A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE gaps and seams in the fabric of the National Government yawned rather wide at the end of last week. It was a comparatively small matter that four days after Mr. Baldwin had declared his belief in the collective system the Colonial Secretary, Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, should have warned a Cambridge audience against the collective system as calculated to entangle this country in war. But the announcement most of the papers (except notably The Times, which wisely preferred not to) were able to make on high authority regarding Britain's oliposition to new commit- ments at Stresa was by no means a small matter. Everyone immediately and naturally asked who in London was in a position to make authoritative pro- nouncements on British foreign policy ? The Prime Minister was at Stresa ; so was the Foreign Secretary ; so was the Permanent Head of the Foreign Office ; so was the Head of the Foreign Office News Department. Mr. Eden was in bed. The source could not have been Mr. Baldwin, who was temporarily in charge of the Foreign Office in Sir John Simon's absence, for the statement ran counter in all its implications to the speech Mr. Baldwin had just made to the Free Church Council.
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