The Prime Minister opportunely recalled on Monday Mr. Baldwin's speech
in the House of Commons on the death of King George V. With what depth of feeling S. B. would have spoken on this occasion. His admiration for the late King was immense. (After all he had done more than any other man to put him on the throne.) He talked to me-for nearly an hour one morning about the Abdication and its sequel—without, let me add, a word of spoken reproach for the King who had gone. Private conversations should not be retailed lightly even after death, and even though no breach of confidence is involved. But I may at least recall his picture of the Queen's pleasure when he told her how Empire statesmen at a con- ference in London had commented on the King's manifest growth in confidence and authority since his accession to the Throne. Then he took me into the drawing-room (we had been talking in his study) and pointed to a signed, framed photograph on a table. " Isn't that a good face, isn't that a good face ? " he asked almost urgently. It was in fact one of the best photo- graphs of the King I had seen.. In it could be traced more clearly than in most all the qualities the King revealed in action between then and now. Sonde of them, pretty certainly, his Prime Minister made it easier for him to exercise.
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