Saturday, 7 June

Read with a great deal of interest Guilty Men by Cato (Gollancz, 1940). The author is quite unsparing in his accusations regarding the blunders and negligences, bordering on crime, of the Tory Party leaders. The book was immediately popular in Great Britain as it simply voices the people’s general opinion. It shows too, the blessing of freedom of speech in a true democratic country. Qian Chengyong (錢承庸)[1] came. He said owing to the unusually long period of the air raid a few days ago, over seven thousand people died a horrible death in a big long dug-out in the part of the city because the Guarding Corp locked all the three gates during the whole five hours and no fresh air could get into the inner part of the dug-out. I do not know how [much] we should hate the Japs.  Little brother went to see Fanny and came this afternoon.

[1] He later became Fu Bingchang’s attaché in the Moscow Embassy.