It is difficult to understand why anyone should object to
such a policy, but Sir Samuel Hoare and Mr. Fisher seemed to do so. Really, of course, it is a procedure to which we have been tending for some time past, and it will be all to the good to regularize it into an established usage (which, as Mr. Ponsonby said, is in England the most effective way of securing reform). The Prime Minister, who wound up the debate, simply urged the House to ratify the treaty without delay. He obviously did not feel either able or called upon to defend it in every respect, but there was clearly no practical alternative to ratification. As a matter of fact, the Lausanne Treaty has always seemed to us a considerably better instrument than some of the other peace treaties in that it was not like them a dictated peace, but the result of prolonged and arduous bargaining between the two sides, and therefore has a reasonable chance of being regarded as workable, and as the best thing obtainable, by both parties.
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