2110-8-4-4

[Lord Crawford?]

7, AUDLEY SQUARE, W.l.

DICTATED

20th January 1937.

My dear John

Your letters of 15th December and 6th January were most interesting, as giving the Canadian side of the Palace crisis and shewing how efficient is the organisation of Imperial collaboration. It appears that our communications are undoubtedly good, and the speed with which the Dominions were consulted (not to mention the promptitude of their replies) shews how closely we have all come to be related . As regards the Canadian attitude, I don't think criticism here was censorious. We knew, or at least we guessed, what the Canadian attitude would be, but Beaverbrook rather queered the pitch. For years he has been claiming to interpret Empire opinion, particularly that of Canada, and the attitude of the "Daily Express" was inconsistent with everything we believed of Canada; and all these beliefs were soon afterwards verified. Beaverbrook came a bad cropper, for he was as wrong about England as about the Empire, and he was one of those who tried to press the King to assert himself in opposition to the Government. This was shabby on Beaverbrook's part, for I don't suppose the Duke of Windsor realised that this was all part of Aitken's sinister passion for revenge against Baldwin. For what reason he harbours this vendetta I do not know, whereas we all know that the Rothermere family vowed vengeance against him and Bonar Law for leaving young Harmsworth out of a Cabinet long ago. Beaverbrook is more difficult to explain. 'I'here was some talk of a motion in Parliament to have their names re -

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moved from the Privy Council as being false friends of the Monarch. Beaverbrook is impossible. Only in these last few days his papers have been wallowing in scandal. The Duke of Kent went to a phrenologist with a friend of his, a perfectly respectable young married woman, and evidently the tale got about - at least so it is said, though I myself never heard of it nor did our friends at the Carlton - but the blackguard "Sunday Express" published the whole story, photographs & all, with a nauseous denunciation of the scandal-mongers who were spreading the story abroad . So a couple of million people, or more, got the first news of the gossip from the "Express," which invented a contemptible excuse for giving it publicity. The feeling against these press outrages is growing, and the husband of the young woman in question has announced in guarded but explicit terms that if he is pestered any more, the reporting hack will g et a sound horsewhipping - and serve him right! In some ways our press is assuredly the most highly disciplined in the world, but in other directions the most disgraceful. At any rate the reptile press of Paris and Rome pay no hypocritical homage to piety.

Osbert Sitwell has composed a fine ode on the Palace set, the social set so well denounced by Cantuar. The latter was a little taken aback by the attacks directed against him, but he has never flinched, in fact shews a little more than usual of his dour and inherent obstinacies. As time goes on, we realise more and more how

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shabby, shoddy, raffish the Monarchy was becoming, how inevitable the crash, and how providential has been our escape. The poor man has tired out his Israelite host and German hostess in Austria, who cannot bear spending more than 4 or 5 weeks at their mountain fastness in the snow, and now they seem threatened with their illustrious guest for life. He has ordered books from Bumpus, which seems to me the most pathetic and the most illuminating event of the vita nuova.

I am glad you are working up the Augustus. I hope you will get it out soon, that is to say before the Italian Exhibition next year ( or is it the year after?), so that the Italians may study it and learn a little something about themselves. Your book should help them to draw the moral about their overpowering regime. Here we little know how vile Italian behaviour has been. For instance, during the Abyss inian trouble the Government authorised the publication of streams of books incredible in their vilification and obscenity,- books directed against us and issued with a Government subsidy, since volumes which in normal circumstances would cost 5?- or more, were published at 3d and 6d of our money. And now I am told the Italians a re bewildered by the leisureliness of our response to their overtures. They thought we should toss up our caps on the conclusion of the "Gentlemen 's Agreement." But somehow we seem quite cool. We are slow to take offence and these mercurial Italians thought us slow to remember. But I think 20 years,

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or more, will have to elapse before the old feeling of confidence is re-established.

Our Foreign Office, and War Office too, are badly informed about the internal situation of Spain, but Kingsley Wood tells me that the German aeroplane is nowhere compared with the Italian instrument. The Russian equipment sounds dull and is probably badly handled. Our Government is violently criticised about its attitude on neutrality, and upon my word, impartiality has served us badly! We were impartial in the Chinese-Japanese trouble, then in Abyssinia, now in Palestine & also in Spain; and the net result is that we seem to have earned the enmity of China and Japan, of the Italian and the Ethiopian, of Moslem and Jew, of Communist and Fascist alike. Surely our virtue is ill-rewarded.

I am intrigued by your visit to the "Communal clubs of the Central-European oddments" in the Prairie cities. Does this mean that, they are not getting assimilated? There is a curious state of things in South Africa, which is getting into a regular panic lest further persecution of Jews in Poland or Germany will be followed by an exodus to the Cape. All parties combine to deprecate this and to check it by legislation. Anti-Semitism is growing apace here at home. Many people delude themselves by thinking it is no more than a fad of Oswald Mosley and his over-dressed partizans. We have even passed a pretentious bill to forbid political uniforms. But the real movement of racial hostility

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steadily grows. The trouble is that these gentry always shew themselves most prosperous when others are most poor. The Police are nervous about developments, and the Palestine imbroglio is likely to bring us into a world controversy, in which we shall probably be scolded with even greater violence than that directed against Hitler himself.

Coronation preparations are in full swing. The King and Queen have a tremendous programme, including 8 days in Scotland. They don't mean to spare themselves - think of a 90 minute drive after the ceremony in Westminster Abbey, and wearing their crowns into the bargain!

Goodbye Bal

The Rt. Ron . Lord Tweedsmuir, G.C.M.G., C.H.