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112, EATON SQUARE,
S.W.1.

SLOANE 1543 .

February 11th, 1936.

My dear John,

I enclose a copy of my talk on the Odyssey the other
day. I got a great deal of pleasure from reading up the
subject, and might almost as well have written a book as a
short paper. You may be amused at my somewhat daring recon-
struction of the historical background.

The session has begun here in a rather minor key after
the moving events of the past few weeks. The big issue will
be Defence, not only the actual estimates or loan policy, but
also the co-ordination of the fighting Services. Italy and
sanctions have, for the moment, receded into the background.
I confess I can see no satisfactory solution of the tangle
which we started when we insisted on trying to apply Article
16. No doubt there will be some attempted settlement more or
less on the lines of the Hoare-Laval proposals. That may be
best for the people concerned but a pretty humiliating thing
for us.

We all had a very pleasant fortnight in the Tirol at
a little place in the Zillertal called Gerlos. My ski-ing

112, EATON SQUARE,
S.W.1.

SLOANE 1543 .

February 11th, 1936.

My dear John,

I enclose a copy of my talk on the Odyesey the other
day. I got a great deal of pleasure from reading up the
subject, and might almost as well have written a book as a
short paper. You may be amused at my somewhat daring reconstruction
of the historical background.

The session has begun here in a rather minor key after
the moving everts of the past few weeks. The big issue wil1
be Defence, not only the actual estimates or loan policy, but
also the co-ordination of the fighting Services. Italy and
sanctions have, for the moment, receded into the background.
I confess I can see no satisfactory solution of the tangle
which we started when we insisted on trying to apply Article
16. No doubt there will be some attempted settlement more or
less on the lines of the Hoare-Laval proposals. That may be
best for the people concerned but a pre t ty humiliating thing
for us.

We all had a very pleasant fortnight in the Tirol at
a little place in the Zillertal called Gerlos. My skiing