2110-7-10-2

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, 0TTAWA .

12th May, 1936.

Dearest Caroline

I was delighted to get your last letter. I am so sorry that we have been hanging you up about your journey. The position is that my family want to go home in the middle of June; but Walter is coming out to take them back, and it seems doubtful whether he can arrive earlier than the first days of June. He ought to have three weeks here, which will naturally mean that they will leave about the 20th. You could sail either on the 13th or the 20th, for, though our accommodation is limited, we could easily manage to have you all together for a few days. We shall be at Quebec until the first days of July, and then my idea is that you go down with us on our train on our tour of the Maritime Provinces. July is the hottest month; but in the Maritimes we shall have cool sea winds, and we shall also see a great deal of country; for I shall have some days salmon fishing in the woods.

We shall probably get back to Quebec about the first days of August, and it is doubtful whether we shall open this house at Ottawa at all before we go West some time about August 6th or 7th. But as you have already stayed here I do not suppose you will mind missing Ottawa. We are enormously looking forward to your coming, and as we shall have no other guests we can give all our time to you. The train is just as comfortable as any Government House.

I have not much news since I last wrote. The dry heat of last week has changed to rain and very muggy weather, which, appar-

2.

ently, is the custom in May. The garden is leaping into bloom and the rock garden is really quite beautiful. My mother and Nan are greatly enjoying themselves and are being lavishly entertained. We go off to the Niagara Peninsula for two days on tour to-night , and they are coming with us.

I have not yet had any definite news about the President's visit; but he promised to let me hear this week.

We are anxiously awaiting news from home as to how the Italian situation will be faced. I cannot see how it is possible to carry on sanctions, for we cannot have a continuing vendetta with Italy. At the same time it is impossible, after her recent behaviour, to regard her with any cordiality. The League of Nations must go on, though I think (as I have always thought) that its constitution must be drastically amended. It ought to be confined, I think, for the moment to the European Powers. In that case you would have a League working in co-operation with two other great international leagues, the British Empire and the American Republics. The whole inception of the League was too grandiose and its machinery far too slow and complicated; but it cannot be amended in a hurry, and in the meantime I think we shall have to supplement it by regional pacts, such as an amended Locarno.

I am very anxious about S. B' s health. I am afraid he cannot go on very long, and I do not see his successor. What a pity Edward Halifax is not in the Commons!

I have just finished Duff Cooper's second volume on Haig. It is quite excellent, far better than the first volume, and his an-

2.

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, OTTAWA.

swer to Lloyd George is devastating in its completeness. It gives me great pleasure to think that my old chief is so amply vindicated.

Johnie is off in the woods fishing for a week, and I join him there next Sunday. He is now quite a different being, and I hope by the time you arrive he will be exactly like his old self. We must turn our mind to the question of his future, and I have already begun to throw out feelers at home.

We hear regularly from Alice, who seems on the whole to be enjoying her queer life at Stratford. From Billy we hear nothing, except indirectly. He is a hopeless correspondent. Didy Battye has been a perfect delight to us, and it will be very hard to let her go.

My dearest love to Marnie and her family, and to yourself.

Yrs

John