GREAT BRITAIN: Majesty, Spain & China

• Share

His Majesty's Government and the whole Royal Family were busier last week than at any time since the Coronation last spring.

With members of the Lords and Commons gathering for the final meeting of the only Parliamentary session ever opened by King Edward VIII (TIME, Nov. 9, 1936), and for the first meeting this week of the first Parliamentary session to be opened by King George VI, there was every reason why the Chamberlain Cabinet must score quickly a triumph of some sort, preferably in foreign affairs. It would not do to have Parliament convene for the winter with His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs actually cutting the figure he was shown cutting last week in a London Evening Standard cartoon by No. 1 British Cartoonist David Low. In this Mr. Anthony Eden, whose toe is being stepped on heavily by Il Duce, cries in anguish:

"Benito Mussolini, have a care! You've ruined the Woman I love, Democracy; killed my aged mother, the League of Nations; sunk the British fleet and set fire to the Empire—but beware! Don't go too far."

In dead earnest, the private comments of not a few ruling-class Britons on the international situation as Parliament convened last week were in this vein: Until our Rearmament is a good deal nearer completion, there is nothing for the Government to do but continue putting as good a face as possible on the fact that Britain for the time being is not a First-Class Power. Such a policy is deeply repugnant to us and to the country, and it will be pursued no longer than is absolutely necessary, but at present it is the only safe policy—and Britain must play safe. America at the present time is the only country which can afford to take risks for Peace.

Premier Mussolini, far from actually treading harder on Mr. Eden's toes last week, instructed spade-bearded Italian Ambassador Dino Grandi obligingly to ease up at sessions of the London International Committee on Non-Intervention in Spain, and this enabled the British to score a "diplomatic triumph'' for window dressing (see p. 24). Thus all was set for members of His Majesty's Government to come beaming with success to the final meeting of Edward VIII's Parliament last week.