A FALSE MOVE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 133, 7 June 1929, Page 6

A FALSE MOVE.

The British Ambassador at Washington has taken a step which has already evoked caustic criticism in the United States, and will possibly involve him in serious trouble at Home as Avell. He has informed the American authorities that, in deference to the determination of the President to enforce the Volstead Act, ,he has resigned his privilege of using or providing liquor on the ambassadorial premises. It is difficult to believe that a diplomat of Sir E. Howard's experience can have taken such a step without consulting the Foreign Office, and even harder to believe that his action has been officially authorised. It looks like a well-intentioned but ill-timed and unfortunate attempt to conciliate Prohibition sentiment, and as such it is resented vehemently in America. The New York "Evening Post" has pointed out, with unanswerable force, that Sir E. Howard's action amounts to deliberate interference in a domestic controversy which is already marked by bitter intensity of feeling on both sides, that his intervention can only exasperate the quarrel, and that it must arouse serious hostility in certain quarters to the country that he represents. There are alsp-the> envoys of other Powers to be considered, and it is easy to imagine the emotions that will be stirred at other embassies if the American Government quotes Sir E. Howard's action as a precedent. Judged by the strongest traditions of diplomatic life. Sir E. Howard's action is certainly hard to understand or justify.