CONSTERNATION IN CABINET

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 23, 27 July 1933, Page 11

CONSTERNATION IN CABINET

To attempt^ then, to set right the impression 'produced in the minds of our Allies 'would havo;" created a new situation which would have involved a return, in an aggravated form, of the unpleasant relations with Franco which the Lansdowne Agreement of 1904 had, for the time being, brought to an end.

Both Sir Henry Cainpbell-Bannerman and Mr. Asquith expressed grave doubts as to tho wisdom of proceeding with these discussions..' They ultimately assented to that course being pursued, under pressure from Sir Edward Grey and Lord Haldane.

When, in 1912, six years after they had been entered into, Sir Edward Grey communicated these negotiations and arrangements ' to the Cabinet the majority of its members were aghast.

Hostility . barely represents the strength of the sentiment which the revelation aroused; it was more akin to consternation.

Sir Edward Grey allayed the approhensions of his colleagues to some ex-, tent by emphatic assurances that these military arrangements left us quite free, in the event of war, to decide whether wo should; or should not, participate in. tho conflict. The Prime Minister also exercised his great authority with the Cabinet in tho same direction.

In spite of these assurances, a number of Cabinet Ministers were .not rel conciled 'to the action taken by the

Foreign Office, the War Office; and the Admiralty, and these commitments undoubtedly added a good deal to the suspicions which made the task of Sir Edward Grey in securing unanimity in 1914 very much more difficult.

Personally, I was .prepared to accept the Foreign Secretary's assurances that wo wero not committed. I was strengthened in my conviction that there was no definite commitment to give military support to France in her quarrels with Germany by the meetings of the Committee of. Imperial Defence during the Agadir crisis.

There Sir Henry Wilson, with the aid of a pointer and a big map, explained to us the whole of the arrangements which had been entered into with the French Foreign Office; they were contingent upon a German attack upon Belgium, and tho march of German divisions through that country to attack France. In that contingency, our expeditionary force was to be taken to the Belgian frontier along the French railwaj-s, for the purpose of giving every support to tho army which was resisting the invader in that quarter. I never doubted that if the Germans interfered with the integrity and independence of Belgium, we were in honour bound to discharge our treaty obligations to that country, (To be continued.)