I should share these doubts and apprehensions were it not
that the Joint Committee is composed, in so far as its executive is concerned, of serious and experienced people. Monsieur Delbos, after all, was one of the wisest and least provocative of French Foreign Ministers, and General Spears, his British adjutant, knows as much about Anglo- French relations as Professor Huxley knows about the Zoo. Such men are not going to allow the Joint Committee to be used for foolish or vain purposes or to interfere with the work of those whose business it is to conduct Anglo-French relations upon an official basis. Their main function is to lubricate by constant personal contact the wheels of the machine ; to foresee causes of misunderstanding between the two countries or the two administrations and to take unassuming steps to remedy those causes ; to exchange information regarding such grievances as are of too delicate a nature to be aired in public, or too small and trivial to form the subject of official correspondence ; and to keep their fingers constantly upon the pulse of opinion in each country, in order that any disturbing symptoms shall at once be detected and reported. That assuredly is a system of Parliamentary liaison which can do no harm.
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