I am surprised that so little attention has been paid
in this country to a rather striking disclosure made in last month's Harper's Magazine in America. According to Mr. Drew Pearson, the author of an article on the conversations between Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and President Hoover—with no secretaries or anyone else present—at the President's summer camp on the Rapidan, the Prime Minister made the rather startling offer to scrap all British naval bases on the American Continent in return for the abandonment of America's programme of cruiser construction. The bases in question are at Halifax, Esquimault, Kingston (Jamaica), and Bermuda. Mr. Hoover closed with the deal on the spot, and both statesmen returned to Washington happy. But the services intervened—the American admirals, through Mr. C. F. Adams, then Secretary to the Navy, and the British Service Ministers through Lord Snowden, who was acting Prime Minister in Mr. MacDonald's absence. The transatlantic telephone was worked hard, and in twenty- four hours the project was dead. So the story—only picturesque if it is fabricated, very interesting as a side- light on history if true. In fact it is true, in essentials. That I can state from quite independent enquiry. Either Mr. MacDonald or Mr. Hoover could, of course, throw more light on the subject. So, no doubt, could Lord Snowden, whose forthcoming memoirs can hardly omit reference to the subject. '
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