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[MR. CHURCHILL.] are always very kind to me. But I find a different mood today. I rejoice to find it. Be careful that the Government do not chill it by any step they take.
This brings me naturally to what is called Western Union, in respect of which the greatest credit will rest upon the right hon. Gentleman and the Cabinet of which he is the Foreign Secretary. It brings me not only to Western Union but to the wider United Europe move- ment which has been its herald and will always be its friend, helper and servitor. The swiftest means of bringing Germany back into Western Europe--preferably, as I have said, on a basis of states-may well be found in this European move- ment in the first instance. It may well be.
And when one considers countries like Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and so on, many German states are much larger and more powerful, much more numerous in population than these, and I cannot see why there should not be a continuous confluence of ideas and good- will between them all.
Here, when we come to the European movement, I must part company with the Government and the Foreign Secretary. The attitude of the Socialist Party under their guidance has hitherto been far from creditable and below the level of these important world and human events. Petty personal jealousies and party ran- cour have marred their actions and falsi- fied their principles. We all remember how the Government and their party organisation tried to wreck The Hague conference in May, and how they failed. Last week, at Question Time, I complained about the composition of the delegation which the Government had sent to the Conference on European Unity which is still meeting in Paris. The Government seem to be absolutely and obstinately determined to keep this movement to- wards the unity of so many people who are divided by such grievous feuds, as a party preserve for the Socialists.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington yesterday re- ferred to this in scathing terms, and dwelt upon the folly and conceit of such an idea. The movements towards European unity, as he said, cannot be a monopoly of any party; least of all should it at this moment become the monopoly of a party which, in many parts of Europe,
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has shown in a most lamentable fash Eu its inherent weakness when exposed to the serious attacks of Communism. The movement towards European unity can only achieve success through the recon- ciliation and goodwill of whole peoples, irrespective of their internal political or party bias, divisions or labels.
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We are not seeking in the European movement and I speak as one of the Presidents; I share that honour with M. Blum and with the Prime Minister of Italy and the Prime Minister of Belgium, M. Spaak-to usurp the functions of Government. I have tried to make this plain again and again to the heads of the Government. We ask for a Euro- pean assembly without executive power. We hope that sentiment and culture, the forgetting of old feuds, the lowering and melting down of barriers of all kinds between countries, the growing sense of being a good European '-we hope that all these will be the final, eventual and irresistible solvents of the difficulties which now condemn Europe to misery. The structure of constitutions, the settle- ment of economic problems, the military aspects-these belong to governments. We do not trespass upon their sphere. But I am sure there is no government wholeheartedly loyal to the idea of Euro- pean unity which would not be invigor- ated and sustained by the creation of a European assembly such as we asked for at The Hague, and such as is now pro- claimed and asked for by three, if not four, out of the five Powers which now comprise the Western Union.
For this reason the composition of the British delegation to the Conference which is now proceeding came as a shock. It came as a shock not only to a great body of opinion in both parties in this Island, but to all those powerful elements of European opinion to which we under- stood so many British Labour men hoped to make their special appeal. Nothing could have been more astonishing than the appointment of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as the leader of the delegation after the line he had taken and the speeches, quoted yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, which he had delivered recently. He has been the great opponent of the idea of this European
movement-
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Dalton) indicated dissent.
Mr. Churchill: -except on Socialist party lines. In commenting on this appointment by the Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secre- tary used some guarded language indicat- ing how it was his duty to take anyone who was put alongside him.
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I hope I did not convey to the right hon. Gentle- man that I was not a party to the appointment of my right hon. Friend, be- cause I have absolute confidence in him in doing the job.
Mr. Churchill: The right hon. Gentle- man naturally has to express his confi- dence, but he should read carefully what he said, because a more chilling welcome to a comrade and colleague I have rarely heard expressed. I say that the appoint- ment of the right hon. Gentleman after the speeches he has made-unexplained, unretracted in any way-wore the aspect of nothing less than a resolve to sabotage the whole conception—~
Mr. Dalton indicated dissent.
Mr. Churchill: -of European_unity except on a Socialist Party basis. I have also criticised on different grounds the appointment of Sir Edward Bridges. There is no man I respect more, but he is the head of the Civil Service and I do not think the Prime Minister should have brought him into this sphere, which is necessarily controversial. The right hon. Gentleman said at Question time that it was quite normal for Governments to employ civil servants when they have Government representatives going to con- ferences:
He said how my right hon. Friend the late Foreign Secretary had often invariably, in fact-taken his civil servants and advisers from the Foreign Office with him. The right hon. Gentle man completely misses the point. It is an absurd argument to use in this con- nection. Of course, civil servants may go to conferences to assist Ministers, but to take the head of the Civil Service and make him a delegate to meet the former Prime Ministers of other countries, and so forth, in a matter about which opinions differ in parties and between parties, is an abuse for which there is only one precedent that I know of, and that is not a good one.
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Mr. S. Silverman: I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman would apply that criticism also to the repre- sentation of this country at the United Nations, where the delegation has fre- quently been led by Sir Alexander Cadogan? I have never heard the right hon. Gentleman object to that.
Mr. Churchill: He is the servant of the
Foreign Office and is expressing the views of the Foreign Office--a diplomat. I think the head of the Civil Service stands in a special position and that it was a very unfair thing to induce him to act in such a capacity.
We do not know what line the Chan- cellor of the Duchy is going to take. He is to make a speech and we shall be glad to hear it. Far be it from me to set aside any hopes of his reform or of a modification in the attitude of the Government towards the consultative and deliberative European Assembly. I await his reply. I am willing to judge his atti- tude by it. It is never too late to mend, or, if I may, on account of his ecclesias- tical upbringing, use another similitude:
Betwixt the stirrup and the ground He mercy sought, and mercy found."
If the right hon. Gentleman feels able to make a declaration today in the sense in which I have spoken he will improve the reputation of the Government among the Western Allies and in the United States. If he will not, if he only goes over the old ground of the speeches he delivered to the T.U.C. and at other party meetings, the general condemnation of the Government's attitude, and of the Foreign Secretary's attitude--because it is felt that he has played a leading part in this attempt to hamper and break down the unofficial and private efforts that have been made to build up this Europe will be extended and empha- public opinion in favour of a united
sised and the Chancellor of the Duchy himself will have entered another large sphere of activity only to distract, con- fuse and vitiate it. I hope, however, that we shall hear something encouraging from him today, not only with regard to the salvation of a single human being, but about the larger issues which con- cern us in Europe.
The subject of Palestine was dealt with yesterday by my right hon. Friend. There is an oft-used quotation of the