“That, in the opinion of this House, a Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs should be appointed, representative of all parties and groups in the House, in order that a regular channel of communication may be established between the Foreign Secretary and the House of Commons, which will afford him frequent opportunities of giving information on questions of Foreign policy and which, by allowing Members to acquaint themselves more fully with current international problems, will enable this House to exercise closer supervision over the general conduct of Foreign Affairs....” Mr. Balfour expressed himself quite in length on this motion and further elaborated the ideas which he had put forward in 1914. In a speech delivered March 19th, he gave what is probably the most complete and persuasive exposition of the value of traditional methods in diplomacy: “... A Foreign Office and a Diplomatic Service are great instruments for preventing, as far as can be prevented, and diminishing, even when you cannot prevent, friction between States which are, or which ought to be, friendly. How is the task of peace-maker--because that is largely the task which falls to diplomatists and to the Foreign Office, which controls diplomatists--to be pursued if you are to shout your grievances from the housetop whenever they occur? The only result is that you embitter public feeling, that the differences between the two States suddenly attain a magnitude they ought never to be allowed to approach, that the newspapers of the two countries agitate themselves, that the Parliaments of the two countries have their passions set on fire, and great crises arise, which may end, have ended sometimes, in international catastrophes.... Office officials, or officials of any Department,--to expend some of their energy in getting ready for cross-examination, you will really be destroying the public service. There is nothing on which I feel more strongly than that. They are not accustomed to it, and they ought not to be accustomed to it.... I do not hold the view that antique methods are pursued by diplomatists which no man of common sense adopts in the ordinary work of every-day life. On the contrary, the work of diplomacy is exactly the work which is done every day between two great firms, for instance, which have business relations, or between two great corporate entities which have interests diverging or interests in common. If you are a man of sense you do not create difficulties to begin with. You try to get over all these things without the embitterment which advertisement always brings with it. It is when you begin to press your case in public that antagonism arises. In private--in conversation which need not go beyond the walls of the room in which you are,--you can put your case as strongly as you like, and the gentleman with whom you are