PEACE OFFER TO GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22894, 15 December 1939, Page 6

PEACE OFFER TO GERMANY

EFFORTS BY HOLLAND AND BELGIUM

DEBATE IN HOUSE OF LORDS (jiamsa oryicun wnnscusi,) RUGBY, December 13, The offer made some time ago by the Queen of the Netherlands and the King of the Belgians of mediatory offices,, subsequently rejected by the German Government, was recalled to-day in a debate in the House of Lords initiated by Lord Darnley with the support of Lord Arnold, who has consistently criticised the policy qf resistance to aggression for several years on pacifist grounds. Lord Balfour summed up the attitudes of these two speakers as; “War settles nothing—Jet’s try a compromise.” On this he commented Rat it was no use thinking of peace unless the enemy wanted peace. The Bishop of Chichester said be was not a pacifist nor an advocate ,of peace at any price, but he was opposed to the conception of a socalled “fight to a finish,” The guarantees the British people sought for the future, he thought, would not be obtained,.by a continuation of the 1 war beyond the moment when they could be secured by negotiations. Viscount Samuel considered that if Germany was willing to withdraw from Roland Britain would be open to negotiation, but with the military position as it now was, negotiations would clearly lead nowhere, The Opposition leader (Lord Snell) intervened to express anxiety lest the observations of Lord Darniey and Lord Arnold should create a misapprehension abroad regarding British public opinion, No peace was of the slightest value unless it was negotiated with a government which would keep the peace. The British people,, he believed, had no dosjre to destroy the German nation. Their sole desire was that Qefmfiny should resume her ancient and revered place in world history. Lord Halifax Replies Lord Snell’s anxieties were shown to be exaggerated when the Foreign Secretary (Lord Halifax) replied, for he was able to describe bow foreign representatives who eame to him at the Foreign Office told him how profoundly they were impressed by British national unity, and by the evidenee of the people’s resolution which they encountered in all quarters. Lord Halifax also expressed his dislike of the phrase, "fight to a finish,” which gave the impression of a people fighting for the mere sake of fighting, That definitely was not the position of the British Government or the British people. “We have always been prepared to negotiate. We were prepared before. the war, and we have never closed the door to negotiations in anything we have said or done since the war began," Unfortunately, although Herr Hitler asserted in his speeches that he was anxious for peace, it was far from pertain that he was anxious for peace- on the terms which would make for the peace of Europe, Lord Halifax said that all members of the House of Lords were agreed on general principles. They all felt that it was a good plan to settle by negotiation, Nobody could feel more strongly than he did the horrors and agony of war. Nobody could feel more strongly how criminal it would be to miss any real opportunity for peace. But they came to a fundamental question. They stood for causes that had led the country into war, and if they wore right it would be wrong to cease until they had done their utmost to secure those causes. Lord Halifax concluded by recalling the British and French answers to the mediatory offer leaving the door open for negotiation and the slamming of the door by the Nazi Foreign Minister (Herr von Ribbentrop) in Berlin, and expressed his view that, after the German action, it was a very academic question whether the offer remained open on the side of its originators, the Sovereigns of the Low Countries.