All the same we arc bound to say that the
task will be far more difficult than Mr. MacDonald, in the friendly atmosphere of the Albert Hall, and warmed by the genial response of his audience as he developed his very eloquent periods, would have led anyone at that moment to suppose. If Mr. MacDonald himself becomes Foreign Secretary as well as Prime Minister, he may be expected to act with far more knowledge of the nature of foreign statesmen than is possessed by most Labour leaders. He will, however, be goaded on by those who do not know, and who will make the usuldintal asSumption that, because Englishmen have a genius for compromise, and think it the most natural and easy thing in the world to (rive and take, that method of action will also be found among the nations with which we have to deal. Alas I it is not so. No one could have approached France with higher aims, with more humane intentions—exactly Mr. MacDonald's own aims—and with a more friendly dispo- sition than Mr. Baldwin. Yet he was able to accomplish very little indeed, and for a considerable time nothing.
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