Foreign Affairs
" Anthony's speech, delivered not by Anthony but by Brutus " was one of the arrows shot at the unfortunate Mr. Butler in the Foreign Affairs debate. But that was not the half of the Chancellor's misfortunes. Not only was he obliged to play Anthony while Mr. Eden was still recovering from his operation, he was obliged to play Hamlet while the Prince of Denmark was'still confined to Chartwell, on a script adapted by the Foreign Office (who, another member of the Opposition implied, have never really fancied. Mr.. Butler as their Foreign Secretary) from a communiqué which had deliberately left many more things unsaid than said. It was, in all these circumstances, Mr. Butler's unhappy task to put the result of the Washington meeting, which in its turn was only a substitute for the Bermuda meeting, across to the House of CommOns. The Chancellor argued that the Western Powers had no .alternative, even if they wanted one, but to invite Russia to discuss, at the second level, the unification of Germany. Any more general discussions could only be conducted at the top level; and the top level in Britain was out of action, and in Moscow was out of sight. In the meantime the future of Germany had now clearly emerged as the key to any door there'd might now be in the iron curtain. Therefore, the Foreign Ministers had sent their note to Moscow; but .their proposal, while it indicated the one condition without which Germany could not possibly be united, in no way " excludes or excluded a widening 'of the present talks in terms either of personalities or of topics." So far as it went. this was a sensible statement of the position. But, through no fault of the Chancellor's, it did not touch that aspect of the. communique about which the Opposition were unanimously concerned. What, they asked in various forms, did the Foreign Ministers envisage as the future of a united Germany ? Did they really mean that Russia must agree to the West having the best of all the possible worlds, a united Germany and a rearmed Germany ? There may be a good answer; but, as it was not given by the Washington communiqué—as, indeed, it might have been wrong to have given it at this stage—it could not be given by the British Government in the House of Commons.
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