"Five Days Notice"

The most important British news last week, though it made not even small headlines, was the quiet departure for Berlin of Sir Robert and Lady Vansittart.

Brilliant and saturnine "Van," as Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and many another British bigwig call him with affection and respect, is Permanent Undersecretary and real boss of the Foreign Office. The old diplomacy at its best, adapted to 1936, is his profession, and with Sir Robert at their elbow a succession of British Foreign Secretaries have finally seen the facts of British weakness and the necessity of most painfully kowtowing to Italy and Germany until Britain shall have Might again. In recent weeks, to watch Captain Anthony Eden, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, strolling with Sir Robert was to have the vivid impression of a nervous and doubtful youth comparatively safe in the hands of a robust British statesman.

"Van" has a pretty taste in whiskey and a deft hand at intrigue, which won him his Whitehall nickname of "Machiavelli-and-soda." Sir Robert's usual professional touch was evident last week when Sir Eric Phipps, British Ambassador to Germany, discovered that his wife must pass a little time in England for her health, and so invited her sister Lady Vansittart to Berlin to be his Embassy hostess during the Olympic Games. With the innocence of a fox in lamb's clothing, Sir Robert then simply went along with his charmingly social wife to Berlin "for entirely personal reasons." At once every chancellory in Europe sprang to the alert, expecting some major British move behind the Nazi scenes.

Britain must now adjust numerous sore points with Germany. These undoubtedly will be attended to by "Van." What they are clearly appeared in London last week before the House of Commons adjourned until Oct. 29 with the ominous proviso that it may reconvene "on five days notice" in case of emergency--i. e., war. So grave do M. P.'s consider the European situation that they asked and received Cabinet assurances that the Prime Minister will not leave England. Young Anthony Eden, the luckless Foreign Secretary, had to announce last week that Britain has further capitulated to Italy by abrogating upon specific demand by Benito Mussolini, the Mediterranean naval pacts she made with Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia as a "Sanction." German Questions as they emerged from the House of Commons' final debate : Is Adolf Hitler ever going to answer the diplomatic questionnaire sent him by Anthony Eden over three months ago? What chance is there that Germany may be appeased by being given some British mandated territory? Is anything going to be done about Germany's refortification of Helgoland in violation of the Versailles Treaty and in direct menace to Britain? Is Germany coming to the next Locarno Conference to which are also invited Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Belgium? As these questions emerged in debate, Captain Eden handled them with not much more vigor than the tailor's dummy some Europeans uncharitably consider him to be.* The rearming of Helgoland he glossed over as German "peccadillo," adding: "Individual matters of this kind, though they cannot be passed unobserved, should not be raised at the moment"--i. e., not until "Machiavelli-&-soda" has seen what he can do in Berlin.

Elder statesmen gave last week's debate its vigor. Of these be-monocled Sir Austen Chamberlain, as whose private secretary Foreign Secretary Eden got his start, declared that Herr Hitler's neglect to answer Mr. Eden is a piece of "studied contempt!" Despite repeated queries by M. P.'s in recent months, the Baldwin Cabinet still refused to give the House any assurance that British mandated territory will not be given to Germany. "I demand that the Government declare frankly that it will not!" cried Sir Austen. "Personally I would not take upon my shoulders the guilt of putting another human being under a [German] Government which refuses in its own country to its own people the right of citizenship and makes them serfs!" "We did not want these mandates in the beginning," countered David Lloyd George. "We hoped America would take them!" "What?" rasped Sir Austen, his monocle quivering, "Surely there was no thought of America's taking mandates in Africa. I never heard of such a proposal. I suggested to Mr. Lloyd George myself [when he was Prime Minister] that America take Palestine, but he did not agree with me and offered Armenia to the United States!" Thrilling though it was for the House to hear two oldsters thus hark back to the days when Britain was an arbiter of nations, there was relief when, in the Nervous 1936 of last week, Mr. Lloyd George shut Sir Austen up by shouting: "You don't know as much as I do about what went on in Paris in 1919 when the mandates were awarded!" In a characteristic spurt of British love for dogs, the National Canine Defense League wrung from Home Secretary Sir John Simon just before Parliament rose a promise that the Home Office will publish as soon as possible a memorandum on what can be done to provide gas masks for dogs. Snorted members of the nobility & gentry: "But what's Simon going to do about horses!" Meanwhile Sir John was working British gas mask factories overtime, trying to provide as quickly as possible a free gas mask for every man, woman and child in Britain (44,800,000).

*Publicity won at Geneva continues to boom the fame of "Handsome Anthony" as Norwegian haberdashers cover billboards with poster offerings of the Eden Kombinasjon (see cut). Only trouble with this is that it includes a gray felt hat, whereas the "Eden Hat" sold as such by London haberdashers and actually worn by the Foreign Secretary is black felt. Mr. Eden is always too well dressed to wear regularly any lounge clothes which could be called a Kombinasjon.

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