eem to me a great evil. And if it be meant, as it often is meant, that
the whole truth as to treaties cannot be spoken out, I answer, that
neither can the whole truth as to laws. All important laws affect large
"vested interests"; they touch great sources of political strength; and
these great interests require to be treated as delicately, and with as
nice a manipulation of language, as the feelings of any foreign
country. A Parliamentary Minister is a man trained by elaborate
practice not to blurt out crude things, and an English Parliament is an
assembly which particularly dislikes anything gauche or anything
imprudent. They would still more dislike it if it hurt themselves and
the country as well as the speaker.

I am, too, disposed to deny entirely that there can be any treaty for
which adequate reasons cannot be given to the English people, which the
English people ought to make. A great deal of the reticence of
diplomacy had, I think history shows, much better be spoken out. The
worst families are those in which the members never really speak their
minds to one another; they maintain an atmosphere of unreality, and
every one always lives in an atmosphere of suppressed ill-feeling. It
is the same with nations. The parties concerned would almost always be
better for hearing the substantial reasons which induced the
negotiators to make the treaty, and the negotiators would do their work
much better, for half the ambiguities in treaties are caused by the
negotiators not liking the fact or not taking the pains to put their
own meaning distinctly before their own minds. And they would be
obliged to make it plain if they had to defend it and argue on it
before a great assembly.

Secondly, it may be objected to the change suggested that Parliament is
not always sitting, and that if treaties required its assent, it might
have to be sometimes summoned out of season, or the treaties would have
to be delayed. And this is as far as it goes a just objection, but I do
not imagine that it goes far. The great bulk of treaties could wait a
little without harm, and in the very few cases when urgent haste is
necessary, an autumn session of Parliament could well be justified, for
the occasion must be of grave and critical importance.

Thirdly, it may be said that if we required the consent of both Houses
of Parliament to foreign treaties before they were valid we should much
augment the power of the House of Lords. And this is also,