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     Mr. Chamberlain said Lord Halifax had reported to him
 
the talk I had had with the latter earlier in the afternoon,
 
and that he wished me to be assured that he and the members
 
of the Government were completely at my disposal. They
 
would give me all the information they possessed, and he
 
himself was now prepared to answer any questions I cared to
 
ask him.
 
        I commenced by saying that I had been very much impressed, 
 
when I was in Berlin, by being told by every one of the 
 
members of the German Government with whom I had spoken
 
that Germany was fighting a war of self-preservation; that
 
England was determined to destroy the German Reich, to make 
 
impossible the unity of the German people, to annihilate 
 
Germany as such, and to crush the present German regime.
 
I had been told that Germany had consequently been forced 
 
into war in order to preserve her integrity. I said I 
 
would be interested to know what the real policy of Great
 
Britain might be in that regard.
 
         Mr. Chamberlain said that only within the past two
 
weeks he himself in an address at Birmingham had announced
 
on behalf of Great Britain that his Government had no
 
desire to crush the German people nor to mutilate the
 
German Reich; that what England was determined to do was
 
solely to defeat a Government in Germany which was set upon 
 
a policy of cruel military conquest, which rendered insecure 
 
the position of every nation of Europe, particu-
 
larly the smaller neutral powers, so that peace could be 
 
restored to Europe upon a foundation of confidence and 
 
respect for the independence and integrity of all nations,
 
and of faiths in the sanctity of the pledged word. He said
 
that subsequently both Sir John Simon and Mr. Eden had
 
                                             delivered