14 J.-A. PEMBERTON
the expense of those countries that do not possess colonial empires....[A]
s the question is causing discontent and anxiety, the wise course is to inves-
tigate it, to see what the proposals are for dealing with it, to see what is
the real scope of the trouble, and if the trouble is substantial, to try to
remove it....The view of His Majesty’s Government is that the problem is
economic rather than political or territorial. It is the fear of monopoly—
of the withholding of essential raw materials—that is causing alarm....The
Government that I represent will...be prepared take its share in any collec-
tive attempt to deal in a fair and effective way, with a problem that is cer-
tainly troubling many people at present and may trouble them even more
in the future.^41Hoare recommended that the emphasis of the terms of reference
of the inquiry into the world’s economic resources that he proposed
should fall on the ‘free distribution’ of raw materials ‘from colonial areas,
including protectorates and mandated territories....among industrial
countries which require them,’ a recommendation that served to indicate
which particular countries were the source of the discontents to which
he had earlier alluded.^42 In an echo of a caveat he earlier had issued,
Hoare ended his discussion of potential changes to the economic status
quo in stating that the inquiry he proposed required ‘calm and dispas-
sionate consideration’ and that as such it could only be undertaken once
‘the clouds of war’ had been ‘dispelled.’^43 Having addressed the ques-
tion of removing the causes of war, Hoare then proceeded to conclude
his speech, returning in this context to its main theme, namely collective
security. The final paragraph of his speech was as follows:
In conformity with its precise and explicit obligations, the League stands,
and my country stands with it, for the collective maintenance of the
Covenant in its entirety, and particularly for steady and collective resistance
to all acts of unprovoked aggression....There, then, is the British attitude
towards the Covenant. I cannot believe that it will be changed so long as
the League remains an effective body and the main bridge between the United
Kingdom and the Continent remains intact.^44(^41) Ibid.
(^42) Ibid.
(^43) Ibid.
(^44) Ibid., 46. Emphasis added.