-3-
 
      
 
 
The same thing has occurred at various intervals throughout 
      the -- in fact -- mainly deadlocked conversations with the Soviet 
      Union: every time that things are going badly (because the British 
      Government has refused a Soviet offer of assistance, because 
      Spain, Portugal, Japan and Italy have entered a caveat against 
      Anglo-Soviet commitments) the British Government and its press 
      pour out assurances of how nicely things are going.
 
      
 
 
The Facts
 
      
 
 
 
      The real position--and it is one of life and death for the British-- 
      is that so far:--
 
      It is not true, as the British press has suggested, that there 
      has been an "approximation of view" between the British 
      and Soviet Governments.
 
      
 
 
The Soviet Government persists in calling for a practical 
      defence system including mutual guarantees and if possible military 
      talks, and the British government persists in refusing mutual 
      guarantees and refusing military talks.
 
      
 
 
Contradiction
 
      
 
 
The contradiction could hardly be sharper, especially as it 
      is based on the fact that the British Government's refusal is 
      backed by all those "appeasers" in the British Government 
      who are perpetually "explaining" to their colleagues 
      that the thing to do is to make some further concessions to the 
      Japanese, to Mussolini, to Portugal, and-- of all people-- to 
      Franco, and that the only concessions that can be made is that 
      the British should refrain from making any definite commitments 
      to the Soviet Union.
 
      
 
 
(2) All this is perfectly well known in Moscow, and the intrigues 
      of the British Government in this sense-- unreported for the 
      most part in the British press-- being common knowledge there 
      and in the USA provide at least a part of the basis for that 
      "mysterious" scepticism regarding the "aims" 
      the "sincerity" of the British Government in its alleged 
      opposition to fascism, which the British press finds so surprising. 
      Nobody e %lse, unfortunately, is in the slightest degree surprised.
 
      
 
 
(3) The position of the Anglo-Soviet negotiations-- and above 
      all the delay in them-- remains (in the view of Berlin-Rome, 
      London, Paris, and Moscow) the crucial factor in the whole position, 
      and in all calculations as to when "the balloon is likely 
      to go up".
 
      
 
 
(4) Best information from Berlin, Rome, Paris, and London, 
      offers the following as an approximate sketch of the alternative 
      before the Axis Government (now definitely centred in Berlin 
      with Benito Mussolini more than ever fulfilling simply the role 
      of Cauleiter Italien) the following:-
 
      
 
 
(a) In view of the delay in the Anglo-Soviet negotiations 
      successfully engineered by the German diplomats working through 
      Rome, Burgos, Tokyo and Lisbon, there remains in Berlin a profound 
      belief that in fact the British Government is not serious about 
      the whole affair.
 
      
 
 
For it is more or less logically argued in Berlin that if 
      the British Government were really serious in its alleged attempt 
      to organise a general defence-- or even a purely British defence-- 
      against the