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International Situation HOUSE OF COMMONS
[Mr. Attlee.]
has neglected. A sound and healthy con- dition of the people is the foundation of civil and military moral, but this is the Government of the means test. I do not know what the Government's view of priorities is now. We have had state- ments made by the Minister of Health and the Minister of Transport, which they are now explaining away, which suggested, at least to the minds of journalists, that there would be a reduction in the social ser- vices. It has been suggested that orders have already been sent out for the cutting down of expenditure in ministries. I should like to know whether that is so, because to cut down social services and there are plenty of people who will urge that is entirely to disregard priority. To cut down, whether it be pensions, educa- tion, schools or unemployment benefit— any of these things will do precisely the wrong thing from the point of view of the It is to give strength of this nation. priority to Ascot and the Ritz.
Viscountess Astor: Oh!
Mr. Attlee: I thought that would catch the Noble Lady. At the present moment we have widespread malnutrition in this country. We claim that the first thing for the defence of this country is a healthy, sound population. You will not get the kind of service you want in this country unless you base it on that. What hap- pens? I say that human life is always put after profit. Let us take an example. What happened in the crisis? Profiteering in spades, in buckets, in timber and in sandbags. Because of the nation's needs prices were rushed up in order to make fortunes out of the nation. We have a right to complain. People on the other side have not, because they are only carry- ing out the Government's own philosophy, The organisation of this country is on that basis. I had a good example given to me this week. A friend of mine was staying at a watering place and she saw the con- ditions of the fishermen living in the direst poverty. They are leaving the sea now because of their poverty. They were wanted in the last War, and if there is another war they will be wanted again. She went to their cottages and saw their conditions. Then she went into a hotel and saw people with extremely expensive cars and extremely expensively dressed.
Who are those people? she asked,
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and she was told, They sell fish at Billingsgate." There you have the con- trast between the people who do the work and the people who take the profits. In agriculture to-day you will find the same thing flourishing middlemen as con- trasted with the position of the farmers and agricultural labourers.
The vital thing for the Government to consider is how we are to keep the morale of this people, and they can do it only on the basis of organising the country on priorities, the first of which is the health of the people. The weak spot in dictator- ship countries is just this: it is the condi- tion of the people. That is a factor too little regarded in the crisis. I believe it is essential that we should have a proper co-ordination of effort and a restraint of private profit if we are to strengthen this country, not only in armaments but in other things as well. This is, I believe, the lesson for us with regard to inter- national affairs. We have this emergence of a highly organised economy like Ger- many, and it meets the democracies who are disunited and competing. The closed economic system may keep us out of every market in the world because it can dispose of its surplus when it chooses and we are entirely unprepared for defence against these methods of competition. We should meet this threat by close co-operation in the economic field between all democracies. I would like to ask the Prime Minister in that connection what is happening with regard to our trade negotiations with the United States of America? It is of the utmost importance that the question of trade relations with the United States should be settled. The economic poten- tiality of the peace Powers is enormously greater than that of the aggressor Powers.
We want to see an economic league, a getting of people together on the basis of the utilisation of abundance for all, not
drawing them in. excluding those in hostility but eventually The way in which this
country can give a lead is by showing that a democracy can organise itself properly, that it is more effective by democratic methods, and that it can give a better life to its people. At the present moment we are reproached by Germany because of our unemployment. The answer, obviously, is that their people are employed at starva- tion level. We can employ our people, if we will, at a high level. We ought to do it. I am going to ask the Prime Minister
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International Situation I NOVEMBER 1938 what plans the Government have, because the economic organisation of this country is the most vital element in Defence.
4.41 p.m.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): I do not offer any apologies for inter- vening at this stage of the Debate because I think it would be for the general con- venience of the House if I say what I have to say at as early a stage as pos- sible. The speech of the right hon. Gentle- man was divided into two very well marked parts, the second of which appeared to me to have very little rela- tion to international affairs and to be rather more suitable for an election plat- form than for the Debate that we are con- ducting this afternoon. I do not propose to reply to that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech which, perhaps, had better be dealt with by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade who will be speaking later in the evening. There is, however, one ques- tion he addressed to me which I would like to answer at once. He asked me whether it were true that, as reported in the Daily Herald," instructions had been sent out from Whitehall to all the Departments dealing with social services to cut down their expenditure in order to pay for armaments. I read the statement in the "
Daily Herald" this morning, and
C
it was the first I had heard of it. I have asked my right hon. Friend the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer whether there was any action which had been taken by the Treasury which might provide the slightest justifiable foundation for such a statement. He informs me that no action of any kind like that suggested has been taken by the Treasury. The whole story, therefore, is entirely an invention.
To return to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He asked a number of questions and made a number of comments upon what he considered to be the consequences of the Munich Agree- ment. I find myself in agreement with a number of observations made by the right hon. Gentleman, but there was one statement with which he began, to which I must take exception. He described the Munich Agreement as a great defeat for this country and for France and to the cause of law and order. If the right hon. Gentleman really believes that, I am sorry that he should say so publicly. It is not one of the characteristics of totalitarian States, at any rate, that they
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are accustomed to foul their own nests. do strongly deprecate all the statements made by persons in responsible, or even in irresponsible positions, who take oppor- tunities of broadcasting to the world or in other countries in particular that their own country is in a state of decadence.
Mr. Attlee: I never suggested that. The Prime Minister: I was not referring to the right hon. Gentleman in what I said then [Interruption].
Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) continues to interrupt I shall have to ask him to leave the House.
The Prime Minister: Others have gone a great deal further than the right hon. Gentleman, but the observation which he has made gave me an opportunity of expressing an opinion which I think is very widely held. I do not regard the Munich Agreement as a defeat either for the democracies or for the cause of law and order. On the contrary, the Munich Agreement was an attempt to carry out by discussion between two Powers_repre- senting democracies and two Powers representing totalitarian States an agreed solution of a problem for which the only other solution appeared to be the use of force. Instead of using force the Agree- ment has been carried out in an orderly manner. It is quite true that there have been many things which none of us would approve of, which all of us would wish to have done differently—that is quite true but hon. Members should con- sider that, as my Noble Friend the Foreign Secretary said on another occa- sion, we had to choose between hard alternatives, and when you find fault, as you may justly find fault, with the solu- tion which has in fact been carried out, do not forget what the alternative was and what the effect of the alternative would have been upon Czechoslovakia.
Mr. Attlee: The right hon. Gentleman says that the solution has been carried out. The whole of my point was that the solution was not carried out.
The Prime Minister: That may have been the whole of the right hon. Gentle- man's point, but I hope I shall be able to say something which will refute that point of view. After all, the Munich Agreement, which was come to in the course of a comparatively short time,
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