1 SEPTEMBER 1939, Page 6

Mr. J. A. Spender is likely to stir up the

pundits by his remark (in the Sunday Times) that " the history of diplomacy is in large part a record of double-dealing, as indeed the word `diplomacy' implies." Surely it is only in a very limited and very liberal sense that diplomacy implies that. Diplomats are in the first instance people who deal with diplomas, doubled—or folded—documents. Authority for in any way assimilating diplomacy and duplicity would, I think, be very hard to find, in spite of the definition (was it Sir Henry Wotton's?) of a diplomat as " a man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country."

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