BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 15 November 1913, Page 12

BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY.

The Manchester Guardian, on eh mges in British foreign policy: "In 1901 we conclude an alliance with Japan, pot only under the influence of Russophobia, but obviously meant, to prepare £vr a war with Russia..: Six years laterVe make the entente with Russia. In 1901 a Conservative Government is ready to conclude an alliance with Germany to maintain the open door; three years later it makes an entente with France, and a few years later a Liberal and Free Trade Government is on the brink of war with Germany because sh* insists on keeping the door open io trade in Morocco.

"In six years the foreign policy of, this country boxes the compass. Why?" asks the Guardian. "If we seek t J»e explanation in the conflict of political forces and principles we shall certainly notj find it. There is no more consistency in the story than in the changed of fashion. People change their style of- dress because some obscure coterie' decrees it. Our foreign policy chops* and changes with the same levity. And that is the meaning of, the whole sys--tern of diplomacy. For the development of ideas it substitutes ythe changes of< fashion, decreed, it may be, by some! camarilla., of whose existence neither, Parliament nor popular politics has any knowledge."