pernicious when applied to France as when applied to Germany. You have
made an agreement. You have signed and ratified a treaty; you are
internationally bound by that treaty. It is no use turning round and
with a new incarnation of the policy of the mailed fist threatening one
of your co-signatories that they are bound to abandon the rights which
you wrongly and foolishly gave to them under that treaty.

I am against a policy based on force as applied to Germany. I am equally
opposed to a policy based on force as applied to France. If we really
understand the creed for which we stand, we must aim at co-operation all
round. If we have made a mistake we must pay for it. If we are really
anxious to bring peace to the world, and particularly to Europe, we must
be prepared for sacrifices. We have got to establish economic peace, and
if we don't establish it in a very short time we shall be faced with
economic ruin. In the strictest, most nationalistic interests of this
country, we have to see that economic war comes to an end. We have got
to make whatever concessions are necessary in order to bring that peace
into being.


ECONOMIC PEACE

That is true not only of the reparation question; it is true of our
whole economic policy. We have been preaching to Europe, and quite
rightly, that the erection of economic barriers between countries is a
treachery to the whole spirit of the League of Nations, and all that it
means, and yet with these words scarcely uttered we turn round and pass
through Parliament a new departure in our economic system which is the
very contradiction of everything we have said in international
conference.