In 1927 M.Briand,the French Foreign Minister had proposed that his country and the United States should sign a pact agreeing to the renunciation of war as a means of settling international differences. The idea appealed to other Governments and, eventually, no less than 65 countries signed what came to be known as the Kellog Pact; the British Government had become a signatory in August, 1928. Saklatvala commented on the pact somewhat bitterly in the House of Commons and by the end of the 1930's he had been proved right since the pact was kept more in the breach than the observance and as an international renunciation of war it had become meaningless.
It was on 7th November, 1928, that Saklatvala, addressing the House on the occasion of the King's Speech to prorogue Parliament, commented on the Pact among other topics. The speech was published in the Times the following day and it was also issued in pamphlet form by the Communist Party.
MR SAKLATVALA: " With regard to the Gracious Speech, I can only recall the policy of the Tory Government before a previous General Election when they tried to hypnotise the country on the slogan of tranquility, and I believe the present Speech is also an attempt to restore tranquility, as if nothing important is happening in the country or in the world. However, I find that while the Speech permits of a litttle verbal wrangling between Members of different parties here, it provides to all parties that common platform of Parliamentary hypocrisy which keeps from the ordinary man in the street the truth about the realities of life. I unhesitatingly say that it devolves upon me, not only as a member of the Communist party, but as representing the voice of all those who are not here charged with hypocritical Parliamentary democracy, to point out where the reality stands." (On August 17th 1928, in a bi-election in North Aberdeen, Capt. Wedgwood Benn had been elected as a Labour member after serving in the House for 21 years as a member of the Liberal Party. So Saklatvala continued). "The hon and gallant Member for North Aberdeen (Captain W.Benn), who by the way has wiped out his past and swallowed a new monkey-gland and become rejuvenated to deliver his maiden speech, was hinting at the very numerous subjects I had to mention in an Amendment of mine. I am not now referring to the Amendment in particular. But I would point out that the party to which the hon and gallant Member has now the good fortune to belong, being a little more numerous than my party in this House, has got 14 hon Members to divide the subjects and to put down Amendments on many topics under different groups, and has set up a division of labour on the different topics. I, being less numerous than any other party, just ask the House to realise that I am not trespassing on their indulgence in any way, but that I find myself called upon to instruct the only member of my party to take up all the topics and to speak of them." (He was, of course, referring to the fact that he was the sole member of the Communist party in the House).
"There is the reference to the Kellog Pact. I am very sorry that I cannot share the bubbling enthusiasm about the Kellog Pact as an instrument of peace. It is a definite and deceitful American type of instrument of conspiracy against peace. Where is the peace about the pact? Where is the renunciation of war? When Kellog landed in France, American soldiers were shooting Nicaraguans and interfering with their affairs." (There is an echo here of more recent events, I think). "I shall not go into all the details. The rt hon Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition objected to the British attitude. I submit that every big power that signed the Kellog Pact signed it with a militarist reservation. Some may have been honest enough to express that, but others were cunning enough not to do so. Did America sign the Treaty without any reservation about the Monroe Doctrine? Did she sign it without reserving to herself enough murderers, in the shape of an army, to bully the people of Nicaragua and the Philippines? .... France signed the Treaty while in the Rhine area French troops were occupying German territory. Did France sign without reservation? She signed with the reservation that her disarmament would mean a sufficiency of murderers to terrorise the Moroccans, the people of Indo-China and of all the colonies belonging to France. Did Japan sign the Treaty without reservation? That was another hypocritical deceitful State which put its signature to the Renunciation of War while at the same time Japanese soldiers were actually killing and murdering Manchurians day after day and terrorising the Koreans in order to make wealth out of the exploitation of Korea. The Japanese signature is subject to reservation, and the Japanese renunciation of war only means that the big brothers will no longer quarrel among themselves but will keep sufficient military power to bully and terrorise helpless peoples under the false and hypocritical pretence of safeguarding their Imperial iterests. The Kellog Pact is nothing but an attempt to deceive the public that it means a renunciation of war. Does this House believe that this country has renounced war? Our hon colleague who moved the Address to the King for his Gracious Speech is, himself, as one could judge from his clothes, still a military officer and in this House we have colonels, majors, captains, brigadier-generals, admirals and rear admirals, scattered about in all parties. Yet Members of this House would tell us that this country had renounced war and that certain parties were never in favour of war. But not one single party has taken the attitude that if that renunciation is to be a reality no one of their members ought to hold a commission in the Army and that the Army is not wanted. They have all renounced war but they all want officerships in the Army."
MR E.BROWN:- Are not you a Colonel in the Red Army?
MR SAKLATVALA:- "So far I am not. There was an enthusiastic colleague of mine who did become one and who felt very proud of it, but he has found it more convenient since then to retire to the Labour Party."
Hon. Members:- Name!
MR SAKLATVALA:- "Mr Newbold. We are emphatically of the opinion that this Kellog Pact is nothing but a secret conspiracy of the powerful armed nations to keep in abeyance their own quarrels, in order that they may be strong enough to suppress those countries which each one of these bullying, murderous nations is exploiting. There is not the slightest doubt that when all these people were signing this Treaty they were equally preparing for war against Russia, for an attack on China if China turned Bolshevik, for an attack on India if the Indians tried to evict the British intruder and turn him out of their country. They were all making their own preparations and, at the same time, pretending that this was some great act of peace.
"All these disarmament theories neglect one important point. All the nations armed in the modern and efficient way represent only about 450 million human beings, out of the population of the world, but there are another 900 million human beings who are not armed at all, or who are very imperfectly armed. These 900 million people have no consolation whatever if they are shot down by means of a fewer number of machine guns instead of a larger number. What is the consolation to the Egyptians if the British bully destroys Alexandria and bombards their coastal towns with six cruisers instead of sixteen? What is the consolation to the Arab of Iraq if you bomb his villages - as members of all parties in this House have done - and destroy innocent women with babies in their arms by means of bombs thrown from the air, if you say the aeroplanes employed in killing those people numbered twelve and not twenty? If you keep that in mind, that 900 million of the people of this world are living in an unarmed condition and an unprotected state, for a few nations to arm themselves with small cruisers or big cruisers, or with few or many bombs, is immaterial; the fact remains that you are carrying on your murderous game against humanity and against some sections of human beings and that is only to be put an end to when you begin to consider more honestly the Russian proposal of complete disarmament, instead of playing about with deceitful games.
"Then comes the satisfaction about the Japanese Emperor being enthroned and so on. 'the historic friendship which for so many years has united Japan and My country has always been a potent factor in the maintenance of peace in the Far East'. What does that mean? After the Anglo-Japanese Alliance,what did Japan do? She crushed the Koreans; she sapped their life-blood. She put forward false, deceitful claims on the innocent people of China, and it was the British militarists who taught the first nation of Asia, took her into partnership, and taught her the same murderous game that Britain has always been famed for in this world. Yet you claim that the Alliance produced peace. It produced terrorism, murder, war; it destroyed the peace that did continually exist when Japan was not encouraged by her British ally to cut other peoples' throats and take other peoples' lives." (When one remembers the actions of the Japanese during the 2nd World War, a few short years after this speech of Saklatvala's, the supposed close friendship between the U.K. and Japan certainly has a hollow sound). "There is now again the same flattery going on, not because the British merchants love the Japanese merchants, but because they find that perhaps it is possible to use Japan to bully and terrorise the Chinese. This House is asked to congratulate itself over the new atmosphere of peace and settled government in China, and you have all denounced war, but why has nothing been done to completely withdraw all the foreign forces from China? There have been disturbances in China. Would there have been no disturbances in Great Britain if German troops were occupying the British Isles? There are disturbances in China because of the presence of foreign troops and of foreigners demanding in their country unjust and unequal rights and treaties. I submit that there are more Chinamen in Limehouse, Liverpool, Glasgow and Newcastle than there are British citizens in Shanghai. Will you permit the Chinese people to keep a few battalions and Chinese battleships for the protection of THEIR citizens in Great Britain as you presume to keep YOURS for the protection of YOURS? It is a game of cowardice and not of statesmanship, and you know it in your heart of hearts. There are more British subjects living in France and America than in China, far more. Would you dare to keep British soldiers and British battleships in American and French soil and waters? You dare not. You are keeping them in the pretence of protection simply against weaker nations whom you can rob and plunder, and you put on the hypocritical garb of protecting them and keeping the peace in those countries.
"The Speech refers to the extension of export credits. I have not yet heard a word, as formerly we used to hear from the Opposition, as to whether even now the Government will give up their policy of cutting their noses to spite their faces, and extend these credit facilities to traders with Russia. You will not do it. Why? Because the Workers' Soviet republic was founded through bloodshed. There was a civil war, a revolution and human beings were killed, so you will have nothing to do with them. Was the British Empire founded without bloodshed? There was a hundred times more blood shed in the founding of the British Empire than ever was spilled in Russia during the years of the Revolution. Look at all the wars from 1805 to the last German war. This country has shed a hundred times more blood of people of all nations in the world. You have slaughtered Frenchmen, Spaniards, Dutch and Russians, you have slaughtered Turks, Persians and Afghans when they had not the least chance to fight you. You killed in their own homes the Punjabis, the Bengalis and the Mahrattas and the Ceylonese and the Burmans, the Malayans and the Chinese. You murdered poor primitive races, people who did not know geographically where your country was situated, as the Sudanese, the Zulus, the Bantus and the Swazis, and you had not the remotest excuse that they were going to attack you and kill you. You have butchered them and murdered them in a wholesale manner. You have killed them in their own country. There is no nation in the world, no institution in the world which has devoured more human lives and created more murders than the British nation and the British parliament. Yet the Government of this Empire, which was founded on murder, armed bloodshed, armed loot, armed destruction and confiscation of other peoples' property and other people' land, has the insolence to say that we do not trade with Russia because they founded their State on bloodshed. You can tell that tale somewhere else, but the world is growing wiser, and the Government would be wiser not to carry on this sort of falsehood any further.
"We come to the one great omission, India. India makes the Empire. It is India that even gives the legal technical title of Empire to the British Empire. If India were dropped tomorrow, the British Empire would not be known as the Empire. There is again a complete omission of any mention of India at a time when the outrage is being committed by this nation of thrusting upon the people of India representatives of this Parliament to go and terrorise over the people of India, and of keeping soldiers there to extort a good opinion of this Commission from the people of India. There is no mention of it at all. It is all very well for you to get into a frenzy about enslaving and robbing other nations, but you are forgetting your own destiny. In the constitutional development of this nation - in the days of King John - in the days of King Charles -in the days of Queen Victoria - what has been the method followed? The people wanting their liberties and freedom formulated their demands. We did not see the powers representing the Crown telling the people what liberties and what freedom they should demand. In the development of a nation it is the people who have the right to formulate their Constitution and to make their demands upon the Crown and the agents of the Crown. It is a ridiculous farce that the Crown and the Crown's agent should keep soldiers bullying the people and say to the people, 'You will demand as your measure of liberty and freedom what we tell you to demand.'
"I am sorry to say that the Opposition has neglected its sacred duty towards India, and made common cause with the Government in running that slavery abroad. I am sorry to say that in your frenzy you are surrendering great principles of British life. Save by the express vote of Parliament, no Government officers, no agent of the Crown - not even the King of England himself - has the right to deprive the British citizens of those liberties which their ancestors won for them, once, as I have said, under King John and once under Charles and his successors. .....but now, agents of the Crown, by the exercise of arbitrary and autocratic powers such as would lose the Crown the Throne if they were tried in this country, are seeking to deprive the British-born British citizens in India of their one liberty, of their right to a fair trial before being punished. Under the law as it is they could be punished if they had done wrong, but the Crown is today seeking powers against British citizens in India such as Abdul Hamid lost his throne for, such as the Tsar of Russia lost his life for, and which the Kaiser of Germany lost his throne for, and such as are no longer tolerated in any country, great or small. .........
"...let me come down to the very grave situation with regard to unemployment. Here again there are so many pairs of boxing gloves, so that men of different parties may have a sham fight among themselves, but that does not bring us to the realities of life. ........ Unemployment can only be cured by the Government passing an Act and, without any compensation, taking possession of all mines, factories, dockyards and places of industry. That is the only way of creating normal employment where capitalism is creating unemployment. Make friends with Russia. Give up your game of murder in India, treat them as you treat France and America and withdraw your troops from China, and there will be more than enough demand for all that you will produce by seizing those factories and carrying on your work without compensation to the owners."
This was to be Saklatvala's last major speech in the House. Although, of course, between this time and the General Election he continued to take a vigorous part in Debates on a wide range of subjects both domestic and foreign. Indeed, he made his last speech on the 9th May, 1929, a day before Parliament was dissolved, it having run for its full five years term. From this, his last-ever speech in the House, he made it clear that he remained absolutely confident that not only would he himself be re-elected but that he would be supported by a new contingent of Communist Members. He was speaking during a long Debate concerning the additional numbers of men serving in the Royal Mercantile Marine; Saklatvala was frequently interrupted by the Deputy Speaker for being technically out of order. Each time, with his usual quiet courtesy, he bowed to the Deputy Speaker's decision. At one point in the Debate Saklatvala said:- "With the approach of the General Election we find all the three parties standing shoulder to shoulder and saying they are going to keep imperialism - [laughter] - The Labour Party laugh; they are afraid to confiscate the property of the rich people of this country for the benefit of the working class but -" Here the Deputy Speaker intervened, saying:- "That will also require legislation." To which Saklatvala rejoined:_ "I think there are shorter cuts than legislation for doing that." Mr Deputy Speaker reproved him:- " I do not think it would be proper to mention them at all." Saklatvala agreed. "Perhaps so in the present atmosphere," he said, "and I think that even when I come back with my reinforcements it will not be very proper then-" [Hon. Members: "How many?"] "Thirty!", Saklatvala confidently replied. But, alas, his confidence proved misplaced and, in the Parliament elected after the forthcoming General Election, there were no representatives of the Communist Party and Saklatvala was never again to take his place in the House of Commons.