If the best possible construction be put on the Geneva
resolution it is obvious that it went to the furthest length that could be considered desirable or wise. It might perhaps have been toned down. To have added emphasis to it would have been much worse than mere folly. Most unfortunately, instead of leaving matters where they were, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has written in the News Letter, the fortnightly publication of his party, a castigation of Germany which can only be described as one of those' blunders that verge on a crime. It is unjust—in view of Herr Hitler's repeated offers of armament limitation—ill-timed, provocative and wholly- gratuitous. If these things had to be said to Germany they should be said in conference or embodied in diplo- matic notes. Polemics by pamphleteering is the worst form of international intercourse. And nothing could be less calculated to induce Germany in her present temper to take the course the Prime Minister wants her to take. For this country it is essential at all costs to demonstrate, what is unquestionably the truth, that the fixed point of its policy is collective action through a League of Nations made as comprehensive as cordial invitation can make it, not any form of limited or sectional alliance.
