Foreign Affairs.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 24 February 1936.

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Photo of Mr John Parker Mr John Parker , Romford

I rise to ask the Foreign Secretary not merely to enforce the oil sanction, but to see that existing sanctions are fully enforced. I have received information from a member of a firm in the City that sanctions are not being fully enforced. There are various loopholes. This is a letter sent to an English importing firm from an agent in Novarra: By the present I beg to submit to you an offer on account of my friend Mr. Dionigi Resinelli—Bellizona. This firm has its business in Bellizona in Switzerland and handles among other things Parmesan cheese, of which they carry a stock of several thousand. They are in a position of ship- ping Parmesans to England and would like you to take up their agency for the sale of that article now that importation from Italy is not allowed owing to sanctions. For your knowledge, any article of Italian production which being reworked abroad for an extent of 25 per cent. of its value can be imported into England. This firm is in the right position for as they bring regularly in Switzerland new cheese in order to have them ripened, and this cheese being worked for at least one year and a half, they have in hand cheese which have cost them more than 25 per cent. over the value when these cheese were imported. What I say here is the reality and Swiss authorities would not deliver documents referring that if this would not be the case. I should be pleased to hand this or any other document to the Foreign Secretary and, if he wishes to take steps in the matter, he could do so.

The last speaker said we should drop the whole of the sanctions policy. He appears not to realise the danger to Europe from Hitler. This German-Fascist dictatorship, it seems to me, is the greatest danger at present to the peace of Europe. Anyone who has travelled through Germany in recent years must have been struck by the immense amount of rearmament that has taken place. It has also been stated that we should realise that Fascist dictatorships are the great danger to peace. If that is so, we should do our utmost to see that those two great dangers to peace, Hitler and Mussolini, are removed from power as soon as possible. I am not advocating a preventive war against either, but we should do nothing at all to encourage or support the distatorships, but should do all in our power to bring about their downfall as soon as possible.

I mean by that that we should not assist them in any way to remain in power. We should not give them trade or financial facilities of any kind. It means that the Bank of England and the joint stock banks should fall into line with the general foreign policy of the Government. It means that Mr. Montagu Norman should not give any further loans to the German Government or to the German Central Bank. In November, 1934, the Bank of England made a loan of £400,000 to the German Central Bank, nominally for a reduction of commercial debts in Great Britain. Actually what happened was that Germany was able to raise loans in other countries to finance rearmament. We believe that that should not have been done. We believe that the Bank of England should not pursue a different foreign policy from that of the Government. We believe that the financial institutions of the country should follow the directions of the Foreign Office. 'We believe that the Foreign Secretary shad in the last resort control the action of the Bank of England and the joint stock banks and see that nothing is done to strengthen the dictatorships in Italy or Germany. That is absolutely essential. We have been told by Members supporting the Government that collective security and rearmament are desirable, and what we on this side want to know is the exact connection between the two. We in the Labour party believe that this country should be sufficiently armed to make its contribution to a system of collective security, but we have not seen on the part of the Government any attempt to work out a really detailed system of collective security.