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Personal .

Government House Ottawa.

16th November, 1935.

The Rt. Honble. Stanley Baldwin, M.P. 10, Downing Street, London. S.W.

My dear Stanley,

I must send you a line of hearty congratulation on the result of the election. My only fear is that you have got too large a majority. You will have a much better Opposition, though I am sorry to see that some bad cranks have been returned. The casualties among our own people have, on the whole, been pretty light. I am sorry that some of the keenest young men, like Molson, Godfrey Nicholson and Ke -Lindsay have been beaten, and very sorry, too, a bout the two Macdonalds and Cuthbert Headlam. I do not think Ramsay should be allowed to go back into politics until he has had a proper rest. Send him out to me, and I will look after him. I hope you are not too tired.

We are getting settled down here after a really wonderful reception. Our arrival at Quebec in the evening, with a flaming West Highland sunset behind the dark line of the Citadel and every ship in the harbour whistling, and our drive by torchlight with a cavalry escort through the old cobbled streets, were extraordinarily dramatic. I think I am going to be very happy here, for I like the people enormously. My Prime Minister, whom I have known for thirty years, is a new man. He was always a most

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adroit party manager and a skilful diplomatist, but he has now acquired a real audacity. He has got together a remarkable Cabinet, compounded of youth and experience. He has already cut down its numbers, introduced the English system of undersecretaries, and abolished that old home of graft, the Harbour Commissioners. Then he dashed down to Washington, caught the President in an emotional mood before the Armistice, and pushed through the Reciprocity Treaty, which Mr. Bennett had almost completed. So far as I can judge I think the agreement a good one, and it in no way compromises British interests. The P.M. will have to face a certain amount of kick from Canadian industrialists but the President has taken real risks for there will be the deuce of a row with his farmers. We expect to have an official visit from that great man early in the New Year. Meantime the Prime Minister is basking in the sun on an island off the Georgia coast, and Mr. Bennett left Calgary yesterday for a month, leaving no address. I hope you and your colleagues will try to follow that good example.

We are having a peaceful time just now , for Parliament won't meet until after the New Year, and I am occupied in getting to know the chief people. I go to Montreal and Toronto next Saturday for a week, where I have to make many speeches. About speaking Canada has now bowels of compassion. One has several speeches a day, which are fully reported and broadcast, as the the Governor-General is always walking on thin ice, and has a very limited range of subjects, it is not altogether an easy

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life. But it is full of amenities - lovely country for riding and walking, and the most friendly and varied society; also, in time, I shall have quite a lot of leisure to get on with my work on the Emperor Augustus. I have only one complaint - that I am separated from so many friends, and that I never see you.

Yours ever , (signed) JOHN.