I am glad the President expressed at least the hope that such amendment as might be proposed in the League Covenant would be of a character which would enable us to stay in the League. I should rather say that he hoped that they will be of such a character as will not drive us out of the League. I think that that is what the President meant. He did not mean that the amendments would be ideal but rather that they would not be of such a character as make our continued membership impossible. I should like to have that made quite clear.
I am rather sorry the President did not indicate how exactly he would like the League reformed. He was quite right in taking up the line that here is an institution in which all States of Europe are interested and in which they ought to be interested, whether they are in the League or not. He especially stressed of what importance the League might well prove as a protection for small nations, and I think that was realised for many years by small nations. He spoke of the test to which the League had been put and the failure to stand up to that test, that failure leading to a consideration of certain amendments in the League Covenant. I should like the President to be so good as to indicate in his reply exactly in what direction he thinks useful amendments might go in amending the League Covenant. I do not want detail, but he might indicate the general lines. He referred to his statement here last year and, speaking from memory, I can say that I am not quite clear in what direction he saw a future working possibility for the League—whether it was in loosening its powers or making them more stringent. Perhaps the President will indicate along what lines the mind of the Government is running on this important matter.
I think he possibly was inclined to over-stress the dark side of the picture. Undoubtedly, the League did get a grave shaking, possibly in prestige more than in actuality, a shaking in prestige ultimately affecting its real influence, but I should be very sorry to think that an institution of that kind would be too readily scrapped by the nations of Europe because it has failed to act up to the highest hopes they had of it, whatever those hopes may have been. What I am rather uneasy about at the moment is that, all through Europe, I notice a number of people very much bent on peace and determined to have a European war, if necessary, in order to enforce peace. I think the President, if he studies the European Press, and even the Press off the shores of the Continent of Europe, will find a very fair amount of that going on, and I should be very sorry to think that the League might be used as an organ, not for preserving peace, but really for declaring and waging war.
The usefulness of the League, it seems to me, to a large extent ends once a general war of that kind starts. Its raison d'être has come to an end for the time being, at all events. Its main purpose should be to smooth out the preliminaries that lead up to that breach, but once the arbitrament of war comes and you have Europe divided into two hostile camps, whether you call one the League off Nations and the other the Anti-League of Nations does not very much matter.
I think the really useful work can be done in the preliminary stages of trying to avoid the war atmosphere that very often is being worked up; and I am afraid that we have had instances in the past six months or the past year of a war atmosphere being worked up in different countries. It was not by any means confined to one country. Of course, I am very well aware that every country takes a noble line in the cause of peace. It, and its allies, are arming purely for the cause of peace and the other side is threatening war. That is the propaganda that goes on, but you are facing a rather dangerous situation in a war atmosphere of that kind and it is a pity that the League is not being utilised more to stem or to damp down such propaganda. What I often see, however, is that strong supporters of the League idea in certain countries are amongst the most vigorous advocates of a course that may easily lead to war, and I find that very hard to reconcile with a genuine desire to preserve peace.
I can understand a certain amount of impatience—and there is a motion down on the Order Paper for a long time which has not been moved—on the part of people with what they call the failure of the League, but I always ask myself, however natural impatience of that kind may be: Is it wise to give it expression? I say that at the moment, instead of giving expression to impatience of that kind, however natural it may be, a much more useful function would be fulfilled for Europe and, therefore, for ourselves, rather by stressing the opposite point of view—the necessity of keeping a body of this kind going, no matter how near to extinction it may seem or how moribund it may appear in the eyes of many. As long as it is not dead it seems to me that there is always a possibility of reviving it. I think people have very little knowledge of the relations of States either at the present time or in past times, and of the motives that move States, and very little knowledge of human nature, if they think that an institution of this kind could work smoothly from the very start. It must receive sets-back. I do not see how they are to be avoided, but that is no excuse for despairing of good work for the League in future, or for despairing of a better League.
It is, as I said this time 12 months, an extremely slow and arduous work. It requires, if you like, a great deal of faith, but the possibility of a breakdown, and what may follow a breakdown, seems to me so appalling that one is almost compelled, whether one will or no, to have faith and to work, at all events, for a better understanding between the peoples. Cynicism is extremely easy. A man can get a reputation for being hard-headed, worldly-wise and all that sort of thing by pointing out that such and such a nation is looking after its own interests. The necessity of recognising that that is so is the very foundation of the League. If nations acted altruistically there would be no necessity for the League. It is the fact that nations can be relied on to act selfishly and egotistically that an instrument like the League is necessary and may do good work.
When some people point out "Well, it broke down in the Italian affair," I wonder what they would have considered success in the Italian affair. I am speaking of the number of people who point to that as the great instance of League failure. If you just try to get at the back of their minds to find out what many of them—I do not say all—mean, you find that they mean that it was a pity that Europe on that occasion did not drift into a universal war, at least between the big Powers, into which the small Powers might be pulled. That is what is at the back of the minds of many, and, once that stage is reached, I think there is an end of the League. You will have to fight that out, and, after the war, start a new League, if you can. Many people look on the Italian failure, as they call it, as proof of the gross incompetency of the League—and it is condemned from both sides, firstly, because it went so far, and, secondly, because it did not go far enough. In the case of the side I am arguing against—those who say that it did not go far enough—what they really complained of was that they had not a war and that the League was not used as an instrument of war.
That brings me back again to what I stressed before. One of the principal dangers that I see to the League and its continued success very often are the advocates of the League. They have, strange to say, a warlike mentality. Their idea is that on peoples who are not yet accustomed to bear international sanctions or international interference, who, in other words, are not prepared to acknowledge any kind of limitation of their sovereignty for the general good, war should be immediately waged. That is not a solution of our troubles. We must realise that there may be failure after failure; but again and again, against the spectacular failures of the last couple of years, there is to be put the great difficulties that, in its initial years, the League was able to surmount, and the number of wars it prevented. You may say to me: "Yes, wars between small peoples"; but we know perfectly well, without going beyond our own lifetime, how wars between small peoples can very quickly become world wars. Therefore, a most useful work was done by the League, and it is a mistake to overlook that. I know it is passing through a period of lack of prestige at present, lack of authority if you like; all the more reason, I say, why a State like ours should throw its lot in and try to make a better situation.
I admit we are but a small State; but, as the President knows, some of the most useful work was done in the League by small States; work altogether beyond their material strength and beyond their military power. The work they were able to do was tremendous. We did enjoy a very peculiar position in the League. We were a small State, always capable of taking up an independent attitude; and actually so doing. At the same time, owing to the fact that we were a member of another League of Nations, if I might so put it—the British Commonwealth—and, owing to the fact as well that though we were only some 3,000,000 people in this country, there were millions of our fellow-countrymen in America and Australia, undoubtedly, that gave us a position of importance in the League altogether beyond the material strength of this country.
I think we can still be a useful factor in building up the League. I do not expect spectacular results immediately —it would be a mistake to look for them. So far as I am personally concerned, I prefer a slow, steady advance rather than an effort suddenly to forge an instrument which would be absolutely all-powerful in the morning. If you try a thing of that kind, you are liable to promote the very result you are anxious to avoid. Therefore, I should like to see ourselves playing a part still in the building up, realising that it is a slow business; that if we can advance slightly it is as much as we can hope for at present, but at least having all hope and looking forward and not backwards.
We got a certain amount of hope from the President on this. It is his hope that we shall be able to remain members of this institution. However much we may regret some things done from one point of view or another— there are various opinions on that— however much we may realise that certain Powers at one time or another seemed to lead the League, still we should recognise that there is useful work to be done. I speak of certain big Powers as more or less leading the League. That does happen; it is inevitable that it should happen. Wherever you have an Assembly of that kind, you will get some kind of unacknowledged leadership; but the leadership is not always the same. I do not think, for instance, that two years ago, so far as there was leadership in the League, it was exactly the same as ten years ago, or eight years ago, when I was more intimately acquainted with the working of the League than now. That will change. You cannot deprive great Powers of the influence they have owing to their strengthened position; but at least there is this, that there is no place where small Powers can make their influence more effectively felt than in the League. For that reason, I hope we shall not see the necessity for withdrawing. I know we are committing ourselves sometimes to things we may not like; any kind of co-operation involves us in that. If you think you can stand alone, having nothing to do with anybody, of course you need not commit yourself to the resolution of any group. But, if you think that from co-operation something useful can be got, then the time will come when you may have to sacrifice your own personal opinions of the moment in the cause of the general good.
Therefore, I again express the hope that this State will be convinced that there is a future for this institution. I cannot see much hope for the future peace of Europe if there is a definite collapse of an institution of this kind, because the forces which lead to the collapse of an institution of this kind are forces which will bring about war. The only substitute for it is rival groups of Powers. Whether that will more quickly lead to war or stave off war, no one can tell. Nobody can say that the system of balance of power is an instrument for the long observance of peace. I do not think it is. In the long run, I think it is bound to lead to a break-up. I cannot see any useful alternative, if peace is to be preserved, to a League of this kind, whatever its faults are, and I realise the weakness of it as much as anybody else. That is the situation which faces every nation in Europe. I think we are interested, and ought to play our part in the making of a better League, if possible.
