British Foreign Policy
Speeches on Foreign Policy. By Viscount Halifax. Edited by H. H. E. Craster. (Oxford University Press. tos. 6d.)
THE editing of this very useful volume has been excellently done. Dr. Craster has carefully checked the reporters' versions by reference to the speaker's notes, and given due attention to those problems of punctuation, paragraphing and omission of unessential passages which are so important, if the values of the spoken word are to be properly reprodu. . in print. His preparatory notes prefixed to each speech are models of com- pression and relevance. It is so rare to see high intelligence exercised on work of this kind, that one cannot refrain from gratitude for the example set.
Fifty speeches are given, ranging in date from February 6th, 1934, to February 27th, 194o ; and, with the exception of one which was delivered at the unveiling of a memorial to Col. T. E. Lawrence, they all deal with foreign affairs., Lord Halifax was, of course, one of the Ministers chiefly concerned with that subject for some years before he became Foreign Secretary ; so
that all the speeches here printed, from the first onwards, earn, the weight, and are limited by the reticence, of Minister:it responsibility. Though constantly coloured by the speaker's individuality, and particularly by what Dr. Craster calls his " philosophical " mode of approach, they are largely statements of a composite opinion—the opinion of the Government. That that opinion down to March, 1939, diverged widely from a just appreciation of the trend of events is now obvious to most people. The present volume, indeed, rather sharpens than blunts one's sense of their misapprehension. But how far particular Ministers were responsible, we. can still only guess at present ; and it is not from public speeches that our knowledge must, in the main, be eventually derived.
To say this is not to deny to Lord Halifax's utterances a peculiar value on their more individual side. He has a rare power of projecting over what he says the impression of a lofty and inspiring personality. This impression, which rarely fails to emerge from any single speech, becomes notably reinforced when one reads a whole volume of them. R. C. K. ENSOR.
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