MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
AMONG the many somewhat bewildered questions which one has heard during the last fortnight, perhaps the most frequent has been " What sort of Foreign Secretary is Ernest Bevin likely to prove? " There are those on the one hand who regard it as little short of a national disaster that at a moment of such grave diplo- matic difficulty we should as a country be deprived of the vast ex- perienced and known capacity of Mr. Anthony Eden. It is contended by such pessimists that in the many years in which Mr. Eden has been intimately connected with the conduct of our foreign policy he has not only acquired a perfect diplomatic technique, not only familiarised himself with all the intricate problems which affect British foreign policy throughout the world, but has also come to know the leading men in all foreign countries and has from long and intimate contact with them and their immediate advisers learnt to distinguish the reliable from the unreliable, the foolish from the wise. There are those on the other hand who argue that at this stage of our history it is a valuable asset to possess a Foreign Secretary who brings an entirely fresh mind to his task, who has no previous commitments or liabilities, and who, profiting by the experience of others, can enter into relations with foreign statesmen unprejudiced by previous controversies and untrammelled by former intimacies or resentments. Such people argue indeed that, at a moment when throughout Europe there is a general swing to the left, it is useful to have at the head of the Foreign Office a man who owing to his past record and associa- tions can be assumed to be in sympathy with left-wing movements and against whom the charge of possessing reactionary tendencies cannot with any real effectiveness be made. How far can the value of Mr. Ernest Bevin be in fact estimated in such simple terms?
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