A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE personal element has figured rather largely in Anglo-French relations since the War. Mr. Mac- Donald and M. Herriot, Sir 'Austen Chamberlain and M. Briand (with Dr. Stresemann to make a trio) got on singu- larly well together, and their habitual co-operation at Geneva and elsewhere enabled a good many awkward corners to be safely rounded. Very much the same relationship, I gather, has sprung up between Mr. Eden and M. Laval. Their antecedents are as different as they could well be, but they put a notable piece of work to their credit at Geneva last week and collaboration which proves successful usually proves durable. But Cabinets are in varying degree ephemeral. No one knows where either the Lord Privy Seal or the French Foreign Minister may be a week hence. Mr. Eden, in one capacity or another, is pretty certain to be still engaged on League work, but the French Cabinet may quite well have crashed, and M. Laval with it. Such vicissitudes are perpetual handicaps to international negotiations. As to Mr. Eden, by the way, though he has shown himself fully qualified for the Foreign Secretaryship I am very much more sceptical than some of the daily paper prophets about his getting it. For one thing it would be very difficult for Sir John Simon to remain in the Cabinet at all—as he clearly intends to do—after being supplanted by his junior. Sir Samuel Hoare could be moved through the wall, or Lord Halifax across the street, much more easily.
Previous page
