Keel Down

After five months spent covering nearly all of Europe, able New York Times-woman Anne O'Hare McCormick last week returned to the U. S. keynoting "the imperturbable optimism of Great Britain, which worries less than any nation on earth." That plenty of Britons were deliberately taking a humorous view of the European Crisis was a major fact in London last week. In the House of Commons, however, more seriousness was in evidence. In awful dignity the Prime Minister arose and spoke. "I do not deny," came Neville Chamberlain's solemn admission, "that my original belief in the League as an instrument of preserving peace has been profoundly shaken."

The Prime Minister said that he would attempt to define the attitude of His Majesty's Government. "I deliberately use the word 'attitude' rather than policy," he weightily continued, "because I cannot imagine that any event would change the fundamental basis of British foreign policy, which is the maintenance and preservation of peace and the establishment of a sense of confidence that peace will in fact be maintained."

It has been British policy from time immemorial, under Conservative, Liberal and Labor regimes, to avoid whenever possible the giving of a prior pledge which in certain circumstances would bring armed forces of the Empire automatically into play. While giving the House of Commons to understand last week that "in the case of France and Belgium" any German aggression will bring automatic British resistance to the aggressors, Neville Chamberlain was able to show that not even Anthony Eden advocated such an automatic arrangement in the case of Czechoslovakia.

Mr. Eden, one of the most socially-conscious aristocrats who have ever been British Foreign Secretary, once told the House, Mr. Chamberlain reminded his hearers, that "our armaments may be used in bringing help to the victim of aggression in any case where in our judgment it would be proper under the conditions of the [League] Covenant to do so." The Prime Minister, indicating that His Majesty's Government have not renounced that pledge, went on to quote the further explanation of it by Mr. Eden, who continued : "I use the word 'may' deliberately, since, in such an instance, there is no auto-matic obligation to take military action. It is, moreover, right that this should be so, for nations cannot be expected to incur automatic military obligations save for areas where their vital interests are concerned."

In ringing tones Orator Chamberlain cried: "His Majesty's Government stand by these declarations!" That pretty well took care of rumors of the week before that "Young Turks" hoped to turn out old Neville Chamberlain for failing to support Mr. Eden's uncompromising hostility to aggressive Italy and Germany. The Commons cheered Mr. Chamberlain to the rafters and His Majesty's Government were keel down once more.

Mr. Chamberlain then formally rejected the suggestion of the Soviet Foreign Office that a conference on Collective Security be held from which Italy, Germany and Japan would be excluded (TIME, March 28). As to whether such a conference could succeed in the Europe of today, he said: "No such expectation can be entertained, and the Soviet Government does not, in fact, appear to entertain it."

Having thus imputed bad faith to Moscow, the Prime Minister directly imputed good faith to the pledges Berlin has made with respect to leaving Czechoslovakia unmolested, and went on to impute good faith to pledges, some secret as yet. which Rome has made to London apropos of Spain. "Italy has no territorial, political or economic aims in Spain or the Balearic Islands," said Neville Chamberlain flatly. "Speaking here with all the knowledge that a Government alone can possess . . . I affirm my conviction that the course which we have decided to pursue is the best, indeed the only one, to lead us to our goal. . . . The fundamental basis of British foreign policy is the preservation of peace and the association of peace with justice. . . . We should fight if it were clear that either we must fight or abandon once and for all the hope of averting destruction of those things which we hold most dear!"

In Paris the diplomats of the Qua! d'Orsay, who know from years of experience the virtual impossibility of tying Britain down to an advance pledge, declared with warm appreciation that Neville Chamberlain had just gone farther in this direction than has anyone empowered to speak for His Majesty's Government, and they were not forgetting either Mr. Eden or the late James Ramsay MacDonald. In Prague, official Czechoslovak circles chimed in with Paris, as they always do.

It was for His Majesty's Loyal Opposition to make the next move, but Labor Leader Clement Attlee saw it was not even worth trying to draw battle lines. He kept mum, but his Parliamentary Labor Party and the Trades Union Congress issued a public anti-Chamberlain manifesto: "British labor is most shocked. . . . This declaration [by Chamberlain] is a mockery. . . . The British Labor Movement calls for an immediate meeting of the Assembly of the League of Nations. ... It repeats its demand that the embargo on the supply of arms to the Spanish Government should be immediately raised. . . . The Labor movement calls upon the British people to rally to its support!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.