Hon. Harold Nicolson: I agree with all that my hon. Friend has just said, and especially when he disagreed with the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), who attributed false motives to the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment. I am very glad indeed that the Amendment appears on the Order Paper. It does express a very general regret, felt, I think, in every part of this House, that the circumstances of war...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: I was coming to that point. We all felt that it was unwise for Poland to go beyond that. We were en- raged and indignant when, later on, Poland took Vilna; and I can remember speaking in this House in terms of severe reprobation of the Polish attitude towards Czechoslovakia, when Czechoslovakia lay bleeding on the ground. They got these areas by force; they must lose them by force. As...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: I wish the hon. Lady had not referred to last summer, because if it had not been for the haggling last summer there would not have been so much unhappiness and uncertainty. If the Poles are encouraged to go on haggling, as they did last summer, and to say, "We must have a few seats more" then we shall again get into a mess. In' more direct reply to the hon. Lady's question, I feel that...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: My hon. Friend is almost right, but not quite. What happened was that the Western frontier was decided in the Treaty of Versailles, but the Eastern frontier was left vague and was decided two years after.
Hon. Harold Nicolson: The Treaty of Versailles had nothing to do with it. It was after the Russians had invaded Poland.
Hon. Harold Nicolson: I think the House generally agrees with the hon. Member that we must have homes for our soldiers when they get back in order that they may marry and settle down; that is the most urgent, important and, I should add, dangerous, problem that this or any other House will have to face. I should feel in agreement with him if we had been left under the impression that this new building is going...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: I was saying that the one thing to avoid was to be like a foreign Legislature.
Hon. Harold Nicolson: Armistice does not entail the release of prisoners.
Hon. Harold Nicolson: Suppose in this case it had been proved by the prosecution that three or four persons had come to him and said, "What you are doing is assisting the enemy," and if, having been warned, he had then persisted, surely the Court of Appeal would not have taken that view?
Hon. Harold Nicolson: The Attorney-General has got it.
Hon. Harold Nicolson: The hon. Member is omitting to point out that these security people were also to be disarmed.
Hon. Harold Nicolson: I am sure we have all been grateful to the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale) for having managed with his usual deftness and calm to still what was becoming a rather heated atmosphere in this Chamber. If we are to discuss this topic with profit to the country at large, I think we must seek, as far as we can, to approach it in an objective and not in a party spirit. Really, if we...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: The Noble Lord has, I think, misinterpreted me. I was referring to Members of all parties. In discussing foreign policy, it is very difficult for this or any other Assembly not to fall into the habit of imputing motives to their opponents which have never occurred to their opponents, and of making accusations, which are useful and telling in ordinary political controversy but which do give to...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: The expression, "Royalist troops," is exactly the sort of expression that the hon. Member ought not to use in this connection. There is a Royal Hellenic Army, or the Greek Army, in which there were certain mutineers, who were, naturally, weeded out. The remainder were formed into a strong unit which fought at Rimini with the utmost courage and efficiency. Naturally, when Greece was...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: The Holy Alliance.
Hon. Harold Nicolson: That is what Alexander I said.
Hon. Harold Nicolson: The speech to which we have just listened from the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Price) displayed not only that moderation counselled by the Prime Minister, but was in conformity with the general trend of this Debate. I have seldom listened to any Debate in this House in which such a spirit of modera- tion and reasonableness was present. We have, I think and hope, done something...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: I hope indeed that my right hon. Friend will allow himself to go to Paris, because there is certainly no man in Europe, or indeed in the whole world, who has so well justified in the eyes of the French people the right to pass under their Arch of Triumph. There was, however, one passage in the Prime Minister's speech on France which I did not understand. He implied that we would recognise...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: My hon. Friend is right to the extent that they are beginning to attach importance to it because its absence is now being used by those who are fomenting disorder; but they did not before—vitally interested before—not vitally. In any case, it is an absolute essential of our policy—a policy which has now endured for 40 years—it is a necessity, not an emotional necessity, but a...
Hon. Harold Nicolson: I know my hon. Friend feels that very clearly, and also feels that it is a fact which is apparent to every Member of this House. It is; but it is not apparent when you see it distorted through the lenses of Dr. Goebbels, and in choosing those two unfortunate American words we have given Goebbels an advantage which he otherwise might not have had. In conclusion, I feel that if we first...