Whatever difference of opinion there may be on the Amendment, I think there will be universal agreement on one particular declaration, that is that the state of Europe is grave and dangerous. I do not know how other Members of this House feel in this matter, but I confess that never since the outbreak of the War have I felt so depressed and so hopeless as I have done during the last few weeks. We were sustained during the anxieties of the four years of War by the hope that the peoples and the Governments of the belligerent nations would be taught by the experiences, sacri- fices, and sufferings of that War, and that at the end of the War they would concentrate their efforts, by united action, to rebuild the world on the basis of a just and lasting peace. Unfortunately, that hope has not been realised. The state of Europe to-day is one of more aggressive militarism, international hatred and passion, and the activity of all those causes which are provocative of war than was the case in the early part of 1914.

In the course of the observations that I may have to make this morning it may be necessary for me to indulge in plain speech. But it has always been the proud boast of the House of Commons that it listened with respect and toleration to views, tolerantly expressed, and evidently honestly held, with which it was in disagreement. I shall always remember with gratitude the toleration that I and a few of my friends received in the War Parliament, when we made speeches which, I know, were painfully distressing to those who listened. We were invariably met with toleration and a fair hearing. The time has come for plain speaking. I am not one of those who believe in crying "peace" when there is no peace, in pretending to friendship where no friendship exists. But I want it to be understood that, when I this morning speak of France, I speak, not of the nation, not of the people of France, but of the militarist leaders of France, and of the policy of those militarist leaders. I have, and I know every Member of my Party has, the most profound respect for the people of France, and desire to live on terms of affection and co-operation with her. It will be a happy day for France when her people throw off the domination of their militarist leaders, and join with the peoples of the other countries of Europe in the great work of European pacification and reconstruction—a work to which France can make a most valuable contribution.

It will be noted that our Amendment is comprehensive. It deals not merely with the present critical situation in international affairs, and not merely with the question of reparation. But I venture to claim it goes down to fundamental causes. What the Prime Minister described as the "irreconcilable differences" between this country and France are not due merely to a difference of opinion on the question of reparations. They are the culmination of the irrecon- cilable differences which have existed during the past four years, and it is time, in our opinion, to bring this question to a definite decision.

What, in our opinion, are the fundamental causes of the European situation? You may find our opinion upon that mater expressed in the concluding part of our Amendment, where we call for a revision of the Peace Treaty. The great crime which was committed in Paris four years ago was the failure of European statesmen there assembled to do the greatest deed which man ever had the opportunity of doing. They failed to do it. They gave us a peace which was a violation of every one of the conditions of the Armistice—not the kind of peace which had been promised at the outcome of the Allied victory, not the kind of peace, unlike former Peace Treaties, based upon vengeance, slaughter, and a perpetuation of the domination of the victors. What we wanted was a peace of reconciliation, a peace of goodwill, a peace which in the future would remove international grievances and the memories of the War. I must use the word "peace." I have often tried to discover a word which would better describe these treaties, but I have failed to do so. These Treaties, and particularly the Treaty with Germany, were not Treaties at all.

For the first time in history we had following the War not a Congress, not a Conference between the belligerents, but a Conference of the representatives of the victorious Powers who, without consultation with their late enemies, formulated their conditions, presented a pistol at the heads of their late enemies, and compelled them, under duress, to sign a Treaty which the late enemy knew to be based upon statements that could not be historically justified, and which contained economic conditions that were known to be impossible of fulfilment. I hope that an opportunity will be provided for a full discussion in this House of the question of the Peace Treaties and of the need for their revision.

In the limited time at my disposal this morning, after dealing with other matters, I have not much time to touch upon this matter at any length. It is, however, not necessary for me to do so. I assume that every Member of this House is familiar with the terms of the Treaty with Germany, and with the kind of economic provisions contained in it. Never in history was a beaten nation so dismembered and tortured as Germany was by the provisions of the Treaty made with her. Those are not my own words, but the words of a man who was a signatory to the ratification of this Treaty, and a man who was for some time a member of the allied Supreme Council.

One of the conditions promised after the Armistice was that populations should not be bandied about like cattle. Nevertheless, the Peace Treaties robbed 20,000,000 of the population of Europe of their nationality, and placed them under an alien government. Their economic provisions destroyed the mainspring of the economic life of Europe, or to use the apt illustration of the Prime Minister, it "cut the jugular vein of the economic life of Germany." a life which was the mainspring of the economic life of Europe. It reduced the population of Germany by 10 per cent. It has taken away more than 20 per cent. of her coal supplies, more than one-third of her iron ore supplies, and, having by this process cut the jugular vein of the economic life of Germany, it imposed other conditions by way of the payment of indemnities which it was utterly impossible for Germany to fulfil.

I want to say a few words about reparations. The ex-Prime Minister is not in his place, and if he were I should not be disposed to enter into a controversy with him as to what he actually led the country to believe on this point at the General Election, and what he stated about making Germany pay. The Peace Treaty deliberately left the question of the amount of the indemnity or reparations an open question. If in the Peace Treaty the amount of the indemnity had been definitely stated, and had it been a sum which Germany found was within her power to pay, there would have been some encouragement in Germany in the direction of an effort at economic reconstruction.

Through all the years since the war the indefiniteness of the amount Germany might be called upon to pay has been disastrous in regard to any efforts which Germany might otherwise have made in the direction of economic reconstruction. At the original London Conference the amount of the indemnity was fixed at £11,600,000,000. A few days ago the Prime Minister gave us an account of the last Paris Conference when the British Government submitted what he described as a very carefully thought out scheme fixing the amount of reparations at £2,500,000,000. That was the proposal of the British Government. But the present figure actually fixed by the Allies at the London Conference was £6,600,000,000, and the British figure is now £2,500,000,000.

Shortly after the breakdown of the Paris Conference, Sir John Bradbury made a proposal which fixed the maximum amount of indemnity at £1,800,000,000, with a minimum of £1,500,000,000. Had a reasonable view of this question of reparations been taken even two years ago, we should not have been in the position in which we are to-day. It may be remembered that in April, 1921, the German Government approached the Government of the United States, and made a definite proposal in regard to a settlement. The German Government offered to accept a settlement on the basis of an indemnity of £2,500,000,000, with this further provision that, should the economic and financial condition of Germany improve more rapidly, and to a greater extent than was anticipated, she would be prepared to add to the amount of that indemnity. She also offered to restore the devastated areas of France. That offer was not accepted. It was practically the proposal and suggestion made by the British Government at the last Paris Conference. A figure of £11,600,000,000 was fixed at the first Conference. How preposterous that figure! The present figure is £6,600,000,000. How preposterous that figure! The suggestion of the British Government to reduce that figure by nearly two-thirds shows that they too hold that view. The Prime Minister has on more than one occasion stated that Germany is on the point of economic collapse.

What has Germany paid by way of indemnity and reparation during the last four years? I know that I am now entering upon a field where there is abundant room for differences of opinion, but at any rate there can be no doubt about this: Germany has surrendered her colonies. She has surrendered a large part of her merchant fleet. Her naval fleet is at the bottom of the sea off Scapa Flow. She has surrendered the coalfields of the Saar. She has surrendered the rich iron fields of Lorraine. The property of German nationals in Allied countries has been confiscated—a thing, by the way, never done before by any victorious Power. A fifth of her coal supply has been taken away, and appropriated without compensation. We never take these things into consideration when we are dealing with this question of the payment of an indemnity by Germany. This is a figure which is not disputed because it is the figure of the Reparation Commission itself: Germany has paid calculated in gold marks a sum of about £450,000,000. Germany is in a state of economic collapse, says the Prime Minister. It will not be disputed that, owing to her financial and economic conditions, she is far less able to pay huge sums than this country or France. Yet the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer within the last few weeks has repeatedly stated what an almost insufferable burden the payment of a sum like £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 a year interest on the American debt will be to this country. Impoverished Germany has paid in indemnities during the last four years, on the admission of the Reparation Commission, a sum of £450,000,000. What then must be the effect upon Germany in her present financial and economic position? It must render her still less able to continue to pay.

I should like to say a word or two in this connection—because it will extend the comparison as to the relative capacity of the different countries to pay—about the financial position of France. At the end of the War, France had a national debt about two-thirds the amount of the British national debt. During the last four years that debt has been increased by something like £2,000,000,000, and the French national debt at present stands at about £6,500,000,000. The Prime Minister the other day stated that we had maintained our national solvency by making our taxpayers poor. Precisely the opposite policy has been followed by France. She has made the nation bankrupt by keeping her citizens rich. France to-day is undoubtedly the richest country in Europe. I doubt if, even including the United States of America, she is not the richest country in the world. She has borrowed mainly from her own people out of the savings of her own people during the last four years a sum of £2,000,000,000. I saw a figure given on the authority of a very eminent French economist that during the last four years the savings of the French people have been £400,000,000 a year. In the year before the outbreak of the War this country was exceptionally prosperous, and I remember the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the ex-Prime Minister, in his Budget speech, saying that the amount of our national savings had risen to a figure of £400,000,000 a year—precisely the figure which France, after what one would have thought was a devastating war of four years, is now saving. It is as much as was saved by the people of this country at the height of its commercial prosperity.

At double prices.

I will deal with that point in a moment. I come now, as a further illustration, to the question of France's trade. She has no unemployment. [An HON. MEMBER: "Neither has Germany."] But she has something which Germany has not. She has a rapidly expanding external trade. I wonder if Hon. Members know the figures of French trade. Let me give them. An hon. Member below the Gangway has referred to German trade. I find that in 1913, the last complete year before the outbreak of war, French exports amounted to 8,421,000,000 francs. In 1923 her exports amounted to 23,900,000,000 francs. Therefore, making all allowances for depreciation in the matter of exchange, France has recovered the whole of her export trade. Then take the imports. In 1913 the French imports amounted to 6,880,000,000 francs. In 1922 they amounted to 20,642,000,000 francs. Thus devastated and ruined France, which is demanding reparations in gold, has in four years saved £400,000,000 a year; she has had no unemployment; she has raised in new issues £2,000,000,000, and she has recovered the whole of her foreign trade. Yet she is pursuing a policy which she attempts to justify on the ground of her deplorable economic condition, and by the claim that she needs the reparations, in order to avert complete national bankruptcy.

I want also to say a word or two on the matter of Germany's default. The British representative on the Reparation Commission does not admit that there has been a voluntary default. Is it surprising, after the figures I have given in regard to the amount of reparations paid by Germany during the last three years, that there should be increasing difficulty in meeting these constantly accruing payments? Let me tell the House what Sir John Bradbury said on that point. He said that, taking into consideration the disturbance of Germany's economic condition and finances, especially in 1922, the shortage of coal deliveries was less than might have been expected, and that Germany had performed a remarkable task in delivering so much. Yet France has declared Germany to be in voluntary default. To what extent? In the matter of the deliveries of coal to the extent of 2,500,000 tons: and in the matter of the deliveries of timber to the extent of 20,000 cubic metres. She has also failed to deliver 125,000 telegraph poles. That is the extent of Germany's default upon the basis of which France defends her action in invading Germany.

With regard to the unwillingness of Germany to comply as far as it is possible for her to do so with the demands of the Peace Treaty and of the Reparations Commission, I was not in the House at the time. But I read a speech delivered by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir R. Horne), in which he repudiated the aspersion that Germany was deliberately trying to avoid her payments. The ex-Prime Minister—whose platform is not now confined to this House—in one of his journalistic fulminations the other day declared that Germany was being trampled upon for what Americans call a "technical default." I daresay most of the Members of this House read in the "Times" a week or two ago a letter from Mr. Heatley, a member of the Rhineland Commission, in which he said that he had received the greatest consideration from the Germans, and he spoke of their willingness to deliver coal. As to the action of the French in taking advantage of what the ex-Prime Minister calls a "technical default" on the part of Germany, and which Sir John Bradbury declines to regard even as a technical default, and certainly not as a voluntary default on her part, is France justified in taking this action? It may be said she has a right to do it, acting alone under the terms of the Peace Treaty. Well, the Treaty was deliberately drawn so that any action might be justified under it. I am not a lawyer, and, therefore, I am not going to express an opinion on the legal aspects of the question. This is not a question for lawyers. I care not what the lawyers say about it. I care not what the opinion of the law advisers of the Crown may be. What I want to know is whether this action can be justified on the grounds of our common humanity?

12 N.

I venture to submit that the action of France is not justifiable even under the Treaty. When the Treaty of Versailles was put before the French Chamber, it was referred, as is customary there, to a Commission, and it is very interesting to note that this Commission gave special attention to the question whether, in the case of the default of Germany, any one of the great Powers would have a right to act independently of the others. That Commission called before it MM. Clemenceau and Tardieu, and it was the considered judgment of the Commission that, if Germany should avoid her obligations as to reparations, the fact would have to be notified by the interested Power and the Allies and the associated Powers might take in common action prohibitive and repressive measures which Germany undertook not to regard as hostile acts. It might be even that the default of Germany was in regard to the interest of one Power, say, for instance, the delivery of coal to Belgium or France, but, says this Commission of the French Chamber, it will be the duty of the Power thus affected to report it to the Allied and associated Powers which must consider and take repressive or prohibitive action in common. Do you know who signed that Report? M. Barthou, an ex-Prime Minister of France, and the representative of France at the Genoa Conference. In 1919 the Commission of the French Chamber declared that under the Treaty no one Power could take independent action in that regard. I go further. It may be remembered that, in the latter part of 1919, Rumania took action which France is now emulating, and invaded Hungary on account of some alleged default in payment of indemnity. That was brought before the Supreme Council, and a communication was addressed to Rumania by M. Clemenceau himself. This is what he said, and I would desire no better reply to the action of France, no stronger words of condemnation than M. Clemenceau addressed to the Rumanians in the dispatch from which I am about to quote. He said: area. Is it necessary to give proof of that? I daresay most Members of the House are familiar with what is known as the Dariac Report. He was sent by M. Poincaré into the Rhineland to report, and it is the most callous and brutal document, I think, that even international conspiracy or diplomacy has ever created. There is no mistake here as to the purpose of France. The economic life of Germany is to be destroyed. In the Rhine provinces, he says, they are a very amenable and docile people; they will not give France much trouble; it will be easy to separate them; and this is what he proposes, having made these suggestions:—

May I ask what Germany would have done had she been in the same position? [ Interruption. ]

That is the kind of question one gets in the "Daily Mail." There is much that I should like to say upon it, but I do not want to be drawn aside. I have, however, an answer to the right hon. Baronet. He wants to know what Germany would have done. I do not know; but I can tell him what Germany did when she defeated France 50 years ago. She did not steal French colonies; she did not destroy French ships. She took away, it is true, two French provinces, which France had held for 200 years only, and which had been German for 800 years previously— colonies which contained a population 90 per cent. German-speaking and of German origin. She imposed upon France an indemnity of £200,000,000, not £11,600,000,000. She did not destroy the international credit of France. I do not know what Germany would have done, but this I do know, that if Germany had won, she could not have inflicted upon her enemies a peace more brutal, more indefensible, more dishonest, more provocative of continued hate than the Allies, who profess higher ideals, a different mentality, and a holier conscience than they attribute to Germany; and the only thing that can be said apparently in defence of this Treaty is that we have done what Germany might have done.

I have not quite finished with the point with which I was dealing when the right hon. Baronet interrupted me with his very original observation. There was an article in one of the Sunday newspapers last week. It was written by a man whose name is Chassaigne, and he is a C.B.E. I looked at Whitaker's Almanack to see what C.B.E. means, and I find it means Commander of the British Empire—not at all an inappropriate description of a man who has written such an article as this. This is what he says:

I say that to appeal to a sentiment like that in support of such a brutal policy is an outrage on the men who lost their lives. They did not die to destroy the economic life of Central Europe. They died not with hate of a nation in their hearts, but with the hate of war, and they sacrified themselves in order that future generations might be saved. [HON. MEMBERS: "You were not there."] May I answer the interjection of the Hon. and very polite Member opposite as to the reasons why these men went to fight by a quotation from an appeal which was made by the ex-Prime Minister. "As the Lord liveth," he said, "there is no conspiracy against Germany. We seek no colonies. We are in this War from motives of the purest chivalry—to defend the weak. The British Empire is finding its purpose in the great design of providence on earth, finding it in this great War for liberty and for right throughout the world. We must have men rallying to the flag, and imbued with the idea that they are going forth in a holy War. We are fighting to-day not a War of conquest but a War of liberation." The conception of liberation is the enslavement of 60,000,000 or 70,000,000 of the best educated and most industrious and most scientific people. That is the purpose of the French Policy.

For what did we fight that War? Why was the League of Nations instituted, and why did it make such a strong appeal for popular support? Because it was believed to be an instrument by which future war might be avoided. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) said the other day, speaking of the French desire for security, that the Entente had maintained the peace of Europe for twenty years. I was amazed at that. Has there been no war during the last twenty years? The peace of Western Europe was maintained for thirty years before the Entente was formed. It was the Entente which was in the main responsible for the outbreak of the War. During the twenty years that the Entente existed French diplomacy was directed to preparations for that War. She lent £500,000,000 to Russia on the condition that part of it was spent in the building of strategic railways to the German frontier. To hon. Members who are expressing their disbelief of this may I commend to them an observation made by one of their friends the Noble Lord who sits for Hastings (Lord Eustace Percy) yesterday, a dictum addressed to my Friends on these Benches—that to disbelieve is the surest sign of a bad heart and a weak head. Security is not to be found—all past experience proves that— by alliances. I was amazed to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley make that statement. When I heard it I remembered one of the greatest speeches he made during the War, I believe, in Dublin. The only security that any nation can ever have is in the moral support of the rest of the world, based on the general belief that that nation has no aggressive designs. Surely, there is no nation in the world which ought to have been convinced of the futility of force by her own failures and her own experience so much as France. She is invading Germany now. It is not the first time she has invaded Germany. In 1807 she went to Berlin. Seven years later the Prussian Army marched in triumph through the gates of Paris. In 1870, under the dictation of a Chauvinist Emperor, she tried to get to Berlin. The Germans again marched through the gates of Paris. There is no solution in force. There is only one way in which general security can be given, in addition to the moral support of the world, and that is by general disarmament. France during the last three or four years has invariably opposed proposals for the reduction of armaments.

Now let me say something about the attitude of our Government. The King's Speech says that the Government is

I had given to me yesterday a letter from a firm of merchants in Manchester, which stated that they had been informed by the Manchester Chamber of Commence that goods sent to Germany will be seized by the French. I do not know whether that statement is true, but I should like to ask the Prime Minister a question upon it. If it be true, what is the Government going to do? Benevolent neutrality? Putting no difficulties in the way of their Allies, but allowing them to complete the ruin of Europe and, as a corollary, the ruin of France itself? Have we no interest in this matter? French trade has reached its pre-War dimensions. In 1922, our foreign trade, which was larger than in the previous year, was only 69 per cent, of our pre-War trade. The Prime Minister said the other day that we are paying £100,000,000 a year to support the unemployed. That, I assert, is mainly the result of French policy, and the hindrances they have put in the way of the reconstruction of the European market. Have the Government no policy but that of putting nothing in the way of their Allies? Are the British people to continue to be taxed £100,000,000 a year to support unemployment. That is not the extent of the case. There is a loss of £500,000,000 a year by reduction in wages, and a large number of those who are in employment are not earning wages more than sufficient to keep their bodies and souls together.

In a Crisis like this, have the Government no policy but one of putting no difficulties in the way of their Allies? The policy of their Allies is rushing Europe straight to destruction. Are we to stand idly aside, with nothing to say except that we will put no difficulties in the way of our Allies? A policy like that is in effect active co-operation in French policy. That, there is no doubt about it, is not approved in his heart or in his mind by the Prime Minister, nor do I believe it is approved by the people of this country. We were signatories to the Treaty of Versailles. We helped to disarm Germany. Therefore, we have an obligation in this matter. "But," says the Prime Minister, "what can we do" I know the situation is difficult. By submitting to French dictation, as we have done during the last four years, we have raised France to a position of military domination in Europe. It is a difficult situation, and it requires courage, but I think the problem is not insoluble.

We, the Labour Party, make a proposal that the matter should be referred not to the League of Nations but to a World Conference, in which I hope the chief participants will be the United States of America. France will not submit, says the Prime Minister. Let her refuse. What we have to do is to mobilise the moral opinion of the world. If France will not join a world conference for the settlement of these problems, her purpose is exposed in all its nakedness to the whole world. She will be morally isolated, but I do not think it will come to that. These are our views. We do not want war: God knows that, everybody knows that. We want to prevent war. The only security that any nation can ever have is in not having the means and equipment to prosecute war, and by relying upon the moral sense of the world and the conviction of the world of its good intentions. That is the only security that any nation can ever have, and by which she can be really secure. This is a moral question. Unless our economic policy be based upon moral principles it will never succeed. I do most profoundly believe that we can never save civilisation until all the acts of Government, all our political policies and all our international relations are based upon the simple and eternal principles of the moral law. I know that it is a hard task to love our enemies, and to do good to those who ill-use us, but it is a cross that will have to be borne if the world is to be redeemed from the evil of war, and it will have to be borne, if need be, as our unforgotten dead bore it— to the very summit of Calvary.

I do not suppose that any Member in this House will cavil at the closing sentences of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), but I rise because the hon. Gentleman has given utterance to sentiments and opinions to which, I believe, a great many people in this House are thoroughly opposed. If we are to have speeches of the kind to which we have just listened, so definitely and thoroughly based upon a friendliness for Germany, which involves an antagonism to our Allies in France— [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—yes—then it is time that some Members on this side of the House should voice their opinion. I am one of those supporters of the Government who are sorry that the Government has not seen its way to render, not only benevolent neutrality towards France, but has not been able to render to our Allies support similar to that which we rendered a few years ago. When the hon. Gentleman reminded us of bygone wars, when the French have marched to Berlin and the Germans to Paris, he omitted to remind the House that had that process been continued in 1918, and had the Allies in accordance with historic tradition settled the peace at Berlin, we might, not be worried as we are to-day with an unsettled question and with the prospect of continued war. It is not my intention to intervene in this Debate, and I just detain the House for a few moments. I believe it is an outrage on the Members of the House of Commons and on those colleagues of many Members who for ever he on the soil of France, and an outrage on those who remain at home to mourn their loss, to suggest that they would not support the present policy of France and to suggest that what was done and what they died for should be in the interests of those who caused the War. While we agree with the hon. Member in the closing sentence of his speech we must at least be just, and if we are, in supporting such sentiments, disposed, as we ought to be, to forgive our enemies at least we ought not to be asked to desert our friends.

I cannot accept the view put forward by the last speaker, that there was anything wrong or mischievous in the very impressive and well-informed oration which was contributed by the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden). It is, on the contrary, one of the first functions that Parliament discharges that views which may be unpalatable, but still are sincerely held, should be ventilated in order, not only that a subject may be thoroughly probed, but that the true sentiments of the country may be known to all concerned. For my part I find myself in agreement with most of the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Colne Valley. I may be unable to offer many new ideas upon this question of the Ruhr, but it is one of such gravity that I think all of us are called upon to do our best to give expression to such thoughts as are honestly and sincerely felt by us. France, ostensibly, justifies her present action on the ground of default, and if there be default, although the punishment may be far out of proportion to the crime, still it does not he with us or any other country to interfere or protest if that is the real motive. But is that the real motive?

The Prime Minister made a very lucid and candid speech the other day. He told us, not idly but because he considered it a remark worth passing on, that during his recent visit to Paris he was informed by a gentleman—and no doubt one in high, authority—that France did not expect to obtain any money at all but took these proceedings in order to satisfy public opinion. That seems to me a very startling remark, and that we may appreciate it it is necessary that we should try to visualise what was really happening under the somewhat harmless name of "occupation." And in this connection I listened with great interest to the speech of, I think, the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. C. Buxton). He told us he had only a few days ago returned from Germany. He had been staying in Essen, and mixed for some time among the poorer classes—he intended us to understand—of the people. I confess that his description of what occurred, the expulsions, the suspensions of newspapers, the black troops, the arrests, the fines, and, worse still, the humiliations and insults that are the inevitable concomitant of these things, made a deep impression on me. When an invaded people is in a position to respond a good deal of the bitterness is dissipated in action, but when hatreds must be suppressed, when feelings of resentment must be choked down, you raise to the maximum those sentiments of revenge for a future day. We are told that Germany would have been worse, that she behaved so before. I do not know. She might or might not. It is true that Germany is reaping now the crop of revenge for which she sowed in 1870, but it is equally true that France is laying up for herself another malignant crop of the same character. It is this reciprocation of vengeances that perpetuates war.

When we know these things and appreciate them, and then are calmly told that they have been brought about, not by the pressure of any force commensurate with them but to satisfy public opinion, I for one cannot help thinking that it is a modern instance of what Byron described as The Prime Minister, not content with passing on to us the remark of his informant, gave us quite candidly his own view, and it was this. The action of France is prompted, not by the hope of reparations, but by the fear that Germany may some time recover. To repeat his graphic phrase, France is cutting her jugular vein in order that a prostrate foe may for ever remain prostrate. If one or either—and each is compatible with the other—of these views be the correct explanation of France's conduct, I ask how it is possible to reconcile it with any term of the Treaty, or, indeed, with any public law of morality, international or otherwise? It never can be right to seek to equalise two nations, not by advancing the weaker, but by holding back what is feared to be the stronger? Is it not an action wholly unfair to us and the rest of the world? Is not every nation entitled to the benefit of the exercise to the full capacity of the activities of every other nation? Is it not by the efforts to excel between nations, as between individuals, that we attain to the full fruit of production, invention and enlightenment? How can anyone complacently regard a policy which avowedly now, according to the Prime Minister— and he for one speaks with thorough knowledge—is to give security to France, not by protecting her against her neighbour but by rendering her neighbour unable to make a move on her own behalf?

I think there is a third motive underlying French action. There is no use cloaking words. That motive is pure and simple annexation. Annexation up to the Rhine has been the dream of France ever since the time of Louis XIV. She thought to achieve it then; she was frustrated. She thought to do it in 1915, and I think I am right—I do not pretend to any deep historical knowledge—in saying that the seed that ultimately brought forth the war of 1870 was laid by the frustration of similar plans by Bismarck after the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. That may be right or wrong, but it certainly is my own reading of history. At the time of the framing of the Treaty was not the dominant French party all out for extending the frontier up to the Rhine? I brought to the House a passage taken from the writings of a great Frenchman, Louis Blanc, in which he says

We all agree that Germany should pay reparation, but it must be reparation within the limit of her capacity, and the limit of her capacity is her profits and not her assets. If you take from her more than is represented by the surplus of exports over imports, then you are taking from her the very machinery by which she lives. It must be obvious, even to the French, that for the last four years Germany never had such a surplus. It must have been obvious that the only way by which she could obtain such a surplus was the proposed moratorium, by means of which her exports could gradually catch up and, in time, leave over something which could be taken—to her discomfort but without injury to her trade and without doing the whole of us the great damage which is now being done. I have heard—and the Hon. Member for Colne Valley anticipated this point to a certain extent—of the hidden millions of Germany. We have read in the papers stories of travellers who speak of great extravagance in isolated cases. We ought to pay very little attention to these travellers' experiences. A traveller generally finds what he is looking for, and his observations, it often happens, fit in with his preconceptions. He ignores the rest. In my own country, in Ireland, in troublous days, when I was living there, I saw the contradictory reports which travellers who came there brought back with them. Each one got exactly what he wanted. Where is there any real evidence of these hidden millions? We are a rich country—before the War perhaps we were the richest. We have not been invaded. None of our factories have been touched—none of our ships have been taken, and our currency enables us to continue trading. Could we find £6,600,000,000? How many hundreds of millions of hidden wealth could be extracted from this country? Yet we are here dealing with the case of an emasculated nation which has had two of its richest provinces taken from it; all its colonies are gone as well as a good deal of its live stock, and most of its railway rolling stock; its currency—whether by design or otherwise—is in such a condition that it cannot trade; there is a perpetual drain upon its coal and iron, and it is beaten to the dust. Is it not ludicrous to say that such a country has the phantom millions which we admit ourselves could not be found in our own prosperous country?

I have read some works by the well-known economist Professor Keynes, and he estimates the full amount of this alleged hidden wealth—and I suppose the Germans hid everything they had to hide —at a few hundred millions, and he goes on to say that if you take that you deprive Germany of the only means she has of obtaining the raw material with which to carry on her industry. The difficulty in which the Government is placed is this. It feels that it is bad for everybody to break what it calls the Entente. What is the Entente? It is not an agreement. There is nothing binding about it. It is a declaration of friendship, and it makes or breaks itself. If actions be such that persons will not sit at the same table, there is not the slightest use in their declaring that they are still friends. There is nothing in the Entente to preserve, and if it is not broken by what we are doing nothing else we can do will break it. The Prime Minister, under the terror of breaking this shadowy thing, says in this emergency: "We do not concur; we will not participate in the action of France, but we will do nothing to interfere with her." I think the epithets used by the hon. Member for Colne Valley, in reference to that attitude, are perfectly just. Can we ignore or forget that it was by our action that Germany was disarmed—I am not saying rightly or wrongly—and that it was by our connivance that France has become the strongest armed nation in Europe? What then is to be said of this, that we who have disarmed one opponent, and armed the other opponent, are to stand by and say, "Gentlemen, we will occupy a neutral position." Yet that is exactly what we are doing. We are siding with France, and it is mere futility to say that we will adopt what has been described as an attitude of benevolent neutrality. Benevolent neutrality very soon becomes malignant neutrality.

What action, then, should the Government take? In the first place, in my humble judgment, it ought to speak out, perfectly straight, what it thinks. If never a blow were to be struck, there is something in the fact that a great Power like Britain says, "We thoroughly, openly disapprove of what you are doing. We believe it to be morally unjustifiable; we believe it, even though within the letter, to be wholly contrary to the spirit of the Treaty; we believe it is injuring Europe; we believe it is bad for yourselves; and we will not only have no act or part in it, but we openly and clearly condemn it." If the British Government did that, and had the good fortune, as there is a chance, of getting America to corroborate that view, and then brought into play the machinery of the League of Nations—a derided thing now, but only derided because, after it was formed, through our own action, it was treated as a sort of memento, as a sort of piece of Dresden china to be put on the shelf, to remind us of the noble ideals that were present at the time of the framing of the Treaty of Versailles, but the machinery is established, and it can be made effective—and if, as the Amendment that will be dealt with on Monday declares, the League of Nations were to be appealed to, not merely by Britain, but by America, and asked to appoint a Council of experts to settle what the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) happily called the inter-locked problems of reparations, security, and disarmament, and, when its decision was come to, if France then said, "I stand out and refuse to adopt this," well, there is something, even mighty as we have allowed France to make herself, in the world pointing accusing fingers at her and saying, "You are the cause of the chaos that now reigns." That is a force, and, if we can do no more, we ought to bring that force to bear.

I have tried to avoid, as far as I could, in my argument anything based upon our own interests as a nation, and I have tried to base my argument upon what appeared to me to be the just and humane and honourable thing to do, but one cannot help reflecting how seriously the position might materially affect ourselves. Before the War, you had a Germany that at all events you were able to cope with and a France that you were able to cope with, and by the Treaty we provided that the coal resources should go to one quarter and more or less the iron resources to another quarter, but now you have France getting astride of the united coal and iron, the fundamental industrial resources of Europe, and have we gained very much by a War which would substitute an all-powerful, and a more powerful, France for an all-powerful Germany? There is no use in our deceiving ourselves and saying that the Germans are all devils and the French all angels. Neither of them are either devils or angels. The danger, whether it be from Germany or from France, is in the fact of a military nation being close to you that has also the power, as France then would have, to beat you, not only in the field, but in commerce, in trade, and in the whole industrial world. For these reasons—and I thank the House for listening so patiently—I think we should give our whole-hearted support to the Amendment of the Labour party, and may I conclude by saying that, speaking for myself, I think a debt of gratitude is due to a party which put forward as a spokesman an hon. Member who gave to the House such a clear and informed and sincere and brave statement of an unpopular case.

1.0 P.M.

Before referring to the subject which causes general anxiety, and which has been so brilliantly dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for the Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), ably seconded by the hon. and learned Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney), who has just sat down, I desire to refer to two cognate subjects. I do so from the point of view that, while the storm clouds are gathering, never more thickly, on the horizon in Western Europe, it seems to me the height of unwisdom that we should maintain quarrels with other parts of Europe and the East. The two subjects I want particularly to refer to are Russia and Egypt. May I, now that the Prime Minister is here, ask him whether he will not reconsider the whole attitude of the Government towards Russia, both as regards the question of unemployment and the urgent necessity of re-opening those markets which the events of the last eight years have lost us, and also from the point of view of the settlement of the Near Eastern question? Surely Lausanne has taught us, if it has taught us nothing else, that you cannot settle the Near Eastern question without Russia, and if the Lausanne Conference fails eventually, which I hope will not be the case, the real reason for the failure of that Conference must be sought in the failure of the Conference at the Hague with the Russians last year.

In some correspondence which I had the privilege of exchanging with the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and which has been made public, the hon. Gentleman remarked that the whole world knew on what grounds we were prepared to recognise Russia diplomatically and restore ordinary diplomatic relations between the two countries; and the Prime Minister, speaking in this House last Session, defined the grounds on which we would recognise Russia—recognition of debts, restoration of property or effective compensation, and cessation from political propaganda. I would venture to point out that that statement, although it reads perfectly clearly, is really very obscure. Does the Prime Minister mean, when he speaks of the recognition of debts, that he will be prepared to consider, in a full settlement, the claims of Russia against ourselves? Does he mean, when he refers to the recognition of debts, that he is prepared, in a general settlement, to scale down the Russian debt to us, or to insist upon its integral payment? Again, when he speaks of effective compensation for individuals whose property has been nationalised by the Russian Government, does he mean that he is prepared to allow these questions of individual claims to be dealt with in ordinary diplomatic intercourse between the two Governments, if ordinary diplomatic intercourse is resumed by our recognition of Russia?

Then, as regards political propaganda, cannot we have something more definite from the Prime Minister? He is not, I presume, when he speaks of cessation of propaganda, referring to speeches delivered by the hon. Member for Mother-well (Mr. Newbold)! The last statement I have seen accusing Russia of political propaganda against us in the East, was a statement that appeared in the "Times," which was at once contradicted by the representatives of the Soviet Government, and according to their statement, the contradiction—which amounted to a statement that it was a forgery—was not even inserted in the "Times." However that may be, I do venture to ask whether the time has not come for us to introduce a little common sense into our relations with Russia. Why cannot we sit round a table, find out the differences between us and come to an understanding? Hitherto we have dealt with this Russian question always in conferences in which other Powers were concerned. Why cannot we take a new initiative, and sit down with the Russians ourselves? Cannot we have our own policy, our own views and our own ideas on the subject?

A word or two on the situation in Egypt, which is getting more and more serious. What do we all want with regard to Egypt? We want an agreed-upon settlement which will recognise a really independent Egypt, together with the security of our interests in the Canal, and the position of British nationals in Egypt. But how on earth are you going to get an agreed-upon settlement when Egypt continues to be held down under martial law, when the real leaders of the Egyptian people are still exiled, and when you have a state of exasperation growing daily? Again, why cannot we reconsider our attitude on the Egyptian question, and allow the exiles to be recalled, especially Zaghlul Pasha, who is the real leader of the Egyptian people, abolish martial law, allow free elections to take place, and negotiate in accordance with the result of those elections. Yesterday a telegram was put in my hands from Egypt, received by the Egyptian Parliamentary Committee, which is not a party committee, on which there are representatives of all parties in the House, and which simply desires to bring about a much-needed settlement between the British and Egyptian people. This telegram is to the effect that the attempt of the King of Egypt to bring about a coalition government under Maslum Pasha has been interfered with by the Residency, that Lord Allenby is trying once again to push forward Adly Pasha, who has no Egyptian following at all, but is only the puppet of the British Residency, and has shown himself to be a failure in attempting to govern. We are really trying to govern the Egyptian people by nominees of our own, instead of letting them choose the government they want themselves. That is not the kind of attitude which can be prolonged, either with safety to ourselves or with advantage to the country. We really do not want to make Egypt into another Ireland, and that is what we are in great danger of doing.

To return to the question which hangs like a threatening cloud over the House and the country, the question of the armed invasion of Germany by France. We have had two points of view developed from benches opposite in the last two days. We have had the point of view developed in the very lucid and straightforward speech by the Prime Minister, and the point of view developed by some of his followers. The first indicated regret, and the second indicated, if not approval, at any rate encouragement and sympathy. And that represents pretty well the difference of opinion which is known to exist in the Conservative party on this subject. But whatever may be the majority and the minority with regard to these two views, there must be no particle of doubt, and there can, I think, be no particle of doubt, after the speeches from these benches, in the minds of the present rulers of France—whom we do not believe represent in this matter the mass of the French people—as to what are the opinions held with regard to their action by the official Opposition, which polled over one-third of the total votes cast at the last General Election, and which, in due course, will be the Government of this country. In the interests of the French workers, who repudiate the Poincaré policy, in the interests of the German workers who are the victims of it, in our own national interests, in the interests of all who stand for international peace, decency and humanity—where the Prime Minister regrets, we condemn, and where his followers applaud we repudiate.

There must be no particle of doubt that those who sit on these benches regard the action of the French militarists, who are leading France and the rest of Europe to ruin, as morally indefensible, legally indefensible, inimical to our national interests in the highest degree, threatening to the cause of peace, and tending once again to throw Europe into a vast convulsion. Nor should it be misunderstood in Paris and here, that while we on these benches support the Government in dissociating itself from this policy, while we recognise the difficulty of the Government, we do not believe the policy of benevolent neutrality is compatible either with our national interests, or with our national traditions, or with the duties and responsibilities which we owe both to Europe and ourselves. Some of us—I myself firmly—believe that this so-called policy of benevolent neutrality will prove itself to be, in the long run, the most dangerous policy—dangerous from our national point of view, and dangerous from the point of view of peace, that this country could possibly adopt under the circumstances.

As to the moral issue, surely that passion for fair play, that dislike of trampling upon a man who is down, which used to be, and I believe still is, a dominant instinct in our national character, surely that sentiment must be semi-paralysed temporarily—I believe only temporarily—amongst those who in this House and outside, support this outrage on a defenceless country and a defenceless people! Admitting for the sake of argument the truth of the legend —and the Russian and French disclosures of the past four years have shown what a legend it is!—even admitting that pre-War Germany, which the present Germany repudiated before the War came to an end, was morally and wholly responsible for the outbreak of 1914—even admitting that—

Then you do admit it?

I do not admit it, except for the purpose of this argument. Even admitting that, fully one-third of the population of present Germany could not by any possibility have had anything to do with the War of 1914 or in bringing the War about. German women, German youths who were children when the War broke out, German children born during the War, and since the peace, what concern had they in fashioning the events which brought about the War? Even the ordinary German worker who was an adult when the War broke out, what had he to do with bringing the War about any more than the British, or the French, or the Italian worker? It is not the common people of the world, it is not the humble folk, it is not the women and the children who make war in any country; war is imposed upon them. Yet it is these people, and the aged of both sexes, who could not for mere physical reasons have had anything to do with the War who are suffering, and being tortured, and whom this outrage is affecting. I prefer, for my part, to believe—I do not think I have a right to believe anything else, or that anybody else has a right to believe otherwise—that hon. Members on the benches opposite who defend this armed invasion of helpless Germany in time of peace—I prefer, I say, to think that they do so not from lack of any humane feeling or sympathy, but from that sheer lack of thought, vision, and imagination that is really the cause of 90 per cent, of the evils of this unhappy world of ours.

As to the legal aspect of the matter, I do not wholly agree with my hon. friend the Member for Colne Valley, that the legal aspect, from the point of view of international law, is not very important. In my belief it is exceedingly important in the moral case which we can bring against the French militarists in this connection. May I point out that The Hague Convention of 1907 provides that debts shall not be collected by armed force unless the debtor has refused arbitration. The German Government has never refused arbitration. The British Government put forward a proposal which virtually amounted to arbitration. Why has not The Hague Judicial Court been appealed to, and the matter brought before it? It is said that The Hague Convention is overridden by the Versailles Treaty Very well, let us look at the action of the French from the point of view of the-Versailles Treaty.

The French Government defends its action by a legal fiction. It invokes the Versailles Treaty on the ground that Germany had been in default in coal and timber. The case of default, voluntary and other, is dealt with under Reparations in paragraphs 17 and 18 of Part 8 of the Treaty of Versailles. In the case of ordinary default no sanctions can be taken at all under the paragraphs. It is merely a question of reporting to the Powers concerned. The French say there was voluntary default. There was no such voluntary default. It is now officially established that Germany offered to provide the 2,000,000 tons of coal in which she was in default with British coal which she had bought from Britain. France refused. Germany offered to produce the timber in which she was in default by 1st March. The French Government refused. Germany offered to pay in cash for the timber in which she was in default. The French Government refused. How is it in equity possible to say that a party has voluntarily defaulted when that party has offered to pay? But that is not all. The French Government, notwithstanding the official statements quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley, which, of course, were later than the Versailles Treaty, professes to support its action on part of a single sentence in paragraph 18 of this part of the Treaty (Annex II) dealing with Reparations. That paragraph reads: de novo and to retain such portions of the Treaty of Versailles as we think should be retained and jettison the rest. If one party tears up a Treaty, then the other party regains its liberty of action and we should say so quite plainly to the French Government.

If this suggestion means the breaking up of the Entente that would not be our fault. But let us look the facts in the face and not be the slaves of mere words. It is because we have not looked facts in the face, it is because the late Government did not allow the people of this country to get hold of the facts which were essential for a right judgment of the European situation, that we are in the position in which we are placed to-day. Let us look at the facts. It is no good imagining you are dancing with a beautiful woman if you are dancing with a skeleton. The British and French peoples have no cause for antagonism whatever, and if they are left alone by their respective Governments the "Entente" between the British and the French peoples can go on to the end of time.

The French and the British peoples have no quarrel with one another. Their quarrel is with the politicians on both sides who, behind closed doors, evolved the so-called Versailles Treaty, which was an injury committed to both countries, and an infamous betrayal of the peoples, and laid the inevitable basis for the acute friction which has arisen between the British and the French Governments. All we can do to-day is to try and prevent this being attended with the disastrous sequel which it will have if the present policy is pursued. I do not agree with very much, although I agree with some, of the statements made by the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Newbold) yesterday, but on one point I think he was profoundly true. He said that the policy of the French militarists is automatically setting up a condition of affairs in Europe from which war may eventuate, not only between Germany and France but between France and ourselves. In my belief that is profoundly true. The Prime Minister perceives that, as indeed must anyone who knows the history of this country and the Continent, and who can see further than his own prejudices and sympathies. The Prime Minister sees that danger and he thinks it can be got over by a policy of benevolent neutrality, which means that we can wash our hands of Europe.

The danger cannot be got over in that way, because we cannot wash our hands of Europe. The mere automatic development of this French military scheme to push the French frontier back to the Rhine and dismember Germany, and to tear the lungs and the heart out of the living body of Germany—the mere automatic development of that policy will ultimately make an attitude of benevolent neutrality impossible for us. We cannot wash our hands of Europe. An hon. Member opposite pointed out in the Debate yesterday the great difference which exists between Continental countries and ourselves because of the narrow strip of salt water between us. What strategic significance will this strip of salt water between us and the Continent have in the next war? None whatever. We are more part of the Continent now than we have ever been before, and we have never been able to dissociate ourselves from Continental politics in the whole course of our history.

What is essential to realise is that we can far less afford to dissociate ourselves now from Continental politics than we could in times past. We have ceased strategically to be an island. We are part and parcel of Europe as we have never been before, and we cannot wash our hands of Europe. The policy of benevolent neutrality is one of sitting down whilst events of terrible potential gravity develop. I suggest that there is another policy for this country to follow. In the first place I would have suggested to the Prime Minister, had he been present—I do so to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—that there is really laid upon the Government of this country at this critical moment a moral duty apart altogether from the merits of this dispute between France and Germany. It is the duty of destroying two legends. Those who are supporting the policy of the French militarists and the policy of the present rulers in France are doing so under an erroneous and disastrous misconception. They are really the greatest enemies of the French people. I know in that respect that the French public opinion which is quoted in so many of our papers in this country is not at all representative of the views of millions of Frenchmen.

My correspondence with France is very considerable. Only yesterday I received a letter from a very prominent Frenchman who fought in the War with distinction, and whose breast is covered with decorations. His allusion to the Noble Lord who runs a number of newspapers in this country was that he is "our worst enemy," and that is really the position. I suggest to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that a moral duty is laid upon our Government at this moment, in view of the support that is being given by a section of the Government's followers to the disastrous policy of the French Government, to destroy two legends, (1) the legend that Germany has paid nothing, and (2) the legend that Germany has not done everything that it was conceivable for Germany to do to re-build the devastated areas of France and Belgium. That was an offer made both by the German Government and the German trade unionists. The last point was dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) in his able speech, and the first point was dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley. I say it is a monstrous thing, and a crime, that public opinion in this country should be led so utterly astray, because apparently the truth cannot permeate on these two points. There is a moral obligation on the Government at the present time to put the country right on these two points, because they are the chief cause of this perpetual keeping up of the despicable policy of hatred that is poisoning the whole of Europe. The more you support the French militarists in their fatal course the more you render peace in Europe impossible, and the more you bring nearer an acute conflict of interests between Great Britain and France.

Let us have the truth. You cannot deny, according to the figures of the Reparation Commission, published here officially, that Germany has paid £450,000,000 in kind and in cash. [ Interruption. ] You do not think that is much for a country deprived of two-thirds of its iron, its shipping, its coal, and its colonies! Let us have a constructive, and not a purely negative, policy on the part of the Government, a policy which will be one of courteous firmness and straight-speaking towards France, accompanied by an act of disinterestedness which the French people will appreciate and understand. Let our policy be modelled upon—I do not say in all respects—but at least inspired by the policy of Castlereagh of a hundred years ago rather than by the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) in 1918–1919.

What was the position of this country a hundred years ago, when the same militarism which threatens to overrun Central Europe had been at last overthrown? The French armies had at last been beaten and driven over their own borders. Those French armies had invaded nearly every country in Europe, and from every country in Europe a cry for vengeance was raised. Austria had been parcelled out, Prussia had been torn asunder, the Palatinate had been ravaged by fire and sword, and from every part of ravaged Europe came a cry for vengeance, for bleeding France white, and for making it utterly impossible for her to raise up her head again. One man stood up against that cry. He was a statesman, not an opportunist, who was at the head of British affairs, and he opposed that plan. He opposed the plan of bleeding France white. He opposed the dismemberment of France which was demanded on all sides, and he opposed it successfully. Why? Because he gave to the world a great example of a nation's disinterestedness. He said in effect, "I cannot advise my Allies to be disinterested if I am not disinterested myself." Great Britain did not touch one penny of the war indemnity imposed upon France, and gave back to France virtually all her colonies. That was the line taken by Castlereagh, and because of that he was able to rule out this idea of vengeance among our Allies of those days, and was able to give forty years of peace to Europe. "It is not our business," he once said in a famous despatch, "to collect trophies, but to try if we can to bring the world to peaceful habits."

There spoke the best in Britain. The worst in Britain was invoked in 1919. Let us get back to the best in Britain. Let us in all friendliness but with absolute straightforwardness say to France, "We will not only not associate ourselves with this policy of yours, but we disapprove of it utterly, and we will not recognise any change in the territorial boundaries of Germany brought about by your isolated action since the Armistice. We will not allow our area of occupation at Cologne or our Commissioners on the various Reparation Commissions to be used as tools for your military purposes. We are prepared to wipe out your debt to us; we are prepared to join in a general guarantee, under a reconstructed and efficient League of Nations, of the safety of the Franco-German frontier, and we are prepared to take part in an international loan for the completing of the rebuilding of your devastated areas, provided that you will join us in a world's conference to revise the so-called Peace Treaties from top to bottom and to reconstruct, or rather to construct, a real and efficient League of Nations."

Let us, as I urged last Session, when the point did not seem to be appreciated as it now is, do everything that we can to co-operate with America and to get her to join with us. I do not in the least despair of American cooperation. It all depends upon the way you set about it. It all depends whether you are going to put your cards on the table or keep them up your sleeve. You can get American co-operation, I am perfectly certain. If the France of M. Poincaré refuses, then at least we shall have made our position clear before the whole world. The whole world will know where we stand, and we must get along as best we can without the France of M. Poincaré, hoping and believing that before long we shall have another kind of France to deal with.

Our Debates in this House are being conducted under the shadow of events which at any moment may precipitate another conflict among the nations. The whole of Europe, the whole of the Near East, is rocking and swaying under the effects of those political settlements which professed to bring peace four years ago, but which merely prepared for a continuation of the War in another form. Look at the result of the ineptitude and insanity of the men who made the settlements! The Treaty of St. Germain has left a mutilated bankrupt Austria on our hands, surrounded by armed States fiercely suppressing their minorities. The Treaty of Neuilly has left Bulgaria clamouring in vain for a natural outlet to the sea. The Treaty of Sèvres has gone down in blood and fire, and the flames which consumed it are threatening a general conflagration in that quarter of Europe. The Treaty of Trianon has left a dismembered Hungary seething with dissatisfaction. The Treaty of Versailles has left in its wake ruin on ruin, and threatens to destroy the next generation. What is the remedy? What is the lesson that all can read? When the War ended, there were two roads open to the victorious nations who signed the peace. One was labelled "Revenge." The other was labelled "Reconciliation." The wrong road was taken. Let us now take the right road. Let Great Britain lead the world on the right road. Great Britain has led the world before. The world to-day is waiting for a moral lead to get it out of the quagmire of error and hate in which it is floundering. Let Great Britain assume the moral leadership, and play the part which Castlereagh played 100 years ago.

Everyone recognises the extreme difficulty of the question we have been discussing the last day or two. I do not want to take sides, but I must say that, so far, we have heard really only one side of this question. After all this is not the French Chamber and there is no French Government here to reply to the heated speeches to which we have just listened. It is impossible for our own Government to give the French point of view, but as one who has the greatest admiration for that wonderful nation and who has seen her sufferings, I want to say a few words on her behalf. I must confess that the speeches which we have listened to have been somewhat biassed. Several times the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Morel) has made a rhetorical attack describing the invasion of a helpless people by armed forces. I am inclined to think there are many even among those associated with him on those Benches who cannot help remembering that when a similar armed invasion of another helpless people took place he uttered none of these words against it.

There is no one who denounced with greater vehemence than I did the German invasion of Belgium, and so I must ask the hon. and gallant Member to withdraw his statement.

I think those who have watched carefully the speeches of the hon. Member since the beginning of the War could not have been led to think he was a very ardent opponent of the whole of the German policy from start to finish. I will leave it at that. It is a strange thing that when we are discussing such a difficult question as this speaker after speaker gets up in this House, and accuses our Ally of what in their opinion is a blunder in trying to get what little it can out of those who have brought such misery to its country. Surely that is no reason why we should make enemies of those who have been our Allies. It is no reason why we should adopt a tone of lecturing and hectoring when dealing with a noble people who have suffered so greatly in the War. Let us consider the alternatives which are suggested to France. The hon. Member says, and it is no doubt a fine sentiment, "let us leave the defence of the frontier of France to the League of Nations." Does anyone say that the League of Nations has power to defend that frontier? No doubt if we could believe that we should be willing to put such machinery into operation, but our French friends are up against realities, and to suggest that the League of Nations, which has no force behind it, is in a position to defend the frontiers of France is not helpful. It is helpful neither to France nor to this country.

That is not what I said.

The hon. Gentleman said, as I understood him, that a reconstructed League of Nations should provide for the defence of the frontier.

I said that a reconstructive League of Nations could guarantee the Franco-German frontier from aggression on either side.

But the trouble is that the League of Nations is really not in a position to do anything of the kind. It has been suggested that the French action is not really condoned and approved by the majority of the French people. I must say I have not found that to be the case. It seems to me that at the present time the French nation is united to an extraordinary extent behind its Government. I may be wrong, but there is no definite evidence that the policy the French Government have adopted has not the approval of the vast majority of the French people. The only test we can apply is this, so long as there is a stable Government we have to accept it as representing the views of people of the country. It is just the same in this country. We have recently had a General Election and people have to accept the fact that this Government represents their views. It is not very helpful to try to divide the French people from the French Government. My second point is this. The Prime Minister, in his speech, gave it as his view, and it was not accepted by the hon Member for North Shields (Mr. Harney), that the action of France was backed by public opinion. I venture to think that in this matter the Prime Minister is right.

What is actually meant by the fact that the French action is supported by French public opinion. I believe there is not the smallest doubt that there is, and has been, a very real fear throughout France, expressed by public opinion, that, unless something is done to see that Germany carries out her part of the Treaty there is real danger in the near future of another terrible and ghastly war. I have never come across a Frenchman who desires the annexation of the Ruhr. I believe they recognise that an alien population such as that would not add to the strength of France, but would weaken her position. At the same time, there is a feeling, which we cannot understand in this country, that at any time France might find her position imperilled, and they have a genuine fear of a fresh war. It is within the memory of many Frenchmen to have seen their country twice overrun.

There have been one or two eloquent speeches, to which I do not take any exception whatever, suggesting that we should think of fair play in dealing with this question of Germany. I do ask that we should also be fair to France. Would France have agreed to the effect of the Treaty, to the limited area of occupation until the Treaty was carried out, but for the pact of this Empire and the United States of America with herself? I am sure we are not treating France fairly if we forget that she felt that her security was guaranteed by the two most powerful nations in the whole world. I am not suggesting that we behaved in an unsportsmanlike fashion in climbing out of that bargain, because, when the United States declared their inability to carry it out, after the guarantees which had been given to the French people, and in which the French people believed, it was very difficult for us to go on alone. Do not let us forget, however, that the security of France was, as the French people believed at that time, guaranteed by this great, powerful alliance, which was to stand behind her and see that she was not invaded. There is a real fear throughout France.

May I say just one word with regard to our proposals? With regard to the proposal of a four years' moratorium, I would have accepted that with both hands if I had believed it to be possible that, after four years, you were going to do any better in this matter with Germany than you are to-day. I think Germany has shown pretty clearly that she is not going to do more than she can; she is going to try and convince us that she cannot do anything like as much as we ask; and I put it to Members of this House, do we really believe that four years hence the people of this country would be prepared to arm—because that is what it comes to—in order to extract reparations from Germany, when at the present moment we know that we are all war-weary and sick of the very idea of war of any description? The French know that, and their position is very serious. Their economic and financial position is exercising the minds of multitudes of people in France, and they see what we do not see—they see the terrific disaster which has befallen a great part of their richest territory, and they say, "Are we then to get nothing? Are we to wait for four years to see then whether the moral opinion of the world is going to stand up and demand what the Germans refuse to give us to-day?" If we look at it in that way, the whole matter presents a somewhat different appearance.

When the hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley was speaking, he was asked what would Germany have done in the same circumstances? I understood his reply to be that he did not think she would have demanded such onerous terms. [HON. MEMBERS: "He did not know."] He did not know. I shall be very glad to try and tell him. I can tell him from the mouths of exponents of German opinion. They are very well known. When the British Army was retreating in March, 1918, and it looked for the moment as though the victory was completely with the Germans, it was only saved, as every hon. Member of this House knows, by the extraordinary valour of the British infantry during that retreat. During that time the Pussian Finance Minister stated definitely that no Income Tax was necessary, because victory was in sight, and England was going to pay the whole cost of the War. I do not think anyone who really knows German opinion doubts that they would have had no mercy on ourselves or our Allies.

Why should we imitate them?

2.0 P.M.

I do not want to imitate them. Again and again we have had mercy; again and again, at the expense of France, we weakened the Treaty. We have given way to Germany, and have given her everything in our power, have given her every possible chance to meet her instalments as the time has arrived. When Germany was in that similar position—and this is a thing which we in England forget—what did France do? France asked for time. It was not reparation, it was an indemnity. France asked for time, and she could not get it. Did the Germans show the same spirit to France which we are demanding that the French should, to a very much greater extent, show to the Germans? No. These are facts which are not so easily understood in this country as they are in France. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down spoke about all these villainous Treaties, and I must confess that, when one listens to his speeches, and he ranges from Russia to Egypt and the Near East and all the countries of Europe, it is rather extraordinary that this country is always wrong.

I do not think that that is a fair statement. I condemned the Peace Treaties, which were not framed by our country only, but by our country in conjunction with other countries. I say that those Treaties were bad Treaties, and have inflicted enormous injury upon our country. In what way am I attacking our country?

I accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation. Along with our country, other countries and all these Treaties were wrong.

Our Government.

I suggest that that is not really the view of the average working man. I venture to think that the average elector of this country is ready to give credit to the Government, whatever their party may be, for trying to study the interests of his nation and do their best. There may be weaknesses in these Treaties, but, taking every single position—Egypt, India, I suppose, Ireland, Russia, Bulgaria, Germany—in every other case, and every instance where we have been in conflict with foes, I venture to think the hon. Gentleman's view would be that England is always, wrong.

No one has ever said that.

The hon. Gentleman's speech gave me that impression. But there was one Treaty which he omitted to mention, and, therefore, I presume he approves of it. That was the Treaty of Brest—Litovsk. I ask him to apply the teaching of that Treaty to the speech he has made to-day in connection with the action of the French. I ask him definitely—perhaps on a future occasion he will enlighten the House—could there have been any greater stultification of his remarks with regard to France vis-à-vis Germany than that iniquitous Treaty which was carried out at that time? I only want to say one or two words in conclusion, but I must refer to the fact that this startling uprising against French action is something which is rather new. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Let me refer to the Debate on foreign affairs in this House on 5th May, 1921. On that occasion the late Prime Minister told us of the documents which he had handed that morning, on behalf of the Supreme Council, to Mr. H. Sthamer, and that included certain things which were going to happen if in spite of the successive concessions made by the Allies, and in spite of the warnings and sanctions agreed upon at Paris, as well as the sanctions announced in London, the German Government was still in default in the fulfilment of the obligations incumbent upon it under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. It went on to enumerate them and ( a ) was:

"to proceed forthwith with such preliminary measures as may be required for the occupation of the Ruhr Valley by the Allied Forces on the Rhine in the contingency provided for in paragraph ( d )."

The right hon. Gentleman was followed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) who expressed general agreement with the speech and the sentiments enumerated therein. Then we had a speech from the Leader of the Labour party, who at that time were expressing very great anxiety to see that Britain should have her due and that we also and our French Allies should have some kind of recognition of the sorrows and sufferings through which we have passed. What does he say?

"I find myself more in agreement with the speech of the Prime Minister this afternoon than on many occasions during the last eighteen months on which he has addressed the House on this subject. The view I have formed is that the manner of payment and the terms of payment of such reparation as is required have been carefully considered and that due regard is being paid to Germany's liability in relation to Germany's capacity."

He went on later to say:

"Here again I think I can say that the financial arrangement proposed by the Prime Minister this afternoon approximated quite closely to the suggestions made in that Labour Resolution."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th May, 1921; cols. 1304 and 1306, Vol. 141.]

That is sufficient to show that this sudden flaming up of opinion, this sudden attack upon our Allies for their action, is something, at any rate as far as this House is concerned, of rather recent growth. I am not standing here to defend France's action or the action of Germany. Many of the remarks which have been made have been made without looking at the French point of view in its true perspective. It is no good the hon. Gentleman saying that with modern inventions we really are no longer an island and are really not so near the Continent. I think the Prime Minister took the opposite view, that we were an island, also that we had not got a continuous frontier of hundreds of miles alongside another country which had marched with its millions over its territory and destroyed the well-being of its people in that area. All I ask is this. Do not let us forget what friends we have been. We could not have won the War without France any more than France could have won the War without us. Let us face that fact. When we remember the appalling sacrifices amongst our own people, I implore hon. Members to remember also that the sacrifices of France were immeasurably greater than ours.

I should not have intervened in the Debate but for a very remarkable incident that happened last night. I have listened to the speeches that have been made on this side of the House, and am bound to say that from the vigorous, rude eloquence from the Clyde to the very brilliant effort of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) the case from this side of the House has been so put that it would be to indulge in unnecessary repetition for me to attempt to deal with the general question. In some respects I can claim to be the political godfather of the hon. Member for Colne Valley. He himself will admit that the first Socialist lecture he ever listened to came from me on his native heath. My native modesty prevents my saying what influence it had upon him. My inspiration for rising today comes from a very peculiar source. I am rising on account of a speech made from the middle of these benches through the medium of the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Newbold). He referred to the party to which I belong. He commenced by damning us with faint praise, and then launched a tornado of dialectical hooliganism which it would be impossible to excel. It appears to me that in this respect it is a matter of sour grapes. It is not the hon. Member's fault that he is not a member of the Labour party. He has made one or two applications for membership, which have been refused owing to the policy he represents. What is the policy of this modern political Columbus, who claims to have discovered a new economic doctrine? Those of us who have grown grey in the movement preached that doctrine when perhaps he himself was frightening the crows somewhere in the agricultural districts. He twits the Labour party, and asks what they have done. I claim, without egotism, and I am proud of the knowledge, that I was one of those in the labour world who moved the first resolution which created the Labour party. That was 20 years ago. We went forth with a doctrine, and we thought that we had only to appeal to the proletariat in the highways and byways, and they would come flocking to our standard in their thousands. I have watched the growth of the party with pride and admiration. If we have not achieved what we intended to achieve, the fault lies, not with the Labour party, but with the electors of this country, who have not responded as we thought they would. I am a Constitutionalist. In the history of politics in this country there never has been real progress made by any political party except constitutionally. Our party at last has reached the not very enviable position of being His Majesty's Opposition.

The hon. Member for Motherwell asked what the Labour party had done. I will answer that question by asking another. What has his party done? I say, not in any spirit of bitterness, but as a plain historic fact, that the application of the Communist policy in Russia has been disastrous. I am not going to say that in existing circumstances it is not the duty of our Government to recognise the existing Russian Government. But how has that Russian Government been brought about, and at what cost? The Communists started out to apply their new-found economic doctrine in Russia, and up to now all that it has resulted in has been economic cannibalism. We rejoiced in the Russian revolution. We rejoiced when the universal adult franchise was bestowed upon the Russian people by the Kerensky Government. What did the prototypes of the hon. Member for Motherwell do? They ruthlessly destroyed the popular franchise and set in its place a brutal autocracy that has waded through blood, murder and disease in order to get where they are to-day. [HON. MEMBERS, "No, no!"] Yes. I am entitled to my opinion. I have never disguised my opposition to the policy of Trotsky and Lenin, and I never will. I stand for the working classes of this country and every other country having the right to express their views in a constitutional way through the ballot box.

Here we have a gentleman coming to this House and claiming to represent democracy, although he belongs to a party which is the very antithesis of democracy. I have felt it to be my duty to enter my individual protest against any silent acquiescence in what the hon. Member for Motherwell said. He claims to represent democracy, but on looking at the record of his election I find that he does not represent the majority of the electors of Motherwell. It reminds me of the general who had ten thousand men, who War. I did not sell myself to anybody. I did what I thought was right as a citizen of Great Britain. The results are not being favourable, I admit, but at the time I conscientiously, and without price, did my part, and in similar circumstances I should probably do the same thing again.

I recognise, as the hon. Member recognises, the inequities of the present system, but his way is the wrong way. The price that Russia paid to get where she is to-day is too much for any of us to subscribe to. Every day, every week, every month brings a recantation of the original policy of Trotsky and Lenin. Every day justifies the constitutional attitude of the party to which I belong. I have been advised by some of my friends to treat the outpourings of the hon. Member with silent contempt, which, in their opinion, would be a moral victory. I have had a good many moral victories in my time, and their influence has not been very pleasant. Silent contempt would mean, in the view of the rank and file in the country, and particularly of my own constituents, silent acquiescence in a policy which I detest and abhor. Therefore, I have taken this opportunity of making my individual protest against the unnecessary onslaught on a democratic party which is acting in a constitutional manner, and in which I hope to continue.

I believe with those who have spoken from this side, that the foreign policy of the Government is responsible for many of the ills from which we are suffering to-day. The policy of France is a mistake. Previous to this business on the Ruhr there were at least 200,000,000 of people in Central Europe who were non-producers. They were our customers, and at present they are our potential customers. That was responsible for much of the distress and unemployment in this country—non-consumers and non-producers. Our imports and exports have suffered. We are wasting our time and inflicting greater hardship upon the population of this and other countries, so long as these people are out of production and are non-consumers. The sooner we recognise the necessity of getting people back to production in all the countries the sooner we shall have some solution of our unemployment problem.

I regretted to hear in this Debate the hon. Baronet the Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks) allude sneeringly to the men who were marching from the provinces to London for having the impudence to smoke a pipe of tobacco while they were asking for relief. It only proves to me the absolute ignorance of the right hon. Baronet of the conditions and pyschology of these people. It is evident that he has never been hungry and has never been on tramp, as I have been, when the only comfort which could temporarily satisfy the pangs of hunger was a smoke of tobacco. That is an experience of some of us, but he never had it, and that accounts for his ignorance and his sneers at the men who dared to smoke a pipe of tobacco when on a hunger march. The Minister of Labour gave some figures yesterday to try to prove that this country was prosperous. He referred to the enormous amount of savings in the Savings Bank, but they do not represent the savings of the people. It has been said that figures cannot lie. Without any reflection on the right hon. Gentleman, though his figures may not lie, yet liars do occasionally figure, and though his figures may be impressive, the figures that impress me most are the figures in the street, the figures of the man who saved this country, and who are not Communists, but simply attach themselves to those who, with all their faults, are publicly and forcibly expressing the wants of these men outside this House.

I have met many of these men, and have asked them why do they call themselves Communists. They could not tell me. All they could tell me—and they told me forcibly—was that these people were ventilating their grievances. As I understand it meant this. The Communism of Tolstoy or of Kropotkin is a beautiful ideal to which we can all look with affection. But it is not yet within the range of practical politics. The Communism of Karl Marx, so far as I know, never preached physical force. It was a science, and a very attractive science, too. If the unemployed movement to-day is being exploited by men who call themselves Communists, the responsibility rests on that side as much as on anybody else. If the material was not there for these men they could not exploit it. The material is there. Ex-service men, some of whom have been deprived of their pensions, hundreds who, I know, have risked their lives for this country. The whole secret is this, that we have in this House a machine that was created for another period, and is altogether out of date for the present period, that is not able to deal with the social problem of 1923 when it was only meant to deal with the problem of 1800. The whole machine is out of order and wants scrapping. We want a new machine put in its place. The best possible means I know of is not the sacrifice of human life, not the suppression of democracy; but the only way for the people to save themselves from destruction in the land of their inheritance is by intelligent action through the ballot box when the time comes.

If I do not formally ask for the indulgence of hon. Members, it is because I am convinced that patience and consideration will always be extended to one making his first speech in this House. In his first speech at the beginning of this Session the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Ramsay Mac-Donald), referring to a question which is exercising the minds of all of us and speaking of the seriousness and tremendous difficulty of the problem, expressed in substance the hope that it would be approached by all parties in the spirit of good will, and not in hot blood, in passion, or with prejudice. If I may speak for every Member on this side that is a view with which we all agree, because however perfect may be the schemes that are put forward for a solution of our grievous problem of unemployment, if it be not discussed and, having been discussed, if it be not carried out in a spirit of good will these schemes, however perfect, are sure to fail. Equally true is it that schemes which in themselves may have glaring defects, and which give rise to considerable and obvious criticism, may at the same time, if carried out in the spirit of good will, without acrimony, misrepresentation, or suspicion, go far to improve the state of things which we deplore so much in this country at the present moment.

Representing as I do what is essentially an industrial constituency, I have listened with great interest to the speeches on this question of unemployment during the last Session and the few days of this Session. If I might criticise some of the speeches from the Labour Benches I would say that much of the eloquence and ability which there is undoubtedly on that side of the House has been spent for the most part on descriptions of the disease. It is one thing to describe the disease of unemployment and the evils that flow from it; it is another thing to offer a cure of the disease. On the other side of the House there has been a conspicuous failure to offer any cure. We have heard much from hon. Members opposite to the effect that it must be difficult for Members on this side to appreciate the state of things due to unemployment. They tell us that they have been living amidst unemployment, that they have passed through the experience which alone can give an insight into the state of things throughout the country. It would be equally true for them to say that it is necessary to suffer from the disease of cancer in order to be able to cure that disease. It has been through the sympathy of those who appreciated the dread diseases of the body physical that it has been possible to find cures for those diseases. Hon. Members opposite often say that many on this side have been borne with silver spoons in their mouths. At any rate, that has not been my misfortune. I, too, from experience and from study, and from social work during past years, have been able to understand what unemployment means. I claim that understanding equally with hon. Members on the opposite side of the House.

In reading hon. Members' speeches it has seemed clear to me that there is a great deal more common ground between Members on both sides of the House than may be at first admitted. It will not be doubted by anyone that we on the Government side appreciate the fact that there is an unemployment problem. The Prime Minister last Session declared that he agreed with what had been stated from the other side of the House again and again, namely, that much of the wealth of the country was unfairly distributed. Much of the national wealth of this country, the assets of this country, the human natural resources, are not at the moment being used to the best advantage in order to ensure the utmost production. That is agreed in all quarters of the House. But the cleavage between the two sides, as I understand it, is this: Whereas on the Opposition side of the House as on this it is recognised that it is increased production which will go far to produce better conditions, hon. Members opposite hold that it is by Socialism as against private enterprise that the desired end will be gained. Hon. Members opposite will have considerable difficulty in producing a single instance to prove that State enterprise has accomplished more than private enterprise.

The national factories during the War.

At any rate there is vivid in the minds of all of us the recent experience of State enterprise in the matter of housing. One objection I offer to the schemes of hon. Members opposite is that, even supposing that their contention is correct, it would take time before their schemes could be put into effect, but the schemes which have been put forward by the Government can at least have it said for them that they are constructive, can be put into immediate operation, and are capable of considerable development. If only hon. Members opposite will approach the matter in a spirit of good will and will give the Government schemes every chance, I am certain that they will go far towards improving the state of affairs in the country.

We are now approaching the end of a very important Debate. I was rather astonished that the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Lieut.-Colonel Croft), whom I do not see in his place at the moment, should have expressed surprise that anybody should so suddenly have changed his mind as to take the line that has been taken on the Labour Benches to-day. The hon. and gallant Member went further, and produced an extract from a speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), a speech by the economical use of which he tried to support his argument. May I remind the House of what my right hon. Friend said. This was on 5th May, 1921, indicating that at that very early date the Labour party was beginning to see quite clearly what the danger was to Europe. My right hon. Friend then said:

"The Government of this country, the people of this country, the political parties of this country, must avoid any contact with or any support of either schemes or motives which aim at something other than the enforcement of reparations."

Hear, hear!

These schemes are not intended to enforce them. That is our case to-day. I proceed:

"We must make it plain here that the motive of our movements and of French movements is that of securing adequate and just reparation for the wrong and no other motive."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th May, 1921; col. 1306, Vol. 141.]

Hear, hear!

The motive here is not reparation. I am perfectly certain, and the hon. Member who interrupts me would not do so had he heard the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden). If the hon. Member will read that speech, it will change his opinion. We have moved this Amendment for two reasons. The first is to declare that, in our opinion, the present state of European political uncertainty is having a direct bearing upon the economic condition of the people of Europe. The next truth that we wish to emphasise is this, that international exchange is essential for the wellbeing of each individual State. These two statements form our case. You cannot go on with military ventures either into the Ruhr or elsewhere, either for the motive of getting reparation, or for the motive of annexing territory, or for the motive of creating new States out of old—you cannot go on pursuing a policy of political unsettlement for any one of these three motives without having to pay, at any rate, partially your bill in economic disturbance. Wherever that has happened, you have got a serious state of unemployment unless you are in a position of exceptional industrial preference. That being so, although the speech the Minister of Labour made yesterday was very interesting and very important, he did not quite touch the point which we have been raising yesterday and to-day. We shall trouble him to repeat that speech next week, when we shall deal with unemployment in a rather deeper manner. We have asked the House to consider unemployment as an international phenomenon and to discuss how far the condition of Europe is responsible for our own industrial distress. When we deal with unemployment from the point of view of the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health, and insurance and so on, then the information which we got yesterday will be germane to the discussion; but until then it is just a little bit off the middle of the road.

We come to another argument used in the course of this Debate, to the effect that while it may be perfectly right that this, that or the other thing produces unemployment, yet, from the point of view of an adequate discussion of European conditions, of an accurate pointing out of the causes of European conditions, our Amendment is away from the immediate critical position which has arisen on account of the occupation of the Ruhr. That argument has been advanced and that complaint has been made, but, again, are we never in this House going to get away from the very narrow examination of the crises in which we happen to be? What is the use of discussing the Ruhr apart from the whole tendency of European policy? You cannot dissociate the one from the other. If you try merely to put in front of you a particular problem, say the problem which the Prime Minister has been engaged in discussing yesterday, last night and the whole of to-day; if you take that and abstract it from the mind of France, the policy of France, the evolution of the policy which resulted from the Treaty of Versailles, the attitude of France and ourselves towards the League of Nations, and so on, you will never get a cure that will be satisfactory. You will merely go from crisis to crisis until in the end some great catastrophe brings you straight up against the fundamental facts. What we insist upon in this Amendment is that the Government ought to stop being dragged unconsciously from stage to stage of a policy which is now evolving on account of its own momentum, rather than on account of any evil design of any Government in Europe—France, Germany, ourselves, or any other.

We have now to see benevolent neutrality taking sides. We cannot stand apart. We are responsible for the present conditions. You cannot go on with an ally up to a certain point and then when that ally goes on consistently with the policy which has been pursued up to that point, turn round, call for a bowl, and, in the face of the multitude, wash your hands and say, "I have no responsibility." You cannot do that. You may see that error has been committed. You may have to confess that at the moment, in relation to the actual events which have been happening moment by moment you can do nothing practical in order to turn over a new leaf, and in order to swing forces and events on to a new line of progress, but benevolent neutrality neither helps you nor your ally nor the world. Let us remember that French policy has been perfectly consistent. We have no reason to complain to France of what she has done. She has never concealed her mind. She has never concealed her purpose. Neither France nor we accepted the League of Nations; the hon. Member for Harrow (Mr. Mosley) in that very admirable speech he delivered yesterday, showed that neither France nor we accepted the League of Nations on the important question of mandates; neither France nor we put the League of Nations in a position of independence and impartial authority; neither France nor we have ever taken any attitude towards the League of Nations but that our expectation of the actions and the decisions of the League was that it should confirm everything we had decided before and support us in the policy that we had been pursuing with regard to European settlement.

Moreover, neither France nor we started with any idea but that we would get our Budgets balanced by German reparation. We were wiser; we did not go very far in that delusion. We had Chancellors of the Exchequer, thank goodness, who were not afraid to tax, but nevertheless, whilst we were taxing, we were still professing. France has apparently believed, not merely professed, that she is going to find it possible to balance an enormous Budget without increasing the taxation she imposes upon her people. That has gone on every year; her deficit has mounted up, until at last she cannot even get her Budget Committee to agree upon a Budget at all. Year by year she has assigned, in a separate fund, larger and larger sums of hypothetical payments, until now, from the purely financial point of view, the French Finance Minister is absolutely unable to turn round to the public of France and say, "I have got to take in this section of the Budget, which has been regarded as something that is going to be filled up from reparations—I have got to take it into my own current responsibility and put taxes on you to enable me to balance the Budget and clear off the debt that has been mounting up." France has got herself into an impossible position. I would venture to say to hon. Members like the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth, that to understand France in that way shows a far greater sympathy of a practical kind than merely to understand France from the sentimental point of view. Moreover, France has never concealed the fact that her mind is full of fear. France has told us all along that she wants security. Did the House observe the extraordinary position that the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth got himself into when he told that story of the Frenchman who discussed the occupation of the Ruhr? What was the hon. and gallant Member's argument? It was this. France is afraid, France's fear drives her to occupy the Ruhr, but France knows perfectly well that if she occupies the Ruhr there is going to be war sooner or later. That is the case.

I did not state that there was any question of war necessarily arising. I said that I believed no section of the French people desired the annexation of the Ruhr.

3.0 P.M.

I certainly understood that, and I am sure the hon. and gallant Member will accept my word that I have no desire to misrepresent him, but, as a matter of fact, if he did not say that, that really is the situation in which France finds herself. France is afraid; France sees no end to this fear; France must occupy something that appears to give her a guarantee up to the Rhine, across the Rhine, and the moment she has got it France turns round and says, "I occupy that territory that in the end will result in a challenge to my existence, as soon as my enemy can pull himself together to fight me." That is the situation. Hon. Members holding the views of the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth surely cannot think that that is security. The difference between them and my Friends—I say it with respect—is that we are trying to secure France, whilst they are unwilling to face the realities of the problem of security and are, instead, misleading France and involving the next generation of Frenchmen in a great war. The problem of security is a problem which requires to be handled, perhaps, a little more gingerly, but what about our security? Are we going to forget that? Are we going to forget history? Is it something essential to a demonstration of our amity to France that we are going to turn a blind eye to all the dangers that the development of an enormously powerful European Power is going to offer to us? Have any hon. Members here within the last two years been in the Near East? Have hon. Members here forgotten the mission to Enver? Have hon. Members here forgotten the sinister meaning—which I believe was wrong—that was put upon certain movements at Lausanne? Am I going to be asked to show my friendship for my friend in terms, and in a way, and in conditions that will throw me absolutely open to the most deadly attack, should it happen, which God forbid, that my present friend ever comes into conflict with my interests, either at home or elsewhere?

If we are going to discuss security we must discuss it, and we must remember that the problem of European security is not a problem between France and Germany. There is Russia, there is Turkey, there are the Arabs, there is Egypt, there is Palestine. Where are we going to stop? Therefore, our Amendment may be large in its scope. Yes, Mr. Speaker, but this House will never adequately discuss the problem of security, either upon a moral basis, the basis upon which I should prefer to discuss it, or upon a military basis, upon which I am prepared to discuss it, without bringing the interests of this country in and without placing those interests in relation to the military power either of Germany, or of France, or of Russia, or of Turkey, or of any other nation that you care to select to put alongside of us. I have confessed that it is quite possible that after a development of policy up to a certain point a nation changes its mind. A nation ought to be free to change its mind. Then, if it is working with an Ally, it finds it almost impossible to do the thing that it would like to do. It is the old problem of carrying a business or an affair which is being badly done on to a better state of efficiency, and in the meantime, during the transition period, keeping it as a going concern rather than following the Russian Bolshevist example of knocking the whole thing on the head, with the idea that you are going to reconstruct it next day—that is silly nonsense. I will not use any other language than that. This is the problem with which a nation very often finds itself confronted, and if our present Government find themselves in that position, then they have, if it is any good to them, my sympathy in abundance. At the same time that does not justify a shilly shally, nerveless, do-nothing, sentimental policy.

There is the question of the occupation of our sector of the line. There is a great deal to be said about that, weighing one side and weighing the other side, but I cannot believe that there are very many people who have carefully studied it in all its bearings who will dispute that if Prance were to ask us now to use our troops, to use our position in our occupied area for the purpose of helping it actively in pursuing its occupation policy, we ought to refuse. We are occupying that sector under the Treaty of Versailles. We occupy territory which is German; otherwise we would not be there. We have declared to France, the Prime Minister has told us in this House, that we are not a party to the Ruhr adventure. More than that, we believe that if this adventure be pursued very much further, it is going to decrease our economic security and is going to do very serious damage to the industrial activities of this country. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is doing it now!"] My point is that it is going to do it in an increasing degree. If I did not make that clear, I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. It is doing it now, and is going to do it increasingly. It is going to close up a very large part of our essential markets, and, if that be so, what an absurd thing it is, what a dangerous thing it is, for us to allow our occupied sector to be treated by France as though it were part and parcel of its occupied sector. The moment our troops are used on the Rhine to advance French policy in this respect, they ought to be withdrawn altogether.

There is another point. Surely this country wants to maintain a position which, at the very earliest opportunity, it can use for the purpose of alleviation, negotiation, friendly suggestion of a kind that will help everybody concerned out of their difficulty. There is no higher con- ception that I can have of the ability of my country at the present time than that it should perform that function in Europe. How can we do that if we get mixed up in this? Because let the Government and the House remember that, so long as we are stiffly neutral, and so far as the occupation of this area is concerned, so long as our occupied area is drawn, as it were, round magical lines across which nobody can go except ourselves, our responsibility and our honour are concerned. We must say: "This country must go round. If there is a war you must not cross our boundary." So long as we do that we occupy a very strong, and may be a very useful, though I admit a very dangerous position. I admit the danger of it. But the moment we pull down those barriers, do not let us talk about neutrality; let us go right in with France and take the responsibility of the whole adventure, because he is the very worst friend who is half-hearted, the friend who gives a little support and withholds the major support necessary to the success of the undertaking. I believe that if we give the smallest support we would be doing a very wrong action, wrong to ourselves, wrong, perhaps above all, to France, certainly wrong to Germany.

There is another point. There are two things we ought to make perfectly clear to France. First, if France wants us to allow her to use our power or facilities in our occupied area we ought to say, "No." The second is the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) as to the legality of the action of France. I believe most profoundly it is the duty of the Government to express a view upon that. I believe it is essential to France. I believe it is essential for French public opinion; that it is essential for world opinion, and especially for American opinion, that the opinion of our country on that point should be known. Does our Government believe or does it not believe that the action of France in the Ruhr is or is not in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles? I believe it to be the duty of the Government to make a plain statement on that very important matter. Some hon. Members who spoke on this to-day—and who I am perfectly certain quite as sincerely hold their view as I hold mine—have made the point that when we talk as we do, we are talking in a more friendly frame of mind to our late enemy than to our Ally. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] But cannot hon. Members see that there is a much deeper and bigger issue than that? What is it we are doing? Hon. Members set up a purely fictitious thing that they call France and Germany, and they say—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Surely that is no new doctrine. Our own Burke has drawn the distinction between a convenient name and a real and definite thing the meaning and content of which you can keep in your mind when you apply a name to it. That is all I mean now. With Germany, you can do anything. You can wipe it out or restore it to the united nations of Europe. To say that whatever you do to-day is something that has got no power at all upon the communal life of Europe and upon your own land is absurd. That notion is absurd. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am very glad to get that assent to the general proposition, but I doubt if I shall get assent to the inevitable consequences of that proposition. We say that you cannot cut and carve up Europe.

During the last 100 years the whole progress of our industrial civilisation has been to widen and widen the bonds of the economic unity of which you form a part. Our position on this point is this. You can smash France, but in doing that you are crippling Europe. You can smash Germany, but in doing that you are crippling Europe. You can smash Europe and exactly the same consequences will follow, in fact, those consequences have already followed. My argument, therefore, is not a prophecy, but it is a fulfilled fact. What is the use of us priding ourselves on being practical, knowing perfectly well that there is this organic connection between nation and nation which makes it impossible to pursue such a policy without injuring each other. Knowing that as a fundamental fact, to turn round and say when we think of Europe, of Germany and France as part of an organic unity we are thinking more of our late enemies than our Allies is absurd.

We had a speech yesterday of a very remarkable character, as far as its demeanour went, delivered by the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy). What is his position? The Noble Lord represents a very large section of opinion in this House. Practically what he says is, "Do not do anything that is drastic. Do not come too violently and too decidedly against what has been done in the past. Let us change slowly and keep on drifting, as we have done in the past." The Noble Lord, turning to us, said that he could not understand how it was the Labour party had earned the reputation of being the peace party. May I inform the Noble Lord that it is because we believe in peace, and our method of peace is not the method of drift. Our method is that we believe, and we believe history supports us, that nations have to make up their minds about certain things, and having done that they have to allow their will to operate and not be so lacking in courage or candour that they cannot say in the face of a friend, "We think we are doing wrong, and we are going to say it in the eyes of the world." The policy of the Noble Lord carried on for the next 50 years would be sure to bring war at the end of it. I am not out for that policy, and the Labour party have had quite enough of war. Briefly, that is the policy which has been sketched out by the Noble Lord. An Ally wants to pursue a policy in Persia. We are afraid to speak. An Ally wants to pursue a policy at sea. We are afraid to speak. A potential enemy has to be handled honestly and in public. We are afraid to speak. The Foreign Office archives are chock-full of magnificent documents absolutely valueless, because they were never made public.

Our policy is to break with the policy of the past. I am not sure that we could not do a little better than we are doing if we had a certain amount of the spirit of Palmerston in these days. Hon. Members will never find the Labour party, as I say, opposed to a certain amount of the spirit of Palmerston. I can remember that this House—I was not a Member at the time—had a Debate very much in parallel lines with the Debate we are just about to finish on the Treaty of Sevres and the position of Greece and Turkey. The late Prime Minister made a great speech on the lines of the speech of the Noble Lord, and for that speech he nearly got a statue erected to his memory in Athens. What was the position at that time? We could have settled peace with Kemal, but at that time we said, as we now state in regard to the Treaty of Versailles, that we must not reopen the Sèvres Treaty. There is that very part of the agreement—the economic provisions. There is the Sèvres Treaty giving this to Greece and that to Turkey. We must not reopen it. We stood firm and Kemal stood firm, and the war came and Kemal won, and, as a result of the war, we have had to reopen the Treaty, and tear it to bits. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs confessed to us—it was so unlike him—that we were going to give them things that we did not want to give simply because we did not want to have any trouble of a warlike character. What an end! Cannot we do very much better than that? Yes, but the whole policy of hon. Members opposite has been that. They were in exactly the same frame of mind regarding the Sèvres Treaty, the Tripartite Agreement; and our relations with our old enemy Turkey, when the Greeks were attacking and getting beyond Smyrna, and told us they could occupy Angora, as they are in regarding the Treaty of Versailles and France to-day. Therefore we have produced our Amendment. It is perfectly true that it looks a little bit ahead, but we have got to do that. We cannot solve the European problem to-day by niggling and by picking a bit here and picking a bit there. We have to make up our minds that all that has happened has been in a sort of apostolic succession from the Treaty of Versailles—even upon event, cause and effect, effect and result, result and fresh causes producing new results. If any hon. Member imagines that the occupation of the Ruhr, and what it is going to mean, is the last phase of the evolution which is to follow the Treaty of Versailles, he is going to be subject to a very rude awakening. Therefore we move our Amendment. In a few minutes the Division will take place. We know what the result will be. We cannot upset the law of numbers. Numbers are with you. You will go in the Lobby, your vote will be counted and the figures will be announced. It is all perfectly democratic. But of how many things can the same be said? I will tell you this, that before many years are out, as Europe goes from stress to stress, and from difficulty to difficulty, as enlightenment comes, as the people realise the deeper meanings of the problems in which they are involved, this Amendment, rejected to-day, will become the foundation of the policy that a wise Government of this country will pursue.

I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat. After two days of an extremely interesting Debate, the short clear and sharp issue stands out on which the Division is to be taken in half an hour. The hon. Gentleman laid down at the beginning of his speech two axioms. The first was that the state of Europe had a direct bearing on the economic condition of this country. In that I agree. The second was that international exchanges were essential to our economic prosperity. With that also I agree. The point that has emerged is that, in his view, we ought to have an immediate breach with France. In our view we do not think that this is an opportune moment. The hon. Member seems to think it an easy thing for this country alone to manage all the affairs of Europe and the affairs of the world. But the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), in the very weighty and impressive speech that he delivered this morning, said quite truly that we were a partner in a partnership; and there is no man in this House who does not realise that on occasions when a partner may happen to differ from his other partner, the position is one of both delicacy and difficulty. No one ought to realise that better than the Leader—may I say of the Labour party? I merely say that because the hon. Member has not yet been the Leader of the Liberal or the Conservative party. But, talk about the "mouths of prophets," when I heard him this afternoon, just before he sat down, invoke the shade of Palmerston, I felt that now the Labour party once and for all has purged itself of pacificism. The hon. Member spoke of the attitude which we are maintaining as a cowardly attitude, and one unworthy of this country. And yet I am convinced that at the present time—and it must be remembered that a month is but a short time, and it is for a month past that this policy has been followed—desiring above all things, as we do, peace and the settlement of Europe, we believe, as far as we can see at present, that we are more likely to attain those ends by maintaining our friendship with our old Ally, in the hope and belief that the time may come when our services as mediator and helper may be possible, and may be effective.

I want to say a few words about the course of the Debate which has taken place, and to refer to an important speech that was delivered yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman the Member far Platting (Mr. Clynes). We all respect him in this House, and we all listened with anxiety to hear if he had any suggestions that might help the country in the time of this crisis through which we are passing. He gave us very little, but made one or two suggestions to which I wish to allude. But I should like, before coming to that, to make one or two general remarks from a point of view which has not so far been touched upon in the Debate. Everyone is agreed as to the terrible conditions of our trade. Many people, in seeing those around them, naturally, in their indignation, look out for someone to hit; and the two things that lend themselves most easily to being hit are an abstraction in the shape of the Government, and something concrete in the shape of the employer. The present position, however, is not due to any extra dose of original sin. It is due very largely to the history of the last century. The whole industrial system has grown up in a space of time which, in the history of the world, is infinitesimal, and in the history of this country is a very limited period. It owed its growth not, again, to original sin, but to the inventive powers of our countrymen—to the fact that we enjoyed peace more than any other country in the world for a long period, and to the ability and skill of our people. So rapid was our progress that, during the last century, not only did no statesmen, but very few people in the world at all, realise that, underneath this enormous growth of wealth and prosperity, there were seeds that might germinate in time into something unhealthy and dangerous. And the voices which were raised during that century, the voices that reached the ears of their countrymen chiefly, were not the voices of Labour; they were the voices of men like Lord Shaftesbury, Charles Kingsley, and John Ruskin.

During the time that this industrial system grew up here, that amazing organisation of international trade grew up, not again by original sin, or not with a view to capitalists making money out of it. I speak of what I know. It grew up day by day and year by year automatically and empirically, to meet the ever-changing needs of countries that wish to exchange goods with other countries. That perfect mechanism, functioning with such absence of friction that few were aware of its existence before the War, was smashed to pieces by the War, and the world found itself with an industrial system broken, with impoverished markets, and with the means of making the exchange of goods shattered almost beyond repair. And we have to realise what that problem means before we can judge fairly whether the attempts which are being made to mend this machinery and to remove the debris are adequate or not. There has never been anything known in the world like it before. It could never have been foreseen, and measures to meet this catastrophe have had to be improvised and devised at a moment's notice. Small wonder, then, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting had no policy to put forward which could right all that in a day any more than had the late Prime Minister—the most fertile and ingenuous mind in Europe—or any more than anyone else in the country has. We can only do our best.

The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) said—and he laid some emphasis on this—that there was an efficient organisation for production for destruction during the War. Why cannot there be efficient organisation for production for other things today? The answer, I think, is very simple. To sell goods we must have someone willing to buy them. In the War there was a demand which could never be satisfied. Goods were made and sold and sent in. Any quantity could be taken. None of these things are true to-day. Moreover, in the effort which was made success was only achieved by spending the savings of the country and mortgaging the future, and had the War gone on for another two years this country would have gone into bankruptcy. Those enormous resources of the country to which allusion was made in more than one speech yesterday, were largely dissipated in that very production. It is not the absence of capacity of production that is causing the, harm. It is the absence of the consumer.

As I understand the right hon. Gentleman is now replying to the case I tried to put forward, I expressly ruled out any question of putting people to work on the production of articles for sale in this or in other countries. I enumerated a score of different undertakings on which hundreds of thousands of men could be engaged in this country, instead of the money being paid for nothing.

I quite understand that. I shall be only too glad if the right hon. Gentleman will send me any of those proposals, and I will examine them myself. I agree with my right hon. Friend in the expression of his desire that wages should be substituted for what he calls "doles." We all know the danger and the harm of the present system, but I must challenge what he said in one passage of his speech—that the finding of money for doles

If I may give an instance, which I do with diffidence, I may say that many years ago, when I was an employer of labour, and directly responsible for about a thousand men, there occurred one of the first of a series of long strikes—the coal strike of 1910–11, and, for the first time since I had been in business, I saw all the men for whom I was responsible thrown out of work for six weeks, through no fault of their own. I felt, as I think anyone must have felt, the appalling hardship of that. I remember very well that I felt it so strongly that I paid an allowance to all these men out of my own pocket for six weeks, just enough to keep the wolf from the door. I mention that merely to show that that feeling was working at the time. These things are never isolated acts, and that kind of feeling must have been common among thousands of men. It was the growth of that feeling—that men who were out of work through no fault of their own should be provided for in some way or another—which was crystallised into action, and caused the first scheme of Unemployment Insurance to be brought in. That scheme is not perfect. It may be years before a perfect scheme can be devised, but, none the less, this provision, in some form or another, has come to stay in this country, and will, as years go by, be, as it was described in a speech yesterday, "one of the sheet-anchors of the industrial system of this country."

I want to say something relating to a speech by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith)—[HON. MEMBERS: "Colne Valley!"] No, I mean the hon. Member for Keighley this time. The hon. Member was good enough to say something of me which is very rare—he approved of something that I had said. I am used to the other thing. I was very glad to find that he, representing an entirely opposite school of thought from myself, approved of what I said about industry and business, and trade and commerce, and the question of prosperity and bad patches. I agree with what he said, as he tried to prove, there is no difference between my holding that view and the views which the Prime Minister put forward with regard to the matter of inter-Imperial trade. It is possible, although I hope it will not happen, that we may lose for some time the European markets. If we do, that will be so much to the bad. But it would be the height of folly, in the position of the European markets to-day, if those responsible for the Government pf this country did not do everything in their power to increase our trade in other places and to develop other markets than those of Europe. And if the state of Europe should remain bad for many years, I believe it to be true, as the hon. Member said before, that bad as it would be for all the countries involved, this country, with its inter-Imperial trade and its connection with the East, would be the first country to get on to a firm basis of trade of any other country in the world.

I cannot conclude without saying a word or two upon the speech made yesterday by the hon. Member for Coatbridge (Mr. Welsh), a speech which impressed the whole House by the fervour of its language and the sincerity of its senti- ments. I would like to assure him, in response to the feeling to which he gave voice from those benches, that there are men on this side of the House, as well as on his, who dream dreams, and hope to see their dreams take practical shape.

And after all that has been said so often, even in Debate, about the amount of champagne which we consume, I would like to make two observations. I doubt if as much would be consumed if it only cost 6d. a bottle, instead of 25s. I think at the present price everybody would consume it who was able to scrape 25s. together. These men, whose god is their belly, are to be found in all ranks of the people.

I would like to say a word in passing allusion to the speech of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), who said that the state of Europe is grave and dangerous. I agree with that, and he spoke about the hope which sustained people during the War, the hope for better things and for a better world. It is quite the case with countries as it is with individuals. There is no man who has not tried in his life to climb up for a moment on to a higher plane, to do some noble or generous action, and I believe that it is a common experience—I have read about it—that afterwards there always comes a reaction. Some devil enters into his mind, and tells him that he was a fool for doing it. And something of the kind happened after the War, when the tension was relaxed, and the high spiritual effort of millions of people by their sacrifices and their losses. When the War was over, and they found that what they hoped for and expected did not come to pass, all hope for the time being fled from them. They seemed to have no spirit to push forward, and do all those difficult, troublesome things in reconstruction that had to be done. Their temper was different. We thought that we had swept out the chamber clean, and there entered seven devils more.

This Government, as I said at the opening of these few remarks, has striven with all its might and main for peace, and is so striving at this moment. It strove, at Paris, it strove at Lausanne, and those very concessions that we made to the Turks are surely no confession of weakness, but are rather a measure of our desire for peace. I believe yet that the efforts which we made will b. crowned with success. We may yet see that the efforts at Lausanne may give us the first gleam of hope in Europe towards peace in a district that was distracted for nine years—a district where we may hope to see the beginning again of a trade that will help our people. The same with the proposals at Paris. It has been the urgent desire of this Government, recognising that the whole question of reparation and debts is inextricably interwoven with permanent peace and the resumption of trade—it was to try to secure these things that these proposals were put before that Conference—and though at that time the efforts of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Bonar Law) may have failed, we shall try again, and we shall try again, and we shall hope that some day they may be crowned with the success that they deserve.

If I may say one word about the American Debt I would say that when I went to America, the one thing more than any other that made me anxious to obtain a settlement was that I was convinced in my own mind that a settlement of that very nature at this particular moment, assuring the world that one country at least, in the midst of al this maelstrom, stood by the sanctity of contracts and by its bond, might be some help to the countries of the world to face the difficulties in front of them, instead of ignoring them, or trying to slip round them. I do not think I am too sanguine if I still cling to that hope.

One word about the speech delivered last night by the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Newbold). I have always been a student of history, and I learned from him several things that I had not known before. There was only one remark of his on which I wish to comment. He said that when the Labour party had been in power, and failed, he was coming in. I believe that the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) expressed dissent. I am myself of that somewhat flabby nature that always prefers agreement to disagreement, and I welcome the opportunity of recording the fact that I find myself in hearty and uncompromising agreement with the hon. Member for Silvertown. When the Labour party sit on these benches, we shall all wish them well in their effort to govern the country. But I am quite certain that whether they succeed or fail, there will never in this country be a Communist Government, and for this reason, that no gospel founded on hate will ever seize the hearts of our people—the people of Great Britain. It is no good trying to cure the world by spreading out oceans of bloodshed. It is no good trying to cure the world by repeating that pentasyllabic French derivative, "Proletariat." The English language is in thought the richest in the world. The English language is the richest in the world in monosyllables. Four words, of one syllable each, are

words which contain salvation for this country and for the whole world. They are "Faith," "Hope," "Love," and "Work." No Government in this country to-day which has not faith in the people, hope in the future, love for its fellow men, and which will not work and work and work, will ever bring this country through into better days and better times, or will ever bring Europe through or the world through.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 180; Noes, 277.

Main Question again proposed.

It being after Four of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Monday next, 19th February.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3, till Monday next, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of this Day.

Adjourned at Twelve Minutes after Four o'Clock.