| Title | Letter, with autograph corrections, from Austen Chamberlain, 58 Rutland Gate [London], SW7 to Lord Beaverbrook (William Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, newspaper proprietor), Stornoway House, 13 Cleveland Row, St James's [London], SW, 2 November |
| Description | This letter, addressed to 'My dear Max' and written shortly after they both met 'at Winston's dinner', opens with a statement that they had been talking at cross purposes. He had defended his father [Joseph Chamberlain] against claims that he was a supporter of isolation which, in this letter, he accepts Beaverbrook was not intending. He agrees with Beaverbrook that his father was opposed to any surrender of British territory.
Moving on to the current political situation, he states; 'I do not read the declarations of our leaders as giving any colour to the idea that our colonies are to be bartered away. The offer of a strip of Somaliland to Abyssinia stands by itself and was supported by special reasons.' He ends by saying that he believes, with regard to the colonies, there is 'little or no difference of purpose between you and me' |