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do not if you go to a foreign country as distinct from a British community overseas." I then spoke of Canada and South Africa, and then I said:
"I am quite sure if the choice were put to us: 'Will you move closer to Western Europe at the cost of moving further away from the countries of the Commonwealth?,' for my part I would answer: 'No.' If that were the choice, I would say: 'If moving closer to Europe means moving further away from Australia and New Zealand and the rest. I do not move.' However, I do not think that that is the dilemma. I think that we can move closer to Western Europe and at the same time maintain in all its fullness, and I hope perhaps extend and expand, our relationship with the countries of the Com- monwealth.'
I continued by saying:
"The family is a closer unit,”
that is, the British family-
"—but, having said that, and on condition that we fully consult our comrades in the Com- monwealth and carry them with us in our plans for closer connection with Western Europe, and making sure that these are not inimical to their interests, whether political or economic, by all means let us go forward." I do not find much evidence of sabotage in what I said then, and I went on to speak of what a federal system would mean, and the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me that this is wholly un- realistic, so that this could be called a hypothetical exercise. I thought it necessary to point out to the Conference what it would mean, and I dwelt upon what we had achieved in the last three years in this country-full employment, social security and other things, and I said:
"We are not going to throw away the solid gains brought to us by a whole generation of political agitation and by the votes of our people and by three years of solid work in power in Parliament, in the trade unions and in the Government, upon any doctrinal altar of a federal Western Europe."
It is perfectly clear that this passage of my speech is against precipitate federal- ism. There follows then the quotation which the right hon. Gentleman accurately gave yesterday in the context of a federal union.
Finally, I said, and I was referring to the extension of Socialist measures for planning and control:
Without that we shall be doomed to go back again to the uncontrolled and unplanned capitalism and the uncontrolled and unplanned anti-social operations of financiers and vested interests; to go back to all those miseries we knew in the years between the wars."
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I apologise for quoting so much, but have done so to put in its proper con- text what I then said, and from which, today, I withdraw not one word or sentence. We have a long way to go yet before we come up against this issue of federal union, which may endanger the livelihood of our people by leading to the handing over of the controls which we think are essential to us over a wide. variety of things. We are a long way from that, and there is a great distance to be covered on that road.
I have made these remarks at length because I have been constantly attacked and have shown remarkable patience and reticence, but I think the time has come to get these matters put right. I hope to return to Paris in the course of next week, and we shall continue our work in
a
very friendly atmosphere with the French and Benelux representatives. We shall continue our efforts to make quite clear exactly what is implied in each of these schemes, so that we can put up to the Government, not a lot of vague generalities, but some perfectly clear and detailed propositions, showing how this scheme or that scheme would work in practice. I believe that that will be found to be a very valuable and useful piece of work. I am quite satisfied that those associated with me could not have been better chosen for the work in hand.
12.47 p.m.
Mr. Mott-Radclyffe (Windsor): We had a long speech from the Foreign Secre- tary yesterday which dealt with the inter- national situation, and we have had a speech just now from the Chancellor of the Duchy which dealt with the course of the conversations which he has been conducting in Paris, but, so far, we have very little indication from either of the right hon. Gentlemen about the Govern- ment's plans for the future, and I think that both the House and the country are entitled to some indication of the Govern- ment's forecast of the manner in which events may develop.
I believe we are in danger of falling into a false sense of security. A great number of people in this country are under the impression that everything is all right because the air lift is being main- tained. They regard the air lift as a sort of permanent taxi service which can go ahead indefinitely so long as the air- craft are able to fly. I do not believe
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Foreign Affairs 10 DECEMBER 1948 at the public have the slightest concep- tion of the immense physical effort which is required to sustain the air lift, and I doubt very much if they have any con- ception of the financial effort required. We may be able to get through to the spring, given good luck and good weather, but nobody in his senses believes that the air lift can go on, month in and month out, year in and year out for an indefinite period.
I must confess that, in recent months, I have got the impression, from speeches and Debates in this House and from answers to Questions, that the Govern- ment are waiting hopefully for something to turn up. The trouble about waiting for something to turn up is that something does turn up, but usually that something is unexpected, and then there are no adequate plans to meet the eventuality. We have seen the Soviet Union gradually encroaching upon Berlin. There was, first of all, the blockade; then the attempt to hamstring the Berlin City Council, and now the rival City Council. I notice that this has been accompanied by a further request that, in respect of the air corri- dor, aircraft should not fly above 3,000 feet. It is perfectly obvious that, sooner or later, matters must come to a head.
It would be entirely in keeping with the well-known Soviet technique if, at some future date, they proposed that all the occupying Powers should withdraw from Germany, that a separate peace treaty should be negotiated by which Germany would become an independent State. They will not, of course, make that pro- posal until they have brought their own plans for dealing with that eventuality to a state of readiness, and until they have the secret police and the underground movement ready to fill the breach. But, however superficially attractive that pro- posal might seem at any given moment, I am sure that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Under- Secretary of State will agree with me that the Western Powers have one overriding obligation. It is to ensure, so far as is possible, that those Germans who have co-operated with the Western Powers during the last three and a half years do not suffer the fate which will inescapably be theirs if the whole of Germany were gradually, or suddenly, to fall into the Communist grip.
I have always believed it to be a mis- take to assume that the difficulty over
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the Berlin blockade concerns merely the Western Powers and the Soviet Union in their relation with Germany. It is part of a much wider world problem- whether, in fact, the Soviet conception of government and what we call Western civilisation can live peaceably side by side. It is still more a mistake to refuse to recognise the fact that the Soviet Union has declared war against Western civilisation, by all known means except bullets and shells.
Mr. Solley: Nonsense.
Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: A cold war is no less dangerous than any other form of warfare merely because missiles are not flying about. Nations can be subjugated without a single shot being fired just as easily as they could in former days when a victorious army marched on the capi- tal of a defeated nation. It is no good trying to pretend that it is otherwise. We must admit that the cold war has brought the Soviets immense territorial gains which, in area, compare very favourably with the great military conquests of his tory from the time of Alexander the Great to Napoleon. It is not the slightest use thinking that we can fight the cold war by half-hearted methods, any more than we could fight a war in which vast armies are grappling with one another.
That brings me to the first question I want to ask the Under-Secretary of State about East-West trade. Some of us on this side of the House are not entirely convinced that East-West trade is operat- ing to our own benefit. We know that in the last two years we have been sup- plying the Soviet Union with an immense quantity of commodities. We have pro- vided them with jet engines, machine tools, wool, rubber, aluminium, fats, electric generators, and so on. What have we had in return? Coarse grains. Could the Under-Secretary of State tell us how much of the consignment of such grains due to be delivered has, in fact, been de- livered, and how much is outstanding? Could he also tell us whether the coarse grains in question really come from the Soviet Union proper, or are merely re- quisitioned, so to speak, by the Soviet authorities from countries like Roumania, Hungary and Poland? I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to say something to convince us that the bargain is really favourable to us, and not merely to the Soviet Union.