Sir Esme & Sir Austen

No one better understands the liking of U. S. citizens for frank and clear-cut statements than His Majesty's popular and astute Ambassador at Washington, Sir Esme Howard. Last week Sir Esme tried to make a statement which would represent the position of the British Government with respect to naval limitation and would be at the same time clear-cut and frank. He said:

"There would seem to be every reason to believe that now that the [U. S.] fifteen-cruiser bill has become effective [TIME, Feb. 18] a further effort will be made before long to reach an agreement between the principal naval powers of the world for the limitation of naval armaments. As long as that bill was under discussion any proposal to renew conversations on this vital subject might have been interpreted in the U. S. as an attempt to interfere with the passage of the bill."

It can be said with entire confidence that the position of the British Government with respect to naval limitation is exactly as stated by Sir Esme. But 24 hours after he spoke people with good hindsight could see that he had made a shocking blunder from the viewpoint of the Empire's Foreign Secretary, frigid, be-monocled Sir Austen Chamberlain.

Sir Austen cannot or will not stoop to "talk American." He will not permit his good intentions to be paraded stark naked before anybody. Therefore when the British press quoted Sir Esme as saying that "before long" something will be done about naval limitation, Sir Austen speared the Ambassador with a statement as sharp and chill as an icicle: "There has been no change in the situation."

On the following day Sir Esme Howard felt obliged to say: "My statement was ... an expression of my personal opinion . . . and not given under instructions from my Government."

The whole incident becomes utterly grotesque when one asks, "Well, what is the 'situation' which Sir Austen so brusquely declared 'unchanged'?"

The Foreign Secretary himself described it last week: "His Majesty's Government are engaged in a careful examination of all questions concerning our relations with America and naval conditions in the two countries. This examination is being diligently prosecuted. ..."

These words are nothing but a stiff, stilted and ungracious way of saying "in English" what Sir Esme had warmly and frankly said "in American." The Foreign Secretary actually confirmed the Ambassador's assertion that "a further effort will be made," but he did it so ungraciously that he seemed to repudiate him. Naturally the British opposition Press headlined "Sir Esme Repudiated!" and the Labor Daily Herald seized the chance to moan :

"Any hopes of naval limitation Sir Esme Howard may have raised can now be decently buried." London's political dopesters thought that the "Sir Esme scandal" will hurt the Conservatives badly in Britain's coming election.