Peace Over Honor

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Governing Parties in the House of Commons is an unofficial organization, composed of Members of Parliament, which meets from time to time in secret sessions. Its purpose is to offer the Cabinet, whose members are barred from its meetings, unofficial advice on British foreign policy. It is generally led by men who have served in other Cabinets who enjoy talking off the record. Last week this strange political organism assembled privately in a House of Commons committee room to discuss the aftermath of Italy's conquest of Ethiopia. Even the Parliamentary innocents who revolted so violently last December against the Hoare-Laval Deal to end the Ethiopian War were convinced that there was just one thing for the British lion to do: swallow its pride, lick its wounds and try to save what was left of the League of Nations. In secret recommendations to the Foreign Office, the committee added this warning: ''The Government must move with the utmost caution."

Meanwhile the wheel horses of British politics took to the public platform to prepare British opinion for the coming shift in foreign policy. From the beginning, one of the most ardent believers in clamping Sanctions on Italy's ambitions was Sir Austen Chamberlain. Last week this gaunt Elder Statesman was on his feet crying:

"Sanctions have failed to prevent the aggression succeeding. They have failed to bring the War to an end. It has been brought to an end by military means.

"What are we to do? We cannot save a drop of blood in Ethiopia. We cannot restore the old Government. We would merely extend the conflict. We would fight not for peace but for revenge."

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill also came out flat-footedly against continuing Sanctions. Cried that oldtime imperialist:

"I am not prepared to support Sanctions against Italy merely for the purpose of injuring or weakening the Italian people. In the present state of Europe the continuance or aggravation of Sanctions might bring about a hideous war without benefiting in the slightest the population of Abyssinia."

Even Mr. Churchill's longtime adversary Ramsay MacDonald joined the chorus. In his own paper, the News Letter, he wrote:

"A continuance of Sanctions would be folly. The face of the League has been so blistered by mustard gas that it is past saving."

Millions of well-meaning people in Britain are firmly convinced that in demanding Sanctions against Italy last autumn His Majesty's Government was acting from the purest altruism. In last year's "peace ballot" more than 11,000,000 of them voted to support the League up to the hilt. Well aware of these figures, Liberals and Laborites united in heckling the Conservative Government with demands for stiffer Sanctions. Last week Major Clement Richard Attlee, Laborite Leader in Commons, popped off to Paris in an effort to persuade Socialist Leon Blum to come out strongly for a continuation of Sanctions (see below). He was promptly followed by Conservative Earl Winterton who rushed to Premier Sarraut, urged him to keep on demanding the end of Sanctions.

Into Albert Hall last week tramped 40,000 embattled British Pacifists to hear hawk-nosed Viscount Cecil of Chelwood demand British maintenance of the League as now organized. An ardent Christian, Lord Cecil sometimes seems ready to shed blood to preserve peace. To a wildly cheering crowd he shouted:

"The League must still maintain its policy of Sanctions, yes, even intensify them if necessary! Nothing but the blackest treachery could urge any other course. The League may have lost so far, but it is yet to be shown that Italy has gained."

Confronted with this gaping split in British public opinion, Premier Stanley Baldwin followed his usual course of doing nothing. He pulled his ear, smoked at his pipe and sent Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden off to Geneva with no definite instructions whatever.

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