Administration of British foreign relations

THE CONTROL OF foreign relations is one of the most important powers of government. This is truer in the middle the twentieth century than ever before, because of developments in transportation and communication which bring peoples into closer contact with each other, because of a higher standard of living which makes them more dependent upon each other economically, and because no one is now safe from the perils of war. The control of foreign affairs is as complex as any of the other aspects of government. Every national government is engaged every day in main taining relations with nearly one hundred other governments, dealing with them on a score or a hundred different topics at any given moment. In deed, there is hardly an aspect of human activity not encompassed by "foreign" relations. Most of these relations revolve around the use of traditional diplomacy on a bilateral government-to-government basis, but this diplomacy is increasingly augmented by a large number of multi lateral international conferences and organizations and by the activities of private individuals, producing a whole new facet in the field of foreign relations.