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[MR. HYND.] upon the Front Bench that this is a sug- gestion worthy of serious consideration.
3.22 p.m.
Mr. Boothby (Aberdeen and Kincar- dine, Eastern): Like my two immediate predecessors I realise that I have to make a telegraphic speech; it is a slight flaw, but I will do my best. Naturally I am delighted to welcome the complete con- version of my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hull (Mr. R. Mackay). It is splendid that he should have come round so nicely and so well. He will remember that at Interlaken I advocated precisely the kind of council that he advo- cated this afternoon, and also a delibera- tive and consultative assembly for Wes- tern Europe; and the hon. Member for North-West Hull opposed me vehemently. He swung the conference against me, in favour of a written federal constitution for Europe. I was beaten then, but now I emerge triumphant. I am delighted. I am always welcoming converts, sooner or later, to my point of view.
It is no new sensation; but it still gives me great pleasure, and I am glad the hon. Gentle- man has come round.
He said it was necessary that this dele- gation in Paris should be of use. I quite agree. I think it may be. He also said it was necessary that the members should be unprejudiced. There I am afraid I am not so sure. I see the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster sitting before me. Can he put his hand on his heart and say that he is altogether unpre- judiced? I do not think so. I suppose we should be grateful to him for coming back all the way from Paris to give us, at second-hand, a speech that he delivered some months ago at Scarborough, I my- self was not very grateful. I thought, on the whole, it was pretty poor stuff; not worth repeating at such length for the second time, and indeed rather insult- ing to us. If we were to hear it at all, we might have heard it, as it were, fresh instead of stinking. Never mind; we got it. I found myself wondering, while it was going on, how the hon. Member for North-West Hull enjoyed the flaming denunciation of federation or federal union in any shape or form. Does he still think that the right hon. Gentle- man is the best possible leader for our delegation?
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Mr. Mackay: Since the hon. Ge de- man is gracious enough to give way, does he realise that the committee in Paris is working out details of the assembly and is not discussing federa- tion?
Mr. Boothby: That must be a great relief to the hon. Gentleman. One point to which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy did not refer was the point made so often on this side of the House that he has said several times that we cannot have an effective Western Union of any kind in Europe except upon a purely Socialist basis. We challenge that absolutely. We think it is a denial of democracy as such; and a denial of the whole point of a democratic Western federation, which is that people should be free to express their own points of view and that it should contain all parties. We say that it is a travesty of the whole conception of democracy to say it can be founded only upon a Socialist basis. The right hon. Gentleman made no attempt to deny that charge.
Mr. Dalton: I was waiting to hear some speech of mine quoted. One speech was quoted by the right hon. Gentleman and I have supplied the missing context. If further quotations from other speeches of mine are made I will equally supply the missing context. So far there has been only one.
Mr. Boothby; I hoped the right hon. Gentleman would say, in his well-known, genial way, that he thinks other people besides Socialists can take part in a Western Union. If he just says that, I shall be quite satisfied. That is all I am asking.
Mr. Dalton: The hon. Member is run- ning away now.
Mr. Boothby: The right hon. Gentle- man also, I think, got his history entirely wrong. He said The Hague Conference had had no effect. I do not believe that for a moment. I believe that when the historians come to write the history of Europe during the immediate post-war years they will trace the impetus in the United States which culminated in Mar- shall Aid to the speech delivered by the Leader of the Opposition at Zurich. The cause, and the effect. Secondly, they will trace the impetus given to this whole
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kind of responsibility at all. He kept the troops there. That is all he did. He staked his political reputation on finding a solution, but he found no solution; and, even then, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, having, as it were, thrown in his hand, having done nothing to impose any kind of a solution, he obstructed the first U.N.O. scheme, and waited another year before finally abandoning the Mandate.
Foreign Affairs 10 DECEMBER 1948 moment towards closer unity in West- ern Europe directly to The Hague Con- ference. It would have been a disaster if the right hon. Gentleman had been successful in sabotaging that conference, as he tried most desperately hard to do, I do not want to continue on the theme of Western Union because the right hon. Gentleman, happily, has thrown open the portals of this Conference in Paris to any responsible opinion. I hope he takes the view that I am responsible. Then, perhaps, he will allow me to submit such further views as I hold, either verbally or in writing, to him in Paris; and thus I shall be able to cut down my speech to the time to which I am limited.
The one other subject about which I wanted to say something is the thorny question of Palestine. As a life-long Zionist-I confess it quite frankly-I have long desired to express a view, which, I think, is quite a moderate view. I think many hon. Members will agree that the White Paper of 1939 was a swing round right against the whole of our con- sidered policy ever since the first world war. That White Paper prohibited any further immigration into Palestine; but, with half a million Jews already in Pales- tine, it was impossible to carry out this proposal.
What happened? The war came, and the White Paper was abandoned by tacit agreement. The important point, which has not, I think, been sufficiently men- tioned, is that during the war the Jews of Palestine fought for us. They wanted to form a corps of their own. They did, in the end, form a brigade. But it cannot be said that either the Mufti or Raschid Ali Pasha fought for us. They fought against us. Then we came through at the end of the war; and at the last General Election, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition so clearly pointed out, the Socialist Party gave the most tremendous pledges to the Zionists. I remember reading them at the time. They won a tremendous lot of votes by giving those pledges.
We gave no pledges; but we would have done much better for the Jews.
The right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary then swallowed the policy of the Foreign Office, hook, line and sinker- in so far as it had a policy at all. But what did it amount to? For the first two years, a total refusal to accept any
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In the end he put all his money on an Arab victory, without apparently think- ing for a second that the result of a total Arab victory would have involved the complete destruction of 30 years' con- structive work and effort on the part of this country in Palestine. We have now to face the facts. The result went against the right hon. Gentleman; the Jews have won the victory. I hold no brief whatever for the violent terrorists who did so much damage to the Jewish cause, no-one can ; but the fact remains that the struggle which the Jews finally conducted against these Arab forces was an epic struggle, which will have value, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) said, in the world's history. If I believed with the same conviction of many hon. Members in the power of tran- scendental forces in our human affairs, I should regard this Jewish victory, in the face of such opposition, as something of a miracle; and see, in this further deliver- ance, the hand of Providence. Because it was almost incredible a few months ago that the Jews could or should have triumphed against so great an opposition as that which was launched against them.
What now? I know very well that the Jews are not universally popular. I my- self have always liked best those Jews who were Zionists, and least those who were opposed to Zionism and would have nothing to do with it. I am told that many of those who now occupy executive positions in the Government of Israel fought for this country in the Eighth Army during the war-a very large number of them did. I believe that to be true. I am also told, and believe it, that Dr. Weizman, one of the best friends and wisest counsellors this country has ever had, feels deeply grieved at what we have done; and well he may. In alienat- ing his support, we have not gained the support of the Mufti. He remains, as he has always been, a great enemy of this country. And the Egyptians, now in full