a humorous treatment of bureaucratic corruption and
inefficiency.

CHAPTER VI

FOREIGN POLICY

The present war has raised in the minds of many men a question which we as
a people will soon be called upon to answer. Was this war necessary? Or was
it caused by the ambitions and foolishness of statesmen? Might it not have
been averted if the peoples of Europe had had more control over the way in
which foreign policy was carried on?

Out of these questions has arisen a demand for the "democratisation of
foreign policy"; that is, for greater popular control over diplomatic
negotiations. In view of this, it becomes necessary for every British
citizen to gain some idea of what foreign policy is and by what principles
it should be governed.

It is the purpose of this chapter to give, first, some account of the
actual meaning of the words "foreign policy," and then, secondly, to
consider how foreign policy may best be controlled in the interests of the
whole population of the British Empire, and in the interests of the world
at large.

A. THE MEANING OF FOREIGN POLICY

Sec.1. _The Foreign Office._--To the ordinary man foreign policy is an affair
of mystery, and it not unnaturally rouses his suspicions. He does not
realise, what is nevertheless the simple truth, that he himself is both the
material and the object of all foreign policy.

The business of the Government of a country is to maintain and further the
interests of the individual citizen. That is the starting-point of all
political institutions. The business of the Foreign Office is a part of
this work of Government, and consists in the protection of the interests of
the individual citizen where those interests depend upon the goodwill of a
foreign Government.

But just as in domestic politics the individual citizen is inclined to
suspect--too often with truth--that the Government does not give impartial
attention to the interests of all the citizens, but is preoccupied in
protecting the interests of powerful and privileged persons or groups, so
in foreign policy the individual citizen is particularly prone to believe
that the time of the Foreign Office is taken up in furthering the interests
of rich bondholders or powerful capitalists. Moreover, the charge is
sometimes heard that some of the most powerful of these capitalists are
engaged in the manufacture of armaments, and that the Foreign Office
aims at securing orders from foreign Governments for th