The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-12-13
FOREIGN
METHOD RAPED
DIR. SETON-WATSON SAYS Sc
CRET TREATIES PROVE MOST
EMBARRASSING

method of conducting foreign af-
fairs whereby far-reaching decisions
and engagements may be made with
out the knowledge of either the
whole British cabinet or any refer
ence to parliament is under attack.
DR.. Robert w. Seton-Watson au-
lthorfty on international politics and
one of Britain's ardent propaganda
lists during the war, has called for
action to remedy this situation, in
the latest isue of New Europe"
He declares:
1. England is not a self-governing
nation in respect to foreign affairs.
2. Britain's secret treaties which
are now causing this country so
much embarrassment were made
without the knowledge or consent of
parliament.
"One of the first duties of parlia-
ment is to assert itself in the field
of foreign relations" he contends,
land to insist upon the formation OF
a properly constituted foreign af-
fairs committee, analogous to those
which work so successfully in the
American senate and. the French
chamber of deputies.
1.-The secret treaties are the one
real blot upon our conduct of the
war. They are also the source of
almost all our present embarrass-
ments alike on the Adriatic and the
Bosphorus and in Albania, Syria and
Asia Minor.
''It is certainly something that un-
der the wholesome influence OF
America the British government
should have published the stext of
the French guarantee treaty and of
the somewhat ambiguous treaty with
Persia, and should have submitted
these treaties for ratification by par
lament.
"But neither in actual practice
nor in constitutional theory is there
anything to prevent ministers from
reverting at any moment to the old
basis. Public opinion is fitful in it's
action, and the league of nations as
yet remains a paper covenant. And,
meanwhile the crowns prerogative
has in foreign a:airs, as in most
else, become little better than a le-
gal friction behind which two, or at
most a tiny group of minister's, are
free to take immensely important
decisions almost unobserved and
without any sustained or authorized
attempt to control their actions"
DR.. Seton-Watson remarks hat
Lord Grey, now British ambassador
at Washington, actually had Great
Britain committed to the world war
before parliament had been con-
suited. -
1T is no exaggeration to say that
parliament, when it endorsed Grey's
policy after his great speech of Au-
gust 3, 1914, was no longer a free
agent, but was merely consenting to
honor an engagement that had al
ready been made in it's name" says
DR.. Seton-Watson. Lloyd George re-
vealed in the house of commons that
Britain had made a pledge of honor
to assist France if she were at
tackled" That was news to parlia-
ment. The pledge was given only a
few days before the war was de-
clared.
the whole subject of our Balkan
policy and it's bearings upon Central
Europe and upon Russia, but left a
free hand to men who had not an
inkling of the fundamental facts
that governed the situation" DR..
Seton-Watson declares. For good
or ill, parliament when asked to de-
eide upon the supreme issue, found
itself before a whole series of &C
complished facts, and, in effect,
merely countersigned signatures
that had already been given. In the
excitement and stress of so great a
crisis it is natural enough that par
lament and the nation should have
had their eyes fixed upon the i'm
mediate menace to Belgium and
France rather than upon the process
by which these two nations cause
had become identified with their
own. But today, examining the
facts in cold blood, we can see the
grave consequences of that divorce
between foreign policy and parlia-
mentary control which is the most
serious defect in the British consti-
tuition"
Ambassador Lord Grey is Sc
verely criticized for contracting