2110-7-10-10

31st May, 1936.

The Rt Honble W. Mackenzie King, M.P. Laurier House, Ottawa.

It was so very kind of you to send me the wire to Kitchener. I cannot regret your absence, for you seem to have made a first class speech to the Twentieth Century Liberals and to have said much that wanted saying. I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Kitchener (but oh! what an awful portrait of you in the Town Hall!). It is always a pleasure to be with Colonel Sims, and we had a first-class evening with the Scots Fusiliers, and a very good luncheon with the Board of Trade.

I have come back full of admiration for these Western Ontario cities. Hamilton is a model of how a city can be industrial and yet beautiful. London is all I expected - a city in a forest; and Stratford is simply a little piece of England. What I liked especially about them is their stalwart municipal pride. Yesterday, at Kingston, I spent mostly at the R.M.C., which is an admirably managed affair; I wish we had something of the kind at home. In these days when we only want a small nucleus for defence, it is important that it should be very efficient; and I have no doubt about the Militia on that score.

It has been a rather heavy week, for I have had to make a

2.

great many speeches, but I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Now we have a peaceful time until we go to Quebec. The President of the U.S.A. writes that June 8th is now impossible, but that he wants very much to come between the end of July and the beginning of September. I am suggesting to him that he might come to Quebec at the beginning of August, for we shall be going West, I think, about the 7th.

I found my mother in great form when I came back. I rather wish she had been with me, for the number of old Scots friends that I found on my tour was extraordinary. I was constantly being reminded of my earliest youth.

I hope you are as well as when I saw you last.

Yours ever,