The Foreign Office.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19623, 20 May 1929, Page 8

The Foreign Office.

Sir Atwten Chamberlain's announce- , ment (reported in Saturday's cable news) that he has accepted Mr Bald- ; win's offer to continue as Foreign Secretary if the Conservatives are returned to power is good news for the reason that the alternative to it wonld be bad news. Sir Austen has many limitations, hut even Conservative supporters have contemplated with misgivings the prospect of a long term in the Foreign Office for Lord Cushendun. It is true that during his brief occupancy of this position Lord Cushendun has built for himself an international reputation aad has shown real ability as a diplomat. Unfortunately his abilities and his reputation would have been more favourably looked on sixty years ago. The dashing and inconsequential foreign policy of Lord Palmerston and Mr Disraeli, dear as it is to the English national spirit, cannot be applied to modern Europe. For one thing we do not now contemplate the prospect of war as lightly as they did in 1800. Diplomacy is more laborious and less dramatic to-day than it was then, and it has more relation to real problems. Lord Cushendun, partly by temperament and partly by the circumstances of his political eareer, is not naturally either patient or cautious, a=d what is more, ho is a comparative newcomer in inter* national politics. Europe is still engaged in working out the peace of Versailles, and her leaders are still in most eases the men who had a hand in malting that peace. Bir Austen Chamberlain, M. Briand, and Dr. Stresemann have by now acquired a knowledge of one another and of post-war Europe which makes it imperative that they should hold the stage as long as possible. Locarno was almost entirely thei* work, and they have done more than any other group of statesmen to make the authority of the League effective. The Rhineland, Reparations, and land disarmament are only a few of the problems in the solution of which their unique grip of European affairs makes their assistance of enormous value. In their respective countries both M. Briand and Dr. Stresemann have risen above Party polities, so that Governments of widely different political complexions have found it expedient to leave them in control of foreign affairs. The working of the British Party machine has not given Sir Austen Chamberlain such security of office, but it can at least be said that he has ( almost always had toe regard of all

Children's Courts. | This very solemn paragraph appears to-day in our Court news: Four small boys appeared to answer charges of acting in a disorderly manner, which consisted of fighting in a right-of-way off the Square. They were placed under the supervision of the Child Welfare Officer for two years. It was, we know, on reeord until the other day that a small boy once cut down a cherry tree whose fall shook two continents, but (even if the legend could be restored) it was what happened after the axe work in that sad case that has always interested moralists. In Washington's day, however, there were no Child Welfare Officers, i Young- sinners who were not corrected by their parents took the " easy " descent "to perdition. To-day it is different. Boys who " behave in a dis- " orderly manner," who fight, rob orchards, ride bicycles without bells, or commit any of the other dangerous misdemeanours of ten-year-olds, must go through a course of treatment lasting, as in Saturday's case, for years. We do not know any more about this desperate right-of-way encounter than appears in the above paragraph—whom the combatants endangered, who sent for assistance, who effected the thrilling arrest. It may have been the beginning of an underground war, or even of a revolution. Those who do know about these things always tell us that there are " circumstances" associated with most juvenile delinquencies that make it necessary, in their own interests, that the culprits should appear in Court. It is possible that some of these circumstances were present on Friday, or the day before, or whenever it was that the terrible offence was committed that led to the Court's solemn investigation on Saturday morning. The nature of the sentence indeed suggests that all the traditional " circumstances " were present, and some others that have never yet been met with. In any case the very least that can have happened on the side of law and order will have been, we should think, eight or nine visits by a policeman, the filling of several pages of foolscap with the official history of the offence, the bringing of the offenders into Court, and then the solemn attention for some time of a Magistrate and his two associates. In two years, if the Child Welfare Officer approves, these four pugilists will be free citizens again, going to bed when they are weary of well-doing, and never once thinking of the bad old days when they clenched their fists in pnblic and bled one another's noses. Christchurch also, when that happens, will breathe frecay % again. But there is nothing to be done in the meantime except to hope that the police will | know what to do if fighting breaks out in the Square itself, and not in a right-of-way which, if the worst came to the worst, could be fenced off and swept with machine guns.