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Foreign Affairs HOUSE OF COMMONS [MR. EDEN.] may have felt, that as the Assembly was handling this matter today, he did not wish to speak about it. Nevertheless, we on these benches feel it to be so urgent that there are certain comments which should be made today.
What did the right hon. Gentleman tell us? He let fall a reference, which may not have been intended, that there was to be some further report by the Prime Minister about the meeting of Dominion Prime Ministers. I must say that I hope that there will be, because all we have had so far I do not know whether or not the right hon. Gentleman was here- is the issue of a brief commentary from No. 10, Downing Street, and very little elucidation at all of the information that further exchanges were taking place with the Dominions after which we might be told something more. Therefore, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman's remark, whether chance or not, will result in our being given more information on this subject as soon as possible.
The right hon. Gentleman made cer- tain observations about the Ruhr. First, he turned down two possible ways of handling the situation. He turned down the separation of the Ruhr from Germany and he also ruled out international ownership of the industries in the Ruhr. I am not concerned at the moment to argue either of those possible solutions or to advocate them. There is a third solution with which he did not seem to me to deal at any great length and which I hope may be dealt with in this Debate.
I refer to international control. The only observation the right hon. Gentle- man made about that, unless I misunder- stood him, was to say that he did not like the idea because it resembled too much the state of affairs when the Ruhr was occupied in 1924. He did not give the date, but referred to the Ruhr occu- pation. Personally, I can see no parallel at all between the two. International control of industries bears no relation to the French troops marching into the Ruhr at that date. I should like to have some much fuller information why that form of solution is to be ruled out. It is one which I, personally, have favoured for some time. I know that it is difficult of application, but I believe that its examination should be proceeded with.
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I would only like to say about mantling that I endorse what the right hon. Gentleman said about the original plan which was carefully worked out by a Cabinet Committee under the instruc- tions of my right hon. Friend the Mem- ber for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) with the intention at that time that the whole business should be finished in two years at the outside. I think it is lamentable- I do not blame His Majesty's Govern- ment for it-that there should have been this interminable delay which has raised this issue into a major international problem, which it ought never to have been.
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The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that among the solutions for the Ruhr, in respect of security, was measure of nationalisation of the indus- tries. I really cannot see how nationalisa- tion, whether it be a good thing or not in itself and that is a matter which we have discussed very freely during the right hon. Gentleman's absence, as he may have heard has any relevance to the problem of security. If, for instance, the German industries had been nation- alised at the time Hitler came into power, I do not see that the restraint upon him would have been any greater than it turned out to be in the circumstances. While I am all in favour of our can- vassing these matters ourselves, I hope that we shall not have the illusion that our particular domestic solution proffers any international security---
Mr. Michael Foot (Plymouth, Devon- port): Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the industries had been nationalised beforehand in Germany-if the industries under the Weimar Republic had been in the ownership of that Re- public at any rate there would have been a better possibility of preventing the contribution of funds by the industrialists who owned the industries in the Ruhr to chances of getting into power? Hitler, thus enabling him to improve his
Mr. Eden: I thought the hon. Gentle- man might make that observation. wonder whether he really feels that would have made the slightest difference to the arrival in power of Hitler. Look at the position of Central Europe, Czecho- slovakia and France. If there was one very disappointing failure in Germany at that time it was the complete failure, as
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we all know, of the Social Democratic Party and the trade unions to offer any kind of resistance to Hitler at all.
Mr. Foot: The right hon. Gentleman asked me whether I thought it would make the slightest difference.
He may not appreciate my opinion on the matter, but it is certainly the opinion of all the democratic parties, or most of them, in Germany at present. It is certainly the opinion of all those people who have gone into the elections in Berlin, which have been acclaimed on both sides of the House. It is certainly the opinion of those who voted for the Social Democrats in Berlin, who insist upon this point as being one of paramount importance. Surely the right hon. Gentleman might pay some attention to their opinion, if not to mine.
Mr. Eden: I also pay attention to the opinion of the Christian Democrats. One has to pay attention to both points of view, to those who do believe in nation- alisation and those who do not, but I am not convinced that, after a period in which we have watched the complete failure of a party to resist the arrival of Hitler, we can be satisfied about them. What I do say-and I hope I carry with me hon. Gentlemen on the other side
of the House--is that we should be most unwise to rely for our security merely on the fact of industries in Germany being nationalised or not. It might be an element but, at the most, it is a very small element, in the situation.
I failed in my opening remarks in my duty to the House to tell the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary how much we welcome him back and how much we hope that he benefitted by his holiday at the seaside.
I want to make some further observa- tions on the German situation. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman gave us a full explanation of the handling of this problem of the future ownership of the Ruhr, but there are still some points which I think ought to be cleared up. The right hon. Gentleman told us that the French Government had made no criticism. If he says that, I accept it to be true, but the French Ministers must be about the only living Frenchmen who did not seem to criticise, because seldom have I seen so much unanimity of French opinion, from Communists to extreme Right, as there is on this matter. I do
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feel that the handling of it, to put it mildly, was not happy, and I cannot think that the right hon. Gentleman or the American Government can really have been surprised at the strength of French reaction. After all, both Governments knew that the French Government had made repeated reservations about this subject. They made them in June at the Six Power Conference, and they made them again, as the right hon. Gentleman has told us, as recently as 14th October, when they left a note taking exception to the transfer of ownership just three weeks before the Anglo-American announcement. It seems to me extra- ordinary that, after this, our two Goy- ernments should have made this sudden announcement without making any further efforts to reach agreement with the French Government themselves.
If we are to have Western Union, it is surely desirable first to get union be- fore we state our position about the territory of an ex-enemy country? In that connection, happily, there is in France today, so far as one can judge opinion there, a growing volume of opinion which really wants to work with Germany and wants to try to settle, once and for all, this age-long quarrel. It is not going to help that opinion in France very much, though the right hon. Gentle- man may be quite right on the technical position, if we even appear to be hand- ling cavalierly issues upon which the whole of French opinion is virtually united in feeling deeply. If we are going to have Western Union, it is no use try- ing to get over the difficulties by simply pretending that they are not there. We all know that this is probably the most difficult problem that confronts us, but the French only accepted recommenda- tions about interim control of the Ruhr with very definite reservations.
Here, again, personally, I think they have a case, and, if I understand it aright, their case is that control over distribution is not enough without some control over management, and they point out that decisions of the international authority, even in respect of distribu- tion, which is all that was proposed, de- pend for their execution on the German Government, when that German Gov- ernment has been established. It is cer- tainly to the interest of France that the Ruhr should recover, because her own