Page:The Practice of Diplomacy - Callières - Whyte - 1919.djvu/121

 to his own court. It follows therefore that the manner of reports which a negotiator despatches to his home government will have a large influence upon the type of instruction which he receives from time to time.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs may prefer not to put the instructions and intentions of his royal master into writing but to deliver them orally, because then he has a greater freedom of interpretation according to circumstances as they arise, than he would have if he were bound by the written word. There is further a danger that such instructions when committed to paper may be wittingly or unwittingly left in the hands of some foreign diplomatist belonging to the opposite party. The risks thus incurred are too obvious to need any emphasis of mine. Whereas if the instructions be left in oral form, they can at least be repudiated if a dangerous situation were to arise from their being made known to an enemy prince. There are of course occasions where it is impossible not to commit to writing instructions given to a plenipotentiary, but it is a good rule in all negotiation to delay the issue of formal and binding instructions to as late a date in the negotiations as possible, so that the general lines upon which it is likely to proceed may be present to the mind of the minister who draws them up for the guidance of the ambassador.