Review: Europe: The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1937–1940
| Author | John C. Cairns |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207302800119 |
| Date | 01 March 1973 |
| Published date | 01 March 1973 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
171
perhaps
to
be
compared
with
Titmuss's
Essays
on the Welfare
State.
The
unifying
features
that
could
be
drawn
upon
to
integrate the
story,
such
as
a
study
of
the
level
of
government
expenditures,
are
not
used
(Peacock
and
Wiseman
appears
neither
in the
footnotes
nor
in
the
bibliography).
But
as
long
as
these
limitations
are
remembered,
the
book
is
very
informative
on
friendly
society
policy
between
the
wars,
and
has
a
great
deal
to
say
about
Lloyd
George's
attempts
to
break
out
of
the
circle of
economizers
and other
enemies
by
which
he
was
sur-
rounded
from
1918 to
1922.
The
internal
logic of
the
way
the
govern-
ment
was
drawn
into
an
unemployment
scheme
that
nobody
had
fore-
seen
and
very
few
people
had
wanted
is
brought
out
very
clearly.
The
section
on
Addison's
housing
policy
is
less
easy
to
follow;
it
has
prob-
ably
suffered
from Professor
Bentley's
desire
to
tell
the
administrative
history
of
social
policy
without
letting
himself
be
tempted
into
the
wider
fields
of
economic
history.
Trevor
Lloyd/University
of
Toronto
THE
DIPLOMATIC
DIARIES
OF
OLIVER
HARVEY
1937-1940
Edited
by
John
Harvey
London:
Toronto:
Collins,
1970,
448pp,
$13.50
Sir
Edward
Spears
remarked
of
Oliver
Harvey
that
he
was
'pale,
correct,
obviously
hatched
out
in
the
chancery, "la
carri~re"
stamped
on
every
seam.'
Was
this
thrust
intended
unkindly?
The
photograph
on
the
dust
jacket
of
Harvey's
diaries,
like
the
precise
and
intelligent
entries
themselves,
tends
to confirm
the
essential
truth
of
the observation
at
least. Harvey's
journal
for
these
three
years
is
a
study
in
equanimity
in
the
face
of
multiple
setbacks.
Working in
the
Foreign
Office,
under
the
shadow
of Neville
Chamberlain
and
Sir
Horace Wilson,
was
an
exercise
in
acute
frustration
to
try
the
patience
of
the
palest, most
correct
chancery
man.
About
the
Prime
Minister,
Harvey
had
neither
doubts
nor
hopes:
nothing
would
go
right
until
he
had
been
got
rid
of.
But
Harvey
had
one
illusion, Anthony
Eden,
and
one
great
hope, that
through
Eden
Britain might
rouse
itself
and
save
Europe
from
war.
The
irony
is
that
this
private
record
by
Eden's
loyal
and admiring
To continue reading
Request your trial