Other nations were treated last week to a British general election campaign waged on the gravest issues of foreign policy with complete abandon and free speech.
A speech by His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs caused a responsible correspondent at Addis Ababa to cable: "The Ethiopians feel that Sir Samuel Hoare's rejection of the idea of military sanctions was tantamount to a license to Premier Benito Mussolini of Italy to go ahead with the war without effective interference from the rest of the world. . . ."
Some contradictions of British policy, as voiced by British leaders, stung not only Ethiopia's Emperor but also Italy's Dictator to grave misgivings. In a fresh public warning to Britons last week Benito Mussolini, although still in private negotiation with Sir Samuel Hoare through intermediaries, declared: "Italians will organize a most desperate resistance [against sanctions] and will distinguish between friend and foe."
In higher London circles correspondents were informally told, "Whatever is said here now is just electioneering."
Only British statesmen who do not electioneer are the members of the House of Lords. Debate in their chamber was featured by unusual and concentrated cynicism, almost as if the dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and barons felt it incumbent last week to say what would not be said by vote-coaxing Cabinet bigwigs and M. P.s.
Lord Snell, Leader for Labor: "I fear that Ethiopia, despite the League, will come under the bondage of the West."
Lord Hardinge, Conservative: "The sooner Ethiopia is handed over by a mandate to a civilized power the better it will be for the world and for the Ethiopians themselves!"
In a British general election it is the cherished privilege of His Majesty's Government and the members of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition to rave like opposing lawyers who afterward resume their friendship outside the courtroom. The secret of British enmity is that at bottom it is nearly always friendly. No member of the Nazi Cabinet at Berlin need have taken serious offense last week merely because in the House of Commons the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill peered over his spectacles and said several startling things which happened to be true.
"There is a factor that dwarfs all others, a factor you will find affecting the movements of politics and diplomacy in every country of Europe," cried Mr.Churchill, ". . . Whatever you believe, I venture to submit we cannot have any anxiety comparable to the anxiety caused by German rearmament. . . .
"The whole of Germany is an armed camp and the industries of Germany are mobilized for war to an extent that ours were not mobilized even a year after the Great War began. The Germans are even able to be great exporters of munitions,
as well as developing their own enormous
magazines. We have no prospect of equaling the German air force or overtaking
Germany in the air in the near future,
whatever we do.