"Strength & Elasticity"

"Strength & Elasticity"

Younger minds, many of them witty, are stirring in the British Foreign Office now that Robert Anthony Eden is the new Foreign Secretary. It was possible to hear in Whitehall last week that "our foreign policy is shaping itself to save Musso's face, save the P. M.'s face, save Geneva's face, save the Negus' face and save Laval's two faces." With less complicated cynicism the object at Geneva when the League meets this week was said to be "simplicity itself, merely victory for all."

This kind of talk by young statesmen of a type called by the late Rudyard Kipling "flanneled fools" does not go down in Warwick, the constituency of Mr. Eden. He addressed his constituents last week for the first time as Foreign Secretary. "The leadership of Great Britain is no insignificant element," he said, drawing a chorus of "hear, hear!" "I am proud to think it was the United Kingdom Government which gave that lead!" But he was not specific about which of the various leads His Majesty's Government have taken on the Ethiopian Question.

As to the further lead he will now take as Foreign Secretary, handsome young "Tony" Eden cried: "Let there be no faint hearts, but let there be realism. It is in that spirit that I am going to Geneva. If a collective peace system is to be effective, it must possess two characteristics, strength and elasticity--strength in order that aggression may be effectively discouraged, elasticity in order that some of the causes of war may be removed through the promotion by consent of necessary changes when the time is ripe for them to take place."

It was a two-faced policy of Eden strength in urging Sanctions and Hoare elasticity in willingness to compromise with Italy which provoked the recent British Cabinet crisis, forced out Sir Samuel Hoare, and gave millions of Britons hope that Anthony Eden will inaugurate a one-faced policy at the Foreign Office.

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