The Government's main plank will undoubtedly be its foreign policy,
and on that its claim to support is strong the future is to be judged in the light of the last four months ral her than the last four years. This week's deb(ite i.s sal islictory if Sir Samuel Hoare's speech and Mr. Eden's arc to be regarded as equally authoritative, as not doubt they are, and a balance struck between the two. To find that the Foreign Secretary's statement has made an. excellent impression in Italy is not altogether reassuring. A country which is cleemed to have comMitted an act of was against all other members of the League." lutist be dealt with.,by other instruments than anodyne speeches and kid-glove sanctions. And the requeSt with which signor Mussolini is credited, for '1` a stay of sanctions pending negotiations " ought Only to be considered, if at all, in conjunction with a stay of all military operations. Oxi that point the 'Govern- ment must show itself as capable of holding its ground as it was of taking its ground) The appeal for' re- armament is the main reason for condemning the election as untimely. For no one knows at this moment what the purpose of armaments is to be. Everything depends on whether the collective system, now under its first test, succeeds OE fails. If it succeeds, then our business is to make our. .full contribution—and_ no more—to the defence of that system. If the system is in danger today it is certainly not because we are failing in our support . of it, but because other nations. are. the system breaks down, then, admittedly, our 'whole arms= ment policy will have to be .reconsidered. But this is emphatically not the moment to take that disaster for granted.
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