Inevitable exile from their country results in our diplomatic representatives abroad losing touch with the center of affairs and living in a mental atmosphere remote from the popular and progressive movements of the time. Another pronounced characteristic of the system is the indifference displayed by the Foreign Office to the business interests of the nation. Our vast commercial interests, so intimately affected by our relations with foreign Powers, are regarded as lying outside the orbit of diplomatic considerations. The connection between politics and business—and by business we mean the entire framework of peaceful commerce upon which the prosperity of this country depends—appears to be ignored, or, at least, treated with indifference and something like contempt. The services of our Consuls abroad are not sufficiently utilized, and the Consular machinery requires complete overhauling. Such questions as, for instance, the effect upon British commercial interest of British diplomacy supporting the acquisition of undeveloped areas of the world’s surface by a Power like France, which imposes differential tariffs upon British goods, and opposing the acquisition of such areas by a Power like Germany, which admits British goods on terms of equality, does not appear to enter into Foreign Office calculations. [Sidenote: Policy is framed by military experts without Parliamentary control.] In the last few years also has been added another institution which modifies national policy without coming under Parliamentary control, the Committee of Imperial Defense. Its influence upon the Cabinet is nominally indirect, and its activities confined to the discussion of hypothetical events. But no one can doubt that its recommendations exercise a powerful effect on the executive decisions of the Government. No criticism of the advice given by the Committee is possible in Parliament. Momentous military and naval schemes are prepared there on which hang the issues of peace and war, as in the case of our recent relations to France. It is an intimate and powerful means of framing Government policy according to the ideas of military experts, without the knowledge and control of Parliament. In the various ways indicated, opportunities of evincing an intelligent concern in its foreign policy has been increasingly withdrawn from the nation. The work of the Department escapes all outside control, loses all sense of contact with national life, and tends more and more to become an autocratic institution, contemptuous of the efforts of a small group of members in the House to acquire information, and utilizing a powerful section of the press to mold public opinion in the direction it considers public opinion should travel.