The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo. MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1928. A DIPLOMATIC FIASCO.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 232, 1 October 1928, Page 6

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1928. A DIPLOMATIC FIASCO.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

It is to be hoped that patriotic and disappointed Britishers who may be inclined to resent the tone as well as the conclusions of the American Note in reply to the AngloFrench naval proposals will suppress their wrath till they have given themselves time to reflect upon the extraordinary circumstances under which the Note was prepared. For there seems to be little doubt that the grave misunderstandings that have arisen over this unfortunate "compromise" have been chiefly due to the "bungling diplomacy" of our Foreign Office.

On this point there seems to be a definite consensus of opinion among the leading British newspapers. Though we were repeatedly and officially assured that the full details of the Anglo-French agreement had been transmitted to Washington, the "Daily Telegraph" now declares that "the United States Government never received the full text, but only a summary of it." This, of course, accounts for the long delay over the preparation of the American Note. For the American Government was forced to ask for "elucidations and explanations which might not have been necessary if the full text had been supplied." All this may help to account for the tone of irritation and vexation which pervades the communication now issued from Washington. But the Americans are not the only aggrieved •parties, for the British public have been kept by their own Government almost entirely in the dark about these strange proceedings. Th" details of the naval compromise were published in Britain only after they had appeared in American and the Foreign Office has not yet revealed either the text of the British Note to the United States or the particulars of the Note just received.

Though we have little sympathy with the attitude that the "Daily Express" generally adopts toward Mr. Baldwin and his colleagues, we agree with it that there is something undignified and humiliating in the situation thus created. The British nation has had to depend on the enterprise of the Hearst Press for information about the principal feature of the Anglo-French agreement, and now it has to thank the American Embassy in London for publishing the American Note, which our Foreign Office still affects to treat as a profound secret. But it is conceivable that something even worse remains behind. For it is hard to understand why the Foreign Office should be so reluctant to carry on all these negotiations and discussions in the full light of day if there were no other secret commitments involved in the now notorious "compromise." We can only hope for the sake of Britain's diplomatic reputation and the political future of the Baldwin Government that the widespread rumours to this effect are groundless.