. This is totally
inexcusable. Let me not be misunderstood. I am not a liberal. I am an
out-and-out radical. I foresee a cleavage in the Liberal Party, and when
that cleavage comes I shall be on the extreme left wing. I entirely
agree with Mr. Shaw's denunciation of secret diplomacy and undemocratic
control of foreign policy. By every social tradition I should be in
opposition to Sir Edward Grey, but I think Grey was the best Foreign
Secretary that the Liberal Party could have chosen and that he worked
well on the only possible plane, the plane of practicality. I am quite
sure he is an honest man, and I strongly resent, as Englishmen of all
opinions will resent, any imputation to the contrary.

As for the undemocratic control of foreign policy, a strong point about
our policy on the eve of the war is that it was dictated by public
opinion. [See Grey's dispatch to the British Ambassador at Berlin, No.
123.] Germany could have preserved peace by a single gesture addressed
to Franz Josef. She did not want peace. Mr. Shaw said Sir Edward Grey
ought to have shouted out at the start that if Germany fought we should
fight. Sir Edward Grey had no authority to do so, and it would have been
foolish to do so. Mr. Shaw also says Germany ought to have turned her
whole army against Russia and left the western frontier to the care of
the world's public opinion in spite of the military alliance by which
France was bound to Russia. We have here an example of his aptitude for
practical politics.

*Was Belgium a Mere Excuse?*

Let us now come to Belgium. Mr. Shaw protests needlessly that he holds
no brief for small States as such, and he most vehemently denies that we
are bound to knight errantry on their behalf. His objection to small
States is that they are either incorrigibly bellicose or standing
temptations to big powers. Outside the Balkans no small State is
bellicose. All are eminently pacific. That they are a standing
temptation to thieves is surely no reason for their destruction. If it
is a reason Mr. Shaw ought to throw his watch down the drain.

Mr. Shaw states that Belgium was a mere excuse for our going to war.
That there was a vast deal more in the pre-war diplomacy than appears in
the printed dispatches, or in any dispatches, I am as convinced as Mr.
Shaw is, but I am equally convinced that so far as we are concerned
there was nothing in diplomacy, however secret, to contradict our public
attitude. The chief item not