Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/111



is a war that has been made by men in high places, by diplomatists working in secret, by bureaucrats out of touch with the people, by men who are a remnant of an older evil civilization."

Lord Loreburn sums up his indictment of se- cret diplomacy in the following language: "Se- cret diplomacy has undergone its 'acid test' in this country. It had every chance. The voice of party was silent. The Foreign Minister was an English gentleman whom the country trusted and admired, who was wholly free from personal en- mities of every kind, and who wanted peace. And secret diplomacy utterly failed. It pre- vented us from finding some alternative for war, and it prevented us from being prepared for war, because secret diplomacy means diplomacy aloof from Parliament." The issue is here quite clearly stated. Those who see in the methods and spirit of the old diplomacy the chief cause of war, do not hold, on the one hand, that secret diplo- macy involves at all times and in all cases un- scrupulous plotting. But they believe that the method of dealing with foreign affairs as a mys- terious matter, fit to be handled only by the se- lect, and the reliance on a policy of bargains and compensations, with the aim thus artificially to maintain a balance of power, may be blamed for