The Struggle For Peace

THE SUPREME RESPONSIBILITY
On the resumption of the Delate next day, Mr. Arthur
Greenwood moved :
" That this House deplores the circumstances in which the late
Foreign Secretary has been obliged to resign his office and has no
confidence in His Majesty's present advisers in their conduct of
foreign affairs.55
In the course of his speech^ Mr. Greenwood made many
contemptuous references to the Prime Minister's alleged
" cowardice" " Instead of doing anything on a Broad international
basis, the Prime Minister has sneaked round to the pirates" lair
to come to terms with them" " The right hon. Gentleman talked
about a vendetta. We have no vendetta against Italy. [Hon.
Members : * Oh / *] We are implacably opposed to dictators
who deny the people their freedom. [Hon. Members : f What
about Stalin ? *] The Yorkshire Post goes on to remind the
Prime Minister that a vendetta is not an English institution.
I believe the right hon. Gentleman is being Italianised." Mr.
Greenwood also made the taunt, since familiar, that everything
that occurred that caused satisfaction to Germans and Italians
must necessarily be dictated by them : Mr. Edens resignation
was one of them. " And the dictators, no doubt, will have to
be consulted when the next Foreign Secretary is appointed"
The general attitude of the Socialist Opposition to the Govern-
ment's readiness to meet Italy half-way and to put an end to the
bickerings and accusations that were passing between the two
countries to their mutual detriment was summed up by Mr.
Greenwood's closing sentences.
" Liberty cannot be maintained and strengthened by a relapse
to the standards of the jungle. Liberty cannot be kept by a base
subservience to the ruthless will of the dictators. The Prime
Minister's new attitude, because he is bound by the pledges of 193 ?,
is redly a renunciation of all that is best in modern political thought,