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International Situation HOUSE OF COMMONS
[Mr. Muff.]
Unless our Foreign Office is to be subject in every particular to the whims and de- sires of the German Government, I think we are sufficiently strong yet to be in the position of telling the Germans where they get off, instead of being told by them where we get off. We should be able to tell the Germans that they have no right to criticise our treatment of our minorities as long as their own concentration camps are so plentiful,
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The Prime Minister has invented a new policy which he calls appeasement. For the life of me I could not give the dic-
appeasement tionary definition of without looking it up, but I can give the House the Yorkshire definition. There is one interpretation of appeasement in the Old Testament. There is the appease- ment which consists of throwing burnt offerings to Moloch or some other god
in order to make him look more benevo- lently upon those who are paying him their worship. But there is another meaning of the word which we have in Yorkshire. If a child is a nuisance, and
if you give the child a dummy tit,"
or drat the child and send him out to the pictures or give him sweets-we call that appeasement. Is that the policy of His Majesty's Government? Is it their policy to sacrifice Czechoslovakia and similar
places as burnt offerings to this new god or is it their policy to try to appease the German Government by offerings in the way of some form of sweets or plasters in order to try temporarily to close the mouth of that government?
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We cannot hope for much success if we continue such a policy as that, but I am hopeful about the Prime Minister's reference to the last act" of Munich, although I hope that the curtain is only going up and not going down upon that last act. I hope that the Prime Minister and the Government are continuing now the policy of trying to bring peace, as he said, in our time and, as some of us hope, for all time. We have, however, an uneasy suspicion that the Govern- ment are doing no such thing. We have had no satisfactory reply this afternoon from the Government to show that they are doing anything at all to meet the situation. Their attitude on the Colonial question reminds one of the darky parson Brethren, we will in Virginia who said look this difficulty in the face and pass on to the next question." That is exactly
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what has happened this afternoon as re- gards the question of colonies.
About a year ago some 55 Members of this House were in Germany. A few Labour Members were among them and were looked upon as prize rabbits. The 'gauleiter" of the various districts which we visited were very nice to us and could speak English to us. We were in Berlin and we were in Munich and I had the honour of staying in the same hotel as the Prime Minister. I do not know whether I had the same bed or not, but that again is by the way. On that occa- sion we were asked, What about colonies? I said, My personal opinion about colonies is that your ally, the other mem- ber of the axis, Signor Mussolini "_who was there in the Berlin Stadium, I sup- pose, in order to impress us-" has not made our position in Palestine any easier either by his propaganda or by subsidis- ing the Arabs against us.' I pointed the moral that we could never agree to give up even mandated territories, if those territories were to be manned and armed and fortified. I pointed to the treaty which we made after the War be- tween ourselves and the United States as a result of which some 3,000 miles, I believe, of frontier was left without a gun or a fort or a gunboat. If we could have such a peace as that with the Germans, everybody would be ready for it and some of us got the impression in Germany that the ordinary, decent people there wanted peace as much as we did.
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I remember a festival to which the Prime Minister was invited but which he could not attend. Some of us went to that festival. It was the October festival and
or 10,000 11,000 people were gathered in a huge hall. I forget what it is called, but it has something to do with lager beer. We mixed with the folk there, many of whom could speak Eng- lish, and I could feel the friendliness of those Bavarian folk, just as much as we felt it when we paid our visit to Berchtes- gaden and danced with the local Bavarian lasses. I want this country to draw upon that spirit of good will, because I believe that that is the only way to find the true solution
of our present difficulties. Whether you call it moral rearmament or by any other name, there will have to be a completely different approach to the question from that which has been adopted ever since the present Chancellor
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I NOVEMBER 1938 International Situation
of the Exchequer was at the Foreign Office.
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In the old days, whether we call them good or bad, there was continuity of policy in foreign affairs, and I wish that it was not possible to make party capital out of foreign affairs. I wish we could have some considered, united policy to which all parties in the State could agree. hope there will be such a policy in the future, but it will mean a change of heart for many of us, and it will mean a change of heart also for those on the Con- tinent. If any words of mine could reach across the water I would emphasise what In our every back bencher here knows. constituencies we are seven for six- pence as it might be said. We are not like Front Bench Olympians such as the right hon. Gentlemen whom I see before me. Our constituents do not leave us alone. They leave us in no doubt about what they are thinking. They tell us, and tell us pretty straight, and if we try to put on any airs and graces we quickly have to come off our perches. I wish that the people across the water could understand that nothing but good will is felt towards them by the ordinary decent men and women of this country. If they could realise that fact, if the governments of those countries, totalitarian or whatever else we call them, could realise that and assemble not at the horseshoe table in- vented by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) but at a round table, to talk
and common sense, gumption then there would be a chance of peace, at any rate in our time.
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6.56 p.m.
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Mr. Vyvyan Adams: It is interesting to hear from the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff) that he, fortified I have no doubt by a great deal of "moral rear- mament,' strenuously deprecated the opinions of those whom he expects to vote for him for the first time at the next general election. Truly there is no limit to political honesty. I am glad that the hon. Member mentioned the Germans' treatment of those who have fallen under their control in Sudetenland, but I wonder whether the hon. Member is really sur- prised at it. Has the German treatment of minorities at home been no indication of the evil which animates the contem- porary German Government?
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I have waited, Sir, for seven months to catch your eye in a Debate on Foreign Affairs. I have at last had the good for- tune so to do, but I am not going to abuse my good fortune. I intend to be down in my seat before the minute hand of that clock has passed through a right angle. I helped to have that clock put there with a definite purpose in view, namely, to dis- courage my hon. Friends from making long speeches; and I do not intend myself to set a bad example. But I have to recall, with some bitterness, that in my last speech here on the international situa- tion in March, I made two pleas. The hirst was for speedier rearmament and the second was for a specific pledge of Czecho slovakian integrity. With all humility I think I can claim to have been wise before the event.
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I repeat what was said in the Debate on the foreign situation three or four weeks ago, that you cannot limit the Govern- ment's responsibility to the last two months. The Prime Minister has access to great knowledge-more knowledge per- haps than anybody else in this House- but, if I may say so, he seemed this after- noon to have forgotten in what a pro- foundly serious situation the country is to-day. In seeking to explain our un- readiness the other day, he observed that our programme of rearmament was a five- year programme. What is this country or any other country to infer from that statement? Does it mean that Germany is to be allowed to do anything she likes until we are fully rearmed in 1941? Again, the right hon. Gentleman defined the use of our armaments and I observe that as the months pass, the declared possible use of our armaments becomes narrower and narrower. He said to-day that they were merely to protect our Empire and to strengthen our diplomatic power. I observe a very remarkable and original omission. There was no indication at all from the Prime Minister of what would happen if a friend of ours, to whom we are committed, were attacked. How, for example, does France stand to-day? Everybody knows that France is an early victim on Hitler's list. I should like to know whether in these new circumstances the Government are prepared to defend her if she is attacked.
I am glad that Parliament is in Session. I believe that, if we had been sitting through September, the Government