This minor muddle doesn't seem to me to matter in
the least. What does strike me as painfully characteristic of the standard of leadership which the British are getting from their present rulers is that it should take us two months to mobilise a diminutive expeditionary force of one weak brigade group. It is an open secret that the original intention was to raise the force in the U.K., and this was, in fact, being done up to a short time ago. Why was it suddenly decided that the force could be found from the Hongkong garrison ? And if Hongkong can spare the troops today, why couldn't it have spared them several weeks ago ? The situation in South China has not materially altered since the Korean fighting started ; and a reinforcement programme is not a flickering, unpre- dictable thing like a radar screen, suddenly revealing completely unexpected possibilities. (Talking of reinforcement programmes, why, if there was even a chance of our having to scrape the bottom of the barrel in the Far East, was the 2nd Battalion of the Cold- stream Guards embarked at Singapore for the U.K. as recently as August 10th ?) The whole thing makes no sense to me at all. Dispatches from Hongkong give heartening descriptions of the boot-and-saddle atmosphere in Fanling Barracks and elsewhere ; but in the month which has elapsed since Mr. Shinwell announced the Government's decision to send a force to Korea there seems to have been precious little boot-and-saddle atmosphere in Whitehall.
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