Mr. Chamberlain and Rome There is no reason why the
projected visit of the Prime Minister and Lord Halifax to Rome in January should be received with the misgiving and suspicion manifested in certain quarters in this country. It is true that many people would be glad if foreign policy could be left rather more in the hands of a Foreign Secretary who is able to concentrate on the work he was appointed to discharge, for it is obviously difficult for the Prime Minister, with his inevitable preoccupa- tions with Palestine, defence problems, Milk Bills and various other domestic issues, to follow in detail the complexities of developments in the foreign field. But Mr. Chamberlain has set himself the wholly laudable task of relaxing tension in Europe, and after his visit to Paris it is appropriate enough that he should go to Rome, particularly since there is clearly little to be done with Germany at present. It is early to speculate what the burning issues will be six weeks hence, but Spain will pretty clearly be one of them. It is regarding that that the Prime Minister's critics are most apprehensive, and with some ground, in view of the Government's decision to bring the Anglo-Italian agreement into force with its main condition, a settlement in Spain, flagrantly unfulfilled. But the Italians (including, almost certainly, Signor Musso- lini) are sick of the Spanish campaign, and there is at least a possibility that in the January conversations some means of ending Italian intervention, and perhaps the war itself, might emerge.
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