Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/173

 politics."

At the same session Mr. Swift MacNeill ex- pressed himself very strongly on the subject of withholding information from Parliament, in the following terms:

"From generation to generation, you have allowed treaties involving the highest international obligations involving questions of peace and war to be taken absolutely out of the hands of the House. It is no ex- aggeration to say, so far as international policy is oon- cerned, you have rendered the House as little effectively powerful as any man walking over Westminster Bridge. Over and over again treaties involving matters of life and death, involving questions of first-class importance, have been ratified behind the back of Parliament. . . . The people themselves must be allowed to know all about this diplomacy and what it is. And there should be no secrecy in regard to high diplomatic statecraft about it. The House of Commons is sample judge of what is dis- creet and what is indiscreet, and it is a complete ab- surdity for others to treat us as children or for us to allow ourselves to be so treated in matters of such high international importance as those involving questions of peace and war."

Sir Edward Grey in his reply stated that secrecy up to a certain point was necessary and that par- ticularly the ratification of treaties could not be previously discussed. He then made the very sig- nificant remark that not until the House of Com-