the negotiations on larger issues could be undertaken; and, in the second place, the direct preparation for the time when, if the earlier difficulties could be overcome, the larger work should be taken in hand.

It was with that double object that the Locarno Powers worked some three weeks ago. It was evident that unless by some means some measure of confidence could be re-created in the period antecedent to that when it was hoped to reach discussions on the main questions, there was no chance of establishing a sufficient background of confidence to permit any hope of the larger negotiations being brought to a successful issue, 519 even if it were possible ever to get them begun. It is at that point that we feel that the German Government might have given us greater help. We have made it quite plain—and this answers one of the questions of the noble Lord—that our proposals of March 19, whatever their merits or demerits, were not of the nature of an ultimatum. But we had also, I think, the correlative right to expect that if the German Government were unable to accept any or all of the proposals we made, they would have made alternative proposals of equivalent value for the purpose to which ours had been directed. As the noble Lord knows, my right honourable friend will be holding discussions in which I shall also be associated, with representatives of the Locarno Powers during the next day or two, when one or two of the other matters that he mentioned will no doubt come under review, and therefore he will perhaps excuse me from saying more at this stage about them than that. But the fact that the German Government have been unable to make such a contribution as we had asked from them to this interim stage seemed to His Majesty's Government to reinforce the obligations that they had accepted in the earlier conversations to do what they could to reassure their co-signatories of Locarno—France and Belgium.

I was very glad to hear what the noble Lord said at the end of his speech when he invited us to place ourselves in the position of those countries. Those countries had lost, and had lost literally in a night, a security to which they attached great importance, and they had lost it in a way that seemed to them, as to us, to strike at the root of international stability. Therefore, quite apart from the fact that we were bound by our signature to very precise obligations under the very Treaty which Germany had unilaterally denounced, your Lordships may take it as quite certain that it was abundantly plain to those who were engaged in these negotiations of three weeks ago that those countries could only be induced to take their just share in the task of reconstruction if, meanwhile, they could be reassured as to their own security. The Staff conversations, of which the noble Lord spoke with some anxiety, and the letter that my right honourable friend sent a week or so ago to France and Belgium 520 were the contribution of His Majesty's Government to the creation of conditions which might make negotiations possible—in my judgment, as I have said, a contribution that it was quite essential to make.

I must say a word or two upon the Staff conversations. It is not necessary to emphasise again that these Staff conversations—contemplated, your Lordships will remember, under paragraph III of the White Paper—are concerned only with the discharge of our existing obligations in the event, which we hope will not occur, of unprovoked aggression. My right honourable friend gave the further assurance in the House of Commons on April 3, to Mr. Lloyd George, that

" it is not contemplated to put any of these military plans into operation in the unfortunate event of the failure of these negotiations unless "—

I would ask noble Lords to mark these words—

" there is an unprovoked attack by Germany on Belgian or French soil—an actual invasion of either France or Belgium."

Nor will your Lordships have failed to observe the precise conditions my right honourable friend attached to these conversations in his letter to the Ambassadors on April 1—namely, that

" this contact between the General Staffs cannot give rise, in respect of either Government, to any political undertaking, nor to any obligation regarding the organisation of national defence."

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN

May I ask a quesion on that point? As I understand my noble friend, this obligation ceases unless there is unprovoked aggression on the soil or frontiers of France or Belgium. Would I be right in interpreting that to mean that the casus fœderis cannot arise as the result of any treaties which France may have with other Powers to which we are not a party?

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

I have heard the noble Marquess ask that question before in the House, and therefore I have come prepared with the answer, but it falls in a little bit later and, if I may, I shall answer it in my own form. It is of the first importance. In view of these explicit statements, I am satisfied—and I hope your Lordships will be satisfied—that no danger can rightly be held to attach to them of involving this country 521 in unspecified commitments. They are not the assumption of new obligations. They are only an examination of the technical steps that would be necessary to fulfil obligations by which we are already bound, and it is perhaps worth while, though I should think hardly necessary, to remind your Lordships that these obligations correspond exactly with the vital interests of this country, recognised as such for many centuries. There was, as was said in another place, nothing new in Locarno, and there is nothing new about its maintenance. Moreover, if the conditions postulated in the letter in the White Paper ever came to prevail, the condition of our assistance to France and Belgium against unprovoked aggression, for which this Staff contact may be continued, would for the first time—your Lordships will mark this—be on the basis of reciprocity. I can imagine that when no conditions are laid down as those in which one country would undertake to help another, it might be possible that Staff conversations might give rise to expectations that the event might prove unfounded, but that, I suggest, cannot arise when both the obligations and the means of discharging them have been the subject of exact definition.

With all respect for Mr. Lloyd George, I cannot myself see that there is any foundation at all for suggesting that the existence of such carefully circumscribed obligations or contacts would be likely of themselves, in any degree whatever, to make war more probable. The noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, has often talked in this connection about the time table beginning to operate; about the action of one country leading by mechanical consequence to counter-action by another, until the inevitable drift is set up towards that steep slope at the foot of which lies war. I believe he would agree that that against which he has warned the country is the result of something quite different—namely, the division of Europe into opposing blocks of nations bound to one another by close alliances; and no one—the noble Lord opposite and I are here in complete agreement—could feel more strongly than I do that against any such issue from our present anxieties all our statesmanship must be directed. I do not think that Europe can ever hope to win peace by a return to the pre-War system of alliances; but I do think, 522 definitely, that in any attempt to organise collective security for an area about which we feel able to anticipate with reasonable assurance the judgment of our fellow-countrymen, it is a real guarantee of peace that it should be plainly stated in advance that this country would resist with all the means at its disposal any wanton disturbance of the peace.

I fully share the sense that the noble Marquess has in his mind of the importance of precision, and here I come to the point on which he interrupted me just now. "Unprovoked aggression," under Locarno and under these Papers, means what it says. It does not mean, if I may repeat the words that my right honourable friend used in another place: a situation when, owing to obligations elsewhere, our neighbours may become involved in conflict and may call for help in a quarrel that is not ours. I think that is a specific statement which answers the point of the noble Marquess. These undertakings, therefore—and this is the point I wish to leave in your Lordships' minds—have no wider scope than the original obligations deriving from the Treaty of Locarno which they are designed to implement.

That brings me to say something about another matter that is in the minds of many thoughtful people, and that is about the relation of Locarno, and what flows from it, to the wider instrument of the Covenant of the League, subject to which Locarno was, of course, drawn. It has been a criticism of the Locarno Treaty—as of any other limited and specific undertakings—that it pro tanto weakened the prestige and position of the Covenant. The argument is plain enough. If the Covenant was what it has pretended to be, there is really no need for these other reinsurances which are only taken out because you do not feel certain on the day that the Covenant will be able to meet the claim. That is the broad argument in colloquial language, and I would readily admit that argumentatively I think the position is a strong one and can be sustained; but, as so often happens with human affairs, though the argument is excellent I am convinced the truth lies on the other side. I believe that these regional and specific guarantees, so far from weakening, supplement and reinforce the Covenant and help it with its 523 main job which, I would like some of our warmongers constantly to remember, is peace.

And that I think for two reasons. First of all, that to which I alluded at the outset of my remarks, because of the difference between the original conception and the actual conditions in working practice of the Covenant to-day; and, secondly, because it is essential in these matters, however much we may seek to set our gaze on the stars, that we should be realists and keep our feet on firm ground. I believe that British public opinion is prepared to accept particular and antecedent obligations to support France and Belgium against unprovoked aggression, firstly, because it thinks, and thinks rightly in my judgment, that this is a real contribution to the steadying of the European situation; and, secondly, because it feels by instinct that as it has always acted for generations so, given the compelling circumstances, it would infallibly act again.

But this attitude—and here I come to another question that the noble Lord, I think, asked me—should not be interpreted to mean that because we have assumed more specific obligations in the West which we were not prepared to repeat for the East of Europe, therefore we disinterested ourselves from all events and issues arising outside what perhaps I may call the Locarno area. In my view such an attitude would be quite impossible, partly because peace is, and is likely to be found indeed to be, indivisible; and it is very hard for me to imagine that if the East of Europe were really aflame you could feel any confidence that the flames would not spread across to the West, but also, of course, because of our obligations under the Covenant which are obligations by which we abide and which we intend to implement to the utmost of our power. Therefore it is with the single object of trying to strengthen the forces of real peace, and with some such conception as I have tried to lay before your Lordships as to how it can be achieved, that we shall examine the latest German Note and any proposals coming from any other quarter that may be laid before us.

The plan of which I have seen reports in the newspapers as likely to be submitted by the French Government has not as yet reached the hands of His 524 Majesty's Government and therefore I can say nothing about it. The Secretary of State has already said that, while he regretted that the German Government had been unwilling to give us greater help in the immediate problem, he yet, along with His Majesty's Government, recognised the importance of many of the proposals that the German Government had made and, taken together, they obviously constitute a body of material which must be carefully sifted and examined. I hope that in any communications that His Majesty's Government may have to make to the German Government they will bear in mind the wise counsel of the noble Lord opposite, that they should not allow to creep into them any of the temper that he has noticed with respect to criticisms of the Labour Party in or without this House. On that task of sifting and examining those proposals His Majesty's Government are already engaged in the hope that means may be found by which the Governments with whom His Majesty's Government have been working may be associated with them in their examination. The German proposals range, of course, over ground much wider than the Rhineland or the position of the signatories of the Locarno Treaty. Therefore, I think, on that ground, as indeed on others, there is a good deal to be said for so extending the scope of the preparatory discussions that will be necessary as to make the League of Nations as such a party to them, and I hope that we may secure a general agreement for that course.

Your Lordships, therefore, will not expect me to make detailed observations upon particular points of the German Note to-day, but one or two general observations may not be out of place. In all human relations, and particularly perhaps in such a case as this, when the attempt-is made to compose differences, the vital thing, I suppose, is that all parties should be so inspired by the common purpose that that which they have in common is really deeper and is really stronger than all the things by which they appear to be divided. And where that condition prevails, of course, agreement can be won, and agreement having been won such understanding can be established as is likely to give that agreement the quality of permanence. We are all only too well aware of how gravely and how disastrously the efforts 525 of the last years in Europe to find this true basis of peace have been prejudiced by all the complex of conflicting emotions to which the nations of Europe have been very naturally subject. We all see the problems in different perspective so that it is extremely difficult for one nation to see that which seems plain necessity or simple equity to another, and it is from that that in part comes the failure up to now of reconciling what always must be the two dominant paramount necessities of Europe which must be reconciled if the peace of Europe is to be any more than an uneasy and insecure neutrality, and those two paramount necessities are the equality of Germany and the security of European States.

I would hope, for example, that to-day France and Belgium would be not less willing than ourselves to give full recognition to the rightful claims of Germany in the sphere of equality, provided that they can be satisfied that the German Government will in fact recognise the duties towards all Europe that such equal rights entail. In other words, if I may use perfectly plain and frank speech, Europe needs to be satisfied that the peace project of Herr Hitler is sincerely meant and that the fact that certain countries find no specific mention in it does not imply that they have no place in the peace vision of the German Chancellor. No one can deny that, whatever faults there may have been on the other side, the German Government, by the procedure of the fait accompli and by the proclaimed philosophy of the overriding justification of State necessity, have gravely shaken international confidence. And confidence is a plant of painfully slow growth. Yet, if progress is to be made, it is to the future rather than to the past that our eyes must turn. So far as this country is concerned our policy will be to stand steadfastly by all who seek peace, and to oppose all who would betray the cause of peace. Every opening must be put to a fair and dispassionate test—the test of time and practice. By that proof alone can the genuine character of the nature of such opportunities for settlement be ultimately judged.

I do not think that for practical statesmanship there is any other way of determination. Meanwhile, we shall neglect no effort to reach a land of peace; but we will relax no precaution on the 526 road. Nor, finally, can I doubt that if ever the hopes of peace that we all cherish are to be more than dreams that pass, the nations of the world must call to their aid forces of which perhaps they have hitherto made insufficient use. The late Lord Grey used, I think, wise words when he said that nothing so predisposes men to understand as the consciousness that they are understood. Trust does indeed beget trust, and I see little hope of European peace, even if we are able to gather the nations to the business of negotiation, unless those concerned can bring to the Council table that quality which will then impel them to see the best and not the worst in what each may have there to contribute, above all remembering that they are perforce and in truth, by the common fact of their humanity, partners in the enterprise of securing the conditions by which alone the future of that humanity can be preserved.

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN

My Lords, I should like in the first instance to thank the noble Viscount who has just spoken for the definite answers to certain questions which he has given, and for the extremely eloquent and moving speech which he has just made. He said during the course of his speech that the world had reached cross-roads. I think he is right. I think the negotiations and discussions which will take place, probably during the next year, will determine whether Europe finds a basis of peace or whether it is going to drift back to a situation in which it will at any rate find it extremely difficult to avoid war. The situation, as I see it, has been profoundly changed by three events in the last six months. They are three events on which I shall lay rather a different emphasis from the noble Viscount who has just spoken.

I think the first and most significant event is the conclusion of the Franco-Russian Pact. I do not think the noble Viscount made any reference to it. I do not think the people of this country realise the immense effect that that Pact may have on Europe and on ourselves. Admittedly, it is still perhaps in a somewhat inchoate condition, but do not let us disguise from ourselves the fact that it bears a suspicious resemblance, in its very nature, to one of those pre-War alliances which were 527 one of the primary factors in embroiling everybody in circumstances in which they could not avoid war. Every alliance is defensive and this alliance is carefully drawn within the terms of the Covenant except that it excludes the Council of the League of Nations almost entirely from any decision as to whether warlike action is legitimate or not. The decision lies unilaterally in the hands of the two signatories alone. That is the first and significant fact, and I think we have to recognise the immense effect that the conclusion of that alliance between an immensely powerful Russia and a very powerful France must have upon a nation which during all its history has been frightened about encirclement and the danger of having to meet war on both fronts, and has also been concerned, not so much with Bolshevism, as with the constant pressure of the great Slav world on Central Europe for at least two centuries. I think that is a factor the significance of which will become more and more important as time goes on, not only for Europe but for ourselves.

The second factor which has changed the situation is the disappearance of the demilitarised zone through the unilateral entry of Germany into that zone, clearly contrary to the letter of the Locarno Treaty. I am not going to embark upon a discussion as to the relative moral merits of Herr Hitler's action and the action of certain other Powers. I think what we have to realise is that the demilitarised zone has disappeared for ever and that whatever the result of negotiations may be we have to recognise that the special security for France and the special weakness for Germany which it involved have disappeared. We have to-day to look at a Europe in which Germany has recovered full sovereignty over her own country and the right to take the same measures to defend herself as are claimed and exercised by every other sovereign State. That means an immense change in the Europe of to-day. It gives Germany more power and must affect France's relationships with the minor Powers of Eastern Europe.

The third, and in some ways the most significant, change is the successful defiance of the League of Nations hitherto by Signor Mussolini. If there is one criticism to be made upon the speech of the noble Marquess it is this. I 528 do not think it is quite just and fair for him to cast so many aspersions upon the trustworthiness of the Chancellor of the German Reich in going back after fifteen years into his own country, admittedly in violation of a treaty, without passing at least as formidable strictures upon the head of a nation which has invaded a small country also contrary to all treaty obligations and carried on the war in a manner which has deeply offended the moral sense of all mankind. I do not think that anything you can say about the National Socialist régime is to be compared with the criticisms which it is possible to pass upon a régime which is training even infants in school to prepare for Imperialism and war.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

I do not want to interrupt my noble friend, and only do so because, if he thinks that I have failed in my speech to give outward expression to my condemnation of Italian action, that is an impression that I ought not to leave in his mind. Indeed, I thought that my words had protected me from doing so.

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN

My Lords, the situation, as I venture to say, has been changed, and profoundly changed, in the last year by the three events I have mentioned: the Franco-Russian and the Czecho-Russian Pacts; the disappearance of the demilitarised zone; and what has hitherto been the successful defiance of the League by Signor Mussolini. What frightens me is that the policy of the Government can, not wholly unjustly, be described as one of feebleness in Africa and enlarged commitments in Europe. If that is so, I think we are going to face an extremely dangerous situation. The central point that I want to lay before your Lordships to-day is this: whether we consider the future of the League of Nations, whether we consider our guarantees to France and to Belgium, whether we consider the future of the British Commonwealth of Nations—the greatest institution for preserving peace which still exists in the world—we are more and more being driven away from eloquent idealism back to one central fact: what is this nation prepared to fight about? Until we have made up our minds about that, there will be uncertainty in our policy; uncertainty in Europe as to what our policy is and as to what contribution, if any, we can 529 make to the stability of Europe; uncertainty in the League as to what it can ultimately rely on. That is the central problem which confronts this country and every country to-day, and the reason is that the League of Nations is not a Government: it is an association of sovereign States for certain purposes, and, inevitably any form of coercion between sovereign States involves the risk of war. The clear evidence of the last year has been that Article 16, the Article governing economic sanctions, an Article which might be very effective if all nations were universally combined, in a partial League is either ineffective or brings you to the risk of war. It is one or the other. It either brings such feeble pressure to bear on an aggressor State as can practically be ignored as a means of stopping that State from achieving its immediate purpose, or it brings such severe pressure to bear upon that State that it is likely to retaliate by action which means war.

In the last resort, the League is an instrument for waging war for international purposes instead of for national purposes. It is only when we face that fact that we shall clear our minds and clear our policies to-day about the League, about Europe, and about the British Empire. In the negotiations which are now beginning, and which, as I think, will go on for many months, the first thing about which we have to be clear and to educate our own countrymen to be clear is the points upon which they must be prepared in the last resort to go to war, and must therefore make it clear to other nations that they are prepared to go to war. We have done that in the case of Locarno, and I, personally, entirely subscribe to the declarations which were made to France and Belgium, on the assumption that these are genuine undertakings to go to their assistance if there is a case of unprovoked aggression by Germany. But I am not prepared to subscribe to these declarations if they mean that those countries can come to us and say that the casus fœderis can arise as the result of any treaty of any sort or kind that they have made with anybody else to which we are not a party. It is absolutely vital that we should make that distinction, not only to France and Belgium, but also to the whole world and within the British Commonwealth.

530 When we consider what we are prepared to fight about, I would ask your Lordships to consider for a minute the situation in which we find ourselves to-day in the world as a whole. There is a famous reference—I think Cecil Rhodes made it once when he quoted the fourteenth chapter of St. Luke to Dr. Jameson—which is very appropriate to us to-day:

" What king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? "

What is our ten thousand? We have just built a great base at Singapore to deal with a very menacing situation in the Far East. Can we send any considerable number of ships there even to-day? We have obligations to Australia, to New Zealand, to India, to Malaya, which come, in my view, a good deal before obligations—or some obligations—in Europe. Are we in a position to discharge them? I do not think that recent events in Japan have diminished the power of the military policy in that country, and it seems to be true that the United States is contemplating seriously withdrawal altogether from the Philippines in another nine years. How far do our ten thousand go to enable us to discharge obligations, which are just as great as any others we may have nearer home, to the people who enjoy liberty under the British flag and who look to us to protect them, and on whom in the last resort our own prosperity and security depend?

I would ask a question about a situation nearer home. I have no inside information, but I understand that a very considerable proportion of the British Fleet is now in the Eastern Mediterranean, that no inconsiderable proportion of the Air Force is in Egypt, and that there have been reinforcements in North-Eastern Africa from the British Army. Are they going to have to remain there as long as Signor Mussolini has any considerable army in Abyssinia? Are we going to be able to move the British Fleet over to Singapore or to the North Sea as long as Signor Mussolini keeps 300,000 troops, white or black, in Abyssinia? It is a very formidable question, and it is a question which we have to answer before we lightly undertake further obligations in Europe. I, for one, am not only horrified by some of the 531 methods which Signer Mussolini has adopted, but have never had much doubt in my own mind as to what his ultimate Napoleonic purpose might be. If the day came when Great Britain had to remove her Fleet from the Mediterranean, either to go further east or to come home, and became seriously embarrassed, would there be any obstacle, once he had an army in Abyssinia, against his repeating exactly the operation which his great predecessor Napoleon made in his first enterprise out of Europe some. 120 years ago? I do not think it is going to be easy for us to remove a very considerable proportion of our forces from the Mediterranean in the near future.

May I come back now to Europe? Is there any necessity, now that the Treaty of Military Assistance has been signed between France, Russia and Czechoslovakia, for us to be scared into further military commitments in Europe? Let me just read to you some figures—I do not say accurate figures but the best figures I have been able to obtain—showing very broadly what I may call the distribution of forces in Europe between the status quo Powers—that is, the Powers who are primarily interested in maintaining the status quo—and the Powers primarily interested in altering it. France has an Army of 520,000 men of whom 210,000 are overseas in Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere. She has 1,670 of what I believe are called front-line aeroplanes. Belgium has an Army of 68,000 and probably about 200 aeroplanes. Czechoslovakia has an Army of 200,000 and 400 aeroplanes; Poland an Army of 266,000 front-line troops and 500 aeroplanes; Rumania an Army of 150,000 and 250 aeroplanes; Russia an Army of 1,300,000 which, on the authority of my noble friend on my left, is supported by 3,000 aeroplanes, a number which he says is rapidly going to be increased to 15,000.

LORD STRABOLGI

My authority was M. Pierre Cot, the French Air Minister.

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN

Probably he has very good sources of information. Yugoslavia has an Army of 200,000 and 400 aeroplanes. That gives a total of over 2,700,000 front-line soldiers and 6,420 aeroplanes on the side of the status quo Powers. That is not including Italy, which on a peace basis has 532 an Army of 370,000 and about 1,100 aeroplanes. On the other side what have you got? There is the normal German Army of 550,000. I am not including paramilitary formations which exist in all countries to a greater or lesser degree. Her present Air Force probably numbers 1,500 machines. Hungary has an Army of 34,000 and Bulgaria an Army of 30,000. You have a total of about 610,000 men and 1,500 aeroplanes. I should be the last to underrate the advantages possessed by a great military Power in the central position, nor can anybody who remembers what happened in the late War minimise the immense danger when small Powers can be taken in detail by a great Power without being supported by any other great Power. I merely put these figures forward as showing that Europe has immense reserves for the defence of the status quo if it likes to organise them without calling upon us at all.

When we consider the tremendous obligations which rest upon us in the Far East, in the Mediterranean and now in the west of Europe, I would urge upon the Government the paramount importance of not being lured into further commitments in Europe with anything like the arms and preparations which we have to-day. That is really the central point which I wish to lay before your Lordships. We have got to consider what we are prepared to go to war for, and what are the resources by which we can make war, before we can enter into commitments. It is only when we have faced what we feel we can get the country to fight for—and still more important to remain united behind a war—that we are in a position to say to the rest of the world what obligations we can undertake, what we can fulfil and what we cannot. I venture to think that much the most important thing we have to face is that question.

If possible there ought to be another Peace Ballot asking the country what it is prepared to fight for. In the situation which we are reaching in the world today security is coming more and more to rest upon what people are prepared to fight for. Until we face that we shall go on with the wobbling policy for which we are criticised by every other country and for which the National Government is criticised on this and other Benches. I ask the Government to consider that, 533 and to consider the future of the League of Nations—that also is involved—and then, having made up their minds, to tell the country what things they are prepared to fight for and the instruments by which they can make their decision effective.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, we have listened to a most interesting speech from the noble Marquess with which I find myself almost entirely in agreement, particularly as to the questions which he thinks ought to be raised. I entirely agree. I think that really is the point. The point is whether we are going to persist with the old system of international government or the new system. It all comes back to that. Once you have made up your minds about that the rest of the questions become easy. It seems to me that the debate this afternoon really does turn on that question. In the few observations I am going to make I will endeavour to make good that proposition.

There are two broad questions that have been discussed. The first is the question of the Rhineland, about, which my noble friend the Leader of the House-spoke mainly, and on that question I do not propose to say much because I find myself in almost entire agreement with everything he said apart from certain details. I confess I think the suggestion of asking Italy to be one of the guardians of the faith of the world was perhaps unfortunate, but no doubt it was not made by the British Government. Apart from that and one or two other details I agree broadly with the policy of the Government. I think the speeches of the Foreign Secretary have rightly drawn a distinction between our duty under Locarno and our duty under the League Covenant, and I think that as long as that central distinction is preserved we shall not get into very serious trouble in Locarno. To the consultations between Staffs I confess I do not attribute so much importance as do those with whom I usually find myself in agreement. If we are under obligation to go to the assistance of France in certain events, it is only a matter of common sense that we should discuss exactly what that means if that duty is to be discharged.

I pass at once to the other question, which to my mind is far more urgent, and which, properly considered, is really far 534 more important. In that respect I agree with very much that was said by my noble friend who has just spoken. I mean of course the question of Abyssinia. That is where I agree with him. To my mind all these questions come down to the same principle, as far as principle is concerned. In the Far East the whole question was: Is Japan to be allowed, at her own will, to set aside a number of treaties and to decide that she has a right to do certain things without any appeal to anybody else except to her own sovereignty? That is the old system—every country to be entitled to do exactly what it wants for itself and nobody to interfere with it except at the price of war. The result, of course, was very disastrous in the Far East, and I think we are still suffering from that. I am not going back into the question of who was to blame, but I think we are still suffering from the fact that Japan was able to defy the most clear expression of opinion by all the other countries assembled in the Assembly of the League—fifty or sixty of them—and to go on with her policy as if their protests had never been made.

Then we come to the Rhineland, and if I may say so to my noble friend who has just spoken, though I am sure he recognised it, I do not think he really attributed quite enough importance to that. It is not to my mind the re-occupation of the Rhineland by Germany that is important, though it is a breach of treaty, and it has importance from that point of view; the real importance of it was the argument put forward to defend it—namely: "We have a right to do this because we are a sovereign country and we will allow no one to interfere with any exercise of our sovereignty." That is a fatal doctrine—and my noble friend, I am sure, will agree with me—if we are to establish the new order of affairs, and if we are really to put with any hope of a clear answer the question which he so much wishes to have put before the people of this country. And now with regard to Abyssinia it is just the same. The two issues in each of these three cases are: (1), respect for treaties—I need not say any more about that than, has been said—and (2), the broad proposition: Are we to attempt to establish in the world some form of international—I will not call it government, it does not amount to that—but some form of international control, or are we 535 to allow a recrudescence of the old international anarchy? Are we to have the new system, or the old? Are we to have the system so rightly condemned by my noble friend who leads the House, the system of alliances, or are we to have the system of the League, which is essentially different? That is the great issue before us.

I agree with what my noble friend Lord Lothian said just now that the Soviet Treaty is not in accord with the new system. It is not so, I quite agree; none of these special treaties are. They are the hang-over from the old system, and I quite agree we have to get rid of them sooner or later. It is only in that sense that—though I was partly responsible for it because I was a member of the Cabinet when it was done—I have never been quite happy about the Locarno system. I do not agree with my noble friend about that. My experience in the country is that Locarno is far more unpopular than the larger obligations of the League. The idea that it is to be confined to a particular case is not accepted. They do accept the proposition that we have to do something to re-establish the peace of the world. A big broad general system is the right way to do that—that is accepted. But if you talk to them about the historic interests of this country in the Netherlands you will find that the argument has a very poor reception. It is not only that these things depend on the same principles, but they hang together. A faulty decision in one will hopelessly compromise the decision in the other, and so on. Therefore we have to look at these things, and that is the excuse, in my judgment, for discussing the question of Abyssinia, even though the Notice on the Paper talks about the situation in Europe, because what happens in Abyssinia will vitally affect the position in Europe.

When you come to compare the relative importance of the German issue and the Abyssinian issue, I think that there is an unfortunate and considerable difference of opinion between what I take to be the popular opinion in France and the popular opinion in England. I quite understand how it happened that to the French the Rhineland issue is far more important than the Abyssinian issue. They look upon it on the old lines—the danger of an attack by Germany 536 against France, and all the old traditions of centuries, and all the old alliances, and how it is to be met by getting this country or that country on one side of the alliance or the other. I quite understand that to the Frenchman that must seem far the most important issue. But, judged as we judge the thing here, I think we are right in thinking that the Abyssinian issue is really the more important of the two.

I believe it is going to be the more vital, because when you come to look at the incidents of the Abyssinian question it is a far bigger thing than the re-occupation of the Rhineland by Germany—in itself, apart from its ultimate consequences: the whole horrible incident of an invasion, an invasion carried out in the way this invasion has been carried out. You have the absolute defiance of the Covenant, the express defiance by the spokesman of Italy; and not only of the Covenant, but of the Briand-Kellogg Pact and of all the other treaties. A wholesale slaughter, a hecatomb of treaties has been the accompaniment of the Italian policy. Then quite lately you have, in addition to that, the fearful savagery with which the war is now being carried on, in defiance again of quite express and definite treaties—more treaties thrown on the scrap-heap and creating precedents for future war which must give every country, and particularly this country, the utmost anxiety. We may see in the fate of the open towns in Abyssinia to-day the horrible fate of London to-morrow. And not only London, but, if the same precedents are to be followed, we are to see every little country village exposed to bombing and machine-gun fire and the slaughter of the women and children in it. The results will be something perfectly portentous if those principles of warfare are really to prevail in any future war which may unhappily take place.

Lastly, in estimating the importance of the Abyssinian issue, we have to recognise our special responsibility. I fully understand my noble friend's protest against that doctrine. But it is so; we cannot avoid it. Be it so that the responsibility for the mistakes, if mistakes were made—and I think very bad mistakes were made—was the responsibility of the League: but our inherent authority, our 537 inherent position must give us always a very great share of responsibility for any international mistake in which we are concerned. Not only so, as my right honourable friend Mr. Winston Churchill pointed out the other day, we did take, I think quite rightly and properly, an active part in pressing on the Council of the League the establishment of sanctions, and I agree with Mr. Churchill that, having done that, we incurred a special duty to do our utmost to sec the thing through and to see that those sanctions were effective.

And when I say effective, what do I mean? Of course it is true, profoundly true, that the first, duty of the League is to stop the war. There cannot be any doubt about that. Read, not this Article or that Article of the Covenant, read the thing as a whole. There is no question that that is the conception, not of the words of the document, but of the whole idea. If you come to the words, they are extremely clear as well. And if it is the duty of the League to stop the war, then it is our duty—and I venture very respectfully to urge this; I do not think that the Government disagree, but I do urge it in any case—it is our duty to press the League to discharge that obligation. I know that some of my noble friends hold the view that that obligation does not rest on us unless every nation is prepared to agree with us in the step which we take. That is said, no doubt, in a popular way, but it cannot actually be what is meant. The abstinence of some small Power, for example, would surely not remove our obligations, or the abstinence of two or three or a dozen small Powers. The real issue is not unanimity, but whether we can command such a force as will make the opposition practically hopeless.

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

And persuade France.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

You do require to persuade France in order to obtain that.

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

Is it possible?

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

That is a different matter. I am merely for the moment arguing the point that the only limit, as I see it, to our responsibility in this matter is that, giving the best attention I can to the documents 538 which bind us, I do not take it as our duty to act unless we have in support of our action so large a measure of assistance that the opposition will be practically hopeless. I know that when we say anything like that we are accused of being warmongers. I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Lothian saying in so many words that he was a warmonger in that sense. But just let us see what it is we say. We say it is the duty of the League to take whatever steps are necessary to stop the war, and when we suggest something of an extreme character such as cutting off communications between Italy and Africa or putting on oil sanctions, or whatever it may be, we are told that means war because we will have to fight Italy. What does that mean? It means that if we do certain things in discharge of our treaty obligations, and in discharge of the principles which we are trying to set up, Italy will attack us. It is not a question of our going to war with Italy: it is a question of Italy attacking us; and therefore we must not do it, we must not risk doing that, because that will produce war. It means we are not ever to take any steps if a Dictator says: "If you do that I shall attack you." That cannot be right; that must be wrong: that cannot be a defensible point of view. We have got to do our duty under the Covenant. We have got to do it reasonably. We have got to take a reasonable course, but, taking that and assuming we have the support of a sufficient number of States to make our action practically certain to be successful, then the question of what action Italy or any other delinquent may take is a matter no doubt to be considered, but it is certainly not to be regarded as a conclusive answer to the discharge of our duty. Otherwise we should be really accepting the view that a delinquent country was entitled to dictate the measures of coercion. That seems to me to be the absurdity to which the argument could be reduced.

I entirely agree with my noble friend who was good enough to say, in his courteous interruption some time ago, that we must have Franco with us. That is a sine qua non, practically, as I understand the practical situation. It would not have been so, perhaps, in the Far East. We should have had to have America; but we cannot act in this case, 539 at least so I think, unless we have the support of France. It is possible that the French Government will act in such a way as to make it impracticable for us to take necessary action. One of my noble friends thought the other day it was sufficient to show that a course was idiotic to make it unlikely that the world would adopt it. I am afraid I do not take such a sanguine view as that. But if the French do take that line, that it would be idiotic of them seems to me to be beyound discussion. Their whole hope, in my view, in the end, like the hope of all other peace-loving countries, must be in collective security. I do not see any other hope at all for them. If they allow the League to be undermined, if they allow aggressive countries to defy the League and carry through their policy in spite of it, it seems to me that the chief hope of France is seriously interfered with.

I am bound to add this, as I am speaking on this subject, that it would be foolish of us, foolish, if I may say so respectfully, of the Government, to ignore the strength of feeling in the country on this point. I have not any doubt that the policy pursued by France last autumn has been responsible for the larger part of the reluctance, or the apparent reluctance, in many quarters to any action which would seem to bind us further to France in the present crisis. At the present moment I am satisfied that that feeling is far stronger than it has ever been that we are, and ought to be, bound to carry out our obligations so as to protect Abyssinia from the aggression of this infinitely more powerful aggressor. All the British feelings—do not let us through false shame conceal it—are on that side. The desire for fair play, the desire for chivalry, the hatred of cruelty, all the best and strongest feelings that move our people, are combined in this matter, and I am satisfied that, though that feeling is already strong, it is going to be stronger and stronger until it may easily reach an embarrassing strength.

What I feel is that that aspect of the case has never got home to the Italian Government and perhaps not to the French Government either. They do not understand it. They think that underneath it all is some curious anxiety about the waters of Lake Tsana or some such 540 nonsense as that. I observe with almost indignation that at this crisis, when the country is stirred to its depths by the appeals from suffering Abyssinians and the account of what they are suffering, we are told that the Italian Government have given fresh assurances that they are going to respect out rights in Lake Tsana, and that they do not contemplate at the moment any invasion of Egypt. That is not the point. One right that we care about in this matter, apart from these humanitarian considerations, is the right to peace. In my belief my noble friend Lord Lothian was perfectly right in saying that until that is established, and accepted, as the essential motive of our foreign policy, to the extent that in certain circumstances we will take forcible action to repress the aggressor, there is very little hope either that the world at large will understand what our policy is or, if they do understand it, that that policy will be successful.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will feel a strong sense of gratitude towards the noble Lord, Lord Snell, for having put the questions that he has to the Government, and, if I may, I would like to congratulate the noble Lord on the admirable speech which he delivered. We have up to the present time looked upon the Socialist Party as a warlike Party, anxious to make war on all countries, yet at the same time not allowing this country to have those adequate defences which are necessary to enable it to fulfil the obligations which it might undertake. But I found no sign of that attitude in the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Snell, delivered, and I think that he put some important questions to the Government.

The noble Viscount who replied for the Government spoke in his usual eloquent and attractive manner, if I may say so, and enunciated a number of facts of which we were all perhaps well aware, but he did not give us any very real guidance as to the foreign policy which His Majesty's Government propose to pursue. I know that we are at the present moment in a very difficult position and no one would care to say anything at this time which might embarrass our Government in the negotiations which they are proposing to carry on, but one somehow feels that in our foreign policy—and I think it has been noticeable in the speeches to 541 which we have listened—there is some lack of direction and an absence of any definite plan. I am not sure that owing to our inadequate defences we have not found ourselves for some years past in a very difficult position, and have not felt capable of laying down any definite policy for the guidance of the world. I feel sometimes that if we could have done that, it would have relieved us from many of those difficulties in which we are now placed. But it does seem to me that at this time we require some definite foreign policy to be pursued, and that we should put that policy forward and adhere to it whatever it may be.

The noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, gave us a very clear picture of the state of Europe at the present time, and I know that state of Europe is a source of great sorrow to my noble friend who sits on the Cross Benches (Viscount Cecil of Chelwood). No one has fought harder than he during the last few years to reduce armaments in the world. He spent many years on the Preparatory Commission and he has made speeches in all parts of the country, yet to-day we see Europe an armed camp and armaments are increasing. This shows very clearly, I submit, that the policy which has been pursued during the last sixteen years has not been an effective policy, and that the faith which we have reposed in the League of Nations has not as yet been justified. But while I say that, I also wish to state that there is no warmer supporter of the conception of the ideal for which the League of Nations stands than myself, and I feel that unless we can establish a League in accordance with the ideals that are in our minds the outlook for Europe and the world is a very gloomy one indeed; in fact, I for one in that case see no future for the world except through some tremendous catastrophe out of which a new era may begin. But I am sure none of your Lordships are anxious to see that catastrophe. We earnestly hope that a reconstruction of the League of Nations may take place, and that we shall see established a worldwide organisation capable of bearing the strain which will be put upon it and of fulfilling the desires of the nations of the world.

The debate to-day has ranged over a somewhat wide area, yet I feel that none of us can say we have been able to derive 542 from it any very great satisfaction. There were gloomy prognostications in all the speeches to which we have just listened, but it does seem to me that, whichever of the questions may be actually the most important, the one which is filling our minds at the present moment is the situation which has arisen from the latest move of the German Government. I venture to say with all respect that this moment is one which should be taken advantage of, and that we should under no circumstances let this opportunity slip. One feels that a network of formalities will arise from the proposals that have been made. There is a danger that counter proposals will be put forward, and that instead of this opportunity being seized now, months will be allowed to slip by so that we shall be unable to derive from the situation the good results which I believe can be obtained from it. We have discussed today the collective power of the League of Nations and the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, has told us of his opposition—he did not quite call it opposition, but I agree with him in what he said in regard to his lack of agreement with the Locarno theory.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

May I be allowed to state that it would be unfair for me to say that, for I was responsible for it with others. What I meant to say was that I thought for the moment it was the right thing to do, and the only thing to do at the moment, yet I always did feel it had certain weaknesses which made it very difficult to defend in the country.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

I think I know exactly what the noble Viscount means, and in no circumstances would I think of doing him an injustice. I know that he believes in the collective arrangement of all these matters, and looks askance and with doubt at any arrangement which can be brought about by direct negotiations between Powers. But I do feel in the particular situation in which we are placed that an agreement between Germany, France and certainly Great Britain would be of the greatest advantage to the world, and I think your Lordships will agree with me when I say that this is the development to which the nations of the world are looking. The people in this country are increasingly interested in foreign affairs. It is quite 543 true there are various matters in this country which may cause them to forget the great importance of foreign affairs at this particular moment, but I think that nothing would give greater satisfaction to the people of this country than that some definite and satisfactory agreement should be arrived at between Germany, France and this country.

That is why I would most sincerely urge upon my noble friend who is going to Geneva to try and hasten these matters, because while there is sometimes some advantage in delay, I am quite sure there is no advantage in delaying this matter. One does most sincerely hope that we shall be able to consider the German proposals and consider the French proposals. I hope the French proposals are not in the nature of counterproposals, but are proposals which somehow will fit in with those that have been put forward by Germany. I hope we may be able to consider them and take a long step forward towards bringing about that peace towards which the world is so anxiously looking. The present situation has many alarming characteristics, but I do hope we shall be able to view it as a whole in its proper perspective. One does look to the representatives of Great Britain, the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Privy Seal—and I am sure we can have no better representatives—to do all they can to see that the matter is put in its proper perspective, because the world is looking at these negotiations and is believing that good will come from them. I do most sincerely hope that that confidence which is reposed in those who are dealing with these matters will not be misplaced.

I think we should realise what really is the reason for the situation in which we find ourselves at the present moment. The situation has been brought to a head, if I may say so, by our policy of sanctions. We have adopted a half-hearted policy of sanctions. I am one of those who are not at all in favour of the policy of sanctions as it is being carried out at the present moment. My conception of the League of Nations—I have had an opportunity of putting it before your Lordships before, and I ask your indulgence to allow me to put it before you to-day—is a great comprehensive organisation which includes all the nations of the world; an organisation which by its composition would be of so powerful a character that, although it 544 had the power to impose sanctions, those sanctions would never have to be imposed. I feel that the present organisation falls short of that composition, and that therefore the imposition of sanctions of this character constitutes a great danger and that those sanctions do not fulfil the objects which, as a weapon of the League of Nations, they are supposed to fulfil.

We know quite well that France was placed in a tremendous difficulty in deciding whether she should implement her allegiance to the League of Nations or consider her friendship and attachment to Italy, which is one of the greatest factors in the security of France. By our policy, in which we persuaded France to do neither one thing nor the other, a regrettable estrangement has taken place between Italy and France. That has forced France into the hands of Russia. Hence this very ill-fated alliance which has been brought about, and of which mention has been made to-day, although its full significance does not appear to have been realised. That alliance cannot be said to infringe the League principles. I think the signatories to the alliance have been careful that the League principles should not be infringed; but there is no doubt as to the meaning of that alliance. It is part of the policy of the encirclement of Germany, because France believes that by a policy of that description she will add to her own security. That is a policy with which I cannot agree. I most sincerely hope that we shall be able to persuade France that her future does not lie along that direction, but in an understanding with Germany and the full support of a reconstructed League of Nations.

I would deprecate the suggestion, which one does hear on all sides, that Germany cannot and will not respect treaties, and because of that suggestion, for which Germany has given very good reason, I am sorry to say, there is a prejudice against the proposals which the Germans have put forward. I, for one, condemn strongly the methods which the Germans have employed, but I think that we must realise that there are what I might call mitigating factors. All negotiations to which the Germans have been a party during these last few years have not been negotiations brought about on a basis of equality, and I think that inequality of status between countries is always very likely to vitiate negotiations 545 brought about between them. I am not saying this as an excuse for the action which the Germans have taken, but I put it forward, and I believe in it strongly, as what I call a mitigating factor. We must remember that Germany has been a defeated country, that she has passed through degrading conditions, that certain concessions of a not really very important character have been made to her, and that in every possible way her inferiority has been emphasised. Now Herr Hitler's power and policy are a direct reaction to the mistaken policy which the world has pursued, relating to Germany, in the last few years.

Germany requires help and sympathy like every other country. There is a suggestion that Germany is powerful and is desirous of making war on various countries, and is determined to be a direct disturber of the peace. I am quite sure that that is not the policy of Germany at the present time. At the present moment Germany is in no sense capable of making war, and it seems an extraordinary thing to me that the French should desire certain undertakings to be given at this moment, as if there was some danger of an invasion of France taking place in the next few-days or in the next few weeks. There is nothing of the kind in being at the present moment; but this is the time at which Herr Hitler has put forward proposals which I feel are a great move in the direction of peace. I sincerely hope that France will be able to put her fears and anxieties on one side, and will see in these suggestions the possibility of a new future, and that, instead of making new proposals and rendering the situation more difficult than it is at the present moment, she will see the course which she should pursue.

When we speak of France we must all look on France, naturally, with feelings of the greatest sympathy and affection. After all, none of us can forget the years which have gone by, in which we faced our dangers and our troubles together, and I think that if we look on the practical side of the question we know quite well that in future our fortunes are linked up with those of France. There is no possible situation which I can foresee in which France and Great Britain can find themselves ranged on different sides if such an emergency as war should ever take place. But the French 546 are essentially realists, and they have their one ideal before them, of security. They are concerned for the maintenance of what they believe to be their security, and they will consider no other question at the same time. They have endeavoured to achieve that security by subscribing to the League of Nations, although they have been desirous of fashioning a League of Nations of a pattern according to their own ideas. If the League of Nations did not furnish them with the guarantees they required then they desired that security should be obtained by alliances and guarantees of a different character. We must necessarily remember that the abiding fear which is always in the mind of France is the danger which she believes to come from Germany along her frontiers. I feel it is quite necessary that we should be able to persuade France as to the pathway along which her security lies, and if we can do that a great many of the difficulties with which we are faced will be solved.

Hitherto, by various disappointments, the French have felt that their security depends on the subjection of Germany. We have found in all these years that they have opposed every move in the direction of giving equality to Germany. Now the last element of the inferiority of Germany in the maintenance of the demilitarised zone has passed for ever, and France will be put in a position of dealing on a footing of equality with Germany. I feel that those who represent us at Geneva have a great task to fulfil—that is, the reconciliation of warring elements which at the present moment are dividing France from Germany. I believe that can be done after full consideration of Herr Hitler's proposals, and I sincerely hope that we shall be able to see those proposals developed into a lasting system which will bring peace in Europe for many years to come.

LORD ARNOLD

My Lords, in intervening in this debate I must make it clear at the outset that I speak only for myself. That has the advantage that I can speak plainly, and I intend to do so. I have had many years' experience now of your Lordships' House and I know that your Lordships do not object to candid and plain speaking. The noble Viscount who spoke for the Government used grave 547 words about the situation and said we were at the cross-roads. It is of course true that we are living in probably some of the most fateful days in history. People are and need to be intensely anxious. They feel that the sand in the hour-glass is last running out, and they want to know whether this chance—this last chance, it may be—of effecting a settlement in Europe is going to be grasped or whether, as so often in past days, it is going to be thrown away. I find them asking this: Is France once again going to be allowed to destroy a settlement as so often in the past?

I do not think myself that the debates which have taken place in Parliament up to the present have represented what very large numbers of people in the country are thinking. The people want to see swept aside all these diplomatic punctilios and juridical niceties and a settlement got, and they know that that can only be done by at last treating Germany fairly, differently from the way which she has been treated in the past. The noble Marquess who has just sat down made, if he will allow me to say so, a valuable speech with much of which I find myself in agreement. People are anxious because they know that if things are going to be put right there must be a fresh start in Europe and there must be an end of the Versailles spirit which has been the curse of the Continent for the last seventeen years. I am sorry to say that the Foreign Secretary, in the speeches which he has made in regard to this very grave and intensely delicate situation, never seems properly to have understood the German point of view. Certainly he has not stated it. Even the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, I thought, erred to some extent this afternoon in that direction. The noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, pointed out that the noble Viscount, apart from a few perfunctory remarks, hardly referred to the Franco-Soviet Pact and Mr. Eden in another place said very little about it when putting the position before the House. The noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, said that Germany justified what she had done on past grievances, but her main justification, as I read her reply, is the Franco-Soviet Pact and not past grievances.

The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, said she had done what she had done because she was determined at all costs to assert 548 her sovereignty. That no doubt was part of her policy, because she felt that the time had come when she must no longer be under the inequalities under which she was suffering, but the factor which brought about the present position was the Franco-Soviet Pact, and the German Government, to do them justice, have been perfectly candid about that from the very start. As The Times Berlin correspondent—who, if I may say so, has sent singularly able and informative despatches—pointed out, ever since the spring of last year the German Government have said that if France went on with the Franco-Soviet Pact they would regard it as a breach of Locarno. Undoubtedly that Pact is against the spirit of Locarno. There can be no question whatever about that whatever juridical niceties may be put forward. It is part of the policy of the encirclement of Germany, and if we were in Germany's position we should feel exactly as she feels about it. This constant scolding of Germany for treaty-breaking puts an almost intolerable strain on the position, especially when it comes from France with her record about disarmament, both in regard to the Covenant and the final Protocol of Locarno, her invasion of the Ruhr, which was quite illegal and against the wishes of this country. France, as we all know, was the main factor in causing Article 16 of the Covenant to be broken in regard to sanctions against Italy. For France to pose as the upholder of International Law in Europe and to indulge in shrill condemnation of Germany because of the peaceful militarisation of the Rhineland is merely to aggravate the situation.

Obviously another great obstacle to conciliation are the Staff talks. There has not been a great deal said about them this afternoon, but I have no hesitation in saying that the overwhelming majority of the people of the country are against those talks. If a plebiscite could be taken that would be abundantly confirmed. Yet the Foreign Secretary actually said in another place that they would not in any way prejudice a settlement. The German Government have said exactly the contrary. They have said that they would be regarded as seriously prejudicial if the talks went on. That is common sense. Anybody but a diplomat could see that. They might have been designed to exacerbate the 549 situation. Consider the alternative. Suppose Germany at this moment was carrying on Staff talks with some Powers. Think what a howl would be sent up of "How can you trust Germany now?" Obviously it has been a very great mistake to give way to France on this point.

Moreover, there is no rational reason for the Staff talks at all at the present time. There is no fear of Germany attacking France at the present time. As "Scrutator" pointed out in the Sunday Times on Sunday—and he is one of the most able military critics in the country—

" There is no more risk of Germany's attacking whilst these negotiations are in progress than of Franco attacking."

And what did the Germans say themselves in their reply last week?

" As is obvious from her offer, Germany has no intention of ever attacking France or Belgium. And, taking into consideration France's colossal armaments and the enormous fortresses on her Eastern frontier, it is well known that such an attack would be senseless from the purely military point of view alone."

What on earth, then, is the, urgency of these Staff talks? Why could not they have been postponed for three or four months until negotiations have been carried through? Quito obviously they are a very disturbing factor in the situation.

Now the Foreign Secretary insists that in the White Paper there is an obligation under Locarno to go to the assistance of France and Belgium. The White Paper in effect says so. That is, under Article 4 (2) of the Treaty of Locarno, which says that:

" As soon as the Council of the League of Nations is satisfied that a violation or breach has been committed it will notify the Powers signatory of the Treaty and they will come immediately to the assistance of the Power against whom the act complained of is directed."

The submission I make is that as a matter of fact under the Treaty of Locarno there has been no obligation whatever in the present circumstances to go to the assistance of France or Belgium. Clearly the Treaty of Locarno envisaged an act of unprovoked aggression, and that has not taken place. This has been pointed out in one or two able letters in The Times, and I would like to say here that I think The Times in these grave days, both in its leaders and in its correspondence columns, has performed a very great 550 national service. It has been pointed out there that obviously the Treaty of Locarno was never intended to apply to peaceful militarisation. Such militarisation was never foreseen, and not provided for. The words are that we will go "to the assistance of the Power against whom the act complained of is directed."

What evidence is there that the peaceful militarisation of the Rhineland is directed against France and Belgium any more than against other Powers signatory of the Treaty? And indeed Article 44 of the Versailles Treaty says this: In case Germany violates in any way Articles 42 and 43 "— that is, the articles which say that there should be no militarisation and no fortification— she shall be regarded as committing a hostile, act against the Powers signatory of the present Treaty. The Powers—all of them, not merely France and Belgium. How could it be contended before any jury of twelve Englishmen that the putting of 30,000 German troops in an area which has a German population of 14,700,000 is an act directed against either France or Belgium more than against anybody else? No jury would convict on that.

I want to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will deal with this point. I will put to him two specific questions. We are told we are obliged under Locarno to go to the assistance of France and Belgium—that is one of the justifications for the White Paper. I say that we are not obliged to do anything of the sort under the present circumstances. I ask the noble Earl these two questions: Were the words I have called attention to—namely, "against whom the act complained of is directed "—ever considered by the Foreign Secretary and the Government in coming to the conclusion that there was an obligation on us in this case of peaceful militarisation to go to the assistance of France and Belgium? If so, on what grounds was the conclusion reached that the act complained of was directed against France and Belgium any more than against all the signatory Powers?—which is what the Treaty of Versailles laid down would be the effect of a breach of Article 42 or Article 43. I contend that this is a very serious matter. 551 Germany has asserted again and again that what she has done was merely to affirm her sovereignty, and that fits in with the facts—the number of men and so forth. Clearly that fits in with what she has done. She has evidently had no intention up to the present of attacking anybody, and therefore up to the present we are not called upon to go to anybody's assistance.

It is only because of a strained and, in my view untenable, interpretation of the Treaty that we have been drawn into the present position, which, as Mr. Lloyd George has pointed out in a very able speech, is a very dangerous position: we are getting nearer and nearer, with obligations and commitments, to a condition of things which will one day lead to war. It is all very well to say that these Staff talks are really only part of Locarno, and that they do not carry us any further than Locarno. I agree with what the noble Viscount implied, that the British people have never really been consulted about Locarno, and they have never really understood it. In any case Locarno was signed in 1925, when the condition of Europe was totally different, and it was signed mainly for two purposes: first, to bring Germany into the League of Nations; and, secondly, to lead to disarmament—and France and the other nations undertook to disarm in the final Protocol. Those two things at the present time are not in existence. Germany went into the League of Nations and then went out, and there are jurists who hold that that very fact invalidated Locarno. And certainly France has not disarmed; on the contrary, ever since Locarno she has been rearming as quickly as her finances would allow. And yet we are told that this is only the same policy of Locarno, and that we are really being committed to nothing more. I say that is putting a very strained interpretation upon the position. It is opposed to common sense. Obviously we are committed to more when we have these Staff talks.

But then the Foreign Secretary said in his speech: "Ah well, we had to give way. If we had not given way we do not know what would have happened. It was the danger of war. This was the price we had to pay for the restraint of France." What was the restraint of France? What could she do? Did she propose to go to war because of peaceful 552 militarisation? If she had done that it would have been a gross breach of the Kellogg Pact, to which France is a signatory. And now she is posing as the upholder of International Law in Europe. Presumably when she is blaming one Power for breaking a treaty she would not break another at the same time! I am afraid there is only too much reason to believe, looking at the situation all round, that now that France has got us tied to her by these Staff talks, she really wants the negotiations with Germany to break down. She has never said a syllable to help them. On the contrary she has done everything to hinder them. M. Flandin went back to Paris, and that very evening in the Chamber he said: "Of course there will not be any foreign troops on our soil. That would be a monstrous iniquity." Is that the way to bring about a settlement at a time of very difficult and strained relations?

The fact is that France wants to keep the status quo. Now she has us committed to her, she wants that rather than a European settlement. But it is time that all this came to an end. The majority of the people of Great Britain are sick and tired of being dragged at the heels of France, and France's best friends should tell her so, and tell her she is making a profound mistake in continuing along the same fatal course which she has so often pursued in the past. Large numbers of people in this country hold that it is France who is mainly responsible for the condition of Europe to-day. After all, she has been the guiding factor in foreign policy for the last seventeen years, and there is a widespread demand that Great Britain ought at last to have a foreign policy of her own, not dictated from Paris. Unfortunately, for practical purposes the Locarno Treaty has now become an Anglo-French Alliance in effect; and yet it is quite certain that a big majority of the people of Great Britain are opposed to any such alliance.

Vast numbers of people have been alienated in recent months from any support of France at all. The noble Viscount said that one reason for that was what France did in regard to Italy and sanctions. Let us look for a moment at what France did in the matter of sanctions. From the outset it has been 553 France which has stopped effective sanctions. She refused to apply effective sanctions to Italy despite Treaty obligations, yet France wants sanctions against Germany despite the fact that they would be illegal because Germany is not an aggressor. So almost at one and the same time France, in her own interest, has stopped effective sanctions against Italy and, in her own interest, wants effective sanctions against Germany. Failing to get them she has enmeshed Great Britain in what is in fact an Anglo-French Alliance.

Before I sit down I want to say a word or two about the insistence which is put forward that Germany must make some gesture if negotiations are to succeed. She is to promise this or that for three or four months if there is to be a prospect of success. As a matter of fact Germany has gone a long way in that direction in her reply; she has promised certain things. But in truth all this talk of the supreme value of some gesture is remote from reality. If Germany is what she is represented to be by anti-Germans—namely, entirely untrustworthy and unscrupulous, the fact that she might be prepared to make some gesture would not indicate any change of heart but might be a trick any unscrupulous Power would adopt in order to get her own way later on. In those circumstances there would be no difficulty in her agreeing for four months not to fortify the Rhine, but that would be no safeguard. In any case Germany, as has been pointed out this afternoon, will not permanently agree not to fortify the Rhine. That is not equality, and she ought not to be asked to give any such guarantee. Such a prohibition is quite inconsistent with sovereign rights. Germany would fight rather than agree permanently not to fortify the Rhine. What is France going to do? Is she going to war with Germany to stop her having sovereign rights? If so, she will not have the British people with her, and if she does it that would be a gross breach of the Kellogg Pact which France has signed.

It seems almost incredible that we should be standing out for some gesture which, even if we; could get it, would have small bearing upon the situation. All this sort of thing ought to stop. If negotiations are to succeed, the past must be buried and Germany must be treated as an equal. Unless you are going to do 554 that, unless Germany is to be treated fairly and differently from the past, it would be better to break off negotiations altogether. You must do one or the other. This vacillating, wobbling, half-hearted, pin-pricking policy is bound to end in disaster. If negotiations do break off, it is vital to bear in mind the alternative. The alternative is an intensified armament race in every country in Europe. That: is what will happen. No feeling of security anywhere from hour to hour until the war comes, the war which the Prime Minister has told us will mean the end of civilisation. That is the alternative. Surely, it would be a crime against humanity to let small diplomatic punctilious points, juridical or otherwise, which have no real substance, break off negotiations—to break them off because of reasons which are trifling in comparison with the stupendous issues at stake.

LORD NEWTON

My Lords, this debate started with speeches on the subject of Abyssinia, and I should have thought that is a topic which must be as distasteful to one side of the House as to the other. The official representatives of both Parties are equally responsible for this policy, and must be equally disappointed at its futility. When I have on previous occasions ventured to express my disapproval of this policy I have been told that I was living in a pre-War wor