I do not know if this position stands today, whether we approve or we agree with whatever commitments have been entered into by the United Kingdom Government with her European neighbours, whether they are in our own interests or whether we wash our hands clean of them. If we are pursuing an independent positive foreign policy, neither allied to the Western Bloc nor to the Eastern Bloc, how can we say that we approve or we agree that your contract, your defence commitments with your European neighbours are in our own interests also and that this agreement will promote world peace, because this agreement which later resulted in the Atlantic Pact, has been fiercely attacked by some other European nations? The U. S. S. R. went so far as to say that they were not even consulted about this Atlantic Pact and had they been consulted, certainly they would have been a party to it and that they might have guaranteed the collective maintenance of world peace. They were not consulted and it had been concluded behind their back; I do not wish to sit in judgment; but the Soviet Government did say that this pact was aimed at them because it was signed behind their back………..
