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Foreign Affairs HOUSE OF COMMONS
[MR. MOTT-RADCLYFFE.]
Of course, the strategy of the cold war is in no way different from the strategy of any other war of aggression. If we look at the map and the position of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, and then at the events in China, to which reference has been made in this Debate, that sug- gests to me about the biggest pincer movement of all time. I have always understood that it was a cardinal prin- ciple of our foreign policy and Empire strategy to keep open the lines of com- munication to the Far East and to the Dominions. If we look at the map again, we see that all along our lines of com- munication to the Far East there is a series of vacuums, and in every case there is a danger that the vacuum may be filled by some Communist influence, direct or indirect.
Reference has already been made to China. In Malaya we are by no means out of the wood. In Burma, under a pretence of giving independence, we have only created chaos. Civil war is raging in India, though no one here pays much attention to it. In Palestine there is an enormous vacuum of immense import- ance, in which the Russians are intensely interested. In fact, the solution of that unhappy problem will determine the security of the Suez Canal. In Greece, the key to the Eastern Mediterranean, there is virtually another vacuum where the situation is far from satisfactory. In Greece last summer and autumn the Greek army certainly drove the guerilla leader Markos and several thousand rebels from the Grammos Mountains across the frontier into Albania. What happened? The fruits of victory have been denied to the Greek troops by their own country's observance of international frontiers, and the Communist disregard of them.
Mr. Solley: Would the hon. Gentleman permit me to ask him a question? If he accepts that argument, how can he explain the triumphant presence of Greek patriotic rebels in the extreme south of Greece?
Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: It depends upon the method by which these rebels are re- cruited.
Mr. Solley: Please answer my ques- tion.
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Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: As far as the re maining guerilla bands in Greece are concerned, their long-term plan is, as it has always been, to disrupt the normal life of the country so that, in time, the economy collapses automatically. Some 700,000 refugees have been evacuated from the villages where fighting has taken place. Those 700,000 men and women will not go back to the villages whence they came and cultivate the soil until they can be assured that no further attacks will be made upon them. Under existing circumstances, particularly in the frontier areas, it is almost impossible to give such an assurance. It is not merely that village life, on which the economy of every peasant country like Greece is built has been broken up, but family life also. About some 15,000 to 20,000 children have been kidnapped from their homes and families and taken behind the Iron Curtain, whence they will never
return.
Mr. Solley: Will the hon. Gentleman permit me--
Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: I will not give way any more.
Mr. Solley: The hon. Gentleman is saying something which is absolutely un- true. I have been there, and have seen what is happening.
Mr. Speaker: Unless the hon. Member controls himself, I shall have to ask him to leave the Chamber.
Mr. Solley: On a point of Order. In view of what the hon. Gentleman has said, Mr. Speaker, am I not entitled to intervene to disprove what he is saying?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is not entitled to ask in an unparliamentary manner. These interruptions are very much to be deprecated. They cause a lot of heat and do not advance the truth any further, and they are unparliamen- tary.
Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: I was about to explain, when the hon. Gentleman inter- rupted me, that the economy of Greece is based on the village unit, and it is that unit which has been split up. The smaller unit, namely the family, has also been split up. The father, for instance, may have been compulsorily conscripted into the guerilla forces, the mother and the two younger children removed to a refugee camp near Athens, and the two
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Mr. Bevin: I am afraid that at this stage the delicacy of the situation is such, and the preliminary investigations on the defence business and all the rest of it are such, that, much as I would like to tell the hon. Gentleman what I know, I cannot say anything yet.
Foreign Affairs 10 DECEMBER 1948
der children taken away to Hungary, Albania, Roumania, behind the Iron Curtain. This break-up, both of village and family life, has brought immense social, as well as economic, difficulties in its wake. By this method, the Com- munists have very nearly achieved some- thing which no previous occupying Power in Greece has ever achieved, either Turk or Bulgar, German or Italian.
our
Having very properly intervened in Greece in order to preserve Greece's in- dependence, I think that it is incumbent, as the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) said this morning, that and joint intervention-British American-should be effective, and that we should finish the job properly. That being so, it is not the slightest use for anybody to think that intervention can be on a hand-to-mouth basis, month in and month out. It entails a continuous flow of economic assistance, the pro- vision of military equipment and of technical advice for just so long as the Iron Curtain envelops her northern neighbours in its folds. One does not have to be a graduate of the Staff College to understand the tactics of cold war. All one has to do is to look at the map.
Since the threat to Western civilisa- tion comes from the Soviet Union and since the Soviet policy is nothing if not power politics the world over, it surely follows that the only two countries really able to organise the defence of Western civilisation are ourselves and the United States, because we are the only two really great world Powers. But for American dollars, the whole economy of Western Europe would have collapsed, and but for the atom bomb who knows whether the cold war might not already have become a hot war. I hope that when the Under-Secretary of State winds up he can tell us within reason something which the right hon. Gentleman did not tell us yesterday, namely, exactly what pro- gress has been made by this Joint De- fence Committee under the chairmanship of Field-Marshal Montgomery. We are getting into a rather ridiculous position. Neither the House nor the public has any idea either of our capacity to defend ourselves against attack or our capacity to make any effective contribution to any joint defence plan for Western Europe. I think that we have to put ourselves in the position of the French, Dutch and Belgians-
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Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: I appreciate that. My remark was qualified by the sug- gestion that it should be within reason." The French, Dutch and Belgians look at the problem of defence in a way very different from the way in which we look at it. These countries were physically occupied by Nazi troops for the best part of four and a half years, which was a very unpleasant experience, and one which happily we did not ex- perience in 1940 owing to the width of the English Channel, the courage of Spit- fire pilots and skill of the aircraft factory workers who in 1937 wisely disregarded the advice of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer to refuse to make arma- ments. It is very unpleasant to be occupied for four and a half years by Nazi troops.
If a third world war should break out, they see themselves faced with the pros- pects not of being occupied by Nazi troops but of being occupied by Soviet troops-hordes of them, half of whom may well be Asiatics. If that happens, we may well see the horrors associated with Genghis Khan re-enacted in the twentieth century. Nor are the fears of the Dutch, Belgian and French allayed by the widely publicised views of American strategists in Paris that the in- tention is to hold the Pyrenees.
What are we doing to convince our friends on the Continent that we are, in the first place, taking the cold war seriously, and, in the second place, making effective preparations to deal with the situation should it deteriorate much further? We have failed to recruit enough men for a proper Regular Army; we have juggled about in the most
with humiliating fashion
the National Service Act, all of which has had a disastrous effect abroad; and, the Prime Minister has appointed the Chancellor of the Duchy to be the head of the British delegation to the Confer- ence on Western Union in Paris. In spite of his speech just now, I still regard