Thursday, 11 May

Fine

I studied Russian in the morning.

The Canadian Prime Minister made a speech to the joint meeting of the British Houses of Parliament including the House of Lords. His speech was against the proposals of the South African Prime Minister Smuts and the British Ambassador to the United States, Halifax. He said as follows: l) If the British Empire forms itself into a group, or even unites other democratic states in Western Europe to form a group, this will lead to the formation of other groups. Then the world will be divided into different power groups. It will lead to conflict and will not yield good results. (It would be disastrous for Canada if the group it joined was in conflict with the United States. It would place Canada in great difficulty. 2) Now the contact between Britain and the Dominions is contact between the whole British Cabinet and the other Cabinets. What they discussed had been discussed in the British Cabinet, and the various congresses all knew about it. Therefore the decisions were the preferences of the Dominions. If the current method is changed so that another imperial joint conference is formed, the proposals will just be discussed amongst a few representatives. They will be unable to get the complete agreement of the people, so he disagreed. 3) All in all, the unity of the various British units should be based on a certain “ism”, which various countries in the world will agree and imitate. Such “ism” will be a good one if it doesn’t arouse any negative impact. If the unity is based on private interest or narrow and superficial benefit, it will be harmful. The whole speech is about having insight and the current situation which Canada is in makes such an attitude the only possible way to go. It is not that Canada cannot be stern, and among the British Conservatives extreme imperialists are not lacking as the Boers in South Africa were much more extreme, therefore when I heard Mackenize King’s speech I was quite relieved.

For the last few days, the war news from our country has not been good. Luoyang s in danger as well. I feel quite worried. In the evening, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited us to see a play in a small theatre. I was not in the mood to go.