Debate on the Address

Part of Orders of the Day — King's Speech – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 1 December 1944.

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Photo of Mr Charles Emmott Mr Charles Emmott , Surrey Eastern 12:00, 1 December 1944

The hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. G. Strauss) has made a number of statements with which most other Members must profoundly disagree. I do not propose to take him up upon them—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"]—though I have a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT which is a complete answer by the Foreign Secretary himself to the suggestion made by the hon. Member for North Lambeth that the Foreign Secretary had poured scorn on the resistance movement in Greece, and had shown lack of sympathy with whatever work of real resistance to the enemy they had carried out. But I will not take my right hon Friend's words out of his mouth.

It may possibly be worth while to spend a few minutes trying to see ourselves as others see us, which is usually a chastening and corrective process, however salutary it may be, but on this occasion I think can give us a certain amount of encouragement. Nearly a year ago, the former mayor of Narvik broadcast a speech in which he said that the people of Britain are the fixed point by which other peoples, whose lives have been more violently deranged by the German onslaught and occupation, will seek to regain their bearings. Invasion, with all its train of horrors, occupation of one's country by the enemy: that is the thing which distinguishes the experience of Britain from that of all other European belligerents in this war. The enemy's oppressions, his depredations, his cruelties and his crimes have been done on other soil than ours. Other peoples have known real hunger and famine, not we. Other people are, at this moment, dying of hunger, not we. Many of our homes have been devastated, but other lands are battlefields, not ours.

These are physical facts, which have grave consequences, and I think are too little imagined by many of the people of these islands. But they are not the whole tale. They are the wounds of the body of Europe: but there are wounds of the spirit also. There is the humiliation of defeat in war. There is the consciousness of fatal policies that have led nations into misery and disaster. There is hatred, of which those who are responsible for those policies are the object. There are deep divisions within peoples, exacerbated by all the circumstances of poverty, hunger, need and sorrow. Here are the ingredients to make a situation of great tension and no little danger in many European countries. It is a situation which the most subversive elements within those countries will seek to exploit for their own purposes. Indeed they are at their work already. The behaviour of the Communists in Belgium, and in France, and of the notorious E.A.M. in Greece, to which such favourable reference has been made by the hon. Member for North Lambeth, is already familiar to the House. This is the reason why General de Gaulle himself, in a remarkable speech a few weeks ago which excited a good deal of controversy, and also our own Prime Minister more recently, speaking in France, appealed to the French people to achieve unity among themselves. And the same urgent necessity of unity appears in Italy, and many other European countries.

This country has been exempt from the experiences which have produced these results. Consequently although we shall in the future have great difficulties, especially those springing from economic causes, we shall, I think, avoid that state of serious tension and disorder which threatens so much of Europe. That is our good fortune: but it is also our opportunity, and our responsibility. Europe, I believe, at this moment looks to England to supply the element of stability and order in a Continent where there is so much to threaten authority, and where civil strife, disorder and many ugly possibilities lie very close to the surface. The first immediate, practical, obvious need in Europe is the provision of food, and then, scarcely second, transport for the distribution of food and for the carriage of the raw materials that reviving industry requires. These are the general, most urgent needs of Europe. But within each country there is one condition upon which the satisfaction of these needs and the whole restoration of the life of peoples depends, and that is the sure establishment of the authority of Government.

Here I must refer critically to an argument used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) this morning. He complained of something of which he thought he detected signs: a bias, or prejudice shown by His Majesty's Government in favour of established institutions against democracy. Thus he suggested, indeed he asserted, an opposition between established institutions on the one hand and democracy on the other. It is important to controvert this argument. That opposition is false. There is no true opposition between established institutions and democracy. Indeed it is just these institutions which themselves preserve democracy. But if the Government have a bias or prejudice of this character, it should be so. I certainly say that His Majesty's Government should support established institutions, because they are the foundation of order. The practical and already almost insuperably difficult work of alleviating the physical distress of peoples cannot possibly be carried through except in conditions of discipline and order secured by obedience to the authority of their legal Governments. Therefore, I say it is the duty of Britain, upon this ground alone, to use all her influence in support of the legal, constitutional Governments of Europe. But support of legal government is demanded not only by the present state of Europe, which we may hope is temporary: it is also derived from a permanent, general principle of law which is evidently right and good, and which it is the fundamental purpose of this war to assert.

I think it would be well if those elements abroad who have a vested interest in violence, and who seek to undermine or destroy existing institutions, had received no encouragement from this country; but unfortunately they have. They have found valuable support in the propaganda of those persons in this country who have never desisted from their attempts to substitute a false war for the true war, and to turn the war against Germany into a war for the triumph of extreme left and revolutionary ideas. Mr. H. G. Wells, that most consistently wrong-minded man, has said that this war will not be worth winning, unless we make it a war for the revolutionary elements of Europe. Some of the favourite sons of the B.B.C. always speak in the same sense; and there are even voices which have uttered the same note in this House. It is very necessary to make plain that these voices do not speak for the British Government or the British people. Support, then, of rightful constitutional Governments: here is a principle to which the natural stability of England, and her exemption from those experiences which have disrupted the lives of others, should incline her; here is a principle which Europe looks to England to maintain. That these are not academic considerations, the example of Poland alone would be sufficient to prove; but there are other examples too—Yugoslavia and Greece, nor are they all. They are indeed considerations of the highest practical importance.

But important as they are, they are but introductory to the more fundamental and chief reason of the reliance of other countries upon Britain. This is the simple principle, which is one of the guides of British foreign policy, of opposition to the domination of Europe by any great military power. Here, on the plane of practical policy, is the common meeting ground of Britain and Europe. Here is the ground on which the interests of Britain and the interests of all Europe outside Germany meet. Here is the ground on which Britain in this war has stood to fight. Let us not show less firmness and singleness of aim than we have displayed in the field, in the stand we take for the just rights of nations, especially the lesser nations which most need, as they expect, our support. The precise and detailed application of this principle it is unnecessary for me to elaborate on this occasion, and I do not attempt it. There is no incompatibility between this principle, with those other traditional ones which determine foreign policy, and full, active, sincere support of an international organisation formed for the preservation of peace, whether it be an organisation of the kind that has been discussed at Dumbarton Oaks or another. I am not claiming to-day a special virtue for our people. The things of which I have spoken are simply part of the tradition of England. Let us be true to our tradition and ourselves. Europe, and indeed the world, expects no more, but it expects no less.