THE COLLECTIVE PEACE SYSTEM

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21377, 21 January 1935, Page 23

THE COLLECTIVE PEACE SYSTEM

LORD CECIL'S QUESTIONS SPEECH BY MR BALDWIN CRITICISED LONDON, December . Lord Cecil, in the House of Lords to-day, challenged the Government to define its position towards the League of Nations and defended the Peace Ballot. He did so in the customary House of Lords way by putting a question which implies a censure, in this case "to ask whether the Lord President of the Council (Mr Baldwin) was correctly reported as saying that a collective peace system is impracticable in view of the fact that the United States is not yet a member of the League of Nations and that Germany and Japan have both retired from it, and whether that means that it is the policy of the Government to abandon so much of the system ot the League of Nations as is contained in article 16 of the Covenant and to revert in that respect to the pre-war international system." Article 16 of the Covenant, it may be recalled, says the parliamentary correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian," provides that ";f any member of the league resort to war in disregard of its covenants under articles 12, 13, or 15 it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other members of the league." The sanctions prescribed are complete commercial boycott and military action by the member states as recommended by the council of the league. . fiord Cecil quoted Mr Baldwins statement that never as an individual would he sanction the use of the armed blockade of any country in the world until he knew the,position taken by the United States. Lord Cecil agreed that before initiating a naval blockade it was desirable to know what view the United States took upon that quesj tion. "I have always myself believed that such pressure could only be exercised effectively under the cover of belligerent rights under which we exercised it in the war of 1914. That is as true of the League of Nations as of any individual nation." Kernel of the League As far as the United States part of the speech was concerned, he had no fundamental difficulty, but as to the rest of the passage it was open to the interpretation that it was no longer possible to carry out article 16 because Germany and Japan had given notice of withdrawal from the league and the United States had not yet become a member. Article 16 was, he thought, historically, the kernel anout which the League of Nations conception was constructed as far as this country was concerned.. He quoted Sir Austen Chamberlain's expression, "The recognition of the aggressor as the common enemy of mankind." He believed that to be the correct view of what the Covenant of the League inten 1 ded. In his judgment our obligation under the Covenant. was clear and complete, and it was the foundation on which the Covenant was built. They had had in mind the circumstances which preceded the out> break of the Great War,-They had had in memory that our Foreign Minister had done his best to bring it about that nothing should be done until there had been discussion, and there was every reason to believe that if that had happened the war would not have happened. Unless that could be maintained and supported a very grievous blow would have been struck 'at the structure of the League.

The Peace Ballot It was that feeling, Lord Cecil went on, that led some of them to undertake the much-discussed Peace Ballot. He rubbed his eyes, he said, when he heard it stated thai, there was some obscure party motive behind it. He warned those Conservatives who had attacked the Peace Ballot that their attacks would themselves injure their party. He could imagine the Opposition's saying "Just look at the attitude Conrservatives are taking on the Peace Ballot." He added: "I do feel that we have been treated with the greatest unfairness and injustice in this matter." They should do everything to avoid this being made a party question. They believed it would be of value to whatever Government were in power to show that it had popular feeling behind then! At the close of the short debate Lord Stanhope, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, replied for the Government, which, he said, stood by the League and the collective system of peace. That in fact was the effect of Mr Baldwin's speech. But he quoted from General Smut's speech the saying "You cannot use the league as a military machine." The league was formed, not to punish a nation that went to war, but to, prevent war. The Government view was that that was to be done by discussion round the table at Geneva." • Lord Cecil replied to this that it did not answer his question. Lord Stanhope had not said what would happen or what we should do if one country resorted to war instead of .discussion.