Stanley Baldwin

“ There came a feeling, which I know is felt in all quarters of this House, that if our civilisation is to be saved, even at its present level, it behoves all people in all nations to do what they can by joining hands to save what we have, that we may use it as the vantage ground for further progress, rather than run the risk of all of us sliding in the abyss together. ”

“ That is the appalling speed which the air has brought into modern warfare; the speed of the attack. The speed of the attack, compared with the attack of an army, is as the speed of a motor-car to that of a four-in-hand. In the next war you will find that any town within reach of an aerodrome can be bombed within the first five minutes of war to an extent inconceivable in the last War, and the question is, Whose morale will be shattered quickest by that preliminary bombing? ”

“ It is a great instrument, not only in its size, and its population, and its wealth, but more than ever a great instrument in this, that it is not only an Empire, but it is a large assembly of free nations, not all of the same kin or the same tongue, but animated largely by a common purpose, and all alike equally desirous of seeing extended in every corner of that Empire or Commonwealth those ideas of liberty, and justice, and freedom which we believe are in our hearts, and which we hope to see spread throughout our Empire and throughout the world. ”

“ One cannot help reflecting that during the tens or hundreds of millions of years in which the human race has been on this earth, it is only within our generation that we have secured the mastery of the air, and, I do not know how the youth of the world may feel, but it is no cheerful thought to the older men that having got that mastery of the air we are going to defile the earth from the air as we have defiled the soil for nearly all the years that mankind has been on it. ”

“ That is, to attempt a settlement of these existing problems of Reparation, and in taking that step I am animated by as ardent a desire that it may lead ultimately, and at no distant date, to the consideration of these questions which we have been discussing to-day, as I am desirous of it leading to a discussion and settlement of those questions which have kept the countries of Europe apart during all the years which have succeeded the Great War. Let us never forget that sometimes in the darkest day the beginnings of better things are not only attempted but successfully achieved. ”

“ At any rate, if it does come we shall be too old to be of use to anyone. But what about the younger men, they who will have to fight out this bloody issue of warfare; it is really for them to decide. They are the majority on the earth. It touches them more closely. The instrument is in their hands. [House: “Hear, hear”.]
There are some instruments so terrible that mankind has resolved not to use them. I happen to know myself of at least three inventions deliberately proposed for use in the last War and which were never used. ”

“ Very little, if anything has been said to-day about one of the greatest difficulties which we find facing us in dealing with this question, and that is that fighting instinct which is part of human nature. I propose to say a few words about that first, with a view to explaining how, in my view, we have to attempt to eradicate it, or, at least, to combat it, so as to produce that will to peace without which all efforts by legislation, arbitration, rule or otherwise, must be vain. That fighting instinct in man is the instinct of the tiger. ”

“ In that collection of nations, which now spreads throughout the world, there is something of hope for the human race, because though it may seem a dream, it may yet some day be possible for peoples in so distracted a Continent as Europe to feel there may be something for them to learn from the development, from the union, and from the ideals of our great Empire, and we may possibly be able to show them a better way, which in years to come they may tread, and find the solution that to-day seems so difficult. ”

“ I am firmly convinced, and have been for some time, that if it is possible the air forces of the world ought to be abolished, but if they are you have got civil aviation, and in civil aviation you have your potential bombers. ”

“ As I say, the future is in their hands, but when the next war comes and European civilization is wiped out, as it will be and by no force more than by that force, then do not let them lay the blame on the old men, but let them remember that they principally and they alone are responsible for the terrors that have fallen on the earth. ”

“ I can promise, at least for this Government, and I am certain that the same will be true of all the leading Governments of Europe, that the work that the League of Nations has done, the form in which their work will be presented, will be examined, not only with the sympathy and the interest that such work deserves, but with an earnest desire, at the first moment when it appears to be practicable, that the aims of the League, if not in the exact form in which they have suggested they should be brought about, shall be brought into effect in Europe. ”

“ What more potent cause of fear can there be than this kind of thing that is going on on the Continent? And fear is a very dangerous thing. It is quite true that it may act as a deterrent in people’s minds against war, but it is much more likely to make them want to increase armaments to protect them against the terrors that they know may be launched against them. ”

“ The conscience of the world is not stilled yet, but on the Government side of the House there rests a responsibility which cannot, in the nature of things, be felt by those who sit in opposition. We have to remember that a great deal of what has been said to-day, and if I may use the phrase in all good faith, some of the dreams which have been mentioned to-day are no new thing. ”

“ But what you can do by disarmament, and what we all hope to do, is to make war more difficult. It is to make it more difficult to start; it is to make it pay less to continue; and to that I think we ought to direct our minds. ”

“ It dates from his creation, and was probably given to him to enable him to fight for the survival of his species, for the provision of space in which to bring up his race, and to provide food for it; and we find through the ages that that instinct, whether in democracy or empire, or among individuals, has had full play. We find it even among men whose political views can be classed as pacifist, and that is the reason why we have often found in history that men of pacifist views were advocating policies which must end, if carried to their logical conclusion, in war. ”

“ As far as the air is concerned there is, as has been most truly said, no way of complete disarmament except the abolition of flying. We have never known mankind to go back on a new invention. It might be a good thing for this world, as I heard some of the most distinguished men in the air service say, if men had never learned to fly. ”

“ In the same way some of those to-day who are loudest in their protestations of international pacifism are loudest in their protestations that nothing but a class war can save society. No truer word was ever said by a philosopher than was said by Kant, a century ago or more, that we are civilised to the point of wearisomeness, but before we can be amoralised we have a long way to go. ”

“ Imagine 100 cubic miles covered with cloud and fog, and you can calculate how many aeroplanes you would have to throw into that to have much chance of catching odd aeroplanes as they fly through it. It cannot be done, and there is no expert in Europe who will say that it can. The only defence is in offence, which means that you have got to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves. ”

“ It is to moralise the world that we all desire, and I have merely mentioned these innate characteristics of human nature to make us realise, as I think we sometimes fail to do, what difficulties there are before us in carrying out a policy with which everyone in this House is in sympathy. ”

“ Disarmament, in my view, will not stop war; it is a matter of the will to peace.
It is often said that two natural instincts make for the preservation of the race — reproduction of the species and the preservation of the species by fighting for safety. The right hon. gentleman is perfectly right. That fighting instinct, although he did not say it, is the oldest instinct we have in our nature ”

“ We realise that when men have their backs to the wall they will adopt any means for self-preservation. But there was left behind an uncomfortable feeling in the hearts of millions of men throughout Europe that, whatever had been the result of the War, we had all of us slipped down in our views of what constituted civilisation. ”

“ I have sat continuously for 10 years on that Committee, except during the period when the present Opposition were in power, and there is no subject that interests me more deeply nor which is more fraught with the ultimate well or ill being of the human race. ”

“ But now, in addition to this, they suffered from the constant fear not only of being killed themselves, but, what is perhaps worse for a man, of seeing his wife and children killed from the air. These feelings exist among the ordinary people throughout the whole of the civilized world, but I doubt if many of those who have that fear realize one or two things with reference to the cause of that fear. ”

“ But, taking into full consideration these points, on which I have touched somewhat summarily, I think there are compensations, and I think before I have finished I shall be able to show that the human race is progressing, though slowly, and is full of a conscious, though hardly as yet articulate, desire for further progress in the same direction. ”

“ Potent to a degree and, indeed, I wondered at the conscience of the world. If the conscience of the young men will ever come to feel that in regard to this one instrument the thing will be done. But if they do not feel like that ... ”

“ Yet I do say this, that when we are sufficiently fortunate, as I pray we may be, to have seen brought about, with our aid, such a settlement in European conditions as I indicated earlier on, then the time will be ripe and we shall be ready to take our part, in so far as we can, whether through such schemes as have been proposed already or through others, in bringing about that limitation of armaments which we believe to be essential for the future progress of civilised mankind. ”

“ In my view, it is necessary for the nations of the world concerned to devote the whole of their mind to this question of civil aviation, to see if it is possible so to control civil aviation that such disarmament would be feasible. I say the nations concerned, because this is a subject on which no nation that has no air force or no air sense has any qualification to express a view ”

“ This is a question for young men far more than it is for us. They are the men who fly in the air, and future generations will fly in the air more and more. Few of my colleagues around me here will see another great war. ”

“ Members that there was a considerable agitation some little time ago, with which I personally had great sympathy, and which was conducted very largely by those who, in all other respects, were of a peculiarly pacific turn of mind, and that was that this country-if there is any work to be done in this world, it is always our country, and I am thankful for that-that this country should in some way or other rescue Armenia. ”

“ He expressed a fear — a very natural and proper fear — lest we, with a comparatively small air force among the large air forces of the world, should disarm from that point, and the vast difference between our strength and that of some other countries would remain relatively as great as it was to-day. That kind of disarmament does not recommend itself to the Government. ”

“ We have made our investigations much more quietly, and hitherto without any publicity, but considering the years that are required to make preparations any Government of this country in the present circumstances of the world would have been guilty of criminal negligence had they neglected to make their preparations. ”