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International Situation HOUSE OF COMMONS
INTERNATIONAL SITUATION. Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn."- [Captain Margesson.]
4,2 p.m.
Mr. Attlee: When the House last met, we had a prolonged discussion on foreign affairs and we reviewed the circumstances which led up to the international crisis. I do not intend to repeat the arguments that were used then or to review again the past, nor indeed to enter into a general review of the international situa- tion. I think it is for us now to consider the present and the future, but to keep the lessons of the past in our mind. I want to call attention to some of the con- sequences of the great defeat that has been sustained by France and Great Britain and, above all, by the cause of law and order and democratic gov- ernment. I want to look not only at the political but at the economic aspects of what has happened in the last few months. To-morrow we are to discuss the proposal of the Government to ratify the Anglo- Italian Agreement. We shall have a full opportunity of stating our objections to the course proposed, and the Debate will raise very large questions of international policy, and particularly the vitally im- portant question of Spain, and I shall not to-day in any way anticipate that Debate. On Thursday my friends intend to raise the question of the deplorable deficiencies in the provision for defence which the emergency brought into the open.
f
I say brought into the open "-not re- vealed "because they have been ex- posed very often, and again and again requests have been made urging the Gov- ernment to take action.
But there are certain immediate issues arising from the Munich Agreement which the House should consider, and there are points on which I should like to have some assurances from the Prime Minister. In the first place, I hope he will give the House some account of what has been done since Munich by the British and French Governments on behalf of Czecho- slovakia and the Czech people. The Prime Minister claimed that the Munich Agreement was a great advance on the Godesberg demands, and it must have been a great advance on those demands in his mind because it made all the differ- ence between war and peace. We ought to examine and see exactly what has
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happened to those advances which were supposed to have been attained at Munich. On the question of the delimi- tation of the new frontiers the Prime Minister admitted that Godesberg did not follow strictly the principle that only those districts should be transferred which had an essentially German nature, and the delimitation of the frontiers was entrusted to an International Commission. That Commission has delimited the frontiers, but we now find that they are even worse than those laid down in the Godesberg demands. The new frontiers go far beyond that criterion of German districts. It gives even more than Herr Hitler demanded then. A number of districts predominantly Czech have been handed over. I need give only one instance of a district with nearly 12,000 Czechs and only 500 Germans which has been awarded to Germany. We are entitled to know what, if anything, was done by our representatives on the International Commission. If a disregard of the ques- tion of the German character has taken
place, there has certainly been a com- plete disregard of any other consideration. There seems to have been no regard what- ever paid to what certainly should have been present in the minds of those charged with this duty, and that is as to the possibility of Czechoslovakia main- taining its own independent life, political and economic, within these frontiers.
The basis of the transference of these territories was a census nearly 30 years old. I should like to hear the justification for taking 1910 as the basis. The ques- tion was raised in the House, and no clear answer was given as to what the basis was to be, but when you consider the Great War and all the industrial and political changes since then, to take a census 28 years ago as a basis for de- limiting the frontiers of the new State was obviously grossly unjust and abso- lutely ridiculous. In fact, it seems that the International Commission only func- tioned as a body to register the demands of Herr Hitler. With regard to economic possibilities, if you look at the map of the new Czechoslovakia you find that the railways are cut again and again. You find power stations taken away from their areas of supply. There has been, ob- viously, no regard whatever to any other considerations than the demands made by Germany. It is extraordinarily dangerous precedent to accept even
an
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International Situation what was accepted, and that is that States should be constituted solely on the basis of the character of their inhabi- tants or the language that they speak, but to disregard that, as it has been dis- regarded, and to disregard all the bases on which a State can live is a complete mockery. The conditions of evacuation were improved very little. The clause with regard to opting out, as everyone knows, under a totalitarian regime is illusory where there is no protection from terrorism. Summing it up, what seems to have been gained by the Czechs in the difference between Godesberg and Munich seems infinitesimal, and meanwhile Poland and Hungary have fastened on the corpse of Czechoslovakia, and it looks as if Czechoslovakia is to be divided and cut down to an extraordinary extent,
4
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I understand that we had some kind of I think
moral guarantee was the phrase of the Minister for the Co- ordination of Defence. I do not know what has become of that moral guarantee. The division of the spoils now seems to be left to the decision of Germany and Italy. The question we have to ask now is whether, dismembered and fragmented, there is hope for an independent Czecho- slovakia. I hope there is, but it looks extremely doubtful. What is the position with regard to the guarantee that this country was to give? Is it still proposed to give a guarantee to the new State? Who are to be the co-guarantors?
Has that now been worked out? Is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to be one of the guarantors? Incidentally, I think it was deplorable that the Chan- cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster should have gone out of his way to attack the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and cast doubt on it in a speech in the country. It hardly lay in the mouth of a member of the Government. I should like to ask whether when he spoke in those terms he was expressing the views of the Government. Who are to be the co- guarantors and what is to be guaranteed? Originally we understood it was to be a guarantee of the frontiers. Is it possible to guarantee these frontiers? Above all, could such a guarantee be carried out? I ask this because I am totally opposed to this country giving guarantees which it cannot carry out. If there is to be a guarantee, let us know its extent and let it be one that we can carry out.
I am opposed to committing this country to
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vague obligations outside the League of Nations. We are entitled to know what has become of this guarantee, whether it is in force to-day and whether it is intended to modify it by any instrument, and whether it is a guarantee that this country can undertake.
The next question that I should like to ask is with regard to the proposed loan of £30,000,000.
When this was first pro- posed everyone thought it was a very good thing, and we all liked it if it was going to be a support for an independent Czechoslovakia. In that case, if we can have an independent Czechoslovakia, I think we should support it in every pos- sible way. We owe so much to Czecho- slovakia. If, on the other hand, Czecho- slovakia is to become a mere vassal State of Germany, very different conditions will apply. It is no good giving expensive food to a chicken if a fox is going to eat it. If that loan were merely to finance Germany, it would be extremely foolish. I hope we shall have from the Govern- ment some detailed explanation of what we are going to do for the State, whether we can help Czechoslovakia to maintain itself as an outpost of liberty and not let it merely fall under the sway of some other Power.
The next point I would like to raise is with regard to the question of refugees. I believe there is enormous sympathy in this country for the plight of the refugees from Sudetenland. Many thousands of people have been placed in a terrible posi- tion. The people of this country have subscribed a great sum of money, and I think we ought to pay a tribute here to the Lord Mayor of London for his courage and activity in this matter. But we have here an enormous problem, a problem that it is extremely difficult for the Czech Government to tackle, and I should like to acknowledge the helpfulness with which we have been met by His Majesty's Government on the question of the refugees. But there is a question much wider than that of the refugees from the Sudetenland and much wider than the immediate question of the sustentation of those who have been driven out, and that is the problem that Europe is facing to-day. It is an enormous problem. All over Europe, with the spread of anti-Semitism and poli- tical and racial intolerance, you are get-
ting enormous numbers of people who will