THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1937 PILLARS OF FOREIGN POLICY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22670, 6 March 1937, Page 14

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1937 PILLARS OF FOREIGN POLICY

To the elucidation of the British Government's foreign policy Mr. Eden and Viscount Halifax have contributed earnest and straightforward speeches. Both Houses of Parliament have thus been given ample opportunity to judge that policy and to say, as fully as they wish, what they think of it. The case has been well presented. Mr. Eden, as Foreign Minister, and Lord Halifax, because he became Lord Privy Seal with a view'to association in the work of the Foreign Office, are together entitled to speak with full authority on the most momentous national business of the hour; and from their weighty statements it is possible to derive, without risk of mistake, an exact conception of what the Government is determined to do. Its main purposes, to use the words of Lord Halifax, are "crystal clear." First of the definito principles is acceptance of international duty. The policy is not one of merely national outlook. Of course, every foreign policy, by whatever country propounded, is necessarily both national and international — national in origin, international in bearing. But, within that necessity of form, the policies may be widely various in motive and spirit; as selfcentred as Germany's or as selfforgetting as that of an ideal State in millennial circumstances. That of the British Government, while not so absolutely self-forgetting, inclines definitely to the broader end of the scale, and does so partly under the compulsion of contemporary conditions, partly at the dictates of a sense of responsibility to others. "We can neither be isolated nor isolate ourselves" is an acknowledgment of realities, and to this dictum of Lord Halifax is added, by himself, an enunciation of interest in the fate of other " parts of Europe." The days of splendid or sordid isolation are gone for good. No craving for them can bring them back. And the British Government's reaction to the change has no tinge of vain regret. Instead, the position is accepted with a degree of zest for the duty it brings. How best to fulfil the duty, so that nationdl and international good may both be served? The Government's answer is emphatically one in which the League has pride of place. Mr. Eden is not of those that believe the League to be virtually dead. He persists in pinning his faith, to it, and has yet hope in its Covenant. So brave a creed may in these days seem an infatuation rather than a conviction. It is fashionable to speak of the League as an exploded fancy, a useless if not disreputable experiment. Mr. Eden will have none of this. Along with many other devotees to its ideals, he has known disappointment. Its weaknesses are to him, more than to some, an open book. But he continues to iterate his belief in it as the only means offering a solution for the supreme problem of finding or fashioning a platform on which divers nations may meet and agree. Against the contention that its day is done he puts the settlement of the Alexandretta dispute, and his emphasis on this must be respected. There are broader grounds on which his and the Government's maintained adherence to the League may be successfully defended, and he has at other times reasoningly surveyed them. Central is the fact that to despair of the League is to despair of all contemporary possibilities of reaching geni eral peace by conferential agreement. | While it remains there can be discussion marked by a large measure of frankness ; without it there would be a still more dangerous drift apart. The League 'or chaos—that is the alternative; and the Government's foreign policy makes, as heretofore, an unfaltering choice. Within this larger hope is another to which the Government clings with equal firmness, although less confidence: it is the reaching of regional understandings actuated by realisation of common interests. Of these understandings the group of Locarno agreements were a signal achievement. But they have been rudely shaken, and the prospect of constructing on their model a local pact pacifying Eastern Europe has degenerated into a fear lest even Western Europe may lose altogether the benefit of what was once so promisingly done. Still, to strive for these regional agreements is another pillar of the policy, in the hope that they may be brought serviceably within the ambit of the League. Last of the main principles, regretfully deemed imperative, is the need tc look to national defences, and to regard these as an inevitable resort in the cause of peace itself. "It is even possible," says the Foreign Minister, and none can reasonably doubt his sincerity, " that through this route —which none of us wish to take—we shall reach the goal we all desire." His colleague in the House of Lords puts the hope in different words but with the same intent: "I do not believe it can be challenged that the stronger this country is the less likelihood there will bo of war." The doctrine may not be welcome, yet already there are signs of its practical soundness. Those that delight in war have been constrained to pause as they see a nation, unequivocally seeking peace, gird up its loins for its own defence and its dutiful service to the need of others in peril.