THE RIGHT CRUSADE
THE Labour Party's motion of censure in the House of Commons last Monday could have been the largest single contribution which _that Party has yet made to the frustration of a foreign policy in which its leaders believe and of which they themselves laid the foundations when in office. It could have done more than a hundred Mr. Bevans to injure the interests of this country and spread con- fusion among her allies. It was saved from this distinguished fate by its pathetically transparent character as a tactical move designed to facilitate the expulsion of Mr. Bevan by offer- , ing a courteous and meaningless tribute to the views of his disciples. Even they were not deceived, as Mr. Crossman's innocent humour showed, but they accepted the motion for what it was worth as a friendly gesture, proving that all opinions, if only they are politely expressed, stand an equal chance of being adopted by Mr. Attlee.
* * * As it is, therefore, no lasting harm has been done, a remarkable fact in view of the immense potentialities for harm which the motion's trite terms contained : had it been passed, had it even been taken as representing the sincere views of the Labour Party, it would in one blow have offended the Americans, the French and the Germans, and possibly destroyed all hope of securing the ratification of the Paris agreements. Of course, the three-power conference which it demanded could not have taken place, since the USA would not agree to it before ratification, but the knowledge that a substantial body of opinion in Britain really favoured negotia- tions with Russia now would have strengthened all the forces working for delay in the completion of NATO's defence preparations, including those who regard delay as the best way of accomplishing their disruption. Of course, even if a three-power conference could be summoned at once it would only reproduce at a less technically expert level the discussions already going on about the possibility of nuclear disarmament, discussions which are lent a certain air of unreality by the knowledge that any effective system of international control is scientifically as well as politically impossible. It was little wonder that Mr. Attlee felt obliged to add what looked like a harmless little practical suggestion, in the best British tradi- tion, to the pointless and blundering course recommended in the motion. Accordingly, he suggested that scientists on both sides of the Iron Curtain should make known their views on the possible effects of nuclear experiments on the health of the human race. This sort of thing would do from Lord Russell in a BBC broadcast, but when it comes from the leader of the Opposition it should arouse, in a nation' of sportsmen, feelings of pathos rather than contempt. Suffice it to say that anything which any scientist can reveal on this interesting topic will be received with gratitude and with whatever degree of credulity his reputation and the extent to which he is free to speak his mind may inspire.
On the main issue which is troubling the conscience of the Labour Party and, it is to be hoped, that of the Government as well, the circumstances in which the hydrogen bomb ought to be used, the motion could say nothing, since, on that point, Labour is divided into a bewildering number of different schools of thought with only one feature in common, the general incomprehensibility of their respective views. Mr. Bevan, for example, is not a pacifist or a Communist: if Western Europe were attacked, he would want to defend it. He would not, however, want to use the hydrogen bomb to defend it unless the Russians used it first; nor does he want to use German divisions to defend it; nor has he ever shown much sign of favouring high expenditure by the NATO powers on conventional armaments. The only weapon left to him, it would appear, is eloquence. No one would Impute to Sir Richard Acland any but the most creditable motives for his courageous act of dissent, the reasons for which he giVes with impressive sincerity on another page this week, yet even his views are surrounded by a good deal of ambiguity. It is probably true that the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb by Britain would add little to the striking power of the NATO alliance, but Britain cannot escape moral responsibility for the methods used in defending her merely by allowing an ally to pay for them, nor is she likely to be able to exercise the priestly role of offering 'sympathy and understanding as well as con- structive criticism and forgiveness' with much effect in the USA if she can be represented there as a subject of protection rather than an ally. Sir Richard's views lead logically to pacifism and neutralism, inferences which it will be his duty to draw from them in the course of his Gravesend campaign.
The tragedy is that neither the Government nor the Labour leaders who, on the essentials of the matter, think with one mind even when they speak with two voices, are facing the tremendous implications of this horrifying question. If Western Europe were now attacked with conventional weapons alone, it could not be defended without immediate recourse to hydrogen bombs. If such an attack were delivered we should use hydrogen bombs, because we believe with some cause that even if these islands were eliminated in the process, the Western powers would win the war. Civilisation would not be extinguished, as Sir Winston in pursuit of a favourite line of oratory says it would, but would survive somewhere on the face of the earth to be laboriously repaired by another succession of suffering and hoping generations. This is the grim reality which must be overcome. No comfort is to be derived from the hopes shared by Sir Winston and Mr. Attlee that war is now so horrible that it may be abolished for they assume the rationality of men. The only remaining hope is that both sides in a future war might refrain from fear of reprisals from using the most devastating weapons at their disposal. The first condition of realising this hope is that the Western powers should be in a position to defend themselves with conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. holding their hydrogen bombs in reserve as deterrents. Unless the Govern- ment is pursuing this end, there is no real case for the rearma- ment of Germany. But the Government stubbornly refuses to admit the possibility even in the remote future of a non- hydrogen major war. Even Captain Liddell Hart's extreme pro- posals for a radical reduction of conventional armaments and a virtually complete dependence on the hydrogen bomb, do not arise, as his letter in last week's Spectator makes clear, from the view that a major war fought without hydrogen bombs is in its nature impossible; his contention is simply that NATO Governments have decided on the use of hydrogen bombs, and that our preparations must follow from this deci- sion; but, as Professor Gibbs points out, that decision may yet be a grave embarrassment to both statesmen and soldiers. It is hard to imagine a price too high for delivering the world from the certainty that another major war would be a hydrogen war, even though the certainty that it would not can never be achieved and even though we kept the Russians guessing, as we should, about the precise circumstances in which we might decide to employ our hydrogen reserve. The need therefore is to provide the powerful conventional (including tactical- nuclear) weapons that have been lacking in the past. This is the crusade which Sir Richard Acland ought to be fighting.
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