Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/72



responsibility to others, particularly for the use of armed forces; when by a series of specific acts a tendency is given to foreign policy which is not avowed to the representatives of the people; then there exists secret diplomacy in a reprehensible sense. A further method of concealment works through a false statement of motives. Often nar- rowly selfish action has been camouflaged with the avowal of noble aims and high ideals; or there has been fencing for position in order that at the be- ginning of a war the opprobrium of being the assailant could be thrown on the other party. Undoubtedly sometimes statesmen may persuade themselves of the presence of high motives in matters in which their specific action or that of their successors, working with the same materials, takes on a contrary direction.

At the conclusion of the Crimean war, Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Clarendon (March 1, 1867) as follows:

"... the alliance of England and France has de- rived its strength not merely from the military and naval power of the two states, but from the force of the moral principle upon which that union has been founded. Our union has for its foundation resistance to unjust aggression, the defence of the weak against the strong, and the maintenance of the existing balance of power. How, then, could we combine to become un-