The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1946. Mr Wallace’s Speech

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24985, 20 September 1946, Page 6

The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1946. Mr Wallace’s Speech

Mr Henry Wallace’s speech, regrettable as it was, would have been still more regrettable had it produced certain consequences which at first seemed probable and which it is nerhaps still too soon to think surely avoided. For the threat of them, of course, President Truman’s unguarded statement, which appeared to endorse Mr Wallace’s speech without reserve and to be intended to do so, is partly to blame. The President’s friend? are, too often for their comfort, obliged 'to hear him explain away something that he has said, or to hear it explained away by some rescuing colleague. But developments now. strongly suggest that the* alternative between the resignation of Mr Wallace and the resignation of Mr Byrnes will be escaped. Mr Wallace, with his lips sealed upon foreign policy (at least until the Peaqe Conference is over), will remain in the Administration; so will Mr Byrnes, the more firmly upheld for having seemed to, be upset. Well-known as Mr Wallace’s awkwardness as a political colleague is, the Administration would be markedly weaker without him; and the interruption or undoing of Mr Byrnes’s work, in the present international situation, would have been disastrous. , Some consequences of Mr Wallace’s speech, however—to disregard the still visible possibility that Mr Truman may have settled with him more easily than he can pacify infuriated

colleagues—are not avoidable. It is a question hew far, and how, they can be retrieved. In Russia, and wherever Russia speaks, it can hardly be doubted that Mr Wallace’s speech will be exploited. In the United States, the reaction against it, though it has evoked some expostulations notably and usefully fair to Britain and British policy, has also evoked some unhappy pronouncements on the aims and methods of American policy, in regard, particularly, to Russia. Admiral Blandy, who appealed for armed force sufficient to overcome with absolute certainty and in the shortest possible time a “group of “ madmen ” (address not unknown) who might force a war on the United States, is only Admiral Blandy. Admiral Standley, who denounced Russia as “a virtual “ enemy ”, is only a former ambassador. But they will be quoted, it is again hardly to be doubted, in Russia and wherever Russia speaks, as if they had blurted out what White House and the American people are quietly muttering. They will, moreover, give considerable impetus to that movement of opinion against Russia which, if it gathers head, can make it dangerously - more difficult for the Administration to pursue a

firm but patient and pacific policy. Just as dangerously, they will encourage the isolationists who, against fact and reason, still believe that the United States can and should cut all European commitments and maintain a self-sufficient and selfish “ pax Americana ”. In short, Mr Wallace has aggravated the worst tendencies in the international and in the domestic situation; and it cannot be easy to correct the mischief.

It is curious, accordingly, to observe that Mr Wallace has achieved, or so it seems, the very opposite of his intention. His intention, clearly, was to insist on the need to pursue a rational and fair settlement with Russia; he may have made it harder. His error, in strikingly close parallel with Professor Laski’s some time ago, is to believe that, if a settlement with Russia can be reached only on exclusive terms, which means on Russia’s terms, then the United States should part with Britain, as Laski argued Britain should part with the United States. The theory is a vicious one, in either form. There can be only one aim for British policy and for American policy: to pursue Big Three agreement resolutely and resourcefully. The pursuit has not failed yet, though it has been checked, again and again, by Russia, and though it has been impeded, sometimes, by errors of judgment. Nor is failure in sight and inevitable. Nor does Mr Byrnes’s present policy, not very luckily called “ getting tough with Russia ”, mean that he thinks failure is in sight and inevitable; nor does it bring failure in sight and make it inevitable. That is the point on which Mr Wallace seriously misjudges Mr Byrnes, his policy, and the conditions to which it is addressed. Either Russia’s attitude to her Western Allies is determined by definitely acquisitive and aggressive aims, or it is determined by what Russia feels to be present weakness in the face of, and under the threat of, western power, and especially American power. There is strong evidence, in material fact and in the influence of Marxian power doctrines, that the second

alternative is the true one. If so—and the assumption is implicit in 'Mr Byrnes’s policy, and in his Stuttgart speech, as its most recent expression —policy towards Russia ought to be equally firm and patient. “If we

“ neither appease nor provoke ”, as the “Observer” said not long ago, “ the gloomy forebodings of to-day “may prove to be as inaccurate as “such expectations have sometimes “ proved in the past ”,