A rather interesting bit of Cabinet inner history emerges from
Sir Austen Chamberlain's article on the Air Pact negotiations in Wednesday's Daily Telegraph. Sir Austen quotes a passage which he describes as "words written by the late Lord Balfour in prevision of Locarno." The words in question. are, in fact, taken from the state- ment read by Mr. Austen Chamberlain himself, as Foreign. Minister, to the League of Nations Council in 1925, setting forth reasons why this country could not accept the Geneva Protocol approved by the League Assembly (in the days of the Labour Government) in September, 1924.- It has always been generally understood that the author of the British statement was not the Foreign Secretary himself but Lord Balfour, who at that time held the sine- cure post of Lord President of the. Council, but this is, so far as I .know, the first time the authorship of the document has been publicly avowed—certainly on such unquestionable authority.
Previous page
