TOPICS OF THE DAY.
COURAGE AND HONOUR, WISDOM AND FORETHOUGHT.
COURAGE and Honour, Wisdom and Forethought. These are the qualities that best become statesmen in the handling of public affairs. And the greatest of these is Courage. Unless at critical moments men can brace themselves to look facts in the face and to decide not on small issues but on large, and are willing to run risks and take responsibilities, they cannot attain to worthy ends. The men who are the true friends of their country and their fellows will always refuse to play for safety, to hedge, to act the miserable part of the man who hid his talent in the napkin because he feared his lord. They will rather remember the truest maxim of statecraft : "Boldness, Boldness, and again Bold- ness." This does not mean that they will be reckless or hasty, will act without thought in a fluster of impulse or grandiloquence. It means that they will think well and wisely, will use forethought and imagination, will consider the chain of consequences, and will understand the relations in which the facts will appear not immedi- ately, but in the future. When they have set their minds in order and the time to act has come, they will act swiftly, generously, greatly, and above all bravely. That is how Mr. Bonar Law and his Cabinet have acted. On Wednesday the nation reached a turning-point in its history, and under wise leadership it took the right turn. By the Cabinet's decision a world was affected. Cynics may smile and hasty enthusiasts may ask what other course could have been taken than to keep our faith and pay our debts. All the same, we are convinced that the Prime Minister acted exactly as he should have acted in insisting on the utmost care and deliberation before he sanctioned an irrevocable act. He had to make sure beyond all doubt and cavil that he was doing right.
It is easy enough for the journalist or the business man to come to a conclusion and to be satisfied that he is in the right on a rapid survey or after the application of some simple rule of action. The less the responsibility, the easier the decision. But a British Prime Minister is in a wholly different position. He is the trustee for what to him seems, and ought to seem, the most precious thing in the whole world—the safety and welfare of this country. He dare not do what others can do and can glory in doing—give way to an impulse of great- heartedness, of chivalry, or of sympathy. He is bound to subdue all personal feeling, to think of himself as the representative, not only of those who share his private views, but of the nation as a whole. Therefore, we hold that Mr. Bonar Law did well to insist that even a colleague so deeply and so rightly trusted as Mr. Baldwin must not only be convinced himself about the wisdom of accepting the American terms, but must by personal representation convince the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.
The British People have to shoulder a terrible burden. We are certain that they will do so with a good grace now that their trusted leader tells them that it is required by honour and good faith. The terms are as fol- lows: We are to pay 3 per cent. for the first ten years. For the next fifty-two years 34 per cent. During the whole period we are to pay 4 per cent, to a sinking fund, which will wipe out the whole of the capital in sixty-two years. At any time we can pay back the capital in whole or part. The terms are held in the City of London and by business people generally to be fair and reasonable, considering our promises and the fact that we shall be paying a lower rate of interest than that at which our own Government borrows. It remains to remember that Congress must pass the terms before a final conclusion is reached.
Mr. Bonar Law comes out of the business, as all who knew him were sure that he would, with an immensely enhanced reputation. The same must be said of Mr. Stanley Baldwin. He has acted throughout with sincerity and statesmanship. He was never deflected by thoughts of how his action might affect his career. He thought only of achieving his object and of being fair to both countries. His attitude was as little like that of the agent who thinks ouly of pleasing his principal at the moment and nothing of the higher considerations of his mission as it is possible to imagine. Mr. Baldwin deserves the deepest gratitude of us all, and so do his colleagues in the Cabinet. Had they been smaller men they might have been jealous, or petty, or personal in their judgment. To many of them the result of the mission was probably a very deep disappointment. But when they had the facts fully before them they realized that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not in all the .circumstances have done better. They gave him in full measure the sympathy of their compre- hension and of their approbation.
We shall deal on a future occasion with the conse- quences of this settlement, but may roughly sketch some of them here. If the world is to be made capable of recovery we must have the help and, above all, the confidence of America. We cannot obtain that more surely than by keeping our contracts and paying our debts, and paying them like gentlemen, not with groans and curses, but with a good grace. The Americans are a business people and respect, above all, those who keep a contract even though it be to their own hurt. Now that we can stand by them as equals, for both of us are creditor nations and both have a duty to mankind, we can ask them to help us in restoring real peace to a shattered Europe. Our understanding with America will treble, nay, quadruple, our influence on the Continent. It will not only make it much easier to dissuade France to give up her mad scheme of ruining Germany in order to make her pay ; it will also render it far simpler for France to change her policy without loss of "face." America, as well as Britain, is deeply interested in the commercial recovery of Central Europe. America is, also like us, the creditor of France. To America and Britain, speaking in unison, France will surely listen, especially if we offer her, as we can, terms which will give her far more security and far better material guarantees than can ever be obtained by pouring her own treasure down the mines of the Ruhr and by driving Germany into the arms either of the Bolsheviks or the militarists. So much for the extra weight our words will now carry in Europe.
Of the advantages we shall gain for ourselves by a friendly, a just, and an advantageous settlement with America we say only that they are likely to prove of incalculable value. Trade, we predict with confidence, will rapidly adjust itself to our great annual payments to America. It will, we believe, be found that a golden ladder has been placed against the tariff wall. But, be the paradoxes of finance what they will, we have obtained a great moral and material insurance by the settlement. America is going to say to herself : "John has acted like a gentleman, and we don't mean this to be the last transaction between us and him." We have given every American of good intent a firm basis for showing his good feeling towards the mother of the race, and have falsified the prophecies of every enemy of this country in the United States.
J. Si'. Lot STRACHEY.
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