1 PEACEFUL CHANGE OR WAR? 21factors, including the attitude of other Powers towards the proposals.
Useful though we believe such an examination would be, I think that the
House would be mistaken if we were to imagine that from a pursuit of it
we should discover some magic touchstone for all our ills. Clearly, that is
not so. The international situation is much more complex than that, but
this problem may be an element in our difficulties, and therefore, I repeat,
His Majesty’s Government are willing at any time to enter into an exami-
nation in an attempt to solve it.^66Two days later Eden was asked in the House of Commons, after
he again had affirmed the government’s support for collective secu-
rity, whether he would considered proposing to the LON that Germany
be ‘invited at an early date to put before the League her territorial griev-
ance arising out of the Treaty of Versailles,’ and also to convey Germany’s
thoughts on the whole question of access to the world’s raw materials.
Eden’s reply to the first part of the question was a straightforward no. In
regard to the second part, he simply stated that one would know from
recent statements that the general question of colonial raw materials was
under consideration by the government.^67 In any case, one of the outcomes
of Hoare’s proposal, which according to Bryce Marian Wood in Peaceful
Change and the Colonial Problem (1940), a study focussing on the debate
on colonial appeasement as it unfolded in Great Britain in the 1930s,
caused a ‘great sensation,’ was that the Council of the LON appointed what
was named the Raw Materials Committee. This committee met a number
of times in 1937 and issued a report, although as it turned out nothing
came of it in terms of policy.^68 Another outcome was a request addressed
by the British and French governments in the spring of 1937 to Paul Van
Zeeland, the prime minister of Belgium. Stanley Baldwin told the House
of Commons in April 1937 that they had ‘inquired of the Belgian Prime
Minister whether he would be willing to undertake preliminary informal
(^66) Anthony Eden reaffirmed his government’s support for the collective security in
addressing in the House of Commons the question of imposing an oil sanction on Italy.
309 Parl. Deb., H. C. (5th series), February 24, 1936, 76–83. Two days later, Eden
stated in the House of Commons the following: ‘Every nation has a responsibility to aid
in the scheme of collective security.’ 309 Parl. Deb., H. C. (5th series), February 26, 1936,
425–26.
(^67) 309 Parl. Deb., H. C. (5th series), February 26, 1936, 427.
(^68) Bryce Marian Wood, Peaceful Change and the Colonial Problem (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1940), 98.