It is being objected by those who are opposed on
principle to any restoration of relations that such a pledge is of no value. Very likely it is not ; it has several times been given and has always been broken ; but if Mr. Henderson's arrangement is to be condemned on the ground that this preliminary promise is valueless. the same condemnation ought logically to be applied to all the other promises which were, to have been exacted from the Soviet before the exchange of Ambassadors. They, too, would have been valueless. .In sum, it does not seem to matter very much in what order of events the necessarily -lchig .:piocess of reopening relations is planned, though Mr. Henderson would have done better for the reputation of the Government if he had not been so emphatic about his essential preliminary in the first place.
