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[Mr. McGovern.]
the people of Trinidad have been sub- jected to shocking treatment and exploita- tion, living lives not fit for the brute beasts of the field, in order to give cer- tain prominent Scotsmen, the Duke of Montrose and others, fabulous profits at the expense of the poor. A blush of shame comes to my cheeks when I am told that I belong to a nation that denies democracy to the people of Newfound- land and puts a small agricultural and fishing community under the heel of four or five financial dictators because the in- terest was not forthcoming to the Park Lane parasites. Somebody said that cer- tain rich people in Germany and in this country have Fascist tendencies. All rich men have Fascist tendencies. They are prepared to tolerate democracy as long as their interest is paid regularly, but if their interest, their profit or their rent is menaced, then democracy is an illusion and has to be smashed in order to protect that which is dear to their hearts.
We are told that we must prepare for war. I to certain Members of the
say House, not in an unfriendly way, that if they believe in an Empire and are pre- pared to defend it, the way to defend it is to get guns, to get planes, to get the men. It means embracing conscription and doing away with the working-class rights. If I believed that it was in defence of the nation and our freedom, I would be pre- pared even to hand away my individual liberty, because anything would be justi- fied for that end. I come now to the crux of the situation-the struggle between two sections, Hitler and Mussolini, and France and Great Britain. One hon. Member said that he would not hand away any colonial territory to Hitler. Some hon. Members talked about democracy and plebiscites for Sudeten Germans.
Do
they believe in extending that democracy to India? You could not hold India if you applied to it the self-determination of Munich. You could not hold Africa if you allowed the natives to determine whether they would be in or out of the Empire. These glib phrases about demo- cracy are easily used when they suit the purpose of those who use them.
In the struggle between these two sec- tions, we are told that we must put up a fight for democracy. I believe in peace, but I would put up a fight for democracy. There are people in Germany who, if they had a decent opporiunity, would put up a
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fight for it in Germany, just as there are people who would do so in Trinidad and India. I have met some of those people in Germany. Theye are no lovers of Hitler. During the time I was in Ger- many and in Vienna, there had been two strikes at factories two weeks previously. At every street corner in a working-class area there was chalked up this inscrip- tion: Nazis, remember that Socialists are still here." The Nazy reply was put under it: Socialists, where are you? Two days elapsed, and then again there were inscriptions: Nazis, the Socialists are just under you." That is the psirit which still lives there, and that is the spirit which animates the working classes all over the world.
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I am told that there are good rulers and bad rulers. That is a new philosophy to me. I believe there are only bad rulers. It is a question of the degree of the crisis under capitalism. If the workers here were surging in the streets, if there were an economic crisis and it threw up a real Socialist opposition of almost equal numbers to the Government of this coun- try, the ruling classes would say De- mocracy is ended." They would say that because democracy would be about to begin, and a working-class democracy would be coming in. Then the guns, batons, bombs and tear gas that are always in the background would be brought out in the struggle, as in Spain, to suppress the workers in the street. can imagine the hon. Gentleman at the Box going out and saying, We are now engaged in a fight for Christianity in this country a new name for rent, profit and interest. The struggle would be on that. The ruling class gives rein to the workers when capitalism is working smoothly. It allows the rein to hang loosely, it can extend the amount of free- dom; but when a crisis comes, the rein is tightened, the individual feels the bit in his mouth, the rein is shortened. That is the beginning of the end of the struggle. There is no difference between Hitler and the rulers of this country.
I
If I believed in capitalism, I would favour the Hitler method. It is the more efficient form of capitalism. But Hitler restricts profits to 6 per cent. in industries in Germany. A.R.P. people there do not get the chance of running up sandbags at ten times the cost. They are not allowed to play fast and loose. The hon. Member
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International Situation 1 NOVEMBER 1938 for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) con- demns Hitler's method but in my estima- tion he approves of the Hitler method and without having the courage to say so, is suggesting that we must adopt the Hitler method in order to fight it. I can conceive of a great struggle for democracy. I can imagine going into such struggle and within one week finding our- selves under a military dictatorship organised against Hitler. If I believed in capitalism, I would believe in organising this State to the last man and woman in defence of capitalism and the Empire. The Fred Karno method is not going to carry you through in the next struggle. I have heard it said We do not dream of putting millions of men into the field." Whose men do you intend to use? Are you going to use the French soldiers? Are you going to use the blacks of Africa and the Gurkhas of India?
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even
working class to enforce peace and not to fight in a war. Because we advocate that, when the Prime Minister makes peace, when the Prime Minister does exactly what we wanted done, though he acted from different motives from ours, nevertheless we welcome the It fact that peace has been secured. gives the working class a breathing space, in which they may try to profit by the experience of the past. We do not want to indulge in mock heroics about going out into the streets to overthrow the system. We say to the ruling class of this country that our method is the method of getting the people of the country con- If verted to the necessity for change. we get a mandate, in co-operation with others, to effect that change, and if the ruling class do what they did in Franco Spain and say, You shall not have that change," then the struggle will be forced upon us and we have democrats who are prepared to see democracy carried to its logical conclusion, when the people them- selves are prepared to do it.
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Therefore it is not
a question of pacifism. It is, if you like, a refusal to serve in a capitalist war, but in the last extremity there are people who are pre- pared to serve in the working-class struggle for power, if it is backed by the will of the people of this country. I say frankly that if a fight for Czechoslovakia would have been right, then the fight for Belgium was right. It would have been the same struggle. That was a struggle
"
I saw the other day a statement by the Minister of Health and he has sand- danced a lot since, in trying to explain it away about armaments and social ser- vices, but he will never convince me that the question of curtailing housing and health and pensions and other social ser- vices was not discussed in the Govern- ment. You have a situation to-day in which capitalism has robbed the worker of the wealth which he produced, and the capitalists, not being able to use that wealth for their own personal needs, have invested it in India and Africa, and Hitler
to I am for a share in this swag says, and this exploitation.” Then the capitalists say to the man whom they have robbed, whose unpaid wages they have invested, We will take your son who is on the means test and throw him out on to the Continent to give his blood and his life in order to defend the loot which we have stolen from his father and his grandfather. Further, in order to con- duct this struggle we will take your old age pension or part of it to finance the struggle in defence of our bondholding interests." That is the stage which we have reached. Well, I am not in that struggle.
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The hon. Member for East Aberdeen talked about the pacifist speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). I interrupted at the time and tried to explain. That was not a pacifist speech. We want peace and we are prepared to ask the
down the Kaiser." That was the excuse. It was a struggle to smash Ger- man militarism. It was a struggle for small nations. We opposed it, and a large number of people in the Labour Party opposed it.
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What do we find to-day? When I came over from Germany, I stood in Whitehall and I heard a shout of "Stand by Czechoslovakia." I am always sorry to see any form of brutality against any section of the working classes, but when you say Stand by Czechoslovakia what does it mean? If there had been over Czechoslovakia there would have been no Czechoslovakia to-day. It would have been overrun. The Czechs would have been murdered. Even if those who shouted "Stand by Czecho- slovakia had been willing to join the British Army, there would have been no Czechs left by the time they had been trained. Probably the Communists would
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