EMPIRE'S FOREIGN POLICY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22970, 23 February 1938, Page 12

EMPIRE'S FOREIGN POLICY

A suggestion from London that the crisis in British foreign policy dates from last year's Imperial Conference may be founded on fact. At any rate some of the Dominions, Canada and South Africa in particular, have been inclined to deprecato the tendency of the Foreign Office and British public opinion to become immersed in European diplomacy at the expense of world affairs, which is the larger plane on which the Empire must live and move. Too close concentration on the Continent would inevitably involve Britain in the conflict between, the two new political religions, Fascism and Communism, and so embroil the Empire in this bitter quarrel. A warning against such a development was included in the published decisions of the Imperial Conference. It "decide'd to register the view of members (all being Prime Ministers) that differences of political creed should be no obstacle to friendly relations between Governments and countries, and that nothing would be more damaging to the hopes of international appeasement than the division, real or apparent, of the world into opposing groups." The statement is excellent, yet few would deny that the tendency to divide into groups has been proceeding rapidly and that Mr. Eden's policy has not been successful in keeping the Empire entirely free of the suggestion of taking sides. The larger aim of world appeasement is being dimmed by entanglement in the details of European politics. Mr. Chamberlain appears to be attempting to free British policy from this dangerous coil, permitting the resumption of the freer initiative and the wider perspective essential to the security of a far-flung Empire.