IN some ways I was not sorry when my fortnight at Cannes was over. It had been an absorbingly interesting experience but it had been a strain. My brain was continually on the stretch trying to take down every important point during the morning conferences in my faulty shorthand---a mixture of Pitman's and of my own invention. The afternoons were spent writing out my cables and every meal was devoted to discussing the ills and woes of humanity with experts. One of my only days off had been a busman's holiday---a hundred and sixty mile drive in a Ford car listening to Truby King talking about mothers and babies while I wanted to forget the improvement of the human race for a while in the lovely surroundings of mountains, hill towns and fields carpeted with spring anemones! Thousands of Truby King's followers would doubtless have given half their worldly goods to have spent a day in such close proximity with the great man. But I must confess that for a short while I felt entirely indifferent to motherhood, breastfeeding and prenatal care. I understood why the children of social reformers go to the bad! My only other day off had been a flutter at Monte Carlo with Ivy Lee---very exhilarating but certainly not restful.

Europe was denuded of rolling stock in the spring of 1919. The trains in France were as overcrowded as they had been during the early days of the war. Long-suffering mortals were packed like sardines in the compartments and a cross section of humanity sat, lay and stood with their household goods in the corridors. Apparently the American Red Cross alone possessed the secret of providing comfort for its protégés. An entire wagon-lit was placed at the disposal of our party. As we fought our way through the seething crowds at Cannes station to our reserved carriage we salved our consciences with the thought that we had been working hard in the interests of humanity!

From Paris I wrote

Hotel Wagram,        
15 April.

We had one complete sleeping car for all the doctors. Truby King and I shared a two-berthed sleeper. I lunched with my American friends, then went round to see Arthur Stanley and tell him how things went off. He congratulated me on my articles which he said had been very interesting. He told me he had read every word. Then we attended the small Red Cross Conference with him, Sir Arthur Lawley and Ivy Lee.

I was now counting the minutes till my train left the Quai d'Orsay for St. Jean de Luz at the foot of the Pyrenees. My aunt(1) had invited me to stay as long as I could at Baillenia---her Basque house---with her and my cousin. I was going to have a real care-free holiday at last, the first for five years. Dotted along life's path are certain interludes that stand out as perfect memories. It was eight years since I had experienced springtide in France. I had travelled around the continents since then. After my wanderings the spring of 1914 in England had been a revelation---nothing could be more lovely. And yet in my aunt's house on a hill-top facing La Rhune---a mount of transfiguration---over which soared vultures, I was in another enchanted world. The weather was perfect till the eve of my departure, when deluges of rain descended upon us, interpreting my feelings.

When I close my eyes I can see fields of asphodel, swaying gently in the spring breeze, lithospermum that painted the hillside, the blue of heaven and meadows golden with gorse.

Although I had not seen my aunt since my boyhood, when she and my uncle paid us a visit in Ireland shortly before his death, she occupied a special place in my affections.

I recalled a loving presence and great kindness to a small boy. For many years she had sent me special messages in her weekly letters to my cousin. My aunt was an aristocrat to her finger tips. I remembered thirty years before admiring her as she stood by our billiard table at home in flowing velvet and sparkling jewels. Then she was the radiant possessor of a great love. Now she was a gracious, frail and sad old lady, with snowy white ringlets, with soft chiffon veil round her head, lace and dainty furbelows. She still took a keen interest in the world around her. Since the beginning of the war she had lost her favourite son, Victor, and two daughters. Seeing her again after thirty years with the same kindly smile and the same deep-set brown eyes---now hauntingly, sad---brought back a flood of memories. It was like opening a long disused box into which you had put boyhood treasures. Suddenly I stepped back into the feelings of a boy of eight. I remembered walking down to our railway station with my uncle and catching some moth like butterflies with red and black wings in my net and taking them to him. My uncle was a big-game hunter, a naturalist and a friend of Huxley's. He entered into my excitement and knew at once to which species my captive belonged. I vividly remembered my bedroom at our old home, with its ochre Robinson-Crusoe wallpaper in the nursery, and my dog Strome, nicknamed Toby. I recalled the games I used to play. My favourite pastime was pretending I was captain of an ocean liner. In our garden I had had constructed a flat-roofed wooden shed, complete with improvised lavatory, only shown to special friends. A rickety ladder led from the saloon to the bridge. Here I would spend hours piloting the vessel through the plunging ocean to the distant tropic seas I had read of in The Swiss Family Robinson and Masterman Ready.

My aunt now led the life of an invalid.(2) When my uncle died in 1891 the joy of life left her and gradually she spent more and more of her days upstairs. When I was at Baillenia she never left her bedroom and I used to go up and sit by her bedside. Every year my cousin Hylda---her only remaining daughter---used to spend two months with her and they were the months my aunt looked forward to above all others. The stay in the South of France was anything but a rest for the daughter, who daily spent many hours in her mother's heated bedroom. My aunt had a plan of life which was never departed from. Inherently, she was not selfish, but like many invalids absorbed in her own daily regime she forgot how engulfing were the claims she made on others. The temperature had always to be at exactly 68° Fahrenheit, the window open just so many inches. Her possessions had always to be in their accustomed place. On occasions my aunt went into her boudoir for tea. Before my cousin tucked her up for the night after these afternoons, when she had been absent from her bedroom, a stick had to be thrust under her bed to be sure no burglars were in hiding! Perhaps my aunt's fears were due to the fact that she always kept a hundred pounds in banknotes in a leather case in her room.

My cousin was off duty till a quarter to twelve each morning, and we used to go for long walks over the hills covered with asphodel, past Basque farms and through winding lanes and open meadows. She was familiar with every inch of the countryside and knew just where to find the local wild flowers. Near a disused well king-cups made a vivid splash of colour; by the banks of the Nivelle thrift grew. Our favourite walk was to a hidden shrine, reached by a path bordered by mossy banks in which the primroses nestled:

At every step the sense of enchantment grew. And then all at once the curtain of hazel parted, the stream leaving its sheltering banks spread itself in a pool shining and clear, and there beside the pool, by creepers and ivy overgrown, stood a little ruined shrine . . . . The altar was gone and the sanctuary bare, but still there hung about the hallowed spot like incense the ineffable wonders of Love's Holy Mysteries . . . . By the little pool a weeping willow stood, the long branches in spring's tender green, spreading wide and dipping towards the water, and at its side, with a pang, I saw a large basket of homely washing brought down from the farm high on the hill. The very thought seemed a desecration till I came to see beauty, too, in the idea of life's soiled and damaged things being brought to these healing waters for cleansing and renewal.

 . . . Oft have I found my way again to that little shrine---in my heart I call it St. John of the Light---and always with the sense of drawing near to the secret which guides the stars in their courses and upholds the foundations of the earth, the secret which mind cannot conceive, and which the soul, that immortal thing, with veiled eyes dares hardly gaze upon, but which some day it shall see, not as in a glass darkly, but face to face.(3)

We always had lunch out of doors. I shall never forget those meals at Baillenia. "Monsieur" Laurent was steward and chef.(4) He had originally been my uncle's valet and used to go on shooting expeditions with him into the Pyrenees. He was a first-rate chef, and had served his apprenticeship with Dumas père. Laurent had been with my aunt for forty years and was as devoted to the family as they were to him. How pleased Ruskin would have been with their relationship. Laurent's presence pervaded the place. When in want of anything, we consulted "le Petit Vieux", who would probably be found walking about the garden with a hen under his arm, with whom he was carrying on an animated conversation. Or perhaps he would be taking an airing in his white apron, with béret on his head, escorted by his female cat "Simone" that adored her master with all the devotion that the feline species is capable of. I thought Simone rather forbidding. She was grey and gaunt and walked sedately with tail erect. When Laurent went on periodical visits to his property at Pau, Simone escorted her master to the railway station at St. Jean de Luz---a mile away. During his several days' absence she never returned to Baillenia--what she did or where she went no one ever knew. But she never failed to be on the platform at St. Jean de Luz to greet her master on his return! Laurent's love of his hens was such that he could not undertake the gruesome but necessary task of cutting their throats, so this job was entrusted to Marie, the kitchen maid, who presumably had no qualms.

Laurent provided us with Voisin cooking at each repast. His fertile brain always thought out some new surprise. Frothy omelettes, followed by poulet en cocotte and washed down by local white wine that became liquid gold when the sun's rays were upon it. Our table was under a mimosa tree, a great vase of irises stood in the middle and through stone-pines we looked across the valley at the western chain of the Pyrenees. We ended our meals with a Spanish sweet called turon, coffee worthy of Escoffier, and a glass of Izarra. My diary does but scant justice to my ten days at St. Jean:

The only letter I wrote to my parents seems very inadequate:

Villa Baillenia,                       
St. Jean de Luz, B.P.,          
25 April.

Ever since I got here it has been perfect weather and I could not have had a more restful or healthier holiday. I have practically been out of doors the whole time.

This is the daily itinerary which never varies. Breakfast at 8.45 and afterwards till 11.45 Hylda and I have gone for long walks in the hills. Then she goes up to Aunt Alice till lunch time and I write or read out of doors in the garden. At 1.0 lunch out of doors and afterwards we usually sit in garden or go down to the town to do commissions, about half a mile. At 4.0 Hylda goes to Aunt A. And with exception of break for tea is with her till 8.0. I usually go for walks then by myself.

The view towards the mountains is beautiful and the great charm is that you are right away in complete country in a minute and the Basque peasants' farms with their ox carts are a constant joy.

Aunt A. is I think a good deal older looking than I expected and she certainly looks very frail.

I wonder if you saw the article in the Observer about Northcliffe, by Garvin. I thought it was very good. If only he (N.) would stop attacking Lloyd George.

I think what strikes me most about Aunt A. is the sadness. She is extraordinarily nice about the O.S. Club and always has Overseas in her room.

To preserve the vividness of my impressions, I quote from an article written for Overseas:

The Basque peasants have been working hard on the side of the hill since daybreak and the creaking of their returning ox-cart proclaims the approach of sunset. The stillness of a perfect spring evening proves to be an illusion, in reality there is a chorus of sound. Down in the valley a dog is barking and from under the eaves of the house the nesting swallows keep darting to and fro. A bee, laden, no doubt, with honey from the stocks and wallflowers in the garden, is humming on her way home. The birds are chirruping to each other in the apple tree, just bursting into blossom. Cattle, being driven home to the mountains from the market on the dusty road, are bellowing, while the call of old Jean Jacques to his patient oxen---ee yaa-a---is a sound one never tires of.

La Rhone, the mountain standing sentinel to the higher ranges of the Pyrenees, which this morning shone out so clearly, is bathed in a purple grey haze, its rocky outlines softened and its summit tipped by a white cloud. Sedately and in great curves a vulture is circling out across the Nivelle, a stream of silver at the bottom of the valley. He soars higher and higher towards the mountain top, till he is lost to sight.

The sun, a great red ball, disappears on the western horizon across the bay towards the Spanish coast, and there is hardly any afterglow. It grows dark suddenly and a fresh wind strikes chill. The world has become very still save for the croaking of the frogs in the swamp near the wood.

I once journeyed from mid-winter to mid-summer in forty-eight hours. I left New York in a November blizzard and two days later was sailing in tropic seas south of Cape Hatteras. I now went from heaven to hell in forty-eight hours, from the peaceful hill-top of a paradise in the Pyrenees to the devastated desolation of the battle area. After an unpleasant night sitting bolt-upright in a stuffy and crowded carriage---with the steam trickling down the closed windows, frequently pulled back to consciousness by the restlessness of my neighbour, a French boy, whose commonplace features his parents regarded with adoring eyes---I arrived at the Quai d'Orsay. A day was spent in Paris finishing up Red Cross duties and getting permits to go to the battle area

Hotel Wagram, Paris,           
Good Friday, 1919.

Paderewski has been staying in this hotel and we had sentries at the door and people in Polish uniform kept wandering about. Paderewski was wearing a top hat and his hair was bushier than ever---as he left there were crowds outside and cinema operators. . . . the last time I saw him was at a private piano recital in London!

Everyone is rather excited about the Chief's attack on Lloyd George. He certainly is an extraordinary man and must be attacking someone. If he isn't, he isn't happy. I don't wonder that Lloyd George hit back, but I am afraid the Chief will get in the last word.

Yesterday I decided to go out to Rheims. It took three and a half hours by train and one passed through Château Thierry and from one's carriage saw ruined village after ruined village. Rheims is a city of ruins, the only thing I have seen at all like it is Pompeii or Timgad in Tunis, and the Cathedral is merely a shell. It was bitterly cold, but fortunately in a portion of a tumble-down hotel I was able to get an eatable meal. After lunch I took a motor and drove fourteen kilometres to the battlefields, where one can wander about the Hindenburg line. The devastation passes belief. It will be a long time before the land is cultivated again, though in other places German prisoners, of whom there are any quantity, are hard at work filling up shell holes. It is very depressing . . . . The barbed wire entanglements are amazing. (Letter.)

I wrote in The Landmark:

As I was waiting in the queue at the Gare de l'Est in Paris to take my ticket for Rheims, a "doughboy" some six feet four inches in height addressed me in a deep voice. We soon became friends and compared notes on current events. Of his own accord he turned to the subject of Anglo-American friendship. "This war," said he, "has taught us English-speaking peoples what a bond language is and what a lot of things we have in common. Yesterday out at Versailles I met a bunch of Australians, and I felt that we were practically the same people. If the world is going to be any sort of a safe place in future it will only be by our sticking together and getting to know each other better." The time of waiting till I reached the guichet passed pleasantly, and I was sorry to bid good-bye to this warm advocate of English-speaking friendship.

For four-and-a-half years the eyes of civilisation have been turned anxiously to Rheims and the state of its Cathedral has been a matter of concern to all nations . . . . By leaving Paris at 7.30, Rheims, or rather what remains of the city, is reached at 10.30. For Rheims is nothing but a shell, a dead city. You walk down long streets of empty buildings, in varying stages of devastation, without passing a soul. Here and there some of the more enterprising citizens are returning and are opening their businesses amid the ruins. On the way to the Cathedral I noticed a butcher's shop and a greengrocer and two inns "carrying on," while several postcard and curio dealers had opened temporary booths among the debris. On account of falling masonry one is not allowed inside the Cathedral, but one can walk right round it. It is but a shell, and the headless statuary and pock-marked façade, even when it is restored, will for all time bear witness to the tribulations of the city.

Ground over which there has been hard fighting is much the same everywhere, and consequently there is a certain sameness about visiting the battlefields of the Western front. Perhaps as good a sample as any of the devastated area is some twelve kilometres from Rheims, where one can follow the Hindenburg line for miles, and where the Germans launched their great attack on 15 July last year. A scene of devastation greets the eyes on all sides the gaunt branchless trees, the great chalk trenches and dugouts, the shell-marked No-man's land, the interminable barbed wire entanglements. There is no sign of life at first sight and even the coming of spring is unheralded in this land of desolation. On closer inspection grape-hyacinth, cowslip and erodium reveal themselves, while far overhead a solitary lark is singing undaunted. The battlefields call to mind forests in North America destroyed by fire, and parts of Yellowstone Park and the Rotorua hot-springs of New Zealand, in the neighbourhood of the geysers, where the sulphurous waters have blighted the surface of the earth.

Debris of the battlefield still lies scattered about. One scrambles down into the front-line trench of the Hindenburg line, past "Villa Rheims," to the first of three derelict German tanks still lying astraddle some trenches, and distinguishable by their iron crosses-great inert monsters of phantasy they lie, with their nozzles deeply, embedded---"Lotti " and "Liesel " were their names. On the side of one of them a witty Frenchman had written "Je ne recommencerai plus. Fritz "---and pray God his words may be true.

On the way back to my motor I visited the Fort de la Pompelle, which was taken and retaken seventeen times, finally to remain in the hands of the French. Two poilus belonging to the 138th Regiment acted as my guides. They took especial pride in doing so, for in one day's fighting their regiment lost 230 effectives in defending it. We wandered among the ruins. By the side of a dazzling white wall were five little wooden crosses marking the graves of some comrades ; slightly removed from them was another cross with the single word "Inconnu." How many crosses, scattered over the battlefields of Europe, bear a similar inscription, I wonder?

Back in Paris,            
30 April.

Went to see Mair---usual red tape about going to Cologne. Finally, decided to go straight to the Canadian G.H.Q. at Wimereux neat Boulogne and I got the military people to wire saying I was coming. It has been rather difficult in Paris to-day as there is a general strike.

"Saskatoon Club,"                       
Cambrai l'Abbé, near Arras       .
2 May.

I left Paris yesterday, May Day, and there was a complete stoppage of all work---chômage they call it. There were no undergrounds, no taxis, absolutely nothing, and no work of any kind done. At my hotel I could not get any kind of food, and so had to go down into an underground kitchen, and was given a bowl of coffee---no cups---by the cook, and a roll of bread; ate it by candle light as the electric light was turned off.

I knew it would be impossible to drive to the station so I took my things to the Gare du Nord the previous evening and then just walked the two-and-a-half miles in rain yesterday morning, carrying my pyjamas and shaving things rolled up in the pockets of my Burberry.

Regina Hotel, Wimereux,        
1 May, 1919.

Thanks to the American Red Cross I had my place comfortably reserved in the train. The only person I saw at the station that I knew was Sir David Henderson. At Boulogne station I was met by Colonel Bovey, the Canadian, on behalf of the General. He took me in a car to this place. I dined with him in the evening. They are going to send a conducting officer with me and I am to go to Ypres and Vimy Ridge. I am staying as the guest of the Canadian Headquarters.

Camblain l'Abbé,          
(About five miles from Arras).   
2 May.

Last night I dined with six Canadian officers, they were all most friendly. After dinner they danced with WAACS. I danced a waltz or two. Breakfast at 8.30, we started in two cars at 9. Mine was an open car with windscreen. I had on my overcoat and a Burberry over it and was very glad as we got covered with mud. Colonel Bovey came with me and also a French officer.

We did over a hundred miles and stopped for coffee at St. Pol, and then went to a Canadian rest house in the wilderness for lunch at 1.30. Nice hot soup, excellent cold beef, fried potatoes and Christmas pudding and champagne! was ravenous. After lunch we went to Arras Across the Vimy Ridge and then Lens: Lens is an absolute wilderness of desolation, not a house left, nothing but a mass of bricks, iron and mud-the country where Alan(5) was. Colonel Bovey knew Alan quite well and liked him very much. The desolation passes all belief. We passed Givenchy where Bevil was killed. On this ground about 150,000 French, British and Canadians lost their lives during the war. The little cemeteries with white crosses are so pathetic. A Major Booth is looking after me here. Being here is just like an oasis in the wilderness. I am sleeping in a little iron hut, like the ones one sees from the train near Etaples and from the Boulogne train. It is a long one-storey building with rain trickling through the roof in three places.

Saint Omer,       
3 May.

I am back in civilisation. Been motoring since 9 o'clock this morning. I have been to Ypres. While I am writing they are dancing downstairs. Dancing is becoming a perfect mania. I suppose it is the reaction from the war. I must go back to Camblain l'Abbé. After dinner we looked up the route for the next day on the map.

The journey was Bethune, Armentières, Ploegsteert, Messines, Ypres, and Poperinghe, Cassel and finally Saint Omer and then Boulogne. The whole way from Bethune to Ypres was an absolutely devastated area with not a house, especially from Armentières to Ypres it was a kind of inferno, huge shell holes filled with stagnant water and débris of battle, no flowers, no trees, no signs of life, dotted about with little crosses so many of which had nothing on them. It is a loathsome place.

Then we had rather an unpleasant experience. When we were tight up on the Messines Ridge, not a human being for several miles, we came to an inconceivably bad bit of road, a real quagmire. I said to the driver we had much better turn back and try and go round another way, but he was obstinate and said he would get through, but I knew we wouldn't So we started off and after going about fifty yards the car came to a complete standstill with the wheels deep in ruts of oozing mud and just alongside a large shell hole into which we might easily have sunk. At times I had visions of our leaving the car and walking miles and trying to get horses to haul us out, though where we should have got help I can't imagine. The driver was determined to try and get out so we collected stones and broken pieces of board and then we pushed as hard as we could, and after about an hour of sliding and slithering back into the mud, during which we got covered with mud from head to foot, we managed at last to get on to the hard surface again.

Then we retraced our way past companies of Chinese and German prisoners clearing up the battlefields and found our way to Ypres, just a mass of ruins. We motored back quickly the fifty-five miles through country not affected by the war, it looked so smiling and green it didn't seem possible that it belonged to the same world. (Letters.)

The following is an account of my visit written for Overseas(6) at the time:

From the few mounds of brick and debris which were once Ploegsteert, we climbed through Ploegsteert Wood, now a Chinese shack-town, bringing back memories of Chinese quarters in Jamaica, Panama and elsewhere, up on to the crest of the Messines Ridge. Here was an upland inferno, where no living thing or human habitation was to be seen in any direction. Wherever we looked it was a blighted land of horror. The bare gaunt tree stumps pointed with their broken branches heavenwards, and no wonder, for all around was despair. Huge shell-holes filled with stagnant green water full of frog-spawn, unexploded shells, old petrol tins, a horse's skeleton, a boot, half-buried helmets, pickaxes, hand grenades, more barbed wire than you ever imagined in the world, broken concrete pill-boxes, camouflaged galvanised iron dug-outs, gas plant, and every here and there in this land of desolation a little nameless wooden cross marking the site of a lonely grave. On we motored, past miles and miles of this desolation.

Then we came across one of the many parties of German prisoners helping to clear up the débris. Wild mustard and dandelions were growing between the shell-holes---a solitary magpie fluttered down from a tree stump and some sparrows were looking for food. As we approached Ypres we overtook a fat Belgian woman and a boy in a little cart drawn by two willing dogs, and then on to the ruins of the Cloth Hall. Outside the Church Army hut in the debris were several Red Cross cars. Near by some German prisoners belonging to the 273rd prisoners' camp were hard at work in the sun.

LONDON seemed very humdrum after France. There was an entry in my diary " Life and its problems pressing---I had to hold conference on staff reduction at Overseas Club." Now that our war funds and war work had ceased I had to reconstitute the Overseas League on a peace-time basis and drastically reduce our staff, always an unpleasant task. Till the Overseas League moved to Vernon House(1) we went through two difficult years. I had frequently to explain that it was not a war time organisation and was founded four years before the war. But it was depressing to find our aims so completely misunderstood.

87, Victoria Street,                
London, S.W.1.          
6 May.

After lunch went round to the Foreign Office to see Tyrrell. He wanted to consult me about preventing overlapping in connection with the various Anglo-American organisations.

7 May.

We had an Overseas League lunch. I was in the Chair and sat between Jack Seely and Lord Meath. Lord Meath's wife died twelve months ago after a married life of fifty years. They meant very much to each other. He told me that he cannot settle down to anything and that he feels lost without her. However do people bear things like that?

9 May.

Lunched with Sydney Walton who used to be at Ministry of Food, to discuss scheme in connection with entertaining Canadian soldiers before they leave. (Letters.)

During the early months of 1919 I had been concerned by the lack of imagination shown by the authorities in permitting the Dominion troops to return home without a proper send-off. At an Overseas League lunch held on 26 March I tried to counteract the official inertia:

The Chairman said there was an extraordinary lack of imagination in this Empire. Could they conceive any other great nation allowing her sons who had fought in the bloodiest war in history to sail to the distant parts of the world without giving them a send-off from the people of the capital of the Empire and wishing them a safe return?

He had written to Lord Milner (Secretary of State for the Colonies) on the subject, and asked him if they could rely on his support to enable Londoners to see the troops before they returned home. Lord Milner had kindly promised to take up the matter. (Times, 27 March, 1919.)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.1.     
9 May.

At 11 I went to the American Embassy. It was rather gratifying that the Ambassador and Consul-General sent for me to assist in connection with the laying of flowers on Commemoration Day (30 May), upon the graves of the two thousand American soldiers who are buried in the British Isles. It was a tribute to the E.-S.U, that it should be the only British organisation asked to help, considering that it is not yet a year old. The Committee consists of the American Ambassador as Chairman, General Biddle, head of the U.S. Army here, Admiral Knapp, head of the U.S. Navy, Skinner, American Consul-General, the head of the American Red Cross, Sir Arthur Stanley, Campbell Stuart and myself. After lunch I went round to see Major George Haven Putnam,(2) who has just arrived from America. He really cares about British-American friendship. He is full of energy, although seventy-five, and still plays tennis, but he talks too much about himself. How tiresome these self-centred people are. I pray that I may not become garrulous in my old age. But after all this is a small matter and he is really selfless in his devotion to the cause. Putnam has crossed the Atlantic fifty-six times.

I am rather upset by the way everyone is going on about the German delegates at Versailles and gloating over their dejection.(3)

Did I tell you that I am in high favour with Northcliffe? Campbell Stuart says he wants to get me back into the organisation, but I have no intention of going back. Such a summer day, the trees are nearly out and the bluebells in St. James's Park near the catalpa tree are lovely. The apple blossoms and the cherry trees are in full glory. I am going to have my bicycle overhauled.

11 May, 1919.

I am going through rather a difficult time. One thing is that I have outgrown purely Empire patriotism. My Empire allegiance must dovetail into the larger allegiance. I have been thinking about it a good deal. Also I long for a more living Faith.

Had a letter from Northcliffe saying he will be unable to come to the Overseas League Annual Meeting; he has got to have a slight operation on his throat, but he does not think it is anything malignant. He has gone up in weight.

Tuesday, 13 May.

Lunch with Harry Wilson to discuss scheme of possible amalgamation with the Royal Colonial Institute. He said he thought the ideal arrangement would be for me to run the joint society.(4)

14 May.

Sir Arthur Stanley has just been. He wanted me to help him about a scheme. I lunched with Owen Wister and we discussed Anglo-American relations and his new book.

17 May.

The country is looking so beautiful, the lilac out and the hawthorn. It seems so marvellous that the war is really over, and that there is a normal summer to look forward to. Went round to the garage and got my Ford; I drove it off as if it had never been laid up. Really it is a marvellous car to be in perfect condition after being laid up for two years!

18 May

As far as I can make out the War Office gratuity amounts to £300, just think, and I never counted on more than £60! It makes me happy because it means now that I can run my Ford for the next two years without any bother. I have just paid up £100 as my gift to the Overseas War Memorial Fund which leaves me £200 in hand.

19 May.

Lunched with Arthur Stanley. We had a private room at the Savoy, about thirty, to hear the latest news of the Red Cross. They tried to get me to undertake another job but I refused. Sat next to Truby King.

21 May.

Lord Beauchamp and the Mayor of Malvern came to see me about working together with the English-Speaking Union. Lunched with the Northcliffes. Northcliffe goes into a nursing home next week for the operation on his throat. He is so friendly to me. He introduced me as one of the few people on this side of the Atlantic who really understands Anglo-American relations, and I felt gratified.

Round to see Mrs. Astor.(5) I wish there were more like her. Behind her wit and breezy manner lies a really deep consecration of purpose. No wonder Lord Grey liked her.

Lunched with Sir John Hanbury Williams, who used to be Military Secretary to Lord Grey in Canada. He was very interesting about the Tsar and his extraordinary ignorance of what was going on in those last few weeks before he abdicated. The Tsar used to talk quite openly with him. (Letters.)

A writer in the Popular Press has recently dubbed 1919 as "the year no one remembers." I presume he meant that it was dwarfed by its predecessor 1918. I shall always think of it as the year in which North America and Britain were brought within a day's flight of one another. In May and June we witnessed stirring events. First came Harry Hawker's brave attempt to make the first direct Atlantic flight. The present generation can have little conception of the breathless interest with which the latest bulletins of his progress were followed. In Overseas(6) I wrote:

Those who happened to be in London on Sunday, 25 May, will long remember the occasion. It was at my club that I first read of the safety of Hawker and his gallant comrade Commander K. MacKenzie Grieve. Shortly after 3 o'clock an early edition of the Sunday Evening Telegram proclaimed to an amazed public the glad tidings that Hawker was safe. Not since Armistice Day have there been so many joyful faces in London. At first the news seemed too good to be true. Certain it is that whoever first succeeds in flying from Newfoundland to Ireland, it will be Hawker's name which will be for ever associated with the great adventure of the Atlantic flight.

The ordinary public, and even the experts, had given up all hope of his safety by Thursday, as nothing was known of his fate after 5 am. on Monday 19 May, when the red light of his machine was seen by the cableship Faraday in mid-Atlantic . . . . On Sunday the 25th very few people believed that he was still alive but among the number was his brave wife. Incredible as it may seem, on Saturday the 24th she told her friends that Sunday was her lucky day and that she felt sure there would be news of her husband.

The story of Hawker's attempt . . . will be handed down for all time as an epic of our race. No matter who succeeds in first flying from Newfoundland to Ireland, it is Hawker's name we shall remember. . .(7)

When we read the story of his start in a one-engined aeroplane, constructed for flying over land, of his discarded under-carriage, of his insufficient wireless equipment, of the British Air Ministry's warning of adverse weather conditions, we must admire his wonderful pluck, however foolhardy it may have seemed.(8)

 

The dramatic nature of Hawker and Grieve's attempt to fly the Atlantic and the long drawn-out suspense prior to the receipt of the news of rescue tended temporarily to make us forget the progress of Lt.-Commander Read and the gallant crew of the NC.4, who were then waiting at the Azores for a favourable opportunity to continue their journey to Lisbon and thence to Great Britain. Our sense of proportion soon righted itself, however, and at 2.20 p.m. on the memorable Saturday, when the NC.4 was sighted outside Plymouth breakwater escorted by British flying-boats and seaplanes flying the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack, the good people of Plymouth realised that history was being made before their eyes . . . . It was only fitting . . . that the airmen should have repaired to the Barbican, where the Mayor, standing on the actual stone from which the Pilgrim Fathers stepped on to the Mayflower, extended a civic reception to them.(9)

We had hardly finished welcoming Commander Read of the N.C.4 and his associates when the news that Captain J. Alcock and Lieutenant W. Brown had made the first direct Atlantic flight reached London on Sunday, 15 June. I learnt of the epoch-making achievement from the poster of the Sunday Evening Telegram, "Successful Atlantic Flight. Great British Achievement." The two British airmen left St. John's, Newfoundland at 5.13 p.m. summer time on Saturday 14 June and landed in Ireland at 9.40 a.m. on Sunday, 15 June, accomplishing the coast to coast flight of 1,880 miles over the ocean in 15 hours and 57 minutes. I have been to most of the lunches tendered to the pioneers of flight, from that given by the Daily Mail to Bleriot the conqueror of the Channel, to the great luncheon to Colonel Lindbergh in 1927. I never remember a more dramatic occasion than the moment when Alcock, bewildered by a hurricane of cheers, stood up to address us. In a characteristic message to Alcock and Brown, Northcliffe said that he looked forward "with certainty to the time when the London morning newspapers will be selling in New York in the evening," and he continued, "I rejoice at the good augury that you departed from and arrived at those two portions of the British Commonwealth, the happy and prosperous Dominion of Newfoundland and the future equally happy and prosperous Dominion of Ireland."(10)

1 June, 1919. Friday---Commemoration Day---was grilling, and we all went down in a special train to Brookwood. I had to look after the Prince of Wales' equerry, a very nice quiet fellow called Piers Legh. The E.-S.U. sent a monster wreath and altogether I think the Americans were pleased.

On Wednesday I went to the Hawker lunch and sat between Sutton and Sir Marcus Samuel, who has bought half Mayfair! Hawker and Grieve are the most unassuming individuals and they got a great welcome. Mrs. Hawker, in large picture-hat, looked very pretty and came in for a lot of congratulations. They were besieged by people wanting their menus signed!

I had to go round to see Tyrrell on Friday at the Foreign Office to discuss Anglo-American problems. He is always very friendly and it is nice having someone there to turn to.

 

8 June, 1919. Our staff now numbers fifty-eight and I am trying to see if we cannot cut it down, but it is so much easier to add on than cut down. Our new accountant is a man called Major E. W. Pither. He did very well in the war and was in the machine-gun corps. He is a nice reliable man.(11)

I also had several interviews with Sir William Wiseman, who is supposed to be the most influential Englishman in America as he is the liaison officer between Colonel House and the British Government. He is a great believer in Colonel H.

 

Sunday, 22 June, 1919. On Friday I went to the Daily Mail lunch to Alcock and Brown. They were given a great reception and Winston Churchill and the American Ambassador both made excellent speeches. It was very dramatic hearing the two airmen describing their flight. It certainly was a wonderful achievement and they were very lucky to get across as they did, as there was mist all the way. (Letters.)

When M. Clemenceau rose from his seat at the long conference table in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles---where the German Empire was proclaimed in 1871at 3.45 on Saturday afternoon, 28 June, and said, "Peace is now an accomplished fact", the batteries in the gardens thundered out a salute of a hundred-and-one guns and the windows of the conference hall rattled. As I read the picturesque accounts of the historic function in the Sunday papers I felt no enthusiasm. The Golden Peace-number of the Daily Mail on Monday, 30 June left me unmoved.(12) It seemed to me that a great opportunity had been missed. This was peace-making in the old style. My belief in the creation of a new and better Europe had gradually been undermined but I still pinned my hopes to the League of Nations and the British-American guarantee of French security. Some of my comments on the Peace treaty, written for Overseas at the time, are printed here:

The publication of the terms has caused no particular enthusiasm, for the very good reason that many people are by no means sure that in their present form they mean lasting peace . . . . One might indeed despair, were it not that the League of Nations, in however shadowy a form, has emerged. To it we must look as the future hope of mankind.(13)

Under the heading " Seeds of future wars," I wrote:

Whether the Germans sign the Treaty or no, the root-vice of the whole Treaty is, as Mr. Garvin says in the Observer, that it leaves the German race no real hope except in revenge---no matter how long the revenge may have to be deferred. And Mr. Garvin is not overstating the case, for the German people as a whole, Republican, Monarchist, and Socialist, consider that the peace terms inflict a lasting wrong upon them, and their children, and their children's children. Prince Lichnowsky, who last year acknowledged to the full Germany's guilt in causing the war, stated in Berlin, "My standpoint is that we should in no circumstances accept the present draft." No one quarrels with the provisions for ensuring restitution and reparation to Belgium to the last farthing, with the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, with the establishment of the mandatory system in the former German colonies among other matters, but there can be no justification for placing sections of Europe predominantly German under alien rule. That the peace terms will remain in their present form is most unlikely, and if the League of Nations is to become the great moral force in the world, which we believe it will, sooner or later justice will be done.

When those views appeared over my signature in Overseas, I received many indignant letters criticising my point of view!

On the subject of the proposed British-American guarantee to France I wrote:

As a recent visitor to France, I could not fail to be impressed by the French distrust of the League of Nations idea. This point has been emphasized by Mr. Frank H. Simonds, the American publicist, in his interesting cables to the Times, and by other writers. One has to wander about the ruined streets of Rheims, of Arras, of Lens to understand the French view-point, but French fears have been met by the pledge of President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George on behalf of our two peoples, to come to the rescue of France in the event of an unprovoked attack by Germany. This alliance, guarantee---call it what you will---requires of course the endorsement of the Senate and of our own Houses of Parliament; but it is hardly conceivable that either of the English-speaking peoples will withhold their approval. It is to this promise of aid on behalf of the English-speaking democracies that the French people are looking for their future security rather than to the League of Nations.(14)

and again:

If humanity is to be saved from the nightmare of another Armageddon it will only be by the creation of a new world-order. Those million-odd words in the Peace Treaty, with all its seals and signatures, will mean nothing if there is not a change of heart, not only in Germany, but in all nations. The League of Nations by which we set so much store will be reduced to impotence if it is not backed by the moral force of an enlightened public opinion. . . We will be no party to doctrines of undying hatred to any people.(15)

But there was one note struck at Versailles that made an especial appeal to me : the introduction of the mandate system of trusteeship in governing subject peoples. It was a matter on which I had long held strong views---views which I was glad to find were shared by T. E. Lawrence.

Another great step forward in civilisation was the substitution of the conception of trusteeship of the subject or non-adult peoples of Asia and Africa for that of individual ownership and economic exploitation. "We are done," rightly remarks Mr. Wilson, "with the annexations of helpless people, meant in some instances by some Powers to be used merely for exploitation."(16)

The news from Germany during the early months of 1919 was disturbing. I regretted the policy of still depriving the German people of essential foodstuffs. On Armistice Day the blockade should have been raised. It is a mournful thought that I foretold in May 1919 what has since happened in Europe. I wrote:

On 7 May, the fourth anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania, almost exactly six months after Armistice Day, the terms of the Peace Treaty were handed to the German delegates at the Trianon Palace Hotel, Versailles, by the representatives of the allied Powers . . . . Germany stood at the bar of civilisation, and her delegates had come to receive the sentence which the victors had passed on their country.

If the German people had any doubt in their minds as to the extent of their defeat, the nature of the terms must surely have removed them. A week of national mourning was proclaimed in the Fatherland, and whether Germany signs the treaty or no it is doubtful if the German people will ever acquiesce in its terms, except under dire compulsion. Those easy-going optimists who imagine that all will be well in the best of all worlds in the future may indeed receive a rude surprise before many years are past. To think that the Peace Treaty has settled Europe's problem is sheer lunacy.

If the Versailles Pact were all that had emerged from the six months' deliberations of the assembled Powers our minds would indeed be full of misgiving. But fortunately for humanity the actual peace treaty is not all. There is the League of Nations, which has become an accomplished fact, however shadowy a one at the moment, and the foundations on which that League is built are the community of interest and common ideals shared by the English-speaking world, so strikingly demonstrated by the relations of the English-speaking delegates at the Conference during the past four months.(17)

In May, 1919, I printed in Overseas an article by Professor Sefton Delmer, an Australian by birth, who was English lecturer at Berlin University for many years till the outbreak of the war. He wrote:

I slipped into Prussia by way of Switzerland and Bavaria, having reached Munich in the middle of November, 1918 . . . . The food shortage was a very real thing. It was not military collapse, nor was it political idealism, that converted the German proletariat---it was the food blockade of the British Fleet. The chief inspiration to the formation of a German Republic was, undoubtedly hunger. The revolution was in its genesis, a stomachic rather than an ideal movement, and that is why one refrained from too readily believing in its permanence, at least until stronger evidence that what one had hitherto encountered was forthcoming.

But none of them, except Eisner, said a word that could be construed into an expression of penitence . . . . It seems frivolous to say so, but the next contrast that struck me between the German capital and London was the number of uneaten cats and dogs I saw at large and in security in the latter city. In Berlin these animals have long since been stolen, killed, and made into sausages. Thousands have met with this fate. It is worth remembering. The food difficulty will, in future, be the only thing that will prevent Germany from repeating the war.

Excerpts from letters written at this period follow:

87, Victoria Street, S.W.1.           
29 June, 1919.

I have had a full week. On Monday I lunched with the Arthur Lees (now Lee of Fareham) in their house, which is actually in Westminster Abbey gardens! She is American and charming. She and her sister, Miss Faith Moore, have had the Abbey bells rehung at their expense and given two new bells named after them----one called "Ruth "---the other "Faith." After lunch I had a strenuous talk with St. Loe Strachey,(18) the editor of the Spectator, on the Irish question. The longer I live the more convinced I am that the Dominion solution is the only one.

In the evening I went to Mrs. Astor's party to help to look after the American students and was introduced again to General Pershing. It is extraordinary to think that he is the son of an Alsatian immigrant.

It was hard work trying to get to sleep last night as the people were celebrating Peace till the early hours of the morning.

6 July, 1919.

 . . . On Wednesday the Chief sent for me. He was dressed, with his neck bandaged and really not looking too bad. The thing which was cut out of his neck he keeps in spirits in a bottle, and showed it to me I It must have been at least 3 inches across ! You can imagine what a relief it must be to have it removed. He wants me to help him to raise some money for Serbian Medical Scholarships. I hope you read through the Times American Supplement. I wrote five columns of it. Wickham Steed has been very decent and has given prominence to everything I have sent him lately.

I managed to get Colonel Arthur Murray to arrange for the Stars & Stripes to be flown on the Houses of Parliament on 4 July.

Sunday, 20 July, 1919.

I thought the illuminations were rather poor though there was a fine display of fireworks. I was much impressed with the American troops, they were a splendid body of men and any nation might be proud of them. The scenes outside the public houses in the evening were disgusting and I yearned for prohibition and I was sorry that the Americans would see so many of our women drunk. Despite the Daily Mail's jibes at "Pussyfoot" it will be a bad day for us if we don't adopt prohibition. But people are so appallingly short-sighted.

Sunday, August, 1919.

All day I keep thinking of this Sunday in 1914, when I hurried off to Paris, and then the unforgettable scenes in the Boulevards, when the crowd went mad and shouted "à Berlin." It seems impossible to realise that was really five years ago.

One day this week I spent going round to see some of our "Kings of Commerce" to try and get them to help the E.-S.U. I tackled Sir Woodman Burbridge, Selfridge and Sir Thomas Lipton. Selfridge came up to the scratch and promised £100 a year for years, but I drew blank with the other two. Lipton is a tough nut . . . . ! It was very disagreeable work but I have not done badly so far and have got up to £1,100 a year promised for three years, which still leaves me with £1,900 p.a. to collect, but I don't anticipate much trouble, only it takes time. (Letters.)

On the day of the signing of Peace I escaped from the crowded streets of central London on my bicycle to the old world garden in Battersea Park with its pergola entwined with crimson ramblers and purple clematis, and sat watching the sparrows bathe themselves upon the leaves of the water-lilies floating on the surface. Here was a place of peace. "Walked up and down the paths bordered with clumps of flowers and talked of life and its difficulties." (Diary.)

Even if conditions outside England were disappointing we had the engrossing task of reconstruction at home---the job Mr. Lloyd George so dramatically referred to as creating "a land fit for heroes." When the sweeping election victories were announced in the closing days of 1918 I was convinced that we were about to witness the greatest constructive job of social reform carried out in our lifetime. I wrote:

The new parliament is pledged to carry out a vast programme of social reform . . . . The rehousing of our people, the abolition of our slums, the caring for the health of our children, the settling of our soldiers on the land as smallholders, the rebuilding of our towns, the nationalisation of our railways, the better education of our people, the modernisation of our industries, the development of our Empire's resources are but a few of the problems we must grapple with. (Overseas).

There was no doubt about it we were at last going to make the old country a better place than it had ever been---worthy to be the pivot of a great world commonwealth. The men who had faced death in the mud sloughs of Flanders were coming back to take their place in the peace army which was going to pull down the miles of slumdom in our cities. If we resolutely set our hands to the task of reconstruction the war might after all have been worth while.

2 September, 1919.

 . . . At the office we had rather a slack week for membership which was disappointing. The war-time enthusiasm is already beginning to flag.

3 September, 1919.

Dined at "Overton's." My friend the barman was so busy opening oysters that he was rather grumpy. Lunched with Sir Francis Trippel, the man of German birth who is so wonderful at raising money. He wants me to help him with a scheme for raising £1,000,000 for a great charitable organisation. The society has offered him 7,1 per cent, if he succeeds, and he would be quite prepared to make a fair arrangement with me. I said I would think it over carefully and let him know next week. If I can make £5,000 quite fairly it would be very helpful in my work, but needless to say I did not commit myself.(19)

Sunday, 7 September, 1919.

 . . . Dined with Ian Hay who is just back from America, where he has been since the Armistice, travelling all over the place. I do like him. He spent 6 weeks with the film ring at Los Angeles and saw quite a lot of Charlie Chaplin, who is a very nice little man he says. He was there when the latter's wife lost her little baby and Charlie Chaplin was much cut up about it. Ian Hay has got a very successful play running in London at the present time.

Another day I lunched with Percy Parker and one evening we went to see the Allenby film by Lowell Thomas at Covent Garden, which has been produced under our ægis.(20)

Sunday, 21 September, 1919.

 . . . I have had a comparatively quiet week and my chief excitement was going down to the city to see Sir Thomas Latham and getting £250 from him for the E.-S.U., as our finances were rather low and I had to do something. He was so nice and so different to Tommy Lipton and made me feel I was doing him a favour in taking it.

Sunday, 5 October, 1919.

 . . . There is much more to be said for the strikers than appears on the surface and Lloyd George does not help things by calling the strike an "anarchist conspiracy." The truth of the matter is that the lower grade of railway servants want a living wage.

On Friday I took a deputation of the E.-S.U, to see Lord Reading to ask him to be our Chairman for the coming year and I am glad to say he accepted. He is just the man we want.

Sunday, 19 October, 1919.

 . . . On Thursday I lunched with George Mair, whom I knew at the Ministry of Information. He is now on the staff of the League of Nations and he was giving a farewell lunch to a Swedish journalist. One of the men there was Sir Eric Drummond, the secretary of the League of Nations he struck me as being a very nice fellow.

Sunday, 26 October, 1919.

The Chief sent for me on Wednesday and I had a nice talk to him about labour problems and the Irish question. He was largely responsible for getting Thomas to go and see Lloyd George finally when they arrived at a settlement. As regards Ireland I am very glad The Times is publishing the true history of the Convention. I am more sanguine than I have been for a long time and the Chief is very hopeful, and he usually is not far out in his prophecies. On Monday I had to take a deputation from the Dover Patrol Fund to see the American Ambassador as they have £6,000 to allocate to putting up a statue in America to the memory of the American navy. They are leaving the handing over of the money to me.

Sunday, 2 November, 1919.

 . . . The E.-S.U. has definitely made an offer for the premises in Trafalgar Square, they are really a little more than we can afford, but I hope to get Astor worked-up, that is John Astor.(21)

The E.-S.U. annual meeting took place in the House of Lords on Thursday and went off very well. Lord Reading took the chair and spoke very nicely about my work and he is getting quite keen and I don't think we could have made a better choice.

On Friday Rothermere asked me to come round to see him and was very friendly and I was glad to see him again as I don't want completely to lose touch with him.

16 November, 1919.

Last night was our big E.-S.U. dinner to the American Ambassador and it was a great success. Much the largest thing of the kind we have ever had and 480 people there. The American Ambassador spoke charmingly and everyone seemed very pleased.

On Thursday I went to see Rothermere and he was very friendly. He wants to endow a Chair of American History at Oxford and I am trying to arrange matters with the authorities. I hope it comes off as it would be a very good thing. (Letters.)

IN the summer of 1919 I made another abortive attempt at Irish peacemaking. During a brief visit to Dublin in the Christmas holidays in 1918 I had established contact with the directors of Sinn Fein---the real leaders were under lock and key in British gaols. On my return to London at Northcliffe's request I set forth my views in an article in the Daily Mail entitled "The Irish Riddle----A visit to Sinn Fein Headquarters." The article was signed with the initials " E.W." A few days after its appearance I received this letter from Mr. W. M. Murphy, one of the best known men in Dublin and proprietor of the Irish Independent, in whose paper had appeared an appreciative reference to my article.

Dartry, Dublin.                    
9 January, 1919.

John Evelyn Wrench, Esq.,
       Ministry of Information,
             Norfolk Street, W.C.2.

Dear Mr. Wrench,

I read your Article in the Daily Mail when it appeared and was greatly struck with it though I had not the least idea who the author was.

It shews a more correct insight into the political situation in Ireland than anything I have read in the English Press recently. I send you herewith copy of some Speeches I made at the Convention, which it has only been possible to make public since the embargo on Convention Publications has been removed.

Yours sincerely,
                                     WM. M. MURPHY.

I had thus described my visit:

Three young men were occupied in doing up parcels of comforts destined for the Sinn Fein prisoners in England from their faithful followers. The room was untidy, but there was plenty of activity. One of the young men, seeing that I had come in search of information, left his parcels and entered into conversation. There were bundles of literature lying about, and he gave me a selection of pamphlets.

The conversation was just becoming interesting when a young lady, with short hair, smoking a cigarette,(1) said, "Will you come up to see the Hon. Secretary?" I followed her and found myself in the first-floor office, on the mantelpiece of which was a large portrait of de Valera and a bust of Count Plunkett. From here the widespread activities of Sinn Fein are directed. In addition to the young lady there were two young men, one the Hon. Secretary, Mr. H. Boland, and the other Mr. J. J. O'Kelly, the director of the organisation. Later on two or three other young men strolled in.

The first impression I derived was that of youth. The Sinn Fein movement is run by young men, and they unquestionably understand their fellow-countrymen. As a result young Ireland to-day is overwhelmingly Sinn Fein. The secretary was a pleasant young Irishman, intense, enthusiastic, fanatical if you will, aflame with love of his country.

For two hours we talked in the friendliest manner. I let the young enthusiast tell me about the political creed which has swept the polls and captured, anyhow for the time being, the imagination of three-quarters of Ireland. Here is the essence of Sinn Feinism. Ireland is a nation, geographically, historically, ethnologically. Ireland has nothing to say to England, her hereditary foe, whom she cordially hates. Ireland wants to run her country herself; she has had enough of foreign domination. If the British Empire went to war to save Belgium and really stands for the self-determination of all peoples, how can it refuse to listen to the unmistakable voice of the majority of the Irish people?

Then the two leaders referred with pride to their wonderful organisation which has brought them such a sweeping victory, and stated that they proposed carrying on an active propaganda till they had converted a majority in Ulster to their doctrines. But their ramifications were world-wide, and till Great Britain listened to the voice of Ireland they would continue to foment trouble for her. In the United States, Australia and elsewhere they would act as a constant thorn in the side of Great Britain. In America in the past the Irish vote had kept the United States and the British Empire apart; it was the Irish vote which had prevented an Anglo-American entente or alliance. The Sinn Fein organisation would continue to keep the United States and Great Britain apart, and no real Anglo-American understanding was possible till Ireland's right to self-determination had been acknowledged.

Mr. Boland, who had taken part in the insurrection in 1916, had spent fifteen months in Portland Gaol. He said he liked many Englishmen but hated England---by England he did not mean Scotland or Wales. Many of the Sinn Fein leaders are teetotallers, they are intensely religious, they are altruistic, and prepared to give their lives to their country---Ireland.

From the Sinn Fein Headquarters I walked a couple of hundred yards to lunch with an Ulster friend of profound learning. His library is one of the best stocked I have found in any part of the British Empire. His view is that given five years Sinn Feinism will die a natural death. That what Ireland wants for the next forty or fifty years is firm government. That Dominion Home Rule for Ireland is out of the question. That there is no solution to the Irish question at the present time. That Ulster has little in common with the rest of Ireland, and her one desire is to draw closer to the United Kingdom.

Here, then, are the two extremes of Irish opinion. Was ever statesmanship confronted with a more perplexing problem?(2)

I concluded my article by stating that the Irish Convention had come nearer to finding a way out of the impasse than most people realised and I re-affirmed my conviction that a British Commonwealth, which had enabled Canada, Australia and South Africa to become loyal partner-states, could yet make a settlement with Southern Ireland on similar lines.

In 1919 I advocated the immediate granting of Dominion status to Ireland, excluding Ulster ; the six Ulster counties to have the power to vote themselves into the Irish Dominion when they desired to do so. I considered that "green" Ireland must also recognise "orange" Ireland's right to self-determination.

In August, 1919, I was convinced that an Irish settlement was possible. Looking back on the situation after sixteen years I am still of that opinion, though I admit that there was subsequently an inflexibility of mind on both sides of the channel that I had not anticipated. I have never been able to understand how it was that Mr. Lloyd George with his great gifts of conciliation failed so lamentably in his handling of Ireland---not that I underestimate his difficulties.

During the fortnight in Ireland I saw much of a cousin by marriage, Leslie Edmunds, employed by the Congested Districts Board. We used to go bathing together and we went for long walks in the mountains at the back of Killiney Bay. Edmunds was the best type of Empire builder. He was a great athlete and had been one of the pioneers in Rhodesia. Over six foot three in his stockings, he was a demon for work and as soon as he came to live in Ireland he threw himself with infectious enthusiasm into his job in the congested districts of Connemara. During our walks we discussed Ireland's woes. He was not prepared to go as far as I was in meeting the Irish demand for self-government. He under-estimated the intensity of the Irish yearning for control of their country. He could not believe that the majority of Southern Irishmen would ever be misguided enough to wish to withdraw from the British Empire.

Within a year poor Leslie was ambushed and shot by an assassin's bullet. It was difficult not to let one's judgment of Ireland's case be influenced by detestable outrages like this. But in 1919 I did not think my fellow countrymen would descend to such methods.

Killacoona, Ballybrack,                
Co. Dublin.                          
10 August, 1919.

I quite enjoyed the drive from Kingstown Harbour in our open victoria in the freshness of a lovely summer morning.

11 August, 1919.

On the pavement outside my bedroom there is some sweet alyssum, it has grown out of the cracks of the asphalt. I lunched in Dublin with F. at the Kildare Street Club. Lord Plunket was there. Wasn't it nice of him, he came up to me and said, "I want to tell you how much I enjoy reading Overseas. I read every word of it from cover to cover and I think it gets better every issue."

Came back by the 4 o'clock train and met Leslie Edmunds, who asked me to go and bathe with him so we went down to the shore wearing white flannels. I think the last time I wore them was three years ago in the summer at Sidmouth. I found a little piece of paper which had lain there all that time. How much has happened since then. I got involved in an argument with Leslie Edmunds on Nationalism!

Tuesday, 12 August, 1919.

It was quite fresh sitting in the tent, where Mother spends all her time, as both sides are open. It means that we spend practically the whole day out of doors.(3)

16 August, 1919.

Bicycled over to see Horace Plunkett, four miles. He was very friendly and I was much interested in talking to him and we discussed the whole Irish situation. Of course he has travelled so much that he has got a broad outlook, only I wish he was a little bit stronger, not only physically but more forceful as a man.

If he had been I believe he could have almost carried the Irish Convention with him. (Letters.)

I used greatly to look forward to my talks with Horace Plunkett on the Irish question at his delightful home under the shadow of the Dublin mountains at Foxrock. I have the happiest memories of playing "golf" on his nine-hole course cunningly laid out in his garden. I do not think that the holes were more than 30-50 yards apart and we only took two clubs, a niblick and a putter, but some of them provided sporting tee shots aiming at blind holes. Negotiating rhododendron bushes and arbutus on the way while discussing the Irish question required the nerves of Hagen or Bobby Jones! Horace Plunkett was one of the few Irish men among my friends who knew America intimately and had my outlook on British-American relations. It was balm to my soul to talk to him on the supreme need for promoting English-speaking friendship. He was one of my earliest members in the English-Speaking Union. I entirely sympathised with the policy of his Irish Dominion League.

T. P. O'Connor once wrote me an article for Overseas about Horace Plunkett in which he said, "no man worked harder at the Convention, but the stern facts were too strong for him." Perhaps they were, perhaps I am over-estimating what any one man could have done. He had not the requisite stamina for a creator of a new country. He lacked the drive of a Masaryk or a Mussolini. Indeed he was practically a chronic invalid and only prolonged his life by careful diet, by sleeping out-of-doors and by treatment at the great Battle Creek Sanatorium in America. He had a deep devotion to Ireland. Few Irish leaders were worse speakers than Horace Plunkett. T. P. O'Connor thus described one of his speeches before the Irish Fellowship Club at Liverpool: "His speech had all his characteristic defects. He spoke slowly, almost stammeringly---he paused often to find the exact word, and there was not a bit of colour, not a phrase of passion in the whole address. Yet the fact remains that I have rarely heard an address which produced so profound an effect."

Many tragedies were enacted in Ireland during the Anglo-Irish conflict subsequently, but nothing more incomprehensible than the burning down of Horace Plunkett's lovely home at Foxrock. Few Irishmen have given more practical service to Ireland than Horace Plunkett. Well may Irishmen hang their heads in shame when they think of this episode!

I had long wanted to meet Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein, and to ascertain if there was anything incompatible between Sinn Fein idealism and Dominion status. I had made several unsuccessful attempts to see him on previous occasions. During my visit to Ireland in August, 1919, I was informed that Griffith would be willing to have a talk. I suggested that if possible a conversation between Griffith and two of the leaders of the Southern Unionists would be desirable. My father arranged with Ms. Andrew Jameson, former governor of the Bank of Ireland, and Sir Harry Greer, the sportsman and director of the National Stud, to represent Southern Unionism at an informal and private discussion. The meeting took place at Ballsbridge in one of the Committee rooms of the Royal Dublin Society---neutral ground. There were present Arthur Griffith and a Mr. Lawlor, representing Sinn Fein, the two southern Unionists, my father and myself. Owing to his official position my father took no part in the discussions, winch were left primarily to Arthur Griffith and myself because the matter under discussion was Dominion status, upon which I was specially qualified to speak.

For neatly three hours we talked. There was no aspect of Dominion nationalism nor of the relationship of a free state within the British Commonwealth to the Empire as a whole we did not discuss. Our survey ranged over Europe and America and we talked of Hungary's pre-war relationship to Austria, of the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy and of Cuba's special position towards the United States.

Arthur Griffith, a printer by trade, was sincere, honest and likeable, but a tired man. He had evidently thought much about his subject. He had not that fanatical something to be found in many national leaders.

I was agreeably surprised. I was convinced that if I had had the backing of the British Government I could have come to terms with him. I wrote down on the back of an envelope the conditions that Sinn Fein would be ready to accept. They were Dominion status, the King to be King of Ireland, as Franz-Josef had been King of Hungary, Ireland to have control of her own finances and customs, the Province of Ulster to be entitled to remain outside the Irish Dominion until such a time as she voted herself, in and finally Ireland to be let off her share of the national debt.(4)

In view of past events these terms seemed to me reasonable and I was convinced that the majority of the British people would have consented to them if the question had been put to them fairly. I wished I had known Mr. Lloyd George, as I was confident that I could have converted him to my way of thinking for the sake of an Irish settlement. I hurried back to London to report my conversations to my friend Philip Kerr, Lloyd George's secretary and adviser, Unfortunately for the sake of Anglo-Irish relations, Kerr was out of town and I only succeeded in seeing Sir William Sutherland, with whom I was unacquainted. Sutherland had not in my view the requisite gifts to enter into the other fellow's point of view. My enthusiasm began to ooze before his Scottish logic and in the correct atmosphere of Downing Street. But I was more than ever convinced of the justice of the cause I was advocating and my sympathy was with Arthur Griffith. Of the two his point of view seemed the more reasonable. The conversation was brought to a close by Sutherland saying, "You can tell your Irish friends that the British Government will never consent to let Ireland off her share of the national debt."

Disheartened I withdrew and I have never made any more attempts at Irish peacemaking ! But I have often reflected on the unwisdom of those in high places. A Scotsman, presumably in the know, had said in 1919 that the British Government would never let Ireland off her share of the national debt. A year later a Welshman had said that Great Britain would never consent to Ireland having her own military forces. Such is the irony of fate that within fifteen months the British Government of which the Welshman was the head agreed to do both these things