The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1929. THE NEW DIPLOMACY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 142, 18 June 1929, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1929. THE NEW DIPLOMACY.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance t And the good that toe can do.

Tile new Prime Minister seems to have produced a first-class sensation at Home by the article which he has just contributed to a Sunday paper on the present condition of Europo and the possible revision of the peace treaties. Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald's views on wars in general, and the Great War in particular, are tolerably well known. But his opinions as a private individual are a matter of relatively small importance to the world at large. It is only when as "Prime Minister of Great Britain" lie broadcasts his views through two hemispheres that they seriously concern foreign Powers and nations and raise at once the question whether, as head of the British Government, ho is indicating a line of policy which the millions who lately raised him to office have dictated to him and desire him to follow. As> to the general character of Mr. Mac Donald's reflections, they would take many columns to discuss at length. The article, marked by the "flighty irresponsibility" thp.t the "Daily Telegraph" deplores, as likely to produce "speedy and dramatic repercussions" throughout Europe, seems to consist of a series of criticisms dealing chiefly with the forms of government now established in Yugoslavia and Italy, and championing the cause of the so-called "minorities" with special reference to Alsace and the Saar. Mr. Mac Donald objects most strongly to the dictatorship now established in Yugoslavia, where, as he tells us, "democratic government has broken down''; he condemns the Italian dictatorship on the same grounds; and he apparently demands revision of the peace treaties, with special reference to the boundaries now established after so much fighting and such prolonged discussion between France and Germany. So far as Britain is concerned, the most natural question to ask is whether Mr. Mac Donald has received from the nation a mandate authorising him to work for a revision of the settlement of 1919; and the answer must be in the negative. But even if the Labour Ministry had behind it the endorsement of popular approval at home, what right, it will naturally be asked throughout Europe, has Mr. Mac Donald, as "Prime Minister of Great Britain," to pronounce judgment thus authoritatively on the internal administration of the European States? Who is he that he should imagine himself qualified publicly to condemn Italy and Yugoslavia and France for their treatment of "minorities"? In the present state of European feeling, autocratic dictation of this kind by an irresponsible outsider will not be lightly tolerated. We need not criticise Mr. Mac Donald's opinions on this point just now at any length. But it is safe to say that no British Prime Minister in modern times has ever taken a step so indiscreet and hazardous and so well calculated to aggravate and intensify international illfeeling throughout the world.