Diplomatist

“ The study of the form of government existing in each country is very necessary to the diplomatist, and he should not wait until his arrival in a foreign country to study these questions; he should prepare himself beforehand, for, unless he is equipped with a certain measure of this knowledge, he will be like a man at sea without a compass. ”

“ Obviously, the diplomatist is an attorney for a client.2 Incidentally, the whole training of his profession is to try to prevent war. He does try to prevent it; so does every right-minded man. It is a horror and a scourge, to be avoided as you would avoid leprosy. When it does come, the diplomatist’s business is to place all the blame for it with the enemy. ”

“ But if we look back over the history of recent years, we shall discover that diplomacy has not fulfilled its especial mission. According to a well-known cynical dictum a diplomatist is a man who is paid to lie for his country. ”

“ Diplomacy demands Professional Training.Let me further emphasise my conviction, which, alas, is not yet shared even by ministers of state in France, that diplomacy is a profession by itself which deserves the same preparation and assiduity of attention that men give to other recognised professions. The qualities of a diplomatist and the knowledge necessary to him cannot, indeed, all be acquired. ”

“ There are. indeed countries in which the distinguished diplomatist may hope to reach the highest place and most exalted dignities in the realm, by which means we in France may learn to raise the profession of diplomacy to that degree of public recognition which it deserves, and from which the service of the King and the greatness of the kingdom must certainly profit. ”

“ Therefore the ambassador should be a man of peace; for in most cases, and certainly wherever the foreign court is inclined towards peace, it is best to send a diplomatist who works by persuasion and is an adept in winning the good graces of those around him. ”

“ In either case it will be observed that the public interests will be best served by appointing a professional diplomatist who by long experience has acquired a high aptitude for the peculiar office of diplomacy. Neither the soldier nor the courtier can hope to discharge the duties of diplomacy with success unless they have taken pains to instruct themselves in public policy, and in all that region of knowledge which I have already described as necessary for the negotiator. ”

“ The Diplomatist prepares Himself for a Foreign Mission.Now when a diplomatist has been appointed to a foreign post his first care should be to ask for the despatches of his predecessor in order that he may inform himself exactly of the state of affairs with which he will have to deal. ”

“ Apart from such instructions, it must remain an inscrutable mystery why so excellent a man and so capable a diplomatist when absolutely master of the situation neglected to aid the Sovereign with his valuable advice, a course which would have met with the cordial approval of all his colleagues. ”

“ 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? ”

“ There are few diplomatists who in the long run do not prefer to capitulate with their conscience and their patriotism, and to guard the interests of their country and their sovereign with somewhat less decision, rather than, incessantly and with danger to their personal position, to contend with the difficulties which are prepared for them by a powerful and unscrupulous enemy. ”

“ The diplomatist_must bear in mind once for all that he is not authorised to demand that a whole nation shall conform to his way of living, and that it is more reasonable, and in the long run greatly to his own comfort, to accommodate himself to foreign ways of living. He should beware of criticising the form of government or the personal conduct of the prince to whom he is accredited. ”

“ But, though acting in that respect as advocates, diplomatists are essentially ministers of peace, whose constant and primary duty is mutually to devise conciliatory means for the adjustment of conflicting pretensions, for the continuance of friendly relations, for preventing war, or for the restoration of peace. ”

“ 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 everyday 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. ”

“ Their diplomatists are as clever and conciliatory as those of England are ignorant and repulsive, who, while they offer an uncounted sum of secret-service money with the left hand, give a sounding slap on the face with the right. ”

“ If this be true in the transactions of common life, with how much more force does it apply to the intercourse between diplomatists? The deceitfulness of diplomacy has become almost a proverb. In Europe the talent of over-reaching gives a minister the glory of diplomatic skill. The French school has been distinguished in this art. To prove it, I need only mention the name of Talleyrand. The American school teaches far different lessons. ”

“ I had foreign diplomatists to address, and it was consequently unworthy of my rôle and unnecessary for my mission to belittle a Government, which France had tolerated for eighteen years, more than it had belittled itself. ”

“ Qualities of a Good Despatch.'The best despatches are those written in a clear and concise manner, unadorned by useless epithets, or by anything which may becloud the clarity of the argument. Simplicity is the first essential, and diplomatists should take the greatest care to avoid all affectations such as a pretence of wit or the learned overweight of scientific disquisitions. ”

“ I have stood in the midst of grand cathedrals and solemn services, but never have I sat in any room or in any presence with a greater feeling of awe than in that old hall where the diplomatists of Europe signed that world-renowned treaty so fruitful in blessing not only to Germany, but to all mankind. [Applause.]
We shall all doubtless concede then that on the whole it is best to have a diplomatic body, that if it only once in [Pg 1234] ten, or twenty, or one hundred years, prevents serious misunderstanding between nations, it will far more than repay its cost. ”

“ To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist—the problem is entirely the same in both cases. ”

“ But it is equally obvious that there are occasions when it is of the highest advantage to maintain a more elaborately equipped mission at a foreign court, and even to send two or three diplomatists of higher rank to assist in the conduct of negotiations and in the other activities of diplomacy. ”

“ A good ambassador will always discourage plans of this kind, and if his master persists in them he may and should demand his recall, and retire into obscurity, [Pg 87] jealously guarding his sovereign’s evil secret. In justice to most reigning sovereigns it must be said that few of them engage in designs of this kind. The vast majority of intrigues and cabals are made in their name in foreign states, or are suggested to them by their ministers or by astute diplomatists, who undertake to carry them out, and through them to confer great benefits upon the prince himself. ”

“ They were professional in the sense that, for the most part, diplomacy was the main occupation of their lives; there was, however, no graded diplomatic service in which, as at present, it was possible to rise on a fixed system from the position of simple attaché to that of minister and ambassador. The “attaché to the embassy” existed [23] ; but he was not, as is now the case, a young diplomat learning his profession, but an experienced man of affairs, often a foreigner employed by the ambassador as adviser, secret service agent and general go-between, and he was without diplomatic status. ”

“ In diplomacy, above all things, since peace and war and the welfare of nations depend upon it, the best minds, the most sagacious and instructed of public servants should be appointed to the principal foreign posts regardless of the personal affairs of the prince himself or the party attachments of the chosen ambassadors. ”

“ Here I struck the type of the small diplomat, whose delight is the social tittle-tattle, who, having no affairs of real consequence to attend to, always strives to magnify his little routine business into great transactions of state, and affects mysterious wisdom by the knowing wink and the smile of the augur. Most of my colleagues were serious and well-informed men—not, indeed, statesmen of the highest order—but attentive observers and good reasoners, of whom one could learn something. ”

“ The Man in the Street, be he in Plymouth or in Petersburg, Margate or Madrid, Rochester or Rome, believes that treaties duly translated and made in duplicate or triplicate, signed by the Sovereign, sealed with the Great Seal, and delivered with all the pomp and ceremony which diplomacy demands, are a safeguard against war. But your modern diplomat smiles, for he knows they are not. ”

“ An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy and officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility. His principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador. ”

“ It has been observed for the last fifty years, that the tone of diplomatic correspondence was much improved, as to simplicity and directness. Once, diplomacy was another name for intrigue, and a paper of this sort was expected to be a mesh of artful phrases, through which the true meaning might be detected, but never actually grasped. Now, here is one where an occasion being afforded by the unutterable folly of the corresponding party, a minister speaks the truth as it lies in his mind, directly and plainly, as man speaks to man. ”

“ Diplomacy based on knowledge of the ordinary motives of ordinary men is strong,—statesmanship based on close study of the interests and aims of states and classes is strong;—but there is a Diplomacy and a Statesmanship infinitely stronger. ”

“ I have doubtless stated the essentials of all good diplomacy, which may be rather regarded, therefore, as a grace of state, than the effect of management. For to tell the truth is not in itself diplomatic, and to have no care for the result a thing involuntary. ”

“ Nothing in diplomatic history is more eccentric than the long sermons upon abstruse points of divinity and ecclesiastical history which the English ambassador delivered from time to time before the States-General in accordance with elaborate instructions drawn up by his sovereign with his own hand. ”

“ A diplomat must be in touch with all sources from which he can glean information.
Individual capabilities and zeal will naturally play a great part; but the means that a Government places at the disposition of its foreign missions are also of the highest importance. ”

“ Diplomacy, instead of secret whispering, a finger to its lips, must shout from the housetops. Great nations cannot be governed from cellars. Diplomats are not necessarily conspirators. There is such a thing as walking in the sunlight. ”

“ And thus it happens, that a diplomat presents to a government in trouble the most sincere and the most cheering official expressions of sympathy from his master; and with the same hand the diplomat gives the heartiest shakes to the most unrelenting enemies of the same government. ”

“ How many great qualities must such a man possess! You will find in all countries many such diplomats of low degree; consummate negotiators arguing in the interests of calico, jewels, frippery, wines; and often displaying more true diplomacy than ambassadors themselves, who, for the most part, know only the forms of it. ”

“ The new interests abroad must compel an improved foreign service. It has heretofore been worse than we ever knew, and also better. On great occasions and in great fields our diplomatic record ranks with the best in the world. ”

“ There is diplomacy in every action—in every look—in every tone—and withal a self-gratulatory, quiet species of at-home-ness every where and with everybody, which shews you at once that they are quite at ease, at least, for the present. ”

“ The definition of the art of diplomacy which has been cited is one which is suggested more especially by the requirements of what is termed le style diplomatique, le style de cour, or le style de chancellerie. The art of writing letters and notes and of producing other compositions, whether they be merely polite or be sternly pertinent to the business on hand, is not the whole of the art of diplomacy. ”

“ The reader who has not delved into the diplomatic correspondence does not readily conceive of the range of subjects which thus come under the attention of an American minister abroad, in the present habit, which unites the old diplomacy and the formality of old centuries with the hustling end-of-the-century practice, in which every citizen enjoys the attention of the minister. ”

“ The foreign press and public often made during his reign the error of assuming that in his frequent interviews with foreign rulers and statesmen he was personally working out a diplomatic policy of his own devising. Foreign statesmen and rulers knew that no subtler aim really underlay his movements than a wish for friendly social intercourse with them and the enjoyment of life under foreign skies, quite unencumbered by the burden of diplomatic anxieties. ”