Foreign Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 November 1945.

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Photo of Mr Ernest Bevin Mr Ernest Bevin , Wandsworth Central 12:00, 23 November 1945

I beg the pardon of the right hon. Gentleman. I do not want to attribute a word to him wrongly. If I have misunderstood it is because it is often suggested by people, when they talk about sovereignty, that what you are asked to do is to surrender your sovereignty. I want to develop my argument that that is not what you do. If I attributed to the right hon. Gentleman what I ought to have attributed to some one else, I am sorry. He said there must be established a rule of law, but law must derive its power and observance from a definite source, and in studying this problem I am driven to ask: Will law be observed, if it is arrived at only by treaty and promises and decisions by governments as at present arranged? In all the years this has broken down so often. I trust it will not break down again but, if it is not to break down again, I think it must lead us still further on. In other words, will the people feel that the law is their law if it is derived and enforced by the adoption of past methods, whether League of Nations, concert of Europe, or anything of that kind? The illustration was drawn of the constitution of the United Kingdom, which took many years to establish. Where does the power to make law actually rest? It is not even in this House, it is certainly not in the Executive, it is in the votes of the people. They are sovereign authority.

It may be interesting to call attention to the development of the United States of America. Originally, when the States came together, they met as States with separate Governments, but they soon discovered that they had little or no power to enforce their decisions, and it is the enforcement of the decision, the sanction, that is the real difficulty in world law or any law. They then decided, for the purpose of conducting foreign affairs, taxation, defence and the regulation of commerce, that they would create a federal body and in that body there would be direct representation of the people, not through the 13 States, but direct from the people to the federal Parliament of the country. So, from the outset, the United States drew its power to make laws directly from the people. That is the growth of the United States to the great State which it is today.