Evening star., 1938-10-01
The New Entente.

1t is almost exactly sixty years ago
that prime minister of Great Britain,
the Earl of Beaconsfield better known
to fame as Benjamin Disraeli, returned
to London from the Congress of Berlin.
That assemblage of Europe's titans had
been convened under Bismarck's aus
plces, to Danish the Specter of war
raised by Anglo-R Russian rivalries in the
Near East. At the end of the epochal
1878 conclave the British prime minister
appeared before a cheering multitude at
No. 10 Downing Street and said: I'VE
have brought you back, I think, Peace
With Honor"
Consciously, or by one of those CO.
medicines with which history is replete,
an identical scene was enacted in Lon
don yesterday. Another British prime
minister had come home from critical
conference in Germany, the meeting at
Munich, which snatched Europe from
the brink of war. There, too as in Ber-
lin three score years earlier, four states
men held in their hands the power to
decide whether the Old Worlds peace
was to be broken. And SO it came to pass
that Disraelis present-day successor,
Neville Chamberlain, was able to deliver
to an enthusiastic throng in Downing
Street the very same message uttered
by Dizzy six decades before. Il have
brought home peace with honor" the
hero of the Czech peace agreement
said, 1T is peace for our time" he
added, for the settlement just achieved is
In my view only prelude to a larger set
tlement in which all Europe may find
peace"
Then Mr.. Chamberlain, with drama
not commonly associated with him, dis
played and read to the excited crowd
standing beneath him at old mo. TO- the
brief declaration signed by himself and
Chancellor Hitler only few hours be-
fore, the undertaking which he described
as "of the first Importance for the
two countries and for Europe'-a
mutual pledge that they regard the
compact of Munich and the 1895 Anglo
German naval agreement as symbolic of
the desires of our two peoples never to 60
to war with one another again." That is
bringing home peace with honor" to the
British nation in terms understandable
by people which until this week had
lived in grim though undismayed an
t1cipation of war with Germany for three
years.
Four days ago Britons were digging
trenches in their streets and gardens as
refugees from anticipated attacks by
Goerings bombing planes. Yesterday
they heard from Neville Chamber
lain that We the prime minister
and der Fuehrer) are resolved that
the method of consultation shall be the
method adopted to deal with other ques-
tons that may concern our two coun-
tries. We are determined to continue
our efforts to remove possible sources of
difference and thus to contribute to as
sure the peace of Europe"
To emphasize the desires of our two
peoples never to go to war with one an
other again is, of course, quite different
from solemnly affirming their intentions
not to fight. But that is quibbling over
words. The declaration has all the moral
value, If not the full binding effect, of
formal accord to keep the peace 1t is
the most constructive single step toward
European appeasement in our time, with
sole exception of the Sudeten agreement,
Of which it is corollary.
What the unsettled Anglo-German
questions are is everybody's secret. Before
his Reichstag on February 20 last, Hitler
asserted that the colonial question" was
the only one Germany has still to
adjust with Great Britain. That der
Fuehrer will presently raise it can hardly
be doubted. To have him committed to
q bloodless solution is as welcome news
as the Czech adjustment, for, like that
controversy, the demand for restoration
of Germanys place in the sun contains
the seeds of conflict.
Great Britain has always been pre-
pared to discuss that claim. But she
insists that any understanding concern
ing it not be effected piecemeal-that
concessions in one field be contingent
llpon agreement in every other field: that
the structure stand or fall as a whole
Primarily, the British require the Reich's
commitment to some kind of internation-
al order-"a damping down of the frenzy
of her mlitarism,' as r. w. Seton-W Wat
son puts it, guarantee that no more
Austrias or Sudeten Germanys will be
rammed through at the bayonets point
and cannons mouth.
pure WafarS