That is true not only of the reparation question; it is true of our
whole economic policy. We have been preaching to Europe, and quite
rightly, that the erection of economic barriers between countries is a
treachery to the whole spirit of the League of Nations, and all that it
means, and yet with these words scarcely uttered we turn round and pass
through Parliament a new departure in our economic system which is the
very contradiction of everything we have said in international
conference.
The Safeguarding of Industries Act is absolutely opposed to the whole
spirit and purpose which the League of Nations has in view. A reference
was made by your chairman to Lord Grey, and I saw in a very
distinguished organ of the Coalition an attack on his recent speech. We
are told that he ought not at this crisis to be suggesting that the
present Government is not worthy of our confidence, but how can we trust
the present Government? How is it possible to trust them when one finds
at Brussels, at Genoa, at the Hague, and elsewhere they preach the
necessity of the economic unity of Europe, and then go down to the House
of Commons and justify this Act on the strictest, the baldest, the most
unvarnished doctrine of economic particularism for this country? Nor
does it stop there. I told you just now that for me this doctrine on
which the League is based goes right through many other problems than
those of a strictly international character. You will never solve
Indian or Egyptian difficulties by a reliance on force and force alone.
I believe that the deplorable, the scandalous condition to which the
neighbouring island of Ireland has been reduced is largely due to the
failure to recognise that by unrestricted unreasoning, and sometimes
immoral force, you cannot reach the solution of the difficulties of that
country.
And in industry it is the same thing. If you are really to get a
solution of these great problems, depend upon it you will never do it by
strikes and lock-outs. I am an outsider in industrial matters. I am
reproached when I venture to say anything about them with the
observation that I am no business man. I can only hope that in this case
lookers-on may sometimes see most of the game. But to me it is
profoundly depressing when I see whichever section of the industrial
world happens to have the market with it--whether employers or
wage-earners--making it its only concern to down the other party as much
as it can. You will never reach a solution that way. You have to
recognise in industrial as in international affairs that the spirit of
co-operation, the spirit of partnership, is your only hope of salvation.