A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
IT is a great pity that the idea should have gained currency in the United States that Lord Halifax has some affinity with what are called " the appeasers." There is not a shadow of foundation for it, and if the suspicion were not voiced in some circles whose friendship for this country is fervent one might suppose it was the fruit of deliberate Nazi propaganda. I can think of nothing the Foreign Secretary has ever said or done that would lend colour to such a suggestion. If it is said that he was associated with Mr. Chamberlain in the Munich policy there are at least three answers to that. One is that the Munich policy was essentially Mr. Chamberlain's own ; a second, that it was as dead as a doornail from the day Hitler seized Prague in March, 1939; the third (which various American papers have already given), that Lord Lothian at one period defended Hitler in a way that Lord Halifax never did, and no one in America ever conceived of the late Ambassador as an appeaser. The fact is that there is perhaps no man in public life whose deepest con- victions are more outraged and revolted than Lord Halifax's by the brutality and paganism of the Nazi creed, and I shall be surprised if that does not emerge very clearly from any public speech he may make on his arrival on the other side. Not compromise with an evil thing, but unwavering resolution to see the evil thing ended once for all, is what the new Ambas- sador typifies.
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