◆ SpookStack

HE MUST ‘JBE FRAN R. MORRISON should speak as fully and frankly as he can when he makes his expected state- ment on the two missing diplomats today. To say that the country is per-_ turbed is to put if mildly. atever the explanation for his sensational episode may turn out to be. it has come as a mighty shock to the British people. It is another biow to thelr confidence in the established scheme of things. To have the disappearance of two officials actually announced by the Forelgn Office {s the sort of thing one would expect at the Shericck Holmes exhibition. That it should have hap- pened jn real life is almost unbelievable. The staid, decorous Foreign Office must be shaken to the re. They obviously take tHe most serious view of the ident, otherwise th ely w4uld not have given it wige publicity. xo. Ale ow 2. two of their men had com- | mitted some minor indis- cretion the Department's instinct would have heen to cover up. The only possible {nference \s that the very gravity of this inciderft hes forced the Foreign Office into the open. tet @ moment, however, For the wume that it fs an scapade. . We must then ender how men cepable of uch a thing were ever en- rusted with high and con- fidential duttes. Pia. MACLEAN, latterly head of the American Department, was a high-ranking dipio- mat; and Mr. BuacESsS was good enough to be Second Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington. Yet it now appears that both “were, in different ways, temperamentally unstable. Certainly they have shown hemselves to be, at the very east, irresponsible. Is this he stuf of whic nh oreign Service should he made 2 Why ? O have gone off without notice or leave was bal enough, but to remain eway _afier both must know (if they are alive) that the police forces of Europe want to interview them is beyond reasonable explanation. i naturally seeks some sinjster reason for thetr absence. The circumstances of their departure do not allay sts- picion. There was the hired car, left In a garage for a fortnight, There was the scramble on board ship. There was the landing in France, so hur- ried that suitcases were left behind, and the mystery of the telegrams. | Why should these experienced travellers, ‘inguists, and mastdrs of forelgn procefure is so fantastic that one. 1 1 “ee at? this is enough to r&ise me very anxious qus- tions. For example, h these men access to vita! secrets, and could they have taken such information with them ? . The official line is to discount this idea. We recall, how- ever, that when Proressor Ponrecoavo disappeared = it Was Said that he could have had no data of any value. We do not necessarily draw a comparison between his case and that of the missing dip- lomats. We only remark that it has since appeared that Ponrrcorave possessed secrets known only to a handful of atomic scientists. Tie doubts and queries which are, at this moment, being voiced up and down the eguniry must be squarely faced by Mr. Morrison today, arg, if possidie, answered. Britain's security readed sinte thea war is none o Sood, and we only hope ite mot to bs further blotted, .