A Chamberlain Peace?

FOREIGN NEWS

"While we build up Britain's strength, I will strive to remove the causes of war in the world!" Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain promised in the House of Commons this week, as he asked approval for armed forces expenditure this year of $1,758,750,000 (see p. 18). In his house at No. 10 Downing Street, meanwhile, he had given swift impetus last week to negotiations for the Four-Power Pact which Britain, Germany, France and Italy will try to make (TIME, March 7), possibly admitting Poland to make it a Fiver.

Even top correspondents were flatly told by the entourage of Chamberlain & Friends that every effort will be made to keep them from learning any details of the negotiations now begun, until the four Great Powers are ready to issue communiques (handouts), expected in about six weeks. Hitler last week was handed what Chamberlain had to say by British Ambassador Sir Nevile Henderson, who brought the papers personally from London. This week the Fuehrer's reply will be taken to London by the new German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The French Ambassador was messenger boy in London last week for Premier Chautemps. From London this week British Ambassador Lord Perth, onetime Secretary General of the League of Nations, hurried to Premier Mussolini.

Neville Chamberlain, angered by criticism of the secrecy with which he is trying to make a European Peace through diplomatic channels instead of at Geneva, this week hotly told the Commons:

"I claim to be a better friend of the League of Nations than some of those who speak for it! The League today is mutilated, halt and maimed, and those who like me to do my best to build it up are serving it better than those who would attempt to put on it in its present state tasks which are manifestly beyond its strength.

"The ideals of the League are grand and magnificent, and I'll never believe they are not ultimately attainable, but we cannot bring them nearer by pretending they are within our grasp today. Why should we mislead them by giving people assurance of 'collective security' when such assurance can only be a delusion?"

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