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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 Ital-
ian 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 dras-
tically 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 can-
not 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-