1938: Great Britain

1938: Great Britain

Great Britain, which includes England, Wales, and Scotland, has an area of 88,735 square miles, to which may be added the 296 square miles of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. These last, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, are the part of the ancient duchy of Normandy that remained in the possession of the English king when, in the thirteenth century, the duchy and the kingdom were separated. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have their own governmental systems and are not subject to the British Parliament in the same measure as are England, Wales, and Scotland. The population of Great Britain is estimated, in round numbers, at 46,000,000, of whom 5,000,000 are in Scotland (census of 1931). In the year 1937 the number of births, to the nearest thousand, was 611,000 in England and Wales and 89,000 in Scotland. The number of deaths was 510,000 and 67,000 respectively. Approximately 12,000,000 acres, or one fifth of the area of the country, is arable. There are in Great Britain some 20,000 miles of railways and 178,000 miles of highways.

In government Great Britain is a limited monarchy. The reigning king, George VI, born Dec. 14, 1895, succeeded to the throne on the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII on Dec. 10, 1936, was proclaimed king two days later, and was crowned in Westminster Abbey on May 12, 1937. His consort, Queen Elizabeth, is the daughter of the Earl of Strathmore. They have two daughters, the Princess Elizabeth and the Princess Margaret Rose, the former of whom is heir apparent to the throne. The powers of the Crown are for the most part powers of 'the Crown in Parliament,' exercised not by the sovereign but by his ministers who are responsible to Parliament; the ministry, which is in reality the Government, may be described as a committee of the party that is in power in Parliament.

Government.

Parliament is bi-cameral, the House of Lords and the House of Commons; but since 1911 the two houses have not been coordinate. Finance Bills passed by the House of Commons receive the royal assent thirty days after their passage, even if they have not been passed by the Lords; and over other public Bills the Lords have merely a suspensive veto which would enable them to prevent enactment for two years. The House of Lords is composed of (a) hereditary peers, (b) peers who have been created by the sovereign, (c) the two archbishops and twenty-four of the bishops of the Church of England who hold their seats by virtue of their office, as do (d) the Law Lords, (e) holders of Irish peerages, 28 in number, who are elected for life by the members of the Irish peerage, and (f) 16 Scottish peers who are elected for the duration of Parliament. While the prelates of the English Church in the House of Lords are spoken of as 'lords spiritual,' in distinction to the 'lords temporal,' in point of fact they owe their place in the upper House to the baronies historically connected with their sees. The twenty-four bishops include the bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester, together with twenty-one others in order of seniority. The total membership of the House of Lords is about 740, but its total voting strength, because of minorities, etc., is at present around 720. The House of Commons has a membership of 615, representing counties and parliamentary boroughs, elected by universal suffrage. Women are eligible for election, and since 1919 have been represented among the Members of Parliament. Clergymen of the Church of England and of the Roman Catholic Church and ministers of the Church of Scotland are ineligible for election to the Commons, as are peers, convicts, and persons legally proven insane. The membership includes thirteen representatives of Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom, although there is a Parliament at Belfast which legislates on Northern Irish matters. Members of Parliament are not elected for a fixed term, as are members of Congress, but for the duration of a parliament, which by law cannot exceed five years.

The British Government is the ministry, as has been said. At present there are 21 Cabinet Ministers and 8 other ministers who are not in the Cabinet. Ministers may be members of either House. The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, took office on May 28, 1937, in succession to Stanley Baldwin, now Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, who accepted an earldom and retired to the quiet of the upper House. The present Conservative government was appointed on November 26, 1935, and reconstructed in October 1936, in May 1937, and again during 1938. As a result of the general elections of 1935, the Government had 431 members of the House of Commons, to 184 members of the opposition. Each of these groups was subdivided: on the Government side — Conservative 387, Liberal National 33, National Labor 8, National 3: on the opposition side — Labor 154, Liberal 17, Independent Liberal 4, Independent Labor 4. Independent 4, Communist 1. Subsequent by-elections have altered these figures somewhat, but not enough to endanger the Conservative leadership. In 56 by-elections (to the last week of November 1938), the Government lost 13 seats, not including one that was carried by an Independent Conservative, and Labor won 10 seats, of which 2 were in Scotland, 4 in London, 2 in the Midlands, and 2 in the South. (See also SOCLALISM.)

Cabinet Changes.

The resignation of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Capt. Anthony Eden, because of his lack of sympathy for Chamberlain's foreign policy, was announced on Feb. 20 and necessitated a reshuffling of Cabinet portfolios. Viscount Halifax succeeded Capt. Eden at the Foreign Office, the Lord Chancellor became Lord President of the Council, Lord Maugham followed Lord Hailsham as Lord Chancellor, and Lord Stanhope, President of the Board of Education, became leader of the House of Lords. Criticism of Lord Halifax's appointment as 'unconstitutional,' on the ground that the Foreign Secretary must be a member of the House of Commons, was unwarranted; yet the appointment came close to meaning that the Prime Minister would be his own Foreign Secretary, for the center of political gravity is in the Commons, not in the Lords, and the imperatively important task of explaining, defending, and winning support for the government's foreign policy has been taken over by Mr. Chamberlain. Further changes were made three months later when Lord Swinton resigned from the Air Ministry in the face of continued criticism, intensified by his placing in America contracts for 400 aircraft at an estimated cost of £5,000,000. He was succeeded by Sir Kingsley Wood, formerly Health Minister, who not only has a great reputation for dynamic energy but can defend the administration of his department, and the policies of the Government as a whole, before the House of Commons, while Lord Swinton had been restricted to the arid atmosphere of the House of Lords. Major Walter Elliott, Secretary for Scotland, was transferred to the Ministry of Health, and to his former office was appointed Lieut, Col. D. J. Colville, financial secretary to the Treasury. The resignation of the Colonial Secretary, William Ormsby-Gore, occasioned by inheriting a peerage (he is now Lord Harlech), resulted in Malcolm MacDonald, Secretary for the Dominions, moving to the Colonial Office. The new Secretary for the Dominions was Lord Stanley, who entered Parliament in 1917 when he was only twenty-three years old and became parliamentary and financial secretary to the Admiralty in 1931. Lord Weir, unofficial adviser to the Air Ministry and to the Cabinet Committee of Imperial Defense, resigned both posts on May 30 as a protest against the ouster of Viscount Swinton. His place was taken by Lord Nuffield. In October there were further changes. Alfred Duff Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty, resigned from the Cabinet after the Czech crisis and was succeeded by Lord Stanhope, whose post as President of the Board of Education was taken by Earl De La Warr, formerly Lord Privy Seal. Sir John Anderson was appointed Lord Privy Seal. Lord Hailsham resigned as Lord President of the Council, to be followed in that sinecure office by Viscount Runciman. Lord Stanley's death on October 20 meant Malcolm Mac-Donald's return to the post of Secretary for the Dominions.

Unemployment.

In a New Year's message the Prime Minister, surveying the course of events during the preceding year, spoke of 'an increase within the twelve months of over 350,000 in the number of insured people at work, a reduction of about 25 per cent in the unemployment figures in the special area.' This seemingly optimistic utterance was rather misleading. The number of registered persons unemployed on Dec. 13 was 1,655,407, which was an increase of 21 per cent over that of the preceding April. During the first ten months of 1938 the number of registered unemployed, with constant fluctuations, was always higher than it had been for the corresponding months of 1937. The figures, month by month for 1938 are: January, 1,827,607; February, 1,810,421; March, 1,748,981; April, 1,747,764; May, 1,778,805; June, 1,802,912; August, 1,759,242; September, 1,798,618; October, 1,781,227. For purposes of comparison, the number of unemployed in January 1938 was the highest since April 1936, and compared with corresponding months in 1937 the number for May was 382,000 higher, for August 451,000, and for October 391,000. That this increase in the number of unemployed was not occasioned through increase in population or by the addition to the number of persons of working age, is shown by the fact that there was a decrease in the number of the employed. For August, for example, the total number of insured persons between the ages of 16 and 64 who were employed other than in the industrial scheme was estimated at 11,402,000, which was 320,000 under the estimate for August 1937.

Trade.

The increase in unemployment during the year was accompanied by a decline in British trade in terms of exports and imports. The imports, January to October inclusive, amounted to £769,577,334 as compared with £838,381,992 for the corresponding period in 1937, and the exports totaled £440,890,670 as compared with £497,880,279. The visible adverse balance of trade, the excess of imports over exports, was thus less in 1938 (the first ten months) than in 1937 by about £12,000,000. The figures for exports include re-exports, which for the ten months amounted to £51,725,264; this leaves the value of goods exported that were manufactured or produced in Britain at £389,165,406. In 1937 the goods re-exported amounted to £65,021,647.

It will be of some interest to see whether this increase in unemployment and decline in trade is reflected in the next year in such matters as public health and the amount of money spent for amusement. Increase in employment and wages in 1937 was accompanied by an increase in the expenditure for drink, according to the report made public in March. This showed that the cost of the per capita consumption of alcoholic beverages rose from £5.7s.6d, in 1936 to £5.12s.9d., an increase of about $1.26 (at the old rate of exchange) per head. The total expenditure came to £259,387,000, which was an increase of 5.3 per cent over 1936. This sum (approximately $1,245,000,000) was spent on 24,588,000 balk barrels of beer; 10,515,000 proof gallons of spirits; 15,840,000 gallons of imported wines; and 6,220,000 gallons of British wines. (See also WORLD ECONOMICS.)

Finance.

The end of the Government's fiscal year, March 31, found the budget out of balance by only 4 per cent. The inclusion of the debts owed to the United States would have added to this figure, but of recent years those debts have been quietly ignored. It must be added that when in July the question was raised in the House of Lords, Lord Stanhope, replying for the government, said that the question was not closed. The new budget, introduced by Sir John Simon, increased the income tax to the highest point ever reached by any peacetime budget, except that for 1918-20. The normal rate is now 5 shillings 6 pence on the pound, or 27 per cent. The tax on tea was raised 2 pence a pound, so it now stands at 6 pence for imperial and 8 pence for foreign tea. The tax on petrol (gasoline) was increased by a penny to 9 pence a gallon.

Health and Housing.

The Annual Report of the Ministry of Health showed that for the year 1937-1938 conditions were in some respects slightly better, in others slightly worse, than for the preceding year. The maternal mortality rate in England and Wales was 3.1 per 1,000 births, a new low record; deaths from tuberculosis were but slightly over those for the record made in 1936-1937, 695 as compared with 692; the number of cases of scarlet fever had fallen from 104,863 to 95,735; on the other hand the number of cases of pneumonia increased from 46,167 to 55,896.

The year 1938 witnessed the end of the five-year slum clearance plan that was inaugurated in 1933. During that period 262,807 new houses were approved as a part of the rehousing programme. This is nearly 94 per cent of the houses that were to be demolished. Since the plan got under way there have been 800,000 persons moved from slum houses into the new houses. (See also ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSING.)

Automobile Casualties.

A subject that has attracted a good deal of attention in Great Britain as well as in America has been the great number of deaths and injuries from automobile accidents. Despite the rigorous steps taken to cut down the toll, by reducing the legal speed limit, placing beacons and traffic lights, and so on, there seems to have been but little improvement. In the first nine months of 1938 there were 172,695 persons killed and injured in motor vehicle accidents in Great Britain. The number of the killed, including those who died from their injuries, was 4,658, which was about 150 less than for the corresponding period in 1937. An analysis of the causes of accidents shows that excessive speed or the gross negligence of drivers can account for a small percentage only, the underlying difficulty is the use by motor vehicles of a system of roads designed for an earlier and less crowded era. The British Road Federation explains the large number of casualties on the basis of the number of motor vehicles, figured not on the number of cars in proportion to the population, but on density of traffic. There are in Great Britain 13.7 motor vehicles for every mile of road, and the death rate is 29 per 10,000. In France there are only 5.6 motor vehicles per mile of road, and the death rate is 21 per 10,000. It may be noted that month by month there has been a decline in the number of new cars placed on the road, taxed on horse power. This goes back to the summer of 1937; for May 1938 was the ninth successive month in which the total number of new cars placed on the roads was smaller than the number for the same month in the year before.

Transportation Records.

In two methods of transportation speed records were made during the past year. At the beginning of July on the London and North Eastern Railway a stream-lined locomotive with seven coaches, the 'Coronation Express,' made a new British speed record of 125 miles per hour, maintained for 306 yards. The previous record was 114 miles per hour, made in 1937. A month later the Queen Mary crossed the Atlantic, westbound, in 3 days 21 hours 48 minutes, an average speed of 30.99 knots. The previous record for the Atlantic was made in August 1937 by the French Liner Normandie, eastbound, 3 days 22 hours 7 minutes. On her return trip the Queen Mary made the eastward crossing in 3 days 20 hours and 42 minutes.

Anniversaries.

The year 1938 witnessed in Great Britain two religious anniversaries that were not without interest and meaning to people outside the United Kingdom. On May 24 was commemorated the two hundredth anniversary of John Wesley's 'conversion.' Primarily of interest to members of the Wesleyan (Methodist) Churches, founded by him, the anniversary was noted also by members of other Christian bodies because of Wesley's prominent place in the religious history of the eighteenth century. Although regarded as the founder of Methodism, he remained until his death a clergyman of the Church of England. He was deeply indebted for some of his teachings to the Moravians, and his 'conversion' was connected with hearing read a passage from the writings of Martin Luther. Of wider interest, and shared in by virtually all English Christians except members of the Roman Catholic Church, was the four hundredth anniversary of the placing of the English Bible in the Protestant churches of England; to be exact, the issuance of royal injunctions on October 11, 1538, requiring that in every parish church there be placed a copy of the Bible in the English tongue, where the people might have opportunity to read it or have it read to them. The importance of the event commemorated may easily be exaggerated, but the importance of the English Bible on the thought and expression of the English-speaking peoples is almost incalculable. Were all references to the Bible and all quotations from it to be remised from English literature (to take a single and non-religious illustration) there would be innumerable and grievous gaps in both prose and poetry.

The celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the Manchester city charter on May 6 served to direct attention to the important place of manufacturing in the economic life of modern England. Three days earlier, the King opened the Empire Exhibition at Glasgow, an exhibition that did something toward stimulating renewed interest in the commerce of the empire. When it closed at the end of October the Exhibition had been attended by more than 12,500,000 persons.

Relations with Ireland.

The past year has seen a great advance made toward settling the relations of Great Britain and Ireland. The new Constitution of Eire (now the official name for Ireland) which was approved by the Irish Parliament on June 14, 1937, and adopted by plebiscite on July 1, became effective on December 20, 1937. Right after the opening of the new year it was announced that on January 17 a meeting would take place between representatives of the British Government and of the Government of Eire to open negotiations toward a settlement of matters still in dispute. The outstanding questions were three in number: land annuities, defense, and trade. Six years ago the Irish Free State flatly refused to pay the £5,000,000 yearly for land annuities, due to the British Government to repay advances it had made to make possible the purchase of lands from absentee British landlords and the distribution of the estates so purchased among the peasantry. In retaliation for this refusal the British Government placed a tariff on Irish products imported into the United Kingdom, and the Irish responded with a customs duty on British goods. The consequence of this tariff war was a sharp fall in the trade between the two countries, from about £80,000,000 to some £42,000,000 a year.

Near the close of January 1938 the Prime Minister of Eire, Eamon De Valera, made the suggestion that British naval bases on Irish soil be turned over to Eire, subject to the provision that the British be allowed to make full use of them and of other bases to be built, and that Eire pay £5,000,000 annually toward their upkeep. That this sum was identical with that due to the British for land annuities seemed to many observers a striking coincidence. In any event, the terms obtained by Eire were even more favorable than those suggested by De Valera. By an agreement signed on April 25 the Irish Government bound itself to pay, before November 30, £10,000,000 in composition for all the land annuity claims, and to resume the payment of £250,000 yearly for damages to property during the post-War civil strife in Ireland; the British Government gave to Eire the Admiralty property and rights at Berehaven, Cobh (Queenstown), and Lough Swilly; and a general trade agreement was to be made between the two countries to come into effect as soon as the necessary legislation could be enacted. This trade agreement, to hold for at least three years, has not only abolished the 'special duties' of the tariff war but provides for freer trade than existed before the tariff war opened. The duty on British coal is abolished, and most Irish products can enter the United Kingdom duty free, though there is a quota restriction on agricultural and dairy products. Since the annuities which Eire compounded for by a single payment of £10,000,000 amounted to half that sum annually and were to run till 1990, it is clear that De Valera made financial terms extremely advantageous to Eire. (See also IRELAND.)

The great outstanding problem in Anglo-Irish relations is that of Northern Ireland. The Constitution of Eire states that 'the national territory consists of the whole of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas.' But Northern Ireland, comprising the counties which collectively are often referred to as Ulster, is still an integral part of the United Kingdom, with its own Parliament meeting at Belfast and with representatives in the Parliament at London. This exclusion of Ulster from the rest of Ireland is recognized as a temporary arrangement in the Constitution of Eire which states, in the article immediately following, 'Pending the re-integration of the national territory . . . the laws enacted by that Parliament shall have the like area and application as the laws of the Free State.' In other words, the Irish, apart from a majority of the inhabitants of the six northern counties, not only look forward to a united Ireland but provide in the Constitution of Eire for a single state that shall include the entire island. The problem could not be solved by negotiations between the governments of Eire and Great Britain, for the decision must rest with the Ulstermen, and Ulster, which brought the country to the brink of civil war in 1914, is no nearer an agreement with the rest of Ireland than it was then, or in the years of trouble following the close of the World War. In the general elections held in Northern Ireland on Feb. 9, the Unionist government was returned to office on the slogan, 'Don't be Eirated.'

Prime Minister De Valera has won such extraordinary success in his own country and in his dealings with the British Government that it would be rash to prophesy that he can never realize his dream of a united Ireland. His treaty with Great Britain was ratified by the Parliament of Eire with but one dissenting vote. The leader of the opposition stated that his only regret regarding the treaty was that it had not been made six years ago. On May 27 De Valera took advantage of a defeat on a minor matter to ask for the dissolution of Parliament; in the elections on June 17 his party was returned with an increased majority. Toward Ulster the people of Eire held out an olive branch in the unopposed election of their first President. Douglas Hyde, who was elected on May 4 and inaugurated on June 26, is a man 78 years of age, no politician but a scholar, not a Roman Catholic but a member of the disestablished Church of Ireland (Episcopal), and the son of a clergyman. That his election, to an office characterized by dignity rather than power, may be attributed in large part to his share in the Gaelic revival is true enough, yet there is some significance in the fact that the first President of Eire is a man whom the people of Ulster could well agree to accept as their chief executive, too. Possibly De Valera alone has any expectation that the union of Eire and Ulster is more than an exceedingly remote possibility; the gulf is too wide and of too long standing to be filled up speedily. The whole complex of questions involving religion, economics, the self-determination of small peoples, ancient grudges and sympathies, self-interest, and honest differences of opinion regarding the demands of justice, would make it extraordinarily difficult for any British Government to take sides or to remain neutral if Eire should endeavor to reintegrate the national territory by assimilating Northern Ireland against the wishes of any considerable part of the folk of Ulster.

Palestine.

During 1938, the problems that have arisen in Palestine under British rule have increased. In the summer of 1937, a British Royal Commission, commonly called the Peel Commission, recommended a scheme for the partition of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with the city of Jerusalem kept under a permanent mandate. On Jan. 4, the Government made known its intention to send another commission to study how the plan might be put into effect. The Commission was appointed in March, reached Palestine in April, and was engaged until August in studying the situation and taking testimony. Its report was published early in November. The first plan for partition they rejected on the ground that the proposed Jewish state would include an Arab minority almost as large as the Jewish population (295,000 Arabs to 305,000 Jews), and to transfer so large an Arab population would be impossible. A variation of this plan, by which Galilee and the southern part of the proposed Jewish state would be detached and placed under a mandate, was likewise rejected. The Commission proposed a third plan, more elaborate, for the division of Palestine into several parts — a small coastal Jewish state, an Arab state, and several stretches under mandate — with suggestions as to allowing the sale of lands in some regions and not in others. The details are of little moment, for with the report the British Government issued a statement that, after studying the problem afresh in the light of the evidence collected by the Commission, it had decided that any plan of partition would be impracticable. This means that the British Government continues to be responsible for Palestine, and must endeavor to fulfill its obligations to Arabs and Jews alike. The situation, it has been said, is not hopeless, it is only approximately hopeless. To carry out the terms of the Balfour Declaration; to enable the Jews to find a new home in a country with a large Arab population; to bring two conflicting and intransigent groups into harmony, is a complex problem and one that is none the simpler for being involved now with international questions. The problem, however, is one that will have to be solved in Britain.

Foreign Policy.

Turning further afield, the year 1938 was marked by feverish activity in international affairs and by what appears to be a grievous loss in British prestige in world politics. The foreign policy of the British Government has been most vigorously assailed and most vigorously defended both in and out of Parliament; and it is most probable that foreign policy will be the dominant issue in the next general elections. At the close of the year, the Government had to its credit no single successful maneuver in the field of foreign affairs, unless the avoidance of war through the expedient of yielding everything demanded by the authoritarian states be so regarded. So far as British party polities is concerned, the Tories, with generations of experience in the field of diplomacy, have been out-traded and have seemingly abandoned their traditional doctrine of a vigorous foreign policy and the maintenance of British prestige abroad; while the Liberals and the Labor party, customarily pacifistic, have been clamoring for increased armament and for a stronger attitude in dealing with other Powers.

Spain.

In regard to Spain, the policy of the British Government has been to keep to its course of non-intervention. The Insurgent Government set up by Franco was not recognized during 1938, nor did the British accord belligerent rights to the Insurgents. On the other hand, no protection was given by Chamberlain's Government to British shipping, and no action was taken against the Insurgents though British vessels on their lawful missions have been attacked and sunk and British mariners killed by the Insurgents and their allies. On Feb. 7, Foreign Secretary Eden announced to the House of Commons that the Spanish Insurgent authorities at Salamanca had been warned that if there were any more attacks on British shipping in the Mediterranean, Great Britain would take retaliatory action without further notice. There was ample justification for the warning. On January 20 the Thorpeness had been bombed by airplanes, with a loss of 7 killed and 8 wounded; on January 27 the captain of the Dover Abbey was killed by bombardment; on the 31st the Endymion was sunk by a submarine off the Spanish coast; and on February 4 the Alcira was sunk by seaplane attack 22 miles off Barcelona. On that very day, Feb. 4, the Italian Government announced its complete acceptance of the anti-piracy measures that had been proposed by the British Foreign Secretary. After Mr. Eden's notice and the announcement of the Italian Government there was a lull for some weeks; then the incidents commenced once more. On May 9 the masters of thirteen British trading vessels at Valencia protested to the Foreign Office against the 'ruthless and absolutely deliberate attacks' made by Franco's airplanes on British ships. On March 15 the Stanwell had been bombed and set on fire, with 3 killed and 17 wounded; on April 25 seven planes attacked the Celtic Star and the Stanland: on the 29th three planes attacked the Surrey Brook. but failed to make a single hit. On April 29 the Stancroft was hit by bombs and badly damaged, and on May 7 the Greatend was hit by a bomb, with 1 killed and 2 wounded. Despite the warning of early February, the repeated attacks, and the protest of the masters of British vessels, the Government did nothings and before the month was over there had been half a dozen more attacks by Spanish Insurgents with three British ships sunk. Anthony Eden had left the Foreign Office in February, the Government was pursuing a policy in which friendly relations with Germany and Italy seemed to be a prime consideration, and both Germany and Italy were giving support to the Spanish Insurgents. Prime Minister Chamberlain informed the House of Commons on June 14 that there was nothing that could be done about the Spanish bombing of British ships. During that week (June 13-20) the Spanish Insurgents bombed fifteen foreign ships, most of which were British. In the first six months of 1938, 59 attacks were made on British ships and 36 British seamen were killed.

The refusal of the British Government to furnish protection to its nationals who were trading with the Loyalist Government of Spain did not mean that Chamberlain was uninterested in the Spanish problem. Such protection, he told the House, 'would constitute direct intervention in the civil war': it would add to the difficulties of making arrangements with Italy; to carrying out the agreement reached in the Perth-Ciano pact of April 16. Probably it was due to Italian pressure on Franco that the attacks on vessels suddenly ceased in the summer. The moribund Non-Intervention Committee came to life in London, but their proposals, accepted in the main by the Loyalist Spanish Government, were rejected by France late in August. Since that time other matters have overshadowed the Spanish problem in British interest and British politics: but the policy of the Prime Minister in connection with Spain is not an unimportant part of the dissatisfaction with his treatment of foreign affairs.

Italy.

The Italian policy of the Chamberlain Government was the immediate cause of Anthony Eden's resignation from the Foreign Office in February. In explaining his resignation to the House of Commons Eden said, 'I myself pledged this House not to open conversations with Italy until hostile propaganda ceased,' and in an address at Birmingham he implied that ever since the spring of 1937 the Prime Minister had been pressing him to make a business deal with Germany and Italy. The appointment early in January of Sir Robert Vansittart, formerly Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to the newly-created post of Chief Adviser to the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Adviser to the Cabinet may have been an indication that the Prime Minister was turning to someone other than his Foreign Secretary for the management of foreign affairs. It was reported that in discussing with other members of the Cabinet the policies that Eden wished to follow, the Prime Minister made disparaging remarks of a sort which, had they been made to the Foreign Secretary himself, would have required his resignation. At any rate, the ideas of Eden and those of Chamberlain as to the policies that should be followed in dealing with the authoritarian states were too divergent for Eden to remain in the Cabinet. After his resignation, Chamberlain came close to being his own Foreign Secretary, partly because Lord Halifax was new to the office but largely because the Prime Minister assumed the task of discussing foreign affairs in the House of Commons, while Halifax was restricted of necessity to the House of Lords.

On April 16 a pact was signed by Lord Perth, British ambassador to Rome, and Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, by the terms of which Great Britain agreed to recognize the Italian title to Ethiopia and to do all possible to persuade other states to do the same. In return for this, Italy agreed to respect Spanish territory and to withdraw her armaments and troops from Spain, after the close of the Spanish struggle. Both agreed to refrain from hostile propaganda against each other. Annexes to the pact make provision for settling disputes in the Arabian peninsula, provisions showing that the British aimed to make secure their control of Red Sea routes from any danger of Italian interference. The treaty was ratified by the British Parliament, but was to become effective at some future and undetermined date. As a prerequisite, Prime Minister Chamberlain said that there must be a substantial reduction of Italian forces in Spain, and 10,000 were withdrawn; but on Nov. 1, the Spanish Loyalist Government informed the League of Nations that there were still 90,000 Italian troops in Spain fighting for the Insurgents. The Perth-Ciano pact was clearly a victory for Italian diplomacy. Britain abandoned her old-time loyalty to the League of Nations, abandoned her objections to the conquest of Ethiopia, abandoned all but the feeblest pretense of objecting to the Fascist active support of Franco; and in exchange she received little or nothing. The 'Realism' behind this policy agrees but little with the slogan on which the general elections of 1935 were won, 'Our Word Is Our Bond.' More than that, there seemed no compelling reason why the British Government should give much and get little. In British opinion such policy seems to assign a secondary place, indeed a negligible place to their country; and the Italian dictatorship is evidently not regarded as a real danger to Britain and the British Empire. One reservation must be made: it was felt, during the successive crises of 1938, that Italy might embarrass Great Britain in such a way as to encourage Germany to go to war. (See also ITALY: Anglo-Italian Relations.)

Germany and Czechoslovakia.

That there is a powerful pro-Nazi group in Great Britain is self-evident; that the Prime Minister belongs to it is by no means evident. Yet, throughout the greater part of 1938, the policy of the British Government toward Germany was far more nearly in accord with the wishes of the pro-Nazis than with the wishes of other folk. The German occupation of Austria and the incorporation of Austria into the German Reich met with no protest from Great Britain, beyond the suecessful insistence that Germany must assume the debt owed by Austria. Without waiting for the plebiscite of April 10 the British Cabinet on April 2 granted formal recognition to the German conquest. Even before this, in connection with the possibility of German intervention in Czechoslovakia, on March 24 Chamberlain, in a speech before the House of Commons, said that Britain would not give a 'prior guarantee' to support Czechoslovakia nor assist France in its defense. In the first Czechoslovak crisis, which broke in May, circumstances compelled the British Government to take a somewhat different line. Peace, which hung by a hair, was preserved by the Government at Prague calling out the reserves and moving 400,000 troops to the frontier. Finding that the Czechs were prepared to fight rather than to yield, though Great Britain had been urging concessions and had probably expected that the Czechs would grant in full the demands made on them, the British Government, realizing that Britain could not hope to remain neutral in a European war brought on by German aggression, changed its course, and evidently indicated to Berlin that it would support Prague and Paris. The crisis passed, mainly, it seems, because Germany was not yet prepared to take direct action. The British public gave little thought to the quarrel between the Czech Government and the Sudeten Germans — or those who claimed to speak for them. It seemed a small affair and remote from British interests. There was little justice in the complaints made by the Sudetens against the Czech Government: but it was not generally realized that the satisfaction of the Sudeten demands was insisted on by the Nazis not as an end in itself but as a means toward the establishment of German hegemony over much of Europe.

By the latter part of the summer there was a change noticeable in the British temper. The visit of the King and Queen to Paris in July was regarded in the light of a new alliance with France: the German radio and press attacks on Czechoslovakia during the negotiations anent the Sudeten question made a bad impression on the average Englishman. On August 27, Sir John Simon made a speech the gist of which was that, while Great Britain was under no obligation to go to war for Czechoslovakia, it might be impossible to stay out of war if it did come. At the opening of the Trades Union Congress on Sept, 5, the president urged that Britain join France and Russia to halt Germany. Ten days later Prime Minister Chamberlain was at Berchtesgaden, having flown there for a personal interview with Hitler in the interests of peace in Europe.

That the British Prime Minister worked frantically for peace cannot be doubted. But a weary man in his seventieth year was at a great disadvantage in trying to cope with a dynamically energetic demagogue twenty years his junior. Further, while there was a considerable amount of democratic and anti-authoritarian opinion in Great Britain, the Prime Minister's policy of concessions and of settling each problem peaceably when it arose had the support of a large majority in Parliament. Lord Runciman's visit to Prague as a mediator had accomplished nothing beyond urging the Czechs to yield and yield again. Convinced that no price was too high to pay for peace, Chamberlain ended by granting everything that Hitler demanded. Before leaving for his last conference with Hitler, at Godesburg, he quoted, 'Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.' When he returned Chamberlain said, as had Disraeli after the Berlin Congress, that he brought back 'peace with honor.' Whether the peace and safety would be permanent none could tell: but for the moment Neville Chamberlain was in popular esteem the greatest man in England.

The imminence of war had been made startlingly clear by the ARP (Air Raid Precautions), the distribution of gas masks, the protection of public buildings with sandbags, arrangements for the evacuation of women and children, the construction of trenches and dugouts, and the placing of searchlights and anti-aircraft guns. Much later, the Minister of War, Hore-Belisha, stated in the House of Commons that, had they been put to the test, it would have been found that the trenches were too shallow, many of the guns useless and the gas masks of doubtful value. That Great, Britain felt unprepared for war in the autumn, particularly for war in the air, was due to no want of activity in the War Office. The estimates for the year's armament expenditures were £343,250,000; plans for a radical reorganization of the British army were announced in March. By a sort of peaceful purge Hore-Belisha put new life and new vigor into the British high command. See also ITALY; SPAIN; FRANCE; GERMANY; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; JAPAN.