Mr. MacDonald followed trying to find criticisms in his head
while his heart was evidently in sympathy with Mr. Chamberlain's hopes and only sore over the dis- appearance of the Protocol. Mr. Lloyd George too had little criticism to make of proposals which he believed should lead to the rapid evacuation of Cologne and the Ruhr Valley, but he asked for more details and hoped for guarantees from Poland and Czecho-Slovakia against aggression on Germany's eastern frontier, as though the real point were not to advance by this Pact so far as the British Empire could be expected to advance and no further. Sir Robert Hutchison, who knows the Rhineland thoroughly, could only see the same objeeti. us to the Pact that he had seen to the Protocol. Mr. Chamberlain replied on the Debate, which was on the whole dignified rather than exciting. It seemed to add little to the knowledge already derived from the White Paper. He was evidently unable as yet to come down to details except in his assurance that no nation -would be allowed under the Pact to send troops across a neighbour's frontier. We must, however, acknowledge thankfully that nothing emerged from the debate that can fairly lessen our hope that France and Germany have made a great advance towards the right temper for inaugurating a peaceful era.
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