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really serious gain, to introduce a new disturbing element. We have, Heaven knows, disturbances sufficiently great already. Look where you will, at the condition of what country you will on this side of the Atlantic, and you will feel that the last course which any responsible statesman would like to make is one which, without adequate object, will add a new source of disturbance to this over-disturbed world.

What are you going to gain by breaking off relations as so many of my friends desire? It is very dubious whether you would be effectively able to prevent funds being brought into this country. I should like to ask financial experts, if any are present, what they think of that matter, but I want to remind the House that all these contributions from foreign sources to the coal strike are going to have no effect upon the result of the coal strike-no important effect. The money, I understand, is to be distributed to the women and children of the strikers. Out of public funds at this moment we contribute to support the women and children of the strikers incomparably far more than you are getting or are ever going to get from any foreign source of contribution. The £480,000 which we are told to be the sum which has been brought over sinks into insignificance beside the funds which, as I have already said, are contributed by local authorities for the purpose of diminishing the hardships of the wives and children.

May I say in this connection that I cannot imagine, while we are talking of diminishing the suffering of the women and children of the coal miners, why we hear so very little of the women and children who suffer indirectly from the coal strike. Their husbands and fathers are in no sense responsible for the sufferings which they undergo, but—I dare say that something is being doneI have never heard any loud appeals on their behalf, and certainly of no contributions from Soviet resources to the innocent victims of those trades which are brought to an end by this unhappy quarrel between employers and employed in the coal trade. Yet far more do I pity them, and they more than anybody else deserve the sympathy and assistance which the liberality of the philanthropist may desire to bestow. Therefore I think that from the point of view of the actual coal strike it is very easy to exaggerate the effect which would be produced by stopping these funds, even if you can stop them, and even if more funds are to come, of which I have considerable doubt.

I had an argument which I wanted to lay before your Lordships in this connection, but it has escaped me for the moment. There is, however, one point connected with the subject on which I was occupied-namely, the subscriptions to this fund, which I think is worth the consideration of the recipients of the $480,000 in this country. Either that money comes from the Soviet Government as a direct interference by the Soviet Government with our affairs, or, as the other side maintain, it is a contribution by workers in Russia, moved by the sufferings of their fellow-workers in Great Britain, who have spontane. ously out of their resources done what they could to alleviate the distress of the miners in this country. If it is the first, how can any loyal Englishman accept it? If this be, as most of us think it is, a direct attempt on the part of the Soviet Government to inflict such injury upon British industry as may produce a condition of unemployment, of industrial unrest and discontent, as will bring nearer the day for which they long, namely, the day in which we are to be reduced to the level which they have attained. If that is the object, I cannot conceive that there is a citizen of this country who would not imitate the action taken by the trade unions in this country of refusing the gift.

If it is the other, if we are to take the other alternative, if these really are contributions from men who, I suppose, do not receive more than 12s. per week on the average, to men whose wages range, I suppose, between 45s. and 75s.—if that is the state of things, to what level are we reduced? We are told that

we are endeavouring to lower the standard of living in this country. The people whose standard of living we are most falsely accused of desiring to lower have wages many times the amount of those who, from abroad, are contributing. Why is not this money used to raise the standard of living in Russia? There is no explanation of that, except that it is not to raise the standard of living in any part of the world that the Soviet Government are out for. They are out for universal revolution. Once adopt that theory and the whole of their policy becomes plain and obvious. What about the policy of those who direct the action of the miners in this country? Are they out for general revolution ? LORD NEWTON: Some of them are.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR: There may be, here and there, men who are out for revolution, but I am convinced that the mass of the miners in this country, as of all citizens in this country, are really fundamentally opposed to that method of operation, and would be horrified if they thought that the result of their action would be that they were to be reduced to the condition in which the Russian worker finds himself, whether from an industrial or a political point of view. Neither their welfare nor their freedom would be promoted by action like that, and I am very much surprised that a comparison between his lot and that of his brother operative or brother miner in the Near East has never occurred to the British miner as a reason why, if monetary assistance is to flow from one to the other, it should not flow from the richer to the poorer instead of from the much poorer to the much richer.

I have attempted quite plainly and explicitly to state my views, which I hope and believe are the views of many of your Lordships, upon the actual naked facts of the situation. I do not know how the situation will develop, but I cannot see what would be gained at the present time by breaking off relations with Russia. That carries with it obvious dangers. Does it carry with it any obvious advantages? If it does, I fail to see them. I think that, at all events until the situation develops in the manner in which I earnestly hope it will not develop, we should go on diplomatically as we are going on now. Nothing is gained by these formal gestures which show that we greatly disapprove of people whose actions we cannot in any way control. It is an operation which carries with it no substantial advantages. It may give you the excitement at the moment of some effective proceeding, but it is utterly ineffective, it leads to nothing good, and unquestionably, if I may repeat myself, I do think the condition of the world, the condition at least of the European world, at this moment requires us to walk in all these international matters with a very cautious tread.

Therefore, until it can be shown that some clear advantage is obtained by an alteration of our formal relations with Russia, I am in favour of leaving things as they are, having quite explicitly explained to anybody who cares to listen to our explanations that we are not dupes of Russian policy, having made it perfectly clear that we know what they desire, why they desire it, how they intend to aim at it, by what means they intend to attain it. On our part, we are confident that, with this nation behind us, with its traditions, its common sense, its love of law, its power of seeing to the essentials of a question through all the mists of arguments by which it may be surrounded, we have nothing to fear from the contrivances and intrigues of any nation under Heaven. I do not know whether my noble friend will be satisfied with my answer, but I have endeavoured without disguise to explain to him and to your Lordships the manner in which I venture to survey the subject.

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