Evening Post. FRIDAY. DECEMBER 20, 1935. BRILLIANT CAREER CHECKED

Evening Post, Issue 149, 20 December 1935, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY. DECEMBER 20, 1935. BRILLIANT CAREER CHECKED

The Paris proposals were advanced "in order to ascertain what the views of the three parties (the League, Abyssinia, and Italy) might be upon them, and the British Government recommended them only for this purpose." In speaking thus at Geneva on Wednesday, and in speaking similarly at Geneva last week, the Acting Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Anthony Eden, emphasised the detachment of the British Government from the proposals; if he had been intending to correct any previous impression of an attachment of the Government to them, he could not have chosen his language better. Consequently it is not surprising to read, in the cablegrams that Sir Samuel Hoare's inclination to resign "was brought to a* climax by ,Mr. Eden's speech at Geneva." The resignation must be taken as meaning that Sir Samuel Hoare's policy is not the policy laid ie-own in Mr. Eden's two speeches at Geneva; but what Sir Samuel;. Hoare's policy actually was—also, to what extent it belonged to himself, pr was shared by him with others—we do not know; and until the speech of the Prime Minister in today's House of Commons debate is cabled, with possibly a speech by the resigned Minister, the question of Sir Samuel Hoare's actual position with regard to the Paris proposals must remain in reserve. For reasons and in circumstances not yet wholly clear, the exSecretary for Foreign Affairs, after a few months of office which included brilliant leadership of the League of Nations on the sanctions crusade in October, crasted, through a too great identification with the Paris proposals, although at present we know of no reason why he should not have remained to those proposals diplomatically and \ correctly noncommittal.

Crash is the only word to describe this exit'from''office-.(by resignation) of a Minister who^ had in an incredibly short time built up a remarkable reputation in foreign affairs. October recorded his notable sanctions speech, November witnessed die National "Government's re-election with a great majority, and December sees the collapse. A matter of weeks separates his re-election, with huge polling figures, from i his;'dramatic', .exit from the Foreign Office: Yet his earlier speeches and statements on sanctions and League matters, which made his reputation, reveal no apparent inconsistency with what Mr. Anthony Eden is saying today. To the outside world that relies on reading speeches and ttatements, and which tries to draw through them 3sline.of consistency, it did not seem,'until.quite recently, that the sentence which opens this article could not have been uttered as easily at Geneva this week by Sir Samuel Hoare as by Mr. Anthony Eden. Until the veil is lifted by Mr. Baldwin or by Sir Samuel Hoare, or. by both of them, it will seem strange to the public that a Minister who might have ridden safely through the quicksands of the Paris negotiations, by merely preserving non-commit-ment* was constrained to tarry there and become engulfed. But all the things that are at the moment unexplained serve to emphasise the dramatic quality of the rise and fall of Sir Samuel Hoare. To many uncritical people, the personal element always transcends impersonal principles. To them, a man is much more understandable than a policy. And no generous-minded person likes to see a young political career blighted in its early prime.' Without anticipating what today's House of Commons debate, and events of January and February, may reveal, it is fair to add here that the word "fall" is applied to Sir Samuel Hoare only in the sense inherent in his resignation of his portfolio. It is not applied in any wider sense. Who would dare to anticipate the verdict of history—or even the verdict of next month—on his Foreign Secretaryship? Sanctions are, as has

been pointed out from the beginning, an experiment—"a great adventure" —and who would dare to anticipate the future practicability or impracticability of a sanctions policy on such evidence as is publicly'available? What has happened to Sir Samuel. Hoare may mean the destruction of the Paris proposals but does not contribute to the construction of a policy that will remove Italy from Abyssinia without European bloodshed. The original constructive prob-' lem remains. If Sir Samuel Hoare had been of a panicky disposition it might have been suggested that in Paris his fears of a greater war had been unduly exploited. '•■ But the British Minister who sat opposite M. Laval in Paris is the British Minister who was credited with exemplary patience and courage* in the protracted task of finding an Indian settlement through the Government of India Bill. Why . should the man who waited long and successfully for that settlement have been stampeded over this one?

Sympathy with a fallen Minister, on whom judgment must be reserved, and whose past performances have deserved well of his people, need 'not blind us to the fact that democracy has safeguards if a man— however good a man—is considered to have made an error which, in "The Times" phrase, is not excusable in a Minister. Democracy safeguards, through resignation traditions, the exit of those who, for some reason, can no longer satisfactorily share in the team work of Cabinet. Democracy in Britain today removes a Minister" in a way that could not happen in Italy or in Germany; There the dictatorship judges itself; in Britain the servants of democracy are judged. And that is an advantage. • But democracy, in deciding, through public opinion, the comings and goings of Ministers, must also accept the responsibility of deciding not merely on principles but on the practicability of principles. Democracy has to judge not only as to what sanction's should be able to do, but what they actually are able to do. And here we get back to "realism," back to the controversial, and back to an! issue on which it is better to suspend judgment pending the Commons debate.