Page:The Practice of Diplomacy - Callières - Whyte - 1919.djvu/166

 Ignorance of foreign languages indeed is perhaps the most serious drawback with which diplomacy can be afflicted. Now though princes and sovereign states entrust negotiations to diplomatists armed with full powers, none the less they never conclude or sign treaties except upon their own explicit ratification given with their own hand and sealed with their own seal, and the treaties are never published until they have been ratified, and cannot take effect until they are published except in cases specially provided for, where certain articles and sometimes the whole treaty is deliberately kept secret.

While the art of handling a foreign court is the principal part of diplomacy, it is no less important that the diplomatist himself should be able to give an exact and faithful account in writing of his own court, both in respect of the negotiations in his charge and in respect of all other business which arises. The letters which a diplomatist writes to his prince are called despatches, and should be stripped of verbiage, preambles, and other vain and useless ornaments. They should give a complete account of his actions, beginning with his first démarche on arrival at the foreign court, describing in detail the manner in which he was received, and thereafter proceeding to report step by step the ways in which he proposes to arrive at an understanding of all that goes on around him, Thus