DIPLOMATIC PRACTICE.* THERE was a tendency after the outbreak of
the Great War to lay the main responsibility for this disastrous tragedy upon the old diplomacy. It was not only particular diplomatists and particular policies that were attacked. The whole of the members of the diplomatic body were involved in the same condemnation. They were accused of representing not the people but a class, and of betraying the interests of the nations in order to bring profit to capitalists and munition makers. Their methods were described as equally base with their aims, and their language as false-friendly and full of duplicity and reserves.
All this was to be changed by making the conduct of business between nations public and subject to democratic control and putting it into the hands of men above suspicion of aristocratic predilections and untrammelled by diplomatic tradition. Of this idea President Wilson made himself the champion. Secret diplomacy was condemned in the first of the Fourteen Points, and in the fateful conferences that followed the Armistice the professional diplomatists were _thrust aside in favour of a committee of eminent amateurs.
The Treaty of Versailles, which was the outcome of their efforts, and its present results can hardly be said to have justified this proceeding. Moreover, as is once more pointed
• A Guide to Diptimotie Prectiee. By the Rt. Hot. Slr Ernest Mew, LL.D. 2 vols. London Longroan3. [42s. net.] out by Sir Ernest Satow, in spite of all the talk about open diplomacy and democratic principles, the procedure at the
conferences strictly followed diplomatic tradithm, for the best of reasons—namely, that no other course was found to be possible. As for democratic control, the nations for ths: most part have still to be content with the measure of control supplied by the fact that their purse-strings are in the hands of their representatives in Parliament. For diplomacy, which is the conduct of all business arising between sovereign powers, is too intricate and difficult an art to be handled by those who have not studied its technique, and often of too delicate a nature to be safely exposed to the rough and tumble of public debate.
The main value, from the point of view of the general public, of Sir Ernest Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice, the first edition of which appeared in 1917, is that it makes perfectly clear how great a technical equipment and what long and varied experience are necessary to the diplomatist. It is this—though the book is primarily intended for actual or would-be diplomatists—that gives it an interest and a value for every intelligent student of affairs. The author is not quite right in saying that it is the first work of the kind to appear in the English language ; but its only predecessor, E. C. Grenville-Murray's Embassies and Foreign Courts, though still of value, was last printed in 1856, and is on a very much smaller scale, and the present work is the first that can bear comparison with such foreign manuals as Pradier- Fodere's Cours De Droll Diplomedique. The appearance of its second edition is thus an event of some importance, more especially in view of all that has happened since its first publication.
It must be confessed that an examination of the changes and additions made is somewhat disappointing. In the preface to the first edition the author said that diplomatic incidents during the War were not discussed because the data were insufficient. For the most part they remain undiseussed in the new edition. The section on Conferences has been
enlarged and the ultimatum of 1914 have been added to Chapter X.; "but otherwise," says Sir Ernest Satow, "there
is no change to be noted in diplomatic practice up to the present date." At first sight this seems to be in Rat contra- diction with the statement of Professor Alison Phillips, in the article " Diplomacy " in the new volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that "the general effect of the World War on the principles and practice of diplomacy has been very great, for better or for worse." But the contradiction is more apparent than real ; for Sir Ernest Satow is concerned rather with the technique than with the practice of diplomacy in the wider sense, or in effect in the rules of diplomacy and the practice based upon them little or no change has been made. In the diplomatic incidents growing out of the War, as Professor Phillips points out, it was found sufficient to apply the old rules to new circumstances.
Of the many wise and good things in this work one may he specially recalled, in view of what has happened since the first edition appeared. "The moral qualities of statesmen,"
says the author, "have not kept pace with the development of the means of action at their disposal." That really sums
up the case against the Kaiser and his Ministers ; it also explains the cry for democratic control. The men in power are now armed with lethal weapons of an effectiveness utterly without precedent, which in the hands of rogues or fools might wreck the world. The problem is how to ensure that they shall not be misused. It is a question which has not yet been answered, and is very probably unanswerable ; for collective folly has often proved more dangerous than the folly of individual persons. One thing is certain, namely, that peace will not be secured by scrapping the traditions Of the diplomatic service ; for peace is the true end of diplo- macy, and for one war which diplomatists have failed to avert there have been a dozen imminent perils of war, of which the public has never heard, which have been averted by a wise diplomacy.
We venture to make, in conclusion, a few criticisms and
suggestions. In Chap. 19, mention is made of the list
of State Papua (Foreign) anterior to 1782 published by the Record Office in 1904, but nothing is said of the continuation of this List (to 1887) published in 1914 (Lists and Indexes, No. xu.), which is of importance owing to the re-arrangement and renumbering of the volumes. It should be noted that the series covering the correspondence connected with the Congresses and Conferences, January, 1814, to December, 1822 (F.O. 92), is omitted from this printed list, and that the Legation Archives are now stored at Cambridge. The refer- ence to Langlois and Stein (1891) for the Russian archives seems now to be of doubtful value. The assertion that semi-independent States are not empowered to maintain permanent missions now needs further modification ; the case of the Irish Free State might have been dealt with in § 208. Chap. V., § 62, on the question of sovereign titles at the Congress of Vienna, is not strictly accurate. None of the sovereigns " took " a higher title at the Congress, so far as we are aware. In the Final Act the common formula is "shall assume," implying the bestowal of the title by the Powers : e.g., Art. I. "He shall assume with the other titles that of Czar, King of Poland." The only exception is in Art. XXVI., which merely places on record the fact that the King of Great Britain and Ireland had exchanged his title of Elector of Hanover for that of King, and that this substitution had been already recognized by the Powers individually. We suggest that for the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle a more satisfactory reference than to Professor Alison Phillips's Modern Europe would be to the same author's Confederation of Europe, in which the proceedings at the Conference are far more fully dealt with.
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