Page:The Practice of Diplomacy - Callières - Whyte - 1919.djvu/28

 My second witness against Sir Arthur Hardinge's opinion is one of the shrewdest of contemporary diplomatists, namely the late German Foreign Secretary, Herr von Kühlmann, whose habitual practice while he was Councillor of Embassy in London shows that it is possible for a diplomatist to have a real and close touch with democratic movements in the modern world, and indeed to make adroit use of them for his own purpose. But if these witnesses are accepted, obviously the junior diplomatists must be released from what is really secretarial work of an unimportant kind. An attaché whose business, as at present, is to copy reports on the salt trade of Sicily or the export of Kavalla tobacco is obviously not in a position either to acquire a knowledge of foreign political conditions, or to gauge the value of political information before transmitting it to his superiors. He should be set free from his present occupations and encouraged to keep open every possible channel of information. Lord Rosebery's instruction to diplomatists abroad to keep a diary of gossip and events as part of their official duty was a pertinent order, and ought to find a place in the permanent instructions to diplomatists; and the serious study xxii