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MONDAY, December 27, 1937,
was
Д
ANGLO-AMERICAN ·
TRADE PACT
Apparently there moment's pause when Mr. Neville Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons that negotiations for a trade agrec- ment with the U.S.A. were suffi- ciently advanced to warrant the publication of the fact. That informal and exploratory dis- cussions had been taking place every one knew. The open de- claration at this particular time came as a surprise. When the significance of the statement was realised, there was an outburst of applause from every quarter of the House.
It is common knowledge that опе of the chief underlying causes of world unrest is to be found in the economic maladjust- ments between nations that have prevailed ever since the World War ended.
The Abdication and After
by
HAROLD
R
LASKI
ECENT events have tended very strongly to reinforce the view taken last December by the Labour Party when the issues of the abdication were so fiercely contested.
Upon the Duke of Windsor's marriage, the Party in the House expressed no opinion. So far as it was concerned, the personal rights and wrongs of his marriage were not an issue.
What it stated was its emphatic judgment that a constitutional monarch must act upon thò advies of his ministers.
The alternative, as it insisted, was that his personni views must become the measure of Blatc action. And that. It urged, is an impossible position in representa- tive democracy.
For sooner or later, It means n party of the King's friends, If it pays to influence the King's mind. there will be people to push and intrigue to secure access to it.
They will seek to bend it one way rather than another way. They will try to magnify his authority. They will want to make him not, as now, a dignified emollient, but a source of active power.
Booner or later, the Labour Party said, that means the aban
A donment of royal neutrality. king who is known to have strong views will be pressed to Ret upon them. There wil be constant denger of his yielding to the pressure.
Latent in that position is the prospect that conillet between the
Crown and its ministers will
emerge.
W
E have had past,experi- ence of that conflict. We know that an active monarch is, given our social system, almost bound to be a reactionary monarch.
The limit of the royal position must, in the judgment of the Labour Party, lie in its right to advise, to encourage and to warn. The right to act is a ministerial prerogative; it cannot reside else- where. To jeopardise that prin- ciple is to undermine the founda- tions of our constitutional system.
The recent experiences of the Duke of Windsor go gravely to sup- port the Labour view of last De- cember. We need not doubt that he was full of good will for social pur- poses in which he was genuinely interested.
We need not doubt, either, that he thought tiimself capable of for- warding views which he believed to be important for public welfare. The point that emerges from lili experience is twofold. It la, first, that as soon as a man who is in his position desires to express views upon matters of social dispute, there will be persons ready and unger to exploit those views,
One of the basic realities on which the Covenant of the League of Nations is built is that the Modern World is a unity economically. That is why per- haps the first purpose expressed in the Preamble to the Covenant is not, as might have been ex- pected, the search for ‘peace and security, but the promotion of 'international co-operation.' Very unhappily governments and peoples have been almost completely blind to the necessity of such co-operation in the economic sphere. Each nation in order to bring the League of Nations ideal of Perpetual Peace
He may profess Impartiality; ho may protest his neutrality between "onflicting parties and doctrines. cannot maintain either the
The Duke of Windsor arriving for a luncheon given for kim in Paris by the Augio-Ainerican Press Club.
His
profesalon or the protest. utterance. hla connections, his Restures even, are there to ba discussed and debated.
Whatever his purposes, Inter- ested persons will interpret them. and he cannot escape the consc- quences of the interpretation. lle Is bound to become a partisan even while he seeks to avoid it.
That is clear from the Duke of Windsor's experience. Whatever his intention, his visit to Hitlerite Germany was already a choice. He had not visited M. Blum. He had no wish to see French experiments In social welfare.
At a time of bitter controversy between the Fascist and the Demo- cratic Powers, the decision he took to visit Nazi Germany was already a gesture incompatible with im- partiality. And it was a similar ges- ture to decide to viatt the United States under the auspices of Mr. Bedaux.
however For,
estimablo and eminent Mr. Bedaux may be, the trade unions of the world fercely. resent the methods for which he stands,
HE world cannot help saying that a man is known by his friends. It cannot help feeling that such choice of friends for the purpose of disinterested Inquiry revenis either lamentable ignorance or the abandonment of neutrality.
If it is the first, then the Duke needs to be told that such ignorance is dangerous thing in a crilical world.
If it is the second. It is, of course, a very grave departure from habits the importance of which
arc obvious to anyone who knows the history of the royal family before the Victorian epoch.
I do not, of course, know what the Duka Intended to secure by his tours. If his purpose was to encourage better housing
and better Industrial conditions, the obvious comment 13 that, admirable as that Intention is. ho cannot do so without in- volving himself in passionate controversies.
At some stage he is bound to reveal views. At some stage, also, people whose interests are affected will be bound to dis- cuss those views.
N
OT only he will be in- volved. The whole post- tion of... the family will be involved.
royal Once
he occupies himself with matters that are necessarily political, he is not a private person. An ex- king, a royal perlice even, is a public person. He cannot otherwisc.
bc
He 15, let it be added, a pub- Ite person who rarely has any special competence in the realm ofysocial matters. He abandons the path of safety the moment that he tries to use his in- fluence in some given direction. He holds himself out to be _exploited_by_anyone_who_ has. the means to exploit him. He is bound to give offence by doing one thing rather than another thing, by linking himself with one set of persons rather than another set of persons.
The Duke of Windsor can hardly
fall to
to have realised that by now. Hils visit to Germany was, quite frankly, a disastrous mistake. His courtesy to his hosts was bound to be exploited. His inability to see the other Germany-the Germany of Thaelmann and Ossielsky, of the headsman and the concentration camps-set a terrible perspective
his experiment.
to
The same would have been truc of the American visit. He might have talked to Mr. Lewis and to Mr. Green; he might have dined with the greatest democrat who has sat in the Presidential chair since Abraham Lincoln.
But no trade unionist could have
THROUGH A CAT'S EYES
un entirely different
shades of
grey,
has sought for salvation and within the scope of a realisable D it ever occur to you that you A Black-and-white World prosperity in complete independ-fnet, a foundation must first he
Dve in fence of other nations, very often built of economic appeasement, account for Pussy's detached thoughed by an examination of the clayto world from your cat? That may The starting discovery is confirm- indeed by measures that have A first step was taken two years mercenary attitude towards you.
which shows that poor Puss has no definitely damaged those others. ago when Britain and the U.S.A. In the first place, there is the mechanism for the sorting-out of The
deliberately helped France to go difference in point of view; it makes colours, and therefore, sees every- reasons have been only off the Gold Standard without the difference to your conception thing in black, white, und different partially economic. Tariffs, financini disaster
to herself. of things whether you sit on a chair
und take your food off a table or stroll Now, at first sight, this stato of currency manipulations, quotas, But the next step-all-round re-through. I forest of furniture legs affairs might seem a very grave exchange restrictions, have also of currency exchange rules,--
duction of tariffs, stabilisation and approach the table-top of your handicap to Puss, but it is not po
peril.
Indeed. After all, he doesn't know quite frequently been utilised as has been very slow in coming. your herbaceous border is Puss's only schemes; so he doesn't care a bit. It is the same in the garden, where what he misses in the way of colour- convenient weapons of political Advance could be made only by Jungle.
Tom has much keener Morcover, warfare. 'Economie national- the leadership in harmony of the Of course, you, who are constrained right in meagre light than you have, ism, as this tendency has been two greatest industrial States, to walk on the floors of your dwell-though he cannot quite see in the
means of dark, na has often been imagined. Ing and use only doors as the U.S.A. and Great Britain. access, are ni
Absolute colour-blindness is shared serious disadvantage appropriately called by the A1 Inst the prospect of this joint compared with Thomas, who favoura by other night-prowling animals League of Nations experts, has leadership looms in alght, and moon-bathing on the tiles, and 10 besides the cat, and is compensated become a common feature in the nothing could be more welcome whom every window is a door as for by exceptional acuity of vision
In what
what we consider" very poor foreign policy of all the indus-to a distracted world. But it is Dul view-point is not everything Illumination.
Scientists tell us, too, that the trial nations. It is seentat its worth while warning the overfor from it! If Puss and you view worst in the efforts of the die-optimistic that there are still the same object, a bird, a fish, a ball, ability to distinguish different colours piece of cheese, for example, from is a comparatively recent acquisition intor states to make water run many obstacles to be overcome, the same stance, do you both see the among animals. The cat of a million up hill, to become completely On the other hand, if London same thing?
years hence may be just na able to *self-sufficient' In preparation for and
aro really Not by any means! And the chief appreciate the rainbow as we are now. Sight itself has evolved gradually, But to a varying oxtent determined
will reason for this is that, although you good
might never suspect it, Thomna is as living organisms have. Some other nations are tarred with provails, there is no reason why colour-blind. He has concealed the lowly animals are sensitive to light, the same brush.
the many dimeultics, such as the fact well, but scientists have found as plants are, without having, eyes Ottawa Agreements and of out that he is quite unable to dis-¡nt'all. Every intelligent person has private vested interests, should they are of the same degree of there were coloured flowers; it was | tinguish different colours so long un Green trees 'oxisted long before realised for some time now that not be mastered.
brightness.
(Continued on Pape 5.)
war.
Washington
and
well,
forgotten that Mfr. Dedaus was his sponsor. No trade unionist could have forgotten, either, that he was co ignorant of current controver- sles ns to have chosen Mr. Bedaux as his sponsor.
Either the outcome of his visit would have been a body of mean- Ingless platitudes-hardly worth the labour of a visit-or he would have been plunged into discussions which, granted his position, it is altogether unseemly for him to enter.
When the Duke of Windsor de- elded to abdicate last December, he ought to have realised that the only part it is possible for him to play lo that of a private gentle-
man,
The måller of ex-king is an im- possible one in this world. It means the holding of opinions; it means the expression of opinions. Sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, it means the forcu lime- ight of public debate about every utterance and action of himself send his entourage. From that to the formation of a party about -him-is-one-step,-but-one-step only.
RANKLY, it is a very dangerous step. An ex- king is bound to involve others beyond himself. He can- not avoid being a politician by the mere fact of his action. He 16 bound to embarrass himself. He is bound, further, to embarrass all with whom he comes into contact by the choices he is compelled to make.
Already people ask why the Duke does not now visit the Soviet Union. One day it will be Scan- diuavia; next it will be Rome. The sooner he realises that his attempt to influence policy is an attempt, whether he will or no, to form a party, the better for himself and overy one clao,
A member of our royal family is limited, by the nature of its func- tion, to a purely ceremonial part in life which raises him beyond that level where controversy can rake, His business is to unite opinions and not to divide thom. No doubt it is a dull and exacting function.
The alternative is that he should enter an arena in which, by the nature of things, quarter is neither given nor sought.
Those are the best friends of the Duke who can persuade him that, when he abandoned the throne, ho abandoned, also, the right to play a significant part in affairs. As i private gentleman there is no one who will not wish him well.
A
8 a public figure, he cannot expect any other treatment than is ac- corded to those who seek to doter- mine the direction of public events.
And, in a representative demo- cracy, the first need for those who seok that power to influenco is their understanding that, by doing so, they have deliberately aban- doned their title to Impartiality.. The Duke is insistent that this title should be his. To securo his wish, he must confine himself to that private world he entered almost a year ago.
-To-day's - Thought.................. WE olve advice, but we can-
not give conduct. - ---LA ROCIISFOUCAULD,