2110-7-9-1

[Crawford]

DICTATED

7, AUDLEY SQUARE, W.l.

4th March 1936.

My dear John

We are embroiled in a world full of troubles - Rioting in Spain - Assassination in Japan - Street rows in Paris - Russian manoeuvres which provoke German replies about the Demilitarised Rhineland - Italy slanging us and sparring with the Little Entente, while inflicting a terrific bombing on Ethiopia - A mild political crisis in Egypt - Here at home leakage of Government documents, the establishment of a Defence Ministry, and a big rearmament programme - Finally, a first-class shindy about betting pools. On the whole, Canada seems the most peaceable country in the world.

Here we are anxious and distraught. We open the morning paper with apprehension. The House of Commons, and the Lords too, have been very restive for several weeks. Unofficial Members do not volunteer to speak in favour of the Government, which as an old Whip always used to worry me. There are signs of lassitude in the Government, more particularly in Baldwin himself, who seems too tired to consult his colleagues. The Opposition remains fissiparous and ill-led. Before long, the complexion of affairs will change. With a good Budget, a sound scheme of replenishing defective armaments and organising defence, perhaps with improved employment returns, - all these things should help: and with the safe election of the second Macdonald, electoral surprises of real consequence will not perturb us very much. Two domestic problems remain apparently insoluble, namely, - the Unemployment Benefit

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and the School leaving age, in which Oliver Stanley has been badly embarrassed.

But all our real worries are of Continental extraction. All we ask is quietude to develop our trade, but Italy is a continuing source of unrest. Our news is very defective. Nearly every Correspondent has been withdrawn from the Italian Army, and those with the Abyssinians are at the mercy of the lies that circulate in the negroid imagination. The Italians continue a well-nourished campaign of calumnious fiction directed against ourselves, fiction which becomes indistinguishable from forgery,- about dum-dum bullets, for instance, about our Military Attaché being the chief adviser of the Negus,- that each of his Abyssinian battalions is commanded by an English officer, and so on - one hopeless misrepresentation after another. The scurrility of their press is excelled by that of their broadcasting. Then came the queer gaffe of Gayda in publishing our Maffey report. We were nonplussed, then annoyed, finally almost pleased at the leakage, though the Government is much exercised that a secret document should have been purloined. How did it happen? Carelessness, I expect. I remember McKenna once produced sample Treasury notes to a Cabinet - I suppose in 1916. They were passed round, sanctioned, and returned to him, it being most important that no word should be bruited outside; and then, a few hours later, came a message of distress from the Treasury, that the notes had not been returned to McKenna after all. Search was made high

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and low, but no notes were to be found, until two or three days later they were discovered, quite by chance, in A.J.B's [A.J. Balfour's] possession. He had quietly pocketed them and had forgotten to search his person at the Cabinet. So I expect the Maffey report was left lying about, and that there was no real treachery involved. How we lost it is less interesting than why Mussolini published a document demonstrating our good faith and disinterestedness. I think he did so as a proof & evidence of power. The megalomaniac wished to shew that he had access to our State papers, and that he did not scruple to demonstrate the fact to the world. This stroke may have been one up for the Dictatorship, but it was a masterpiece of tactlessness on his part. Still, we hope he is not in a position to repeat these equivocal triumphs.

With Oil Sanctions struggling in limbo, we don't want to be bullied by the League into imposing them, or bluffed by the Duce into withdrawing our freedom to act. I suspect the Sanctions are more potent than we know. Silver is being withdrawn from circulation, gold is being exhausted, and inflation by paper must be accelerating. 12 months hence, perhaps in 6, the Italian Exchange problem will become acute. Mussolini may always anticipate a crisis by some act of diplomatic or military insanity. His success in Abyssinia is marked and his bombing equipment seems insuperable, but if 10% of it were in the hands of Ethiopia, Badoglio would have been driven back to the Red Sea long ago. There is growing confidence in Rome, all the more in contrast to their

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long depression: but with confidence, perhaps a growing arrogance may ensue. Every success in Ethiopia will be looked upon as a snub to the League of Nations and as a diplomatic defeat of ourselves. There must, however, be many people who will do their utmost to prevent Mussolini repeating his discourse at Pontinia. But in present circumstances, Italy must remain a tremendous danger to us. She still patrols our Egyptian frontier as though we were expected to invade the Libyan Desert: and every day that passes must defer the reaction in our favour, which is bound to come some day or other. But Italian memories are vindictive, and retentive too. Who knows how, and when, our motives will be recognised as pacific and disinterested? For that is what they are: but we are paying dearly for our altruism.

So, you see, we are apprehensive and jumpy. We underrate important things, we exaggerate what is insignificant. Our emphasis is uncertain and our logic disjointed. It is a condition of mind where cool statesmanship is wanted, and where the lead should be clear, simple, and unenigmatic. We should readily respond to the sense of being governed, and governed by a resolute master.

Per contra, Scotland is worried about the Forth Bridge and its approaches. The Ministry of Transport is asking some awkward questions, which is generally voted an impertinence. Moreover, the style and title of His Gracious Majesty has caused umbrage, and the purists are insisting that when he signs the Roll at Holyrood, he should

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himself make it clear that he is Edward II as well as Edward VIII. We are feeling very testy on the problem, which, however, is for the moment receding into the background.

[from] Bal

My respect to Her Ladyship

The Lord Tweedsmuir.