STATESMEN AND THE PUBLIC.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 11, 28 January 1937, Page 4

STATESMEN AND THE PUBLIC.

" Statesmen and politicians must lead and must make decisions; on the other hand, it is essential that their responsibility to their Parliament and their people should not disappear. For, in the last resort, the people are at the merey of their politicians, who can make decisions which in practice cannot be undone. A situation may be created by the high Ministers which, even if subject to ratification, really involves unescapable liability for vast expenditures or even for war. It is true that public opinion should restrain itself, in eserting controls or ehecks on its high Ministers; yet the controls and checks should always be tbere. It would be goin;^ too far to say that the statesmen and politicians who conduCt the foreign affairs of a country are simply a danger to it; they are certainly a danger to the country if they are left uncontrolled. As the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs reminded the House of Commons in a celebrUted debate on July 11, 1935: 'The war left the world with almost everyone acutely interested in foreign politics.' A freely expressed, and therefore in these days probably well-informed, public opinion is the most effective control of statesmanship a control which, after all, is only an aid to the statesmen in beariiig their heayy responsibility." — Professor Mowat, in " Diplomacy and P«ac«b't ^