The Struggle For Peace

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not the view of some Members of the party opposite. [An
HON MEMBER : ' Yes/] Not all of them. They certainly
have never put it in so many words, but it is illustrated by the
observations of the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker),
who spoke this afternoon, and who had examined the Agree-
ment signed by the German Chancellor and myself, which he
described as a pact designed by Herr Hitler to induce us to
relinquish our present obligations. That shows how far
prejudice can carry a man. The Agreement, as anyone can see,
is not a pact at all. So far as the question of * never going to
war again * is concerned, it is not even an expression of the
opinion of the two who signed the paper, except that it is their
opinion of the desire of their respective peoples. I do not
know whether the hon. Member will believe me or attribute
to me also sinister designs when I tell him that it was a docu-
ment not drawn up by Herr Hitler but by the humble in-
dividual who now addresses this House.
" If the view which I have been describing is the one to be
taken, I think we must inevitably proceed to the next stage—
that war is coming, broadly speaking the democracies against
the totalitarian States—that certainly we must arm ourselves
to the teeth, that clearly we must make military alliances with
any other Powers whom we can get to work with us, and that
we must hope that we shall be allowed to start the war at the
moment that suits us and not at the moment that suits the other
side. That is what some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen call
collective security. Some hon. Members opposite would walk
into any trap if it is only baited with a familiar catchword and
they do it when this system is called collective security. But
that is not the collective security we are thinking of or did
think of when talking about the system of the League of
Nations. That was a sort of universal collective security in
which all nations were to take their part. This plan may give
you security; it certainly is not collective in any sense. It
appears to me to contain all the things which the party opposite
used to denounce before the War—entangling alliances^
balance of power and power politics. If I reject it, as I do, it is
not because I give it a label; it is because, to my mind, it is a
policy of utter despair.
cc If that is hon. Members* conviction, there is no future hope