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In Chicago last week with a row of medals on his chest, Philip Henry Kerr, Marquess of Lothian, British Ambassador to the U. S., faced the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, including bemedaled Charles Gates Dawes, who did tit for tat at the Court of St. James's. Lord Lothian in his matter-of-fact way gave what he called an honest account of what Britons "think and hope and fear" about the war. He told his U. S. audience that the British Government was not "trying to drag you into this war," but that Britain did look forward to the day when the U. S. would be needed in establishing the peace that was to follow.
Of this war Lord Lothian explained the real prize is sea power, the issue "freedom or tyranny." Sometime next spring he expected the crisis—when the Germans would attack with "all the ferocity and ruthlessness the Nazis have taught us to expect."
Of the last war, he said, with candor, that it was lost by the Versailles Treaty—"The Allied Powers threw away their chance, both by faults of omission and commission. . . . For that tragedy no nation and no statesman can establish a full alibi." But he denied that "this is a mere war between imperialisms," and foresaw some better peace, based not on spoils but on a federalized Europe.
There is no stuffing in Lothian's shirt.
His speech was one of the most effective, skillful briefs yet delivered for the Allied cause. It was the sort of talk which earns Britain a reputation for fair dealing and open-minded thinking. To keep its sprawling Empire together Britain needs that reputation as much as she needs her powerful Navy. As a Nazi critic once remarked, the "weakness" of Britain is that she can no longer survive without the moral approbation of the world. Today, in such widely separated capitals as Ankara, Buenos Aires, Rome and Stockholm, other British envoys besides Lothian are working just as hard to convince other nations that Britain's cause is their cause, that Britain's defeat would be their tragedy.
Director of the far-flung diplomatic machinery which tackles this job is a tough aristocrat of 58—a tall, big-boned man with a high forehead, clear, slightly myopic eyes, a firm chin, a sensitive mouth. He was christened Edward Frederick Lindley Wood. Now he is Viscount Halifax, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of His Majesty's Government for the past 23 momentous months of world affairs.
Spook Fancier. Stanley Baldwin would rather have tended his garden than preside over a Cabinet meeting. Sir Edward Grey liked birds more than diplomatic reports. Lord Halifax once said with evident truth: "I would rather be a Master of Foxhounds than Prime Minister." That is natural, for Edward Wood grew up outdoors on his father's spacious estate at Garrowby, Yorkshire, where he learned to ride as soon as to walk. His pious father, the second Viscount Halifax, was for 60 years the leader of the High Church party whose never realized dream was to reunite the Church of England with the Church of Rome.