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with them, eithcr by pumping ihe enginc, or cvcn handing thera a bucket, hc would hazard every dangcr to which he might be cxposcd by the conflagration.” It will rcadily be scen that thc contrastcd argumcnts arc idcntical with those used in thc rcccnt debate. To illustratc my point, I shall quote from two spceches ; and 1 shall choose two speakers from thc same party to show that I am not trying to make party Capital. Thcy are Mr. Quintin Hogg and Lord Dunglass.

Mr. Hogg uscd kindly words about Poland. “ Wc should scck to assert again and again,” hc dedared, “ that it is our purpose and our hope to restorc a frcc and independent Polar which may one day, we trust, cnjoy thc prosperity which wc i much desire for them and which we believe thcy so much dcscrve.” (Hansard, vol. 403, No. 122, col. 584). But thc whole burden of his subsequent remarks, likc those of Mr. Jenkinson in 1794, was that we could givc no practical help to the Poles and that it would bc dishonest to pretend that we could. “ If wc were to let them believe that wc wcrc ablc to do that which our gcographical position, the political framework in which we have to live and our military rcsourccs alike render impossible, wc should in fact bc committing that very dishonourablc action of pretending that wc were going to achieve for our friends morc in fact than we were either disposed or ablc to do.” (ibid.)

Lord Dunglass, likc Fox, hcld that thc Polish qucstion was one involving thc honour of Grcat Britain. “ This matter bctwccn Poland and Russia cannot he left to be settled bctwccn thc two countries without any intervention from oursdves . . . bccause under treaty we have acccptcd definite legał and morał commit-ments to Poland. It is our habit to honour our treaties.” (Hansard, Vol. 403, No. 122, cols. 517-18.) He urged that “ our aim now must bc to restorc a Poland independent and frcc, and as ncarly equivalent as possiblc in territory, cconomic resources and in intcmational status to thc Poland of 1939.” (ibid.)

One scntcncc from Mr. Hogg’s speech will serve as a tcxt my talk this afternoon : “ I think thc cloqucnt and sincd^ spceches to which w-e have listened to-day—in particular from .. .my Noble friend thc Mcmbcr for Lanark (Lord Dunglass)— violated almost cvcry canon of British foreign policy ovcr thc last 300 years.” (Hamard, Vol. '103, No. 122, col. 581.) I hope to show, by an examinadon of some of thc points of contact bctwccn Grcat Britain and Poland sincc thc Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, that Mr. Hogg’s statement is not truć, though it represents an element which has always been present in British public life, and that British policy throughout thc ninctcenth ccntury is morc correctly rcf.cctcd by Lord Dunglass.

By thc first paragraph of the Treaty of Yienna, the Duchy of

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