The reason, I imagine, that the funeral service for Allen
Leeper on Monday was held at the unusual hour of nine in the morning was that the Foreign Office could not be left denuded, for practically all the staff, from the Foreign Secretary downwards, was there. None of the tributes to Leeper that I have read said a word too much. It would be hard, indeed, to exaggerate the loss British diplomacy has sustained. For idealism, assiduity, level-headedness and knowledge in combina- tion he had no equal in the Foreign Office, where most of his life, apart from attendance at various conferences (particularly Lausanne, for he was private secretary to Lord Curzon at that time) and a spell at the Vienna Legation, was spent. I have not noticed any reference to the journey he made with General Smuts to Buda- Pesth during the Peace Conference to see what was Bela Kun. It' was a strange and exciting episode. Of the younger men in the Foreign Office Allen Leeper seemed to be the most certain to rise in time to the position of Permanent Under-Secretary, and the office could have had no better head.
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• to be done about the declaration of Bolshevism under
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