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Mr. Platts-Mills: That is the first time we have had any acknowledgement of that in this House.

Mr. Silverman: Well, I hope that at any rate I have never said anything to indicate the contrary. It is the plain

fact, and if this is the first time it has been said in this House, at any rate it is being said now, and it is quite time that it was said. But I am not talking about those who want to stay. I am talking about those who go; and those who go, go not as Communists, and not as the emissaries of any other State, but because they want to take part in this great ad- venture of the re-creation of a nation.

I do not want to delay the House with a long speech, but I do want to say just this to the Government. I do not think it is a good thing that they should be the very last in the world to recognise the inevitable.

Mr. Crossman: Later than the Tories.

Mr. Silverman: I am coming to that. There are a great many States in the world who have recognised Israel; and it should not be forgotten that at any rate three of the largest of our Dominions have done so, and still do so, and have lent very valuable support during all this difficult period. I am talking about Canada, New Zealand and, above all, Australia, whose performance in the Assembly on this, as on some other points, has been marked with the greatest possible and most far-sighted statesmanship and courage.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Coventry (Mr. Crossman) interrupted just now to say that the Government ought not to be behind the Tories in this matter. Well, there is a certain party satisfaction to be got out of making such a point, and I do not claim to be immune from that kind of satisfaction. But the point has greater validity and importance than merely its place in party controversy domestically in this country.

I happen to be one of those who be- lieve that the fight for progressive civilisation in the world is not a fight between, say, Socialism and reaction. I think that whether we use the old names or not, whatever tags we apply, what- ever slogans we use, salvation in the world depends upon the combination of two ideals: the first, the capacity of a

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Foreign Affairs community to control its economic sources and administer them in the interests of all its members; and the second to be able to do that within a political framework, and in a political spirit, of civil and political liberties of the fullest kind. I believe that it is that job in world history that this Govern- ment was elected to do. I believe that in this country they are doing it with very great skill, with great courage, and with great determination.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge (Bedford): And

success.

Mr. Silverman: I think the mistakes they have made in foreign policy have been due to their reluctance to place themselves at the head of a similar fight everywhere else in the world. I notice that hon. Members on the other side are not so enthusiastic about the Foreign Secretary as they used to be. I heard one of them describe his policy as a failure. Whether it is a failure or not, it does not really lie in the mouths of hon. Gentlemen on those benches to say so, because, failure or not, they have encouraged him throughout all these three years in everything he has done, and they have made no bones about say- ing so. If I am right about this con- junction of circumstances, if I am right about what the conditions of progress in this and the next generation are, then it is most important that in the Middle East, in all this part of the world, the ideals of democratic Socialism should prevail.

There is great bitterness in Israel about this country. The bitterness is all the greater because of what it is to them.

Mr. Pickthorn: I wonder if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me? When he says there is great bitterness in Israel, is that more or less technical term used geographically or how?

Mr. Silverman: If the hon. Gentleman had been in the House a little earlier and had heard the earlier part of my speech, it would not have been necessary for him to have asked that question, and I think that he might have saved himself the trouble of asking it now. He will get no answer from me. Everybody in the House knows what I mean, and I think that he knows what I mean, too. I am talking about the State of Israel as recognised by most of the nations in

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the United Nations, and the same State of Israel that the Deputy Leader of his party in his speech today urged the Gov- ernment to recognise. Perhaps it will be interesting for somebody some day on the Opposition Front Bench to say whether he was speaking for the hon. Gentleman, too, or not.

What I was saying was that there is great bitterness. I am not stopping to argue whether the bitterness is justified or unjustified. I am not stopping to argue its limitations or degree. We have to deal with the facts, and this is one of the facts. I say that the bitterness is much greater than it would have been if the same policy had been followed by a Conservative administration. It is quite

true that their ideals and methods are like ours;

that when one makes the proper geographical and economical adjustments, then the political and social task that they have to pursue is very like ours.

It is of the greatest importance that we should not drive them the wrong way, and I would urge my hon. Friend who is to reply not to be too formal and not too official. I know the formal answer is, Oh, we cannot recognise yet; it is premature." Why is it premature? Why is it premature for us to do what so many other nations have done, and what so many of our Dominions bave done? How can it be premature when it has ceased to be premature in view of what everybody else in the world has done? I would rather that he should do some- thing else; that he should himself make some warm, cordial gesture towards this new State which, without assistance from others, has been able to establish itself and to maintain itself. The ability to establish yourself and to maintain your- self as a State is all that is really needed in order to win recognition from other nations.

Mr. Platts-Mills: From other nations that behave honestly.

Mr. Silverman: I am putting it on the narrowest grounds. They have, in fact, been able to establish and maintain them- selves. That of itself would be sufficient to entitle them to recognition, and in establishing and maintaining themselves they have done only what the assembled nations of the world invited them to do. So there is no quarrel between what, in

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Foreign Affairs fact, happened, and what, in justice, ought to have happened. It has not been possible to find in British policy in Palestine during the last three years any- thing that makes sense at all either through any terms of party policy, of natural justice or in the narrowest terms of the interests of this country. I hope we have come to the end of that epoch, and I invite my hon. Friend the Under- Secretary of State to take the first steps and take them generously and warmly tonight

8.47 p.m.

Mr. Walter Fletcher (Bury): I hope the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) will forgive me if I do not follow him in the speech which he has just made, because I wish to devote

the Far Eastern myself to question. In the speech we heard from the Foreign Secretary today, it was noticeable that he said at the very begin- ning that he was only going to devote a very short while to the Middle and Far East. In fact, it was about ten minutes, five minutes being devoted to the Far East. That is indeed a symptom of what I consider is a dangerous tendency. Because the Far East is far away and other problems in Europe may be more pressing, too often the Far East is pushed into the background and left there.

Let me remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman, during the short Session in September, by some curious set of circumstances, replied instead of the Colonial Secretary to the criticisms that have been made against the Govern- ment's actions in Malaya. He stated with the utmost boldness and in the highest possible terms that the incidents in Malaya, in China and in the Far East generally were part of a great Communist plot and move and that the Government had evidence to that effect. It is on record that that was his argument; but today he comes forward and in the three or four minutes which he devotes to the Far East he says that the policy of His Majesty's Government is based "non-intervention agreed to by the Great Powers in December, 1945. Is it that His Majesty's Government in the Far East are in favour of non- intervention, of sitting on the fence, while watching the iron curtain of Communism advance through China? It may well be that in the best Chinese tradition it

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