The Liberal Tradition

7. FOREIGN POLICY

118. Debate on the Foreign Office Estimates, House of Commons, 22 July 1909

(A)

J. M. ROBERTSON (Tyneside). If the policy of the Foreign Secretary has committed this country to an alliance with France in a European war, irrespective of the merits of the case, I think that would be a departure from Liberal traditions. A great deal has been said on the traditions of Liberal foreign policy. What is the Liberal tradition as to foreign policy? (Cries of ‘Non-intervention’ and ‘Freedom’.) To say that Liberal foreign policy is freedom is to use the idlest of rhetoric. The practical tradition of Liberal foreign policy is non-intervention in foreign affairs. (An Hon. Member: ‘Was that Palmerston’s policy?’) Palmerston’s is exactly a case which is to be rejected as really representative of Liberal tradition. If any man is to be taken as representative of Liberal foreign policy, it is Richard Cobden. . . .The only consistent attitude is to denounce intervention, whether democratic or anti-democratic. If England learned any lesson from the French Revolution, it was that neither side does well to interfere.

(B)

ARTHUR PONSONBY (Stirling Burghs). I think it would be nothing short of a calamity if this debate terminated without a single voice being raised from the Liberal side of the House in protest against the visit of the Czar. . . . The very large body of Liberal opinion in this country will feel very strongly the contrast between the tone of the speech of the right hon. gentleman today (Sir E. Grey) and the ringing tones of Mr. Gladstone. The strength of our diplomacy, the force of our opinion in the councils of Europe, depends on the detached, disinterested, humanitarian views we have taken in upholding the freedom of downtrodden peoples. Take, for instance, the history of the last fifty years, whether in Italy, in the Lebanon, Bulgaria, Armenia or Macedonia. I am afraid the modern idea is to disapprove the humanitarian view and sympathetic attitude of those who appreciate the liberties of the people and to put in its place the force of Empire and of armaments. If anybody thinks that our diplomacy is strengthened by the number of our Dreadnoughts, I fancy they will find themselves very much mistaken. Throughout the last half-century it has been to our credit that the greatest success we have had has been our strong feeling of humanitarianism and our desire to uphold the views of people who are downtrodden.

Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 5th Series, viii, (A), cols. 717-18; (B), cols. 729-30.

119. SIR EDWARD GREY: Speech in the House of Commons, 27 November 1911

Now let me say a word upon the general aspects of what I consider is the proper foreign policy of this country, and what the foreign policy of the Government has been. It is said to be, and in a sense that is quite true, a continuation of the policy of the Government in which Lord Lansdowne was Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Some years ago we had constant trouble and friction with France and Russia. Everybody remembers it. . . . The relations have been changed from those of friction and difficulty into relations of friendship, and it is well that it has been so, because in different parts of the world British interests touch and rub against French and Russian interests. . . .

In addition to that, our friendship with France and Russia is in itself a guarantee that neither of them will pursue a provocative or aggressive policy towards Germany, who is their neighbour and ours. Any support we would give France and Russia in times of trouble would depend entirely on the feeling of Parliament and public feeling here when the trouble came, and both France and Russia know perfectly well that British public opinion would not give support to provocative or aggressive action against Germany. . . .

Now let me say this: German strength is, by itself, a guarantee that no other country will desire or seek a quarrel with Germany. That is one side of the shield of which Germans may well be proud, but I think it ought to be remembered by German public opinion that there is another side to the shield, and that is if a nation has the biggest army in the world, and if it has a very big navy, and is going on building a still bigger navy, then it must do all in its power to prevent what would otherwise be the natural apprehensions in the minds of others. . . . All we or the other neighbours of Germany desire is to live with her on equal terms.

There is one foreign policy different to the one which I have been endeavouring to sketch to the House, and it seems to me to be advocated in some quarters of the country. It seems to me to be simply disastrous. It is that we should give it to be understood that in no circumstances, however aggressively, provocatively, or wantonly, a friend of ours was attacked, we should give our friend any assistance whatever. That would be an attempt to revert to what was once called a policy of ‘splendid isolation.’ It would deprive us of the possibility of having a friend in Europe, and it would result in the other nations of Europe, either by choice or by necessity, being brought into the orbit of a single diplomacy from which we should be excluded. The ideal of splendid isolation contemplated a balance of power in Europe to which we were not to be a party, and from which we were to be able to stand aside in the happy position of having no obligations and being able to take advantage of any difficulties which arose in Europe from friction between opposing Powers. That policy is not a possible one now. Any single Power that attempted to adopt that policy in Europe to-day would be felt as a public nuisance, and if we were that single Power, one result would be that in the course of a few years we should be building warships not against a two-Power standard, but probably against the united navies of Europe. As a matter of fact that policy, which would be disastrous, is not a policy. It is the negation of a policy, and if it were accompanied, as I suppose it would be accompanied, with constant criticisms of individual members of the House about the internal affairs and proceedings of other Governments, constant pressure upon the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the day to interfere and make representations about matters which do not directly concern us, then I say that the disastrous consequences of such an attitude of mingled interferences and drift would soon become apparent in an expenditure on armaments even greater than the present expenditure, and sooner or later the very peace that people desired to preserve would topple over. Such an attitude would not even gain us the friendship of Germany.

Speeches on Foreign Affairs, 1904–1914, by Sir Edward Grey, ed. P. Knaplund (1931), pp. 162-6.

120. Debate in the House of Commons, 14 December 1911

[These speeches were made in an adjourned debate on a Question proposed on the 27 November 1911 by Sir E. Grey, ‘That the Foreign Policy of His Majesty’s Government be now considered.’]

(A)

JOSIAH WEDGWOOD (Newcastle-under-Lyme). The foreign policy of the Government is not a Liberal foreign policy. It is not merely a continuation, but it is an accentuation, of the foreign policy of our predecessors. We have this question of the balance of power raised to a sort of fetish which the whole of the Foreign Office staff and the Foreign Secretary as well worship, and our foreign policy seems to feed the balance of the scales with slices of the Congo or of Morocco. When it is not a question of the balance of power the one other thing that seems to affect our Foreign Office policy is that of material British interest. The pursuit of these two aims . . . was not the Liberal foreign policy, and never has been until now. It is entirely antagonistic to the tradition of Canning and Palmerston and Gladstone. When the people of this country sent this Government to power in 1906 and again in 1910 it was with the idea of having the old Gladstonian and Palmerstonian traditions carried out in Liberal foreign policy as well as in Liberal domestic policy.

We do not always want to be interfering in petty details, in tapping the barometer on every particular question to see whether the Foreign Office is moving on Liberal lines. . . . But we think we have a genuine right to say to Liberal Ministers, we expect broad Liberal principles to be followed. . . . I am perfectly certain I speak not only for Liberals, but for a large number of Conservatives, when I say that the majority of Englishmen place the moral results of our foreign policy above the material results, and that they are more anxious for justice between foreign nations and freedom in foreign nations than they are for commercial treaties or extra concessions in Africa or Asia or Arabia. I am quite certain the British people would rather have the influence of the British Foreign Office directed towards the extension of justice than the extension of territory. This being, as I think it is, the universal opinion of Liberals throughout the country, and the opinion of all that is best of the Conservatism of the country as well, I think it right to ask the Government what they have done in this direction. How have they influenced politics in any corner of the world on Liberal lines? How have they increased the ideas of justice between man and man? How have they increased principles of freedom among the peoples of the world? . . .

If you look to any part of the world where there have been difficulties in the last six years I think you will find it difficult to lay your finger upon one spot . . . from China to Peru, where the influence of the Liberal Government has made anything better or influenced things in the slightest degree in a Liberal direction. . . .

If you go back to the Government of Mr. Gladstone in 1892 or 1880, or to Palmerston and Gladstone in 1860 to 1872, in every case you find the influence of the Government directed towards freedom, and you find on the map of Europe some recording testimony of their work for freedom and liberty and justice. It is only in the case of this Government that you cannot point to anything . . . The fact of the matter is that the Foreign Office itself and the whole traditions of the Foreign Office and its staff are far too aristocratic in tone and illiberal in principle. They are not in touch or in sympathy with Liberalism—they do not want what we want. . . . You have throughout the whole of this particular Department Conservative sympathies which are directed towards perpetuating the old ideas of foreign policy of the previous Conservative Government, and I do not see how there is any hope of the Liberal Government making foreign policy Liberal as long as they allow the Conservative tendencies of the Foreign Office staff to remain unchanged. . . .

The other day there was a cartoon in Punch showing the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs seated at a table with cards in his hand, and interfering Radicals looking over his shoulder, and he is supposed to say: ‘How do you expect I can play the game successfully if I show my cards?’ I think that cartoon accurately illustrates the Foreign Office view of diplomacy. They think they are playing a game with cards at which nobody is allowed to look. The game they are playing is a very silly game: it is a game of concession hunters and land grabbers. . . . It is about time the people of England and Germany insisted upon knowing what it is these diplomatists are playing at. They are playing, not a national game, but merely a plutocratic financial game. It is a game, not of national honour, but of national dishonour.

(B)

J. G. SWIFT MACNEILL (S. Donegal). I say in the plainest possible terms, after an experience of twenty-five years in this House, that Parliament might as well not exist so far as foreign affairs or foreign relations are concerned. . . . The hon. gentleman spoke with a very natural horror at the idea that we were drifting into war last July. He might have said that we were drifting into war quite unknown to ourselves . . ., even while Parliament was sitting. Why was not Parliament told? Why were not the people given some stake in the interests affecting themselves? Are they to be treated like children? . . . Until what I have described as the cult of mystery is abolished in the Foreign Office really we are being led blindfold. . . .

According to theory the slightest railway or turnpike Bill may be investigated in every line and syllable by this House, but treaties involving the greatest international obligations, treaties involving precious human lives, can be signed, sealed, and delivered, yet the people who are responsible for them know nothing whatever about them. They are kept in leading-strings by superior persons.

You would not endure that for a moment in regard to some petty Bill. Why do you endure it in matters which affect your children’s children? . . . There is a continuity of foreign policy and that foreign policy is deposited in the breasts of a certain distinct caste of statesmen like the Egyptian priests. I remember the late leader of the Opposition making a strong attack on the Radical party opposite. He had something unpleasant to say about every member of the Cabinet, but he excepted the Foreign Secretary, because the Foreign Secretary was carrying out the policy of Lord Lansdowne, and because there should be no discussion on these things. They were too high and mighty altogether for the poor ordinary man. I do not think so, and I do not believe the people of England think so. I do not think the representatives of the people are just to themselves or to their constituencies, if they do not see that at least we know, if this country is to go to war, the why and wherefore of it, and also if this country is to sign treaties.

Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 5th Series, xxxii, (A), cols. 2620-5; (B), cols. 2585-93.

121. The Manchester Guardian: Leading Article, 1 August 1914

There is in our midst an organised conspiracy to drag us into the war should the attempts of the peace-makers fail. . . . The objects of the conspirators are now openly avowed. We are to join in, not under certain conditions or in defence of this or that British interest which may happen to be threatened, but in any case. We are to do so for three reasons. The first is that we are bound in our own interests to maintain the balance of power in Europe. The second is that we are the protectors of the neutrality of Belgium. The third, that we are in honour bound to stand by our friends. Each of these reasons must be considered separately and tried not by tests of self-interest alone, but also by the highest standards of British honour. For we seek no peace except with honour intact.

The Balance of Power, as a doctrine of English policy, was responsible for the long feud with France in the 18th century, culminating in the war with Revolutionary France. It made the National Debt. It lost England the great lead that it had obtained in constitutional liberties and condemned us to the worst period of reaction in our history. . . . Its revival has been the work of the last seven to eight years and, we deeply regret to think, has been coincident with the access to power of the Liberal Government. We do not say that it has been its doing. The doctrine has at all times been the greatest enemy of progress. . . . But even if we admired the doctrine as much as we in fact detest it, it supplies no reason why we should take the side of Russia against Germany. If Russia wins, there will be the greatest disturbance of the Balance of Power that the world has ever seen. The whole condition of our continued existence as an Asiatic Power will have to be revised, and over all the world, wherever we come into contact with Russia, we shall have a repetition of the self-effacement which we have witnessed in Persia. The victory of Germany, on the other hand, would in effect be a victoiy for the principle of the Balance of Power. If we believe in this principle—which we do not—then we might be for intervention on the side of Germany. Because we do not believe in it we are able, without the least misgiving, to counsel neutrality as the right policy for this country.

Then we are to side with Russia against Germany because we are guarantors of the neutrality of Belgium, which, it is assumed, is in danger from Germany and from her alone. The Times has quoted the authority of Gladstone for this proposition. Now it is quite true that during the Franco-Prussian war Lord Granville concluded treaties with both France and Germany guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium. Article 3 of both treaties declares that they are to remain in force during the continuance of the war and for twelve months afterwards. Both treaties have, therefore, expired. But it will be said there are the earlier treaties of the ’forties in which we, in common with most of the Great Powers, guaranteed Belgian neutrality. Are we not bound by those? Let the great Lord Derby answer for us. He was asked in 1867 whether we were bound by a similar collective guarantee in the case of Luxembourg. He said No. ‘We are bound in honour—you cannot place a legal construction on it—to see, in concert with others, that these arrangements are maintained. But if the other Powers join with us it is certain that there will be no violation of neutrality. If they, situated exactly as we are, decline to join, we are not bound single-handed to make up the deficiency. Such a guarantee has obviously rather the character of a moral sanction to the arrangements which it defends than that of a contingent liability to make war. It would, no doubt, give a right to make war, but would not necessarily impose the obligation.’ And that is the view taken by most international lawyers. We are, therefore, absolutely free; there is no entanglement in Belgium.

Then is it honour that we must fight for? No, for honour’s sake we must keep the peace. There are, as Mr. Asquith and Sir E. Grey have both told us, no engagements with European Powers that should take away our perfect freedom of choice. . . . Being free as regards Europe, we are not free as regards our own people, but must decide in favour of neutrality. For if we decide differently then we violate dozens of promises made to our own people, promises to seek peace, to protect the poor, to husband the resources of the country, to promote peaceful progress.

The Manchester Guardian (1 August 1914).

122. SIR EDWARD GREY: Speech in the House of Commons, 3 August 1914

I come first to the question of British obligations. I have assured the House that if any crisis such as this arose, we should come before the House of Commons and be able to say to the House that it was free to decide what the British attitude should be, that we should have no secret engagement which we should spring upon the House, and tell the House that, because we had entered into that engagement, there was an obligation of honour upon the country. . . .

What the Prime Minister and I said to the House was perfectly justified, that, as regards our freedom to decide in a crisis what our line should be, whether we should intervene or whether we should abstain, the Government remained prefectly free and, a fortiori, the House of Commons remains perfectly free. . . .

For many years we have had a long-standing friendship with France. . . . But how far that friendship entails obligation, let every man look into his own heart and his own feelings and construe the extent of the obligation for himself. I construe it myself as I feel it, but I do not wish to urge upon anyone else more than their feelings dictate as to what they should feel about the obligation. The House, individually and collectively, may judge for itself. . . . The French fleet is in the Mediterranean, and has for some years been concentrated there because of the feeling of confidence and friendship which has existed between our two countries. My own feeling is that if a foreign fleet, engaged in a war which France had not sought and in which she had not been the aggressor, came down the English Channel and bombarded and battered the undefended coast of France, we could not stand aside and see this going on with our arms folded, looking on dispassionately, doing nothing. . . .

But I also want to look at the matter without sentiment and from the point of view of British interests, and it is on that that I am going to base and justify what I am presently going to say to the House. . . .

We have great and vital interests in the independence—and integrity is the least part—of Belgium. . . . Mr. Gladstone said: ‘We have an interest in the independence of Belgium which is wider than that which we may have in the literal operation of the guarantee. It is found in the answer to the question whether, under the circumstances of the case, this country, endowed as it is with influence and power, would quietly stand by and witness the perpetration of the direst crime that ever stained the pages of history, and thus become participators in the sin.’ . . .

I ask the House, from the point of view of British interests, to consider what may be at stake. If France is beaten in a struggle of life and death, beaten to her knees, loses her position as a Great Power, becomes subordinate to the will and power of one greater than herself—if that were to happen, if Belgium fell under the same dominating influence, and then Holland, and then Denmark, then would not Mr. Gladstone’s words come true,1 that just opposite to us there would be a common interest against the unmeasured aggrandisement of any Power?

It may be said, I suppose, that we might stand aside, husband our strength, and that whatever happened in the course of the war, at the end of it intervene with effect to put things right. . . . I do not believe for a moment that at the end of this war, even if we stood aside, we should be in a position to use our force decisively to undo what had happened in the course of war, to prevent the whole of the west of Europe opposite to us—if that has been the result of the war—falling under the domination of a single Power, and I am quite sure that our moral position would be such as to have lost us all respect. . . .

If we did take that line by saying, ‘We will have nothing at all to do with this matter’ under no conditions—the Belgian Treaty obligations, the possible position in the Mediterranean, with damage to British interests and what may happen to France from our failure to support France—if we were to say that all those things mattered nothing and to say that we should stand aside, we should, I believe, sacrifice our respect and good name and reputation before the world, and should not escape the most serious and grim economic consequences.

Speeches on Foreign Affairs, 1904–1914, by Sir Edward Grey, ed. Paul Knaplund (1931), pp. 297-315.