Foreign Policy Defined
Mr. Morrison's first speech as Foreign Secretary is none the worse for attempting nothing spectacular. The one thing it was essential to say—that he stood for peace before all things—be said in language which was simple and convincing. There can perfectly well, as the Foreign Secretary said, be a settlement of all outstanding questions, whether with Russia or with China, by negotiation, but if negotiation fails there must and will be effective defence. Mr. Morrison was right again in insisting that any discussions must go to the root of the problem, not degenerate into futile argument about trivialities. But the initiation of those discussions ought not to hang on the quibbling now in progress at Paris. It is perfectly certain that when the Foreign Ministers meet, Russia will take her own course. If she wants the conference to succeed, she will act accordingly. If not, the efforts of the agenda-drafters at Paris will be completely irrelevant. It no doubt seemed convenient that some sort of agenda should be drawn up in advance, but to argue it out line by line, week after week, as though it were something that when— or if—achieved would bind the negotiating parties band and foot is simply to bring diplomacy into disrepute. The amended pro- posals put forward by M. Gromyko last week would have made a perfectly good basis for the Foreign Ministers' Conference, and the general prospects would have been very much better if the British, American and French delegates had accepted them out of hand. Mr. Morrison himself must accept some responsibility for the indefinite prolongation of the Paris contentions.
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