Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/21

8 the negotiations did not satisfy any one. Most of what was going on became known to outsiders. But its authenticity was so uncertain and it was so commingled with mere rumor that the public soon gave up in despair. It will be important to inquire as to what is the proper perspective between confidential deliberation and publicity of results, in conferences, which are becoming the usual agency for discussing and settling international affairs.

When secrecy is confined merely to the methods of carrying on negotiations, its importance for good and evil is certainly not so great as when the secrecy of methods includes concealment of aims and of the agreements arrived at. We could imagine that even a statesman who seeks the closest relationship with public opinion, even a Lincoln, could not at all times eliminate all use of confidential communications. But the temper of the whole system of foreign affairs is a different matter; and any broad effort to conceal the tendency of action or its results is certainly productive of evil, no matter how salutary or beneficial it may seem to the men employing it at the time.

But, it is said, we must trust to experts. International relations are so intricate and have so