Foreign Affairs

Part of Bill Presented – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 December 1964.

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Photo of Mr Frank Tomney Mr Frank Tomney , Hammersmith North 12:00, 17 December 1964

It falls to me to congratulate the hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) upon what was in many ways a remarkable maiden speech. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore), who is not new to my hon. Friends. He also made a thoughtful and well-informed speech. I congratulate both hon. Gentlemen, who are new to the House, on their temerity and courage in making their maiden speeches in a debate on foreign affairs. I hope that we will hear both of them on many occasions in the future.

They are both of an age group which foretells well for the future of British politics. They both arrive at the House of Commons with the right amount of political maturity behind them, and they are in that group which has a modern outlook and is able quickly to appreciate developments of worldwide political importance.

The House of Commons will surely acquit me of any inconsistencies in the speeches that I have made on foreign affairs. We have now arrived at the situation when my party forms the Government, and where the position of some of my hon. Friends gives me great satisfaction. In opposition I was never able completely to divorce my responsibilities as a Member of Parliament from my responsibilities on the two questions which confront the nation—foreign affairs and defence. I have always considered that, in a sense, a perpetual responsibility in action and thought has been required. That is why the offer held out yesterday by the Government to have consultations with the Opposition on defence matters—which was first made by the former right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, Mr. Dalton, some years ago—ought to be taken up.

We are living at a time in which decisions taken now, for good or evil, may decide what type of world will develop or what type of society we shall become. It is becoming more apparent every day that national frustration in the non-possession of nuclear weapons or nuclear capacity can find satisfaction only through the medium of multilateral agencies and in association and integration with other States. This is the only sure way of building up good will on an international basis and of alleviating the fears of other nations which have found themselves at a grave disadvantage over the last 30 years, during which time the solemn words of Governments have been broken from time to time, with disastrous results.

That is why I find the complexities of General de Gaulle's situation so tantalising and infuriating. Throughout his career this man has never ceased to amaze me. From the war onwards, possessing only a cap badge to begin with, he has been able to achieve remarkable things for France. Until two days ago he was holding up the Common Market negotiations with an eleventh-hour threat of withdrawal. There was a threatened collapse of negotiations on the vital issue of grain prices. General de Gaulle was prepared to go as far as that despite the fact that the economic value of the Common Market as a whole, apart from its value to France, must have been immense.

He is a man who, coming to power at the time he did, realised more clearly than anyone else that the Soviet Union was a Western-orientated nation which would, in time, find its true position in the West. He acted quickly on this realisation in respect of his own French empire. It took some considerable time and not a little bloodshed to get rid of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, but this he did, because he saw the enormous advantages in the other position. This has resulted in France, along with Germany, becoming one of the strongest economic nations of the world. One could ponder the fact that Germany lost the war and now has resources of no less than £50,000 million, while Great Britain is staggering from crisis to crisis—not of our own making but brought about by the pressure of world trade and events which have operated against us because our responsibilities have been so widespread and because of the position which we have taken upon ourselves in defence of our former positions in the Empire.

Be that as it may, France, in pursuit of her nuclear deterrent, will be in a position to inflict the gravest damage on the N.A.T.O. Alliance if she decides to withdraw. This is why I most strongly support the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Stepney to take as much time as we can to arrive at some conclusions with de Gaulle before this position is reached. No matter how it drags on, even if it takes unlimited time, we should make as many concessions as possible to the French position so long as this alliance is not broken up. We have seen the recognition of Germany's strength and her great industrial power, which has grown up from a number of factors, including allied control and the granting of allied loans, the small diversity of trade unions in Germany, fewer disputes, end heavy concentration of capital in German industries. All this has led to Germany asking for a position of equality in the Western Alliance which can no longer he refused.

That is why the proposition put forward by the Prime Minister is so right in its timing. It is absolutely right. World military power has reached the stage at which it can threaten international extinction. There has grown up, through the nuclear weapon, a balance of mutual power between Russia and the United States. Both of them possess it and neither of them is able to use it. Great Britain developed an independent deterrent, but with the rapid advance of nuclear science and rocketry and the ability to pinpoint a target miles away, our position as an independent nuclear nation became impossible.

We had to move from this position, and when one moves away from such a position one has to move into another position of integration with the people with whom one associates. If we do otherwise we shall deny our responsibilities. We have had responsibility for a great Commonwealth and its development; we have had to give, in the context of democratic demands, freedom for the peoples of Africa; we have much responsibility for the progress of these former colonies; and we have to compete with an ever-rising standard among nations on the same industrial basis throughout the world. It is obvious that the British people would not, and could not afford to, lag behind.

This has meant a great strain upon our resources. I have always contended that these responsibilities throughout the world should have been more fairly shared among the Western Alliance, through the United Nations agency or otherwise. Certainly there have been United Nations aid programmes, but never a concerted plan based on the gross national product of each nation, in order to place at the disposal of the nations on a proper co-operative basis the benefit of that product where it would be most needed.

We are approaching a situation in which the Soviet Union may find itself in greater integration with the West. In the last 18 months, a threat has arisen in the Far East from the Chinese, which may once again place us in the position of having to make decisions of such a character in the alliance which will be a heavy drain on resources.

In this context these countries which are locked in close alliance should say, "All right, what do we do in this context? If we wish to further the interests of the alliance throughout the world, it is surely our object to place a proportionate part of our gross national product where it will show most reward in terms of the alliance." In this respect I intend to take a long look at Africa, a veritable Eldorado of a continent with a small population, at present an area of great rivalry among the world Powers for influence and progress.

What can we do in a situation like this? Do we decide, as a matter of policy, to let things drift, or do we invest our resources in such a way that the fate or the freedom of these countries in the future rests with the older of the Western democracies? Are we prepared to accept the position which has existed over the last few years of wholesale interference by people whose only objective has been international mischief? This kind of thing has to be faced by the West before very long. I do not think that we can very much longer evade the question of the proper place for China in the world. After all, the Chinese are an old people. They were making silks and ceramics and glass when the early Britons were living in caves. There must be some accommodation. Just as the nuclear shield has been the protective strength of Europe since Berlin, of necessity we may have the responsibility of shifting that shield to the Far East.

Let us face the reality of Korea. What happened in Korea is a salutary lesson for us. The Russian intervention in Korea, followed by the Chinese intervention, could mean only one thing, that the Chinese were determined to lock that back door against the Soviets, and lock it they did. Their foray into India five years later was for the same purpose. The United States have been pouring aid and money into India, some of it in supplies which were misused, some of it foolishly, and they have had a return of probably less than 8 per cent. This is not a tenable situation for a capitalist country like America.

Obviously, the United States is fully aware of what might happen if India were to go Communist, and she has taken such measures as she thinks necessary to resolve that position. She has done this in the context of her wider responsibilities, and of her wider responsibilities to Europe, which, although still great, are not so necessary or so stringent as they were. There is in the world, we know, an over-kill nuclear capacity far in excess of anything which is sensible or just, and the United States veto operating within the alliance on nuclear weapons must, in my opinion—and on this I agree with the Prime Minister—remain an absolute veto.

Whether the new N.A.T.O. Council as set up or the extra body in N.A.T.O. should be responsible for future strategic planning, which could involve long-term planning from bases in the United States, is another matter. What matters, too, is that the United States must retain the veto over both positions—both in the N.A.T.O. Alliance and in the Atlantic nuclear force, and in any other area where there are agreements of this character. This nuclear umbrella, beneath which we have been sheltering for so long, must be spread to protect other nations until the world reaches final sanity in dealing with the two problems of nuclear independence and the threat of force.

This leads me to another point which has not been resolved. I see the necessity, despite all the difficulties, for the retention of the Simonstown base in South Africa. I also see the necessity of the Suez Canal being opened to all types of shipping of all nations at all times—and it is not so at the moment. Nasser exercises the right to keep out of the Suez Canal the ships of Israel on their legitimate trade. This is an international highway, an international waterway, vital to us and vital for communications. How much longer can an alliance, the United Nations or other Western alliance, tolerate this situation? Surely it is only a matter of time.

Unfortunately, on occasions we have been in conflict on these issues throughout the world with the United States. On many issues they have not adopted the same view as we have adopted. Consider the situation in Saudi Arabia. The United States' view has always been dominated by her oil interests there and the royalties from them, to the exclusion of almost everything else—and that includes the progress of the people and the use to which the oil revenues are put, as well as Britain's worldwide responsibilities and her need to operate from bases such as Aden, which are vital to defence communications.

We have reached a situation in the world in which a review must take place. It should take place with France in it rather than without France. These bases place a heavy drain on British resources, and they must become an international cost-sharing operation. They are vital to us all. We know their purpose. It is wrong for any one nation to have to take more than its fair share of the burden. We have found in the N.A.T.O. Alliance that the United States constantly reserves to itself a position of dominance in the supply of materials to the exclusion almost of everyone else. With the strength which the United States has, it is able to do this, but the position is not satisfactory for this country or for France, and it is certainly not satisfactory for West Germany.