“Now the war has come, and when it is over let us be careful not to make the same mistake or the same sort of mistake as Germany made when she had France prostrate at her feet in 1870. [Cheers.] Let us, whatever we do, fight for and work towards great and sound principles for the European system, and the first of those principles which we should keep before us is the principle of nationality—that is to say, not the conquest or subjugation of any great community, or of any strong race of men, but the setting free of those races which have been subjugated and conquered; and if doubt arises about disputed areas of country we should try to settle their ultimate destination in the reconstruction of Europe which must follow from this war with a fair regard to the wishes and feelings of the people who live in them.”
One nation must not be allowed to dominate another.
We agree with Mr. Churchill that the terms of peace should secure that there shall in the future be no more Alsace-Lorraines to create during half a century resentment, unrest, and intrigues for a revanche. The power of the victorious parties must not be used for vindictive oppression and dismemberment of beaten nationalities, but for the creation, by cooperation with all the belligerents, victors and vanquished alike, of a true society of nations, banded together for mutual security. The future relationship of the States of Europe must be not that of victor and vanquished, domination or subserviency, but of partnership. The struggle of one nation for domination over another must be replaced by the association of the people for their common good.
II
No Treaty, Arrangement, or Undertaking shall be entered upon in the name of Great Britain without the sanction of Parliament. Adequate machinery for ensuring democratic control of foreign policy shall be created.
Secret diplomacy must go.
The peoples of all constitutionally-governed countries are justified in demanding that diplomatic relations with their neighbors shall be conducted with the main object of maintaining friendly international intercourse. The increasing social and economic interdependence, the ramifications of the credit system, the facility and rapidity of intercommunication, the developing community of intellectual interest, the growth of a collective social consciousness, are combining to minimize the significance of the purely political frontiers which divide civilized States. For these reasons the world is moving towards conferences when political difficulties arise as a substitute for war. The determination to preserve national ideals and traditions offers no real obstacle. But the common interest of civilized democracies cannot be advanced by a secret diplomacy out of touch with democratic sentiment.
The anomaly of such practises in a democratic State has only to be understood to be condemned. All the domestic activities of a constitutional Government are tested in the crucible of public analysis and criticism. But the Government department charged with the supervision of the nation’s intercourse with its neighbors, which if wrongly handled may react with ruinous effect upon the whole field of its domestic activities and upon the future of its entire social economy, not only escapes efficient public control, but considers itself empowered to commit the nation to specific courses and to involve it in obligations to third parties entailing the risk of war, without the nation’s knowledge of consent.
British foreign policy has been autocratic.