NEWS OF THE WEEK
BY the series of speeches he is making in different centres in the country the Lord Privy Seal is putting—and keeping—the fundamental issues in inter- national. affairs .before the people of this country as no other member of the present Government has done. The League of Nations, he told Essex Women Con- servatives a few days ago, was a vital part of world security, and world security was our security. The success of the Disarmament Conference, he told a Bradford audience, was in the true interests of our national security, and the authority of the League of Nations must have first place. This is profound truth and at the same time profound realism. If it were certain that Mr. Eden's views were shared without reserve by all members of the Cabinet the future could be faced with more confidence.. For they mean that the success of the Disarmament Conference. is worth. paying a price for, and the nature of the price is clear. If we are to gain in national security ourselves by, the success of the Conference, as we unques- tionably should, we must be ready to do something for other people's security. To that extent France's tradi- tional appeals to us are reasonable. How-far her actual demands at the moment are reasonable we can decide when we see them formulated. But the idea that security is always to someone else's interests, not ours,_ is fantastically false, and Mr. Eden is doing admirable service in dissipating it. . •
