A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
HERR HITLER, I have reason to believe, would welcome the chance of a face-to-face talk with Mr. Baldwin, and it is a wish which ought certainly to be gratified. What weighs with him, I gather, is the convic- tion that Mr. Baldwin represents the mass of Conservative opinion in Great Britain in a way that Sir John Simon obviously could not. But there is more to be said for a Hitler-Baldwin meeting than that. Herr Hitler is not, and does not aspire to be, a diplomatist. He pretty certainly has a secret, perhaps only a sub-conscious, mistrust of diplomatists. No one could well mistrust Mr. Baldwin. He is essentially the plain man, completely typical of his countrymen, as Herr Hitler for the moment is typical of his. Plain men, talking plainly, often get on well, and in view of the power the Rawer wields as an individual personal impressions mean almost everything. It has never, so far as I know, been hinted for a moment that anyone should replace the Foreign Secretary at Berlin. It is of course essential that he should go there. But the possible results of the coming interviews are important enough to justify a journey by more than one Cabinet Minister. After all, M. Flandin as well as M. Laval came to London at. the beginning of last month.
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