1 am myself pledged to this House not to open conversations with Italy until this hostile propaganda ceases. I'do not want to stress the personal position, which is relatively unimportant, but I might mention in passing the difficult position in which I must have been placed had I to announce in existing conditions to this House the opening of such'conversations (cheers).
Moreover, little progress in fact, though much in promise, has yet been made with the solution of the Spanish problem. Let me make it plain. I do not suggest, and I would not advocate, that the Government should refuse conversations with the Italian Government, or indeed with any other Government which shows any disposition to conversations with us, for the betterment of international understandings; yet we must be convinced that the conditions in which these conversations take place are such as to make for the likelihood, if not for the certainty of their success. In my judgment those conditions do not exist to-day.
The programme which I have outlined seems to me a not unreasonable programme (cheers). Indeed, if the desire of the two parties be to reach agreement on all subjects outstanding between them, including Spain, I am quite confident that it is the best method to pursue. It is the traditional method of diplomacy to prepare for conversations before they are formally opened. It is seldom right to depart from that traditional method, which has been tested by time and experience.
it is certainly never right to do so because one party to the negotiations intimates that it is now or never (cheers). Agreements, that are worth while are never made on the basis of a threat (cheers). Nor in the past has this country been willing to negotiate in such conditions (cheers), I repeat that if our objective is to promote a Mediterranean agreement, to promote lasting appeasement then the method which I have described is not only the best. but the only one possible, and the only one consonant with our position in the world (cheers).
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.