"THIS ENGLAND"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 128, 26 November 1937, Page 8

"THIS ENGLAND"

From time to time a fierce controversy—a struggle of admirers and critics—rages y > around diplomacy, around democracy, and around "this England." In his first exclusive interview with a' foreign newspaper (the "Daily Telegraph" of London) Mr, Cordell Hull, United States Secretary of State, says "the nations had tried diplomacy for eighteen years but had failed." Yet if one turns the page to Sir Samuel Hoare's tribute to the Swedish Minister to Britain, Baron Palmstierna, this high tribute is read:

Baron Palmstierna has interpreted Sweden to England and England to Sweden.in such' a way that there are no two countries in Europe that understand each other better.

Unfortunately Sweden is but a small part of Europe; it is elsewhere that diplomacy has, in the opinion of Mr. Cordell Hull, failed. "Sometimes," said the British Prime Minister at Manchester on October 14, Britain is "credited with a more than a Machiavellian degree of cunning." Where this state of affairs exists, diplomacy may not be to blame for it. But its existence proclaims that diplomacy has failed. Replying to the suggestion of Machiavellianism, Mr. Chamberlain said that the "simple fact was that peace-seeking Britain sought to persuade other nations to compose differences without force. He did not add, but he might well have added, that from time immemorial the peacemaker has become subject to the suspicion of both sides. . To a partisan, "he who is "not with us is against us, or is at least Machiavellian." That is part of the misfortunes of peacemaking, but die rewards also may be great. What Mr. Chamberlain did say was very much to the point:

I doubt whether our foreign policy was ever less aggressive than it is today. If we are striving, as we are night and day, to re-arm ourselves, it is not that we have sinister designs against anybody else. If we are attacked we should know how to defend ourselves as we have always done In the past, but it is not in the temperament of our people to bear malice, and I think we have the shortest memory for quarrels of any nation in the world. On another occasion Mr. Chamberlain said that ther.e is in the English language no equivalent for the word "vendetta." This no doubt was read in Italy. And it will be noted that while the pending visit of French Ministers to london is regarded in Rome as evidence of "a London-Pans axis," the Rome message adds:

The Italians have much confidence in Mr. Chamberlain, and hope he may seek to Influence France to a more realistic understanding ol Italian and German needs.

Clearly, then, the Italians envisage the aim of diplomacy and *he hope of democracy. But can it be not only envisaged but realised among the diverse liberal and despotic countries of Europe, as between the British and the Swedish democracies? • Baron Palmstierna's tribute to "this England, this peace-demanding democracy, and home for freedom ot spirit" can be uttered by a representative of the liberal Swedish people. 'But can anyone imagine Herr yon Ribbentrop, or any other representative of a hungry Nazi-Fascism, applauding "this peace-demanding democracy"? In a large part of Europe the opinion is held by Governments that a peace-demanding democracy is the greatest barrier between hunter and prey. Therefore a peace-demanding democracy, being a friend of certain existing rights, cannot be a friend of anyone who would destroy those rights. Not being a friend, the peace-demander is Boon regarded as an enemy. Still worse, he is Machiavellian. Herein lies the seed of the illness that has overcome diplomacy and placed democracy in crisis.