If Sir Stafford Cripps' aeroplane trips round Balkan capitals on
his way to Moscow have anything of the desired effect, there and at his ultimate destination, we may decide to amend an ancient epigram, to read " Unus homo nobis volitando restituit rem." But it is not in Sir Stafford's power to command success, however much he may deserve it. The Russian Goverament will go its own way, and what that way will be defies prediction. At one and the same moment we read of tension between Russia and Italy, the return of the Russian Ambassador in Rome and the Italian Ambassador in Moscow to their respective posts, and of the efforts of Turtey to effect a rapprochement between Russia and the Allies. That Sir Stafford Cripps will be a skilful negotiator no one who has followed his career as an advocate can doubt, and if the Russians are in- clined to ask how completely representative of the present British Government he can be held to be, he can, if he chooses, make the decisive answer that he did more than any other man to bring that Government into being, for it was his now historic letter—anonymous, but never repudiated nor capable of repudiation—in the Daily Mail which first convinced the country that an all-party Government was both possible and desirable. One solid fact, at any rate, is in the new envoy's favour, that Russia has nothing to apprehend from a victorious France or Britain and a great deal to appre- hend from a victorious Germany. * * * *
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