Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/109

 had not made the attempt too late. Sir Edward Grey’s speech in the House of Commons on Monday made our entry to the War inevitable, and our little Committee dissolved. This was the first of a series of shocks to my belief that the world was inhabited by a reasonable animal.

The most active of anti-war agencies during the War and for some years after was the Union of Democratic Control (for Foreign Policy). Formed in the early autumn of 1914 by a little group of politicians, among whom E. D. Morel, Ramsay MacDonald, A. Ponsonby, C. Trevelyan, Norman Angell were leaders, it soon drew into its ranks scattered groups throughout the country who held that we were dragged into a war by Grey and a secret junta of the Cabinet, and that it was of urgent importance to get as soon as possible a negotiated peace, and to provide Parliament with direct knowledge of and control over all treaties and other engagements which entailed future risks of war. Sitting on the Executive Committee of this Society almost from its beginning, I came to learn a good deal of the doubts and difficulties carried in the term “Democratic Control.” Should a Committee of the House of Commons, representative of all parties, exercise this control? This sounded democratic. But in a party government it would sin against the first principle of governmental responsibility. The Government for internal affairs must also be the Government for external affairs. Important international issues,