Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/79



lished on May 31st. When questioned in the House of Lords, the Marquis of Salisbury, who at all times had a well-deserved reputation for sincerity, nevertheless qualified the statement in the Globe as "wholly unauthenticated and not de- serving of any confidence on the part of the House of Lords.'* The full text of the agreement was published by the Globe on June 14th, and when challenged by Lord Rosebery concerning his dementi, Lord Salisbury calmly stated: "I de- scribed it as unauthentic simply because it was so, and because no other adjective actually described it, and I shall be able to state why I so described it." The explanation which followed was, how- ever, quite lame, and consisted mainly in stating that the document as published did not give a com- plete view of the situation. The impression pro- duced by these tactics was far from favorable. Lord Granville, with a great deal of justice, wanted to know "where the House of Lords would have been had it not been for the immoral action of the man who gave the secret treaty to the news- paper. They would have had blue books and cop- ies of instructions, protocols and other docu- ments, but they would have been perfectly duped as to the way in which the government had actu- ally proceeded."