The Struggle For Peace

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of others. I am not sure that hon. Members realise how this
attitude of suspicion is parallelled elsewhere/* (Interruption.)
MR. DAVID GRENFELL : " Were not our suspicions of
the German and Italian designs at Munich well founded ? "
THE PRIME MINISTER : " I am not making any accusa-
tions against any hon. Member; I am merely trying to make
an appeal to the House as a whole. I was going on to say
that I had sometimes been reproached that I have accused my
political opponents of warmongering. I have never thought
that my political opponents wanted to go to war. I have
thought that the policy which they seemed to be advocating
was one which was likely to lead to war, but I do not believe
for one moment that, if they occupied the places which my
friends and I occupy here now, they would ever think of
beginning a preventive war against some other country.
Not even my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr.
Churchill), who is Bogy No. i in some parts of Europe, has
ever thought it would be wise for us as a Government to
begin a preventive war against some other country. Our
armaments, vast as they are, are armaments for defence, and
for defence alone, and if it be true that others have no more
intention of aggression than we have, well, then the conclusion
that we must come to is that we are all piling up these ruinous
armaments under a misunderstanding. I arn very much
inclined to believe that there is a great deal of truth in that.
I would like to remind the Committee of some words used by
the late Lord Grey of Fallodon in his book, Twenty-Five
Years, when he said :
" * Each Government, while resenting any suggestion that
its own measures are anything more than precautions for
defence, regards similar measures of another Government as a
preparation for attack. Fear begets suspicion and mistrust
and evil imaginings of all sorts, till each Government feels it
would be criminal and a betrayal of its own country not to
take every precaution, while every Government regards every
precaution of every other Government as evidence of hostile
intent/
That seems to me to be very much the situation in which we
are finding ourselves to-day, so, while I cannot consent that