It was clear, when Mr. Noel Baker rose to oppose,
that the Labour Party intended to raise the whole question of intervention, and that what they now wanted was definite support from Great Britain for the Spanish Government. It was not an easy line to defend, and some of the Opposition arguments, if carried to their logical conclusion, would have brought the Labour Party into odd company. For instance, Mr. Noel Baker quoted with approval the statement of the United States Secretary of State on the Brazilian revolution that the legitimate Government must always be supported. Challenged by a Liberal National back-bencher as to whether " he would apply that principle to the Nazis if there was a rebellion against the Nazi Government in Germany." Mr. Baker replied, " with the utmost candour," that he believed in " the mutual respect of differing regimes," and that " the principle was embodied in Article X of the Covenant." But if legitimacy is always to be respected, rebellion must always be put down with the assistance of foreign Powers. On that basis the British Government would have been under an obligation to supply muskets for the defence of the Bastille, and Canning was wrong in countenancing the Spanish rebels in South America and " calling in the new world to redress the balance of the old." Europe in fact would never have emerged from the thraldom of the Congress of Vienna.
Previous page
