“I do not believe any representative assembly in the history of the world has ever been called upon to discuss a matter so vital and so far-reaching as that which the House of Commons has before it to-day to consider, and with so absolute a lack of information.... The House was summoned for this discussion to-day without any papers whatsoever.... We ought at all events to have had an account of diplomatic correspondence between the four great Powers intimately interested in the question of Morocco, as is customary to be given to the House of Commons on such an occasion. This would have enabled members of the House before the debate commenced, to form a really well-grounded judgment upon the whole matter. We have heard a good deal to-night of the secrecy of the Foreign policy of this country. It is no use attempting to deny it. Those of us who have been a long time in this House, and can remember the methods of the Foreign Office twenty-five years ago, know as a matter of fact, which cannot be successfully denied, that the Foreign Office policy has become during the last ten years progressively more secret every year. Until this present year this has gone on, when the intense pressure of Foreign Affairs and the danger of war has forced the hands of the Minister to give some time for the discussion of Foreign Office affairs. For ten years the Foreign policy of this country has been conducted behind an elaborate screen of secrecy. Some of us pointed out years ago that the secrecy of Foreign Affairs was the inevitable and logical result of that new departure which was heralded about ten years ago, and which we heard praised once more on the floor of this House to-night. I refer to what is known as the policy of the continuity of the Foreign policy of this country; of the withdrawal of the Foreign policy of this country from the sphere of party politics.”
At the same session Mr. Swift MacNeill expressed 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 exaggeration to say, so far as international policy is concerned, 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 discreet and what is indiscreet, and it is a complete absurdity 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.”