SWEDEN'S NEUTRALITY
Sts,—Mr. Arnold Forster's contention, that Sweden's acceptance of mem- bership in the United Nations involves a deliberate abandonment of, neutrality, is no doubt literally correct. But I would venture to ask him whether, within a year or so of the inauguration of the League of Nations, he would not have made precisely the same comment with regard to the obligations of the Covenant. An impartial reading of Articles to and 16, and of Article 8's assumption that national armaments would be used " for the enforcement by common action of international obligations," unbiased by our present knowledge of the rctual course of subsequent events, must surely have led to a similar interpretation. But, for my part, I feel that the more cautious pronouncement made by your reviewer of Mr. Kenney's book—The Northern Tangle—is a closer approximation to the real Swedish attitude to the question of neutrality. As Mr. Kenney has pointed out, as recently as April 26th of last year, " the (Swedish) Government's general neutrality line still had the full support of the Swedish public, as was shown by the results of another Gallup poll," and I feel it difficult to share Mr. Arnold Forster's confidence that there has yet been, or is likely to be in any future emergency, a final change of heart or
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