Now, I cannot help saying that I believe that if early in the present year, when the first news of the French advance came to this country, Her Majesty's Government had entered into perfectly friendly communications with the French Government, and intimated that, without any desire to interfere in the dispute between Siam and themselves, in which we had no concern, we could not look with dispassionate eyes upon an appropriation of Siamese territory upon the Upper Mekong, or upon an infringement of the independence of Siam, the whole of the Subsequent Crisis might have been averted, and Siam and ourselves might not now be deploring her humiliation.

Taking 1950 as the year affording the best example from the hon. Gentleman's point of view, the picture of butter taken up, and the figure of cheese taken up, was made possible only by the drastic running down of stocks, which was one of the factors that contributed to the Subsequent Crisis.

If not, they will leave and we shall be responsible for the Subsequent Crisis.

No one predicted then the crises that would follow for the next 30 years of parliamentary history and then the Subsequent Crisis, which ended up partitioning our island.

As a result, the aid did not touch the sides of the Subsequent Crisis.