Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-04

wary Macdonald nor the aStute HenQer-
son was now in hurry to put their
political heads into Moscow's mouth
again.
But the extremists raised q yell. Mos
COW was asked to send an embassy,
and did. This gentleman, the Soviet
Ambassador in Paris, pressed for the
exchange Of ambassadors and full re-
lations again. But Henderson stalled
him of until he and Macdonald had
taken a measure of the party feeling
at a conference at Brighton, a popular
south coast resort. The demand for
full resumption OF relations was so
strong that Henderson sent for the
Russian.
The two met in a bed room in q
hoStelry at Lewes, a quiet little country
town eight miles inland. In secret ses-
sion here the staid Wesleyan Uncle
Arthur" and the atheist representative
of the red republic negotiated deal
There were to be discussions to settle
all outstanding questions, including
debts and Third Internationale propa-
ganda. News of progress to date Is
that debt talks continue and are likely
to continue for a long, long time to
come, and that Subversive propaganda
continues and is to continue for long,
long time to come.
In the last week of October Hender-
/
admit that he had once again been
obliged to warn the Soviet Ambassador
about propaganda, but that the latter
had asserted that the Soviet govern
ment could not control the Third In
ternationale-a state of affairs which
was not news to Henderson, but both he
and Macdonald had banked on the SUI
preme boss, Stain, passing the word
along to his henchmen in the Third
Internationale building to pipe down
on propaganda in all British and Brit
ish Empire territories 1t looks as II
| the economic depression, the great
breeding ground of the Bolshevik germ,
has been too much for Stain.
| The disarmament business at first
seemed to hold bright promise The
London negotiations for the leveling
down and up of fleets were regarded by
the Macdonald Henderson combination
as a springboard for the big jump to q
general disarmament conference which
would settle the hash of the European
militarists, enormously enhance the
prestige of Labor regimes at home and
advertise Labor among the peoples of
the world as the sort of government
they had better get themselves If they
desire to escape the fate of the cannon
fodder in the last war.
Has Lost Lot of Illusions.
! With a great labor movement sweep
| ing Europe, with sympathetic roper
cuSsions over the rest of the world, the
dawn would break of that great inter-
national confederation, that veritable
brotherhood of man, which is the dream
and the inspiration of the more ideal
istic of these labor leaders
Henderson views a general diSarma-
ment conference some time this year as
Labor's great contribution to foreign
policy.
But ''Uncle Arthur has lost lot of
illusions about this peace business since
he assumed off1ce. Contacts with for
eign statesmen and ambassadors have
shaken his robust faith. The private
| information that drifts from the rele-
want departments and the secret serv-
ice into his quiet room makes him
shake his big head. Even at Geneva
last Fall, when he lifted his nose and
scented the air, the odor Of the peace
| lily was entirely obScured by the pun
gent stencil of cordite and poison gas.
J He knows, no man better, that war talk
and war plans are more prevalen. in
Europe today than at any other time
since the World War ended.
That Is why he demands disarma-
.ment before security. M. BRAND, the
silver -tongued orator Of peace-getting
very old now-Shrugged his disdain.
Impossiblel Never in this life of this
world! From the Palazza Chigi in
Rome came cynical chuckles. And
presently Mussolini also pronounced in
favor of disarmament.
But Henderson the foreign secretary
has learned that there are more angles
to this disarmament word than Hen
derson the politician and Labor leader
had ever dreamed could be possible.
He knows now that Mussolini's passion
/ for dis armament really means that the
( Duce wants II clip t.lc overwhelming
/ ornaments CT France and her allies
and secure a balance in Versailles in
which Italy, with her compact and en-
| larged war machine and from her
strategical position, can tip the scale in
favor of either Of the two great groups
| on the one hand France, Poland and
the three states Of the Little Entente,
and on the other hand Germany. Aus
| tria, Hungary and Bulgaria.
| It is this and similar knowledge which
inspires Henderson in all the speeches
he makes now upon peace prospects to
reiterate that disarmament must pre-
cede security guarantees, since the
French cannot see security otherwise
than in a Europe frozen forever In the
Versailles pattern, and the chance Of
France and Italy coming TO a real po-
! litical agreement Is so slender that it
/
scope. But If once they can be forced
or persuaded to reduce their arr1a-
ments they will not be so ready as they
might otherwise be to fly at one an
others threats, and a welcome sense of
relief will be felt all over Europe.
Disarmament Only Safeguard.
If-and If not? War again, says
Henderson. The treaty Of general dis
armament is your only safeguard, he
asserts. He has drawn dreadful pic
lures of the next war, when air attacks
and poison gas will be pushed to their
extreme uses and armies and navies
will afford less protection to the civilian
population than they did in the last
war
THE horrors of air attacks in the
| last war" he warns, will be a pale
shadow Of the insane triumph Of death
in the most lurid agonizing form science
has made possible to infiict upon nom
combatant population"
His school of foreign policy is based
upon the realization that for Britain
the old policy of splendid isolation"
has gone forever. The scientist and
the maker Of machines between them
have rendered that position untenable.
War is no longer left to professional
larmies and q privileged military caste.
Whole populations are now inevitably
involved in brutal wars Of extermina-
ton. In this frightful state Of human
affairs at once the proper as well as
the safest course for Britain TO pursue
is to make the covenant of the League
Of Nations, calling for international CO.
operation 10 restrict nat!ona' arma-
ments and stop ornaments competition
the corrcrstcns of British policy.
But if he turns out TO have been I'M
duly optimistic in his hopes of peace
progress, his opponents cannot safely
. jeer at him. They have all been In the
same boat. Lloyd George, the Liberal