The Foreign Minister

The punch in Foreign Minister Eden's speech came at the end. He said:

"In several speeches members have referred to the need for our close collaboration with our neighbors in western Europe and with the small powers, particularly in western Europe. I agree with everything that has been said on that subject and I think we can be sure that the friendships that have been made with the representatives of those countries while they have been here in the war years will be of great value when they return to their own lands.

"We have had already between governments certain informal discussions about our future relations, and these will be pursued further in due course. We could, I think, be wise to use these conversations--to use our close friendship with these countries--as a buttress to the strengthened general world structure. . . .

"It is as an element in the general international system and, as I think Aneurin Bevan [the Government's most violent leftist Labor Party critic] has rightly said, it gives us perhaps more authority with the other great powers if we speak for the Commonwealth and for our near neighbors in western Europe. That seems to me the right conception . . . and it is just the task on which we are now, in fact, engaged.

"It would be an important element in unifying the nations against any potential future aggressor."

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