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DICTATED

7, AUDLEY SQUARE , W.1.

considerable position in public life, and in his new office will not
have to speak so frequently as hitherto. His oratory was becoming very
thin. The prospects of the son in Ross & Cromarty are more obscure,
but I think he ought to hold that seat. During the next week or two
we shall measure our mature reflections of the shock arising from the
Hoare-Laval proposals. I am told the War Office knows practically nothing
about the real situation in Abyssinia. There is a growing distrust
of reports issued by both combatants. Mussolini becomes more boastful
going to manufacture wool out of milk, he threatens Greece, Egypt,
Switzerland, - all his small neighbours - and he is a little less confident
of France than he was three months ago. But somehow he gets away
with his bluff and bluster. Nobody in Italy dares say a word to him.
Grandi could upset him, so could Federzoni, so could the King or Balbo:
but in each case the succession to the Dictatorship would be at stake,
and potential rivals are therefore very cautious. I wish one of them
would summon up courage to tell the public that another year or two in
Abyssinia will doom Italy to economic extinction.

Yours

Bal

The Lord Tweedsmuir.