is one thing; criticism and legislation are another. You should have your control over those who manage your affairs, but it is not the kind of control which the hon. Member wishes to set up with his Committee of forty or fifty. It is quite a different control. You must know, broadly speaking, what the general lines of policy are, and I maintain that that is thoroughly known with regard to foreign affairs at this moment by every man in this House who takes the trouble to think. The general lines on which we are proceeding are thoroughly known. If the House, or any large body of the House thinks we are proceeding on wrong lines, turn us out—that is the proper remedy—but do not suppose that we can do the work better by having to explain it to a lot of people who are not responsible. That is not the way to get business properly done.[1] … If you are going to ask Foreign 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. They are not trained for it, and they ought not to be trained for it. … I beg the House to remember that any system which keeps
- ↑ Mr, Balfour gave evidence on these lines before the Select Committee on House of Commons Procedure, 1914: e.g. '1707. On the whole, you would be inclined to think foreign affairs is a question which should not be aired too frequently in the House of Commons?—That is my opinion. I think neither Indian affairs nor foreign affairs are very fitting subjects for constant discussion and debate. Indiscreet speeches, the value of which we can perfectly weigh within the House, get reported and circulated abroad, or in India, or even at home in the provinces, and very often make bad blood quite unnecessarily, and raise difficulties which might easily have been avoided.
'1708. Then, you do not think the uninformed condition of the House of Commons on foreign affairs matters?—I am not disposed to agree that the position of the House of Commons is uninformed. It does not know, and it cannot know, and, if I may say so, it ought not to know exactly what passed between the Foreign Secretary and the Ambassador of this or that Great Power in such a conversation on such and such a day. Such conversation must be confidential if you are to work the European system at all, and I do not think that it would be any gain to the peace of the world or our own national interests, if 670 prying eyes were perpetually directed towards these current details of international obligations.'
