Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1924. BRITAIN'S POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 147, 18 December 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1924. BRITAIN'S POLICY

With that soft-hearted and softheaded altruism which inspires Radicals of a certain type to champion the interests of every country but their own, Mr. C. P. Trevelyan has taken up the cudgels— if so violent a metaphor is not a libel on so gentle a knight—for two of the_ victims of Britain's ruthless Imperialism. " "One at a time," says the proverb, "is good fishing," but Mr. Trevelyan's eager philanthropy defies such a limitation. There are only two countries whose relations with Great Britain have recently caused any serious trouble, and in the impetuosity of his chivalry—it is almost impossible to avoid military metaphor when dealing with the pugnacity of the pacifist—Mr. Trevelyan combines the defence of both in a single hit at the British- Government. Speaking in the debate-on the Address-in-Reply, he is reported to have "attacked the Government's policy towards Egypt and Russia. He asked whether Egypt was now really independent, and what the Government proposed to do with regard to Russia, with which country other countries were now,making commercial agreements." The security of British interests and the maintenance of British obligations in regard are matters of no concern, or at the best of secondary concern, $o Mr. Trevelyan. What chiefly troubles him is the fear that the checks imposed on the mad and murderous propaganda in which ZaghluPs gospel of hatred and insolence had culminated may be too severe, but the reference to Russia actually shows that what he regards as the .interests o f his own country are not entirely ignored.

How far Mr. Trevelyan would like to see the policy of deference to the national pride of Egypt carried when she violates the express conditions on which the recognition of her independence is based is not disclosed by the brief cabled reference. But though he resigned from the Asquith Government in 1914 because his pacifism induced him- to prefer placing the liberties of Belgium, France, and Britain herself at the disposal of Germany to fighting to protect them, he did not resign when Mr. Mac Donald refused to yield an inch to the arrogant demands of Zaghlul Pasha. One of the grounds given by Mr. Mac Donald for his attitude was that . '

absolute* certainty that the Suez Canal will remain open iv peace' as well as in war for the free passage of British ships is the foundation on which the entire defensive strategy of the British Empire rests.

A Palmerston or a Disraeli could not have made a more uncompromising assertion of British policy, yet it was approved by the whole Labour Government. It was also, approved by an independent authority as little disposed to dabble in Jingoism as the "Manchester Guardian."

Throughout the Middle East, wrote a, special correspondent of that paper, it is an. article of faith that ttie British Government will concede anything iv the face of unbending intransigence, a faith for which we must thank the British and Allied treatment of Turkey since- the Armistice, Zaghlul Pasha as was known all along, banked on this delusion. It will do no harm that the belief should be dispelled, for the his tory of the past few years has shown that diplomatic negotiation with the Orientals is a very realist affair.

The { belief that Britain would "concede anything in the face^ of unbending intransigence"—a belief, by the way, which extended far, both to the East and to the west of the Middle East—received a rude shock from the firmness and the candour with which Mr. MacDonald sent Zaghlul Pasha back to his admiring countrymen. And the prompt and drastic action of the Baldwin Government, which has turned Zaghlul out of office and Che' Egyptian forces out of the Sudan, has surely killed that belief stone-dead. For the present, at any rate, this perilous creed is beyond the power of pacifism to revive. When Mr. Trevelyan passes from Egypt to Russia his argument suffers a serious moral decline. From the altruism which is concerned only with the interests of other nations it drops to the narrow selfishness which takes British interests also into account. He sees that other nations are making commercial agreements with Russia, and he is anxious that Britain should not be left out in the cold. But even the blessed privilege' of trading with Russia may be bought at too dear a price. We may assume that -Mr. Trevelyan was unable to say that any of the countries referred to are proposing to guarantee a loan to the Soviet Government as a part of the price. It was only to Britain that even Soviet impudence dared to present such a demand, and no British' Government but that of which Mr. Trevelyan was a member would have entertained such a demand for a moment. Not at such a price can Britain afford to trade with Russia.

Mr. Austen Chamberlaiu, who followed Mr. Trevelyan, gave an. interesting and satisfactory account of his conversations with M. Herriok and Signor Mussolini, and of the deliberations of the Council of the League of Nations in which he took part. At a time when iSgygt aui Ji'slaud are raising &\vk. r

ward problems for the League, it is pleasing to get the Foreign Secretary's assurance that

coming fresh f rom meetings of the League Council he could voice his stronger confidence in the future of the .League.

Replying to what he called Mr. Irevelyan's "anti-British declaration ' Mr. Chamberlain said that the Government had no designs on the independence of Egypt, and tnat, if that country loyally observed the conditions on which its independence was granted, it would have no truer friends than the Government and the- people of Great Britain. Foreign statesmen had tendered him "many congratulations on the British attitude m the Egyptian crisis." The anti-British Britisher is usually a harsher critic of his country than a level-headed foreigner.