The Press MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1937. Mr Chamberlain's Speech

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22250, 15 November 1937, Page 8

The Press MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1937. Mr Chamberlain's Speech

Mr Neville Chamberlain's first speech in Scotland, reported in the cable news this morning, is also his first detailed speech on British foreign policy since he became Prime Minister. As such it is highly important, partly because it coincides with the failure of the Nine-Power Conference in Brussels to make any headway in its effort to promote a negotiated settlement of the trouble in China and partly because it is obvious that Mr Chamberlain will not be content, as Mr Baldwin was, to leave foreign policy to the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Office. The "general principles" which Mr Chamberlain enumerates as being fundamental to British policy are all principles which Mr Eden has enumerated many times in the last year or so. But the omissions and changes of emphasis are highly significant and reveal a marked swing towards insularity—if such a word can be applied to the foreign policy of an Imperial Power—and away from the methods of collective international action provided for in the covenant of the League of Nations. The absence from the King's speech at the opening of Parliament of the customary declaration that support of the League is "the "cornerstone of British policy" was declared by Lord Cranborne to have no significance whatever; but, in view of Mr Chamberlain's failure to mention the League at any stage in his exposition of the principles of British policy, that assurance cannot be accepted. It is plain that, for the time being at any rate, the British Government regards attempts to base its foreign policy on the League covenant as not merely useless but dangerous. The evidence for that consists of more than omissions. Mr Chamberlain's first principle is the " protection of British "lives and interests." Mr Eden, in his more recent speeches, has observed the same priority. But whereas Mr Eden explicitly affirmed that, in certain circumstances, the armed forces of Great Britain might be used in support of measures taken under the sanctions clauses of the League covenant, Mr Chamberlain quite as explicitly rejects this possibility. Great Britain ■will assist to maintain peace and to settle disputes by peaceful methods; but she will not use force as a method of upholding law and order. There is perhaps nothing very surprising or reprehensible in what Mr Chamberlain has said; and it can even be regretted that there has not been more frankness in the period since the Abyssinian crisis and the failure of the sanctions experiment, about the place of the League in British policy. The League is still a useful, indeed an essential, organisation; but since the United States, Japan, Germany, and—for all practical purposes—ltaly are not members, a Power with interests in every part of the world cannot maintain the pretence that the political machinery of the League provides it with an adequate means of approaching all international problems. The League has suffered more from lip-service by British statesmen than it will suffer from Mr Chamberlain's plain speaking. The weakness of Mr Chamberlain's speech is not any lack of idealism, but a failure to carry realism far enough. It is not a crime to declare that protection of British lives and interests is the first principle of British policy provided that the full implications of the principle are understood and provided British interests are realistically defined. Mr Eden has defined them as the defence of the Empire and the maintenance of the territorial integrity of Belgium, France, Iraq, and Egypt. Such a concept is barren and artificial. The integrity of the Philippines or of Spain is vastly more important to the Empire than the integrity of Iraq. Moreover, a Power which guarantees the integrity of Belgium and France is in effect guaranteeing the integrity of Czechoslovakia and Austria. If, therefore, Mr Chamberlain and Mr Eden have in mind a sort of Monroe Doctrine for the Empire, they are chasing an illusion. Such a policy would be practicable only if Great Britain were strong enough to repel an attack on her interests in any part of the world by any Power or combination of Powers. It was not practicable in the decade before 1914 and it is even less practicable now. The comprehensive name for all British interests is peace. If the British Government desists from active measures to promote peace, it abandons the defence of its interests as certainly as it would by halting its rearmament programme.