stefansson-wrangel-09-13-042-004

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dent than from me.

So far as I know we have not received £1. from any
Canadian in England. I know definitely that some Englishmen,
very favourably disposed, have been deterred from doing any-
thing by Canadians. One man, however, has been very friendly -
E.R. Peacock, who is one of the Governors of the Bank of
England
and the head of several large companies. I think he
was at Mexico at the time of the bad news from Wrangell. I
feel certain if he had been here he would have done something.

Our best friend in the Government has been Amery, The
First Lord of the Admiralty. Sir Samuel Hoare has also been
very friendly and so has General Sir Sefton Brancker, the
Head of Civil Aviation. There are a number of other prominent
people over here who have gone out of their way to help. No-
one has given so much thought and work as Major-General, the
Honble. Robert White, who seems to be an intimate friend of
Lord Byng. The Countess of Dudley has also been very help-
fel, especially in interesting the King - which may mean some-
thing ultimately. I had an audience with the King which was
expected to last fifteen minutes but did last forty, for he
had no end of questions to ask. With the one exception of
Amery, I have talked with no-one in England who was so accur-
ately and definitely informed both about conditions in
general and my work in particular. He may have prepared a
little for the interview but obviously he must have had a
very good background long before that.

The King took special interest in the reindeer and ovibos
projects and discussed at considerable length the case of
Spitzbergen. He understood thoroughly what the Empire had
lost in giving up Spitzbergen and seemed on more than one
occasion to have to remind himself rather forcibly that he
was a constitutional monarch and must not express too clear-
cut a disapproval of the actions of his Ministers - the
Lloyd George people at Paris at the Peace Conference, when
they turned over Spitzbergen to Norway.

I am writing Noice. I think perhaps you had best show
him this letter. I know he will not consider harsh what I
have said about the English impression made by part of his
despatch. As I said, the people that count most in this
matter have now come to a pretty clear understanding of the
situation and quite appreciate the kind motives which lie
beyond such apparent or real contradictions as there are in
the despatches.

V. Stefansson.

Mr.A.J.T.Taylor,
Toronto.

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