(Carbon copy of a typed original.)
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Transcript
Sept. 1925.
30 Nations to Meet
By F. W. Pethick-Lawrence, M.P.
To the average Englishman who hasn’t travelled America is a unitary abstraction. The country, the people, the government are all one. He groups Americans all together for approval or condemnation. He may say “I like Americans, in business they come straight to the point and in private life they are warmhearted and generous”; or he may take an opposite standpoint.
The same Englishman never regards his own countrymen in the same way. He does not say he likes or dislikes English people; he likes Smith and disapproves of Brown. He defends the British Government if it belongs to his own party and condemns its every act if it is not. Pretty much the same difference in outlook will be found I imagine in the untravelled man or woman in every country.
This crude illusion about foreign peoples is accentuated by the fact that the most widely advertised intercourse between nations is conducted by their Governments. “Britain takes such and such a view” say the American papers; “America thinks this” say the British. If those views are in disaccord there will be friction and possibly even strife, while all the time innumerable links could be forged between individual Americans and English people of every diverse shade of opinion.
A big step forward, however, in dispelling this illusion should result from the great international gathering which is taking place during the early part of October in Washington. By the courteous Hospitality of the United States Government the Inter-Parliamentary Union is holding there in the Capitol its 23rd conference. Over 40 British Members of Parliament are crossing the ocean specially for the occasion, and in addition deputies from some thirty other nations are expected to take part.
The essential feature of this Union is that membership of it is open to any man or woman who is a member of any self-governing Parliament in any part of the world. While therefore at the assemblies of the League of Nations and the Pan American Union the delegates represent Governments only (that is to say the majority party in each country) and their pronouncements are necessarily official, at this gathering will come together men and women of all parties direct—representatives of the peoples, who will speak for themselves and their constituents.
The gain will be enormous. In the public sessions where questions of public importance will be openly discussed there will be the opportunity of appreciating the general accord, and of hearing points of view expressed which are quite unknown outside the country in which they are held. There is no need to stress here the subjects which have been selected for discussion. International law, tariffs, national minorities, dangerous drugs, armaments, the parliamentary system etc. are all to be debated and provide ample ground for divergent views.
Still more important in my opinion will be the social gatherings and the little private parties where in the genial atmosphere of a meal and a bottle—of water—protagonists of definite opinions will find common ground with similar thinkers in other lands. These will be of special service in uniting the different parts of the English-speaking world, for with no barrier of language to divide us we ought to have no difficulty in reaching a clear and sympathetic understanding of one another’s point of view.
We shall I hope discuss informally not only such external questions as debts, immigration, tariffs etc. but also some of the internal problems which are absorbing attention at home—the changes in industrial outlook and in the relationship of the classes to one another, the tragedy of unemployment and the burdens of taxation. Some of us will remember the wise words uttered by our British Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman to the Union when it met in London in 1906:—
“This gathering is unofficial. In addressing you I feel that I am not so much speaking to the representatives of divers States of Europe and America as to the exponents of principles and hopes that are common to us all and without which our life on earth would be a life without horizon or prospect.”
From my knowledge of the British contingent I should say that it may be taken as fairly representative of British thought with perhaps a slight exaggeration of conservative opinion. There are imperialists and pacifists, protectionists and free traders, right and left wing Conservatives, Liberals, Labourmen, and one Communist. Some of the extremists at either end hold views which are abhorrent to another, and in some cases even to the moderate men in the middle. But that is all to the good if America wants to have a true cross section of English thought. How far each of our group will find kindred spirits among his American colleagues or in those of other lands, time alone can show.
The question is sometimes asked whether any definite concrete results are likely to emerge from the conference. This is impossible to answer for one never knows in advance what important use may be made of the Union’s Activities. In past years more than one valuable international convention has been taken over from a draft which a Committee of the Union had originally prepared.
Equally is it impossible to forecast the ultimate form which the Union itself will take. When Simon de Montfort caused the first assembly of barons knights and burgesses of England to take place in Leicester, the city which I represent in the British Parliament, he could not foresee that his institution would survive in England for centuries and be copied all over the world. In the same way we cannot tell to-day how far our Inter-Parliamentary Union may be the germ out of which a real international Parliament may spring.
What we do know with certainty is that the various nations of the world have crying need of one another. They need to reason together with sympathetic understanding if war is really to be outlawed. For behind the accords of Governments must lie the friendships of the peoples. But above and beyond this they need to pool their ideas and spiritual resources if the common problems which beset humanity are to be solved, and mankind is to be guided along a road which leads to a brighter day.
