2110-7-1-7

as from Church House Westminster, S.W.1

Pomander Gate, Paget East Bermuda.

January 26th, 1935

Dear Colonel Buchan:-

Here in these Isles of Rest, where I have nearly completed a prescribed vacation, I have just finished reading aloud, with my son, your Oliver Cromwell.

I write first to thank you for the refreshment of spirit which your book has brought me, especially the rekindling of hope for good government in the world - "the State controlled by the seeing eyes and the single hearts", in particular Oliver's dream "of an aristocracy of quality where the best would govern, but all would be the best"; and beyond this the task greater than establishing a democracy, the creation of "a spiritualized and dedicated nation". I have been for thirty years a bishop in the Far East. At the present moment those who wield most power in China are at least nominally Christians, and some of them I know, notably the Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, are eager for "a corporate discipline, of which quality is the watchword", and concerning which "Oliver speaks to us strangely in the accents of today". I know too

that they look to the West for a concrete lead in this direction.

My physicians say that I should not return at once to China, and I am expecting to spend some weeks in England during the coming months. Would it be possible for me to see you for some talk about these things in the latter part of February or in March?

Sincerely yours L.H. Roots Bishop of Hankow

Col. John Buchan M.P. Elsfield Manor Oxford