promise, which I need not summarise because they were in each case inadequate and stillborn. I did not think that their diplomacy in this respect was wise; and in my various interviews with the German Ambassador I never failed to impress upon him this point of view and to urge that the duty of his Government was threefold: (1) to pay their just debts, (2) to agree to the fixation of the payments by competent authority, (3) to offer specific and adequate guarantees. Simultaneously His Majesty's Government never wavered in the assertion of their broad and general loyalty to the Entente, and more than once indicated to the French Government that, if security rather than, or in addition to, reparations was in their mind, we should at any time be willing to discuss it. The first definite move, again halting and ill-conceived, was made by Germany in the opening days of May last. It was promptly turned down with scorn by France and Belgium and met with no approval from us. Then in response to a suggestion made by His Majesty's Government their second offer of the 7th June came. This was more substantial; for the German Government now offered to accept the decision of an impartial international body as to the amount and methods of payment, they proposed certain specific guarantees, and they asked for a Conference to work out a definite. scheme. Here at least seemed to His Majesty's Government to be both the chance of progress and the material for a reply. Prolonged conversations with our French and Belgian Allies left their views and intentions veiled in some obscurity and accordingly we decided, with their knowledge, to draw up the draft of a joint reply, with a view to securing the inestimable advantage of concerted action.

By this time the question of passive resistance, which had been continued with unabated intensity and had baffled all the French expectations, had assumed the first place in the outlook of our Allies, and M. Poincaré more than once laid down with uncompromising clearness that not until it was abandoned would he enter into discussions as to the future. For our part we continued to give advice in a similar sense to the German Government; and in the draft reply which we submitted, its abandonment, entailing the gradual resumption of civil administration and the progressive evacuation of the Ruhr, was put in the forefront of our scheme. In our explanatory letter to the Allies we further made concrete proposals, viz., for the examination by a body of impartial experts, acting in conjunction with, and if necessary under the orders of, the Reparations Commission, of the question of German capacity and modes of payment, a similar examination into the question of the proposed guarantees, and the summoning of an Inter-Allied Conference to bring about a general financial settlement. I do not think, therefore, that it can be said of His Majesty's Government that they were either backward in initiative or barren of suggestion; and certainly our proposals appeared to us to be characterised both by impartiality and goodwill. They were unfortunate, however, in receiving an unfavourable reply from France, and a not much more favourable reply from Belgium. These replies have been published to the world, and I need not

recapitulate their nature. It is enough to say that not until passive resistance was definitely abandoned by Germany would our Allies agree to make any move; our proposal for an expert enquiry was rejected; the French and Belgian claims for repayment were restated in unqualified form. I confess that my colleagues and I were greatly disappointed at the result of our sincere but thankless intervention. Once more we stated our case in the British Note of the 11th August, a note revised with meticulous care, first by the Cabinet and then by the Prime Minister and myself, and once again we offered as the price of a settlement to cancel the whole of our claims except for the sum of £710 millions sterling to meet our debt to the United States Government. Moreover, if we could get a portion of the sum from German reparations, our demands upon our Allies would be proportionately reduced. The replies of the French and Belgian Governments have been published. They indicated not the faintest advance from the position already taken up. Our capacity for useful intervention was manifestly exhausted.

Meanwhile, as time passed, it became apparent that the German Government could not, even if they desired, persist in the policy of passive resistance; and at length, only a week ago, Herr Stresemann, who had succeeded Dr. Cuno a few weeks earlier, decided to surrender. I think myself that this surrender should have been made three months ago and was unwisely and foolishly postponed. But I have always been told, and I suspect that it is the truth, that no German Government could at that time have survived which made the surrender. Whether Herr Stresemann, who had the courage and the wisdom to take this step, will survive is uncertain as I speak these words.

And now what is the point to which we have come? We do not grudge our Allies the victory--if victory it be. On the contrary we welcome, just as we have for long ourselves advised, it. But are we any nearer to settlement? Will the reparation payments begin to flow in? What is the new form of civil administration or organisation that is to be applied to the Ruhr? These are questions which it is vital to put, and vital also to answer.

One of the results at any rate that we anticipated has already been brought about. For we see the beginnings of that internal disruption which we have all along feared, but which we have been consistently told to regard as a bogey. And let it be remembered that disruption is not merely an ominous political sympton. It has a portentous economic significance, for it may mean the ultimate disappearance of the debtor himself.

What therefore should be the next step? I have made no concealment of our view in my conversations with the French Ambassador, and it has the approval of the Prime Minister, who recently did so much by his visit to Paris to recreate a friendly atmosphere after the rather heated discharge of the rival guns. We have repeatedly been assured by the French Government that, as soon as passive resistance definitely ceased, the time for discussion between the Allies would have come. So far as I can gather, the German Government are sincere in their intentions, and have

taken the steps required of them. What may be the attitude of the local population in the Ruhr I cannot say. But if the French contention be valid that it is only in obedience to orders from Berlin that they have hitherto resisted, there should be no difficulty about their conduct now. I would merely remark that, while passive resistance has, as we hoped and desired, been replaced by passive assistance, it may be too much to expect it to be followed all in a flash by enthusiastic co-operation.

The French Government know therefore that we await and expect the next proposals from them. The contingency of the cessation of passive resistance must have long been anticipated at the Quai d'Orsay, and the consequent measures doubtless exist in outline if not in detail. We shall be quite ready to receive and to discuss them in a friendly spirit. Our position at Cologne in the occupied area gives us a right to be consulted in any local arrangements that may be proposed, and that position we have no intention to abandon. Our reparation claim, willing as we have been to pare it down in the interests of settlement, renders it impossible that any such settlement could be reached without our co-operation. Our stake in the economic recovery of Europe, which affects us as closely, and in some respects more so, than the immediate neighbour of Germany, makes us long for an issue. We have already shown our willingness, by unexampled concessions, to contribute to it.

APPENDIX IV.

SPEECHES REGARDING THE WORK OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, OCTOBER 11, 1923.

STATEMENT BY LORD ROBERT CECIL, K.C., M.P., LORD PRIVY SEAL AND BRITISH REPRESENTATIVE ON THE COUNCIL OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Lord Robert Cecil: Prime Minister, I am in a little physical difficulty and I hope the Conference will pardon me if my statement appears to be inadequate to the importance of the cause.

I propose, with your permission, to deal a little generally with the topic of the League and not merely to confine myself to the particular issue of the Italo-Greek crisis, unless the Conference desires me to do so.

I do not propose to give you, or attempt to give you, a review of the history of the League proceedings during the last few years,

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because, in the first place, I have so recently joined the Government that I should not be qualified to do it from the inside point of view, and from every other point of view everybody is equally qualified with myself, because the whole of the proceedings, as you know, are always published either immediately or at a very short interval after they have taken place.

Aims and Position of League.

What I would like to try to do, if I may, is to make some kind of estimate of the present position of the League and what place it ought to occupy, and does occupy, in the foreign policy of the Empire. And it is necessary, though I should have hoped it would not have been, to begin by one or two elementary observations, owing to certain criticisms from highly-placed quarters, which have been passed on the recent proceedings of the League. It seems necessary to emphasise once again that the League is not a super-State and it is not there to give laws to the world; it is not an organisation which either legislates for or administers other countries, nor is it a mere debating society, a collection of more or less eminent persons who go there to indulge in futile oratory. I think it may be defined as an international organisation, to consider and discuss and agree upon international action and the settlement of international difficulties and disputes. Its method is not, therefore, the method of coercive government; it is a method of consent and its executive instrument is not force, but public opinion. Now, I am sorry to insist upon what to many of my hearers must be very elementary observations, and I only do so, because, in connection with this crisis, there was published a very strong criticism of the League and the action of the British representatives, on the authority of an ex-Prime Minister, which seemed to me to show that there was a considerable misapprehension, even in the highest quarters, of what the League really strives to do.

Object of League is to promote Agreement among Nations.

The League's business is not to impose a settlement, even when a controversy is brought before it; it is to promote agreement. The recent controversy was brought before the League under Article 15, as I shall show in a minute, and its business was to get a settlement of the controversy and an agreement of the parties, and, if they did not agree, there was no power under the Covenant, nor would it have been at all in accordance with the general principles of the League, for the League to attempt to enforce what the Council of the League might think was the proper settlement. As everybody. I imagine, in this room knows quite well, there is only one occasion in which, under the Covenant, forcs is to be used, i.e., under Article 16, and the object of that is not to enforce any particular settlement or a particular action, but to prevent nations from fighting, especially until an opportunity has been given for discussion, and consideration, and agreement.

is rather important, I think, that that should be realised in considering the actions of the League, and not least its action in connection with this Italian-Greek crisis. There ought to be no doubt about it, because the very words of the Preamble describe its objects" To promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security." Those are the two objects of the League and they are to be accomplished, as I say, by inducing the nations to agree and act together, and not by any attempt by a group of nations, or by the majority of the League, to enforce on any particular nation any particular line of conduct which is approved.

Results already Achieved.

Now I would like-I will be as brief as I can just to ask whether this conception, because it is necessary to ask it in view of what has recently been said in some quarters, whether this conception has, in fact, worked out successfully. Let me just take the first object of the Preamble-international co-operation. I do not think the severest criticism of the League will deny it has achieved an immense amount of co-operation of the most valuable kind and of the most multifarious description. I only propose to mentionI do not propose to discuss or describe-what it has done, but, when we come to consider the enormous number of different ways in which it has acted in order to promote international co-operation, I think there will be no doubt in the minds of anybody in this room that it has carried out this part of its duty with very remarkable success. Take its humanitarian exertions: the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, the relief of hundreds of thousands of refugees, the organisation of a defence against the epidemics from the east of Europe, achieved with very little expense and with absolutely complete success. Or you may take its social activities the great efforts and the successful efforts it has made to strengthen the fight against opium, to extirpate the horrible traffic in women and children, which is one of the disgraces of our civilisation, the assisting and protection of native races, and a very large part of its work which is subsidiary to the League, but in a sense a part of it, its work in the International Labour Organisation.

Or you may take its economic work: the great amount of work it has already done to facilitate the increase of transit between nations, or the smaller matters that it has had something to do with, to relieve the hindrance caused by passport regulations, or the work which it has done quite lately, the other day, to induce the nations to agree on a convention for the enforcement of commercial arbitration, a thing of immense importance to the commercial interest all over the world. Or you may take its financial work: I need not go back on the old Brussels Conference of 1920, although I still think that was a very considerable effort towards the financial re-establishment of the world, and that it deserved better practical success than it actually achieved. Or you may take the better known and more striking success, the very, very considerable steps that have been taken towards the financial rehabilitation of Austria, very remarkable work-I have not time