Today I attended the dinner given by the ancient guild, The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (already 600 years old).

Since last year, the chairman (or Master) of the guild has been the prince of Wales.

Prince of Wales, 1911–36; King Edward VIII of Great Britain, January 1936, becoming Prince Edward, duke of Windsor, after abdicating from the throne in December 1936.

Our ‘friend’ the archbishop of Canterbury made a witty toast in honour of the prince (the archbishop, it must be said, is an outstanding dinner speaker), and the prince responded in the customary manner. Then everybody moved to the smoking room. Here the prince, who considered it his duty as host to exchange a couple of niceties with every diplomat present, quite unexpectedly engaged me in a long and inappropriately serious conversation. First, he asked me whether I have to deliver many speeches. When I complimented him on his speech he, somewhat embarrassed, started talking about the best English orators, past and present. He named the late Lord Birkenhead,

Frederick Edwin Smith (1st earl of Birkenhead), a scholar in Oxford, later Conservative MP; secretary of state for India, 1924–28.

General Smuts and Lloyd George,

David Lloyd George, Liberal MP for Caernarvon, 1890–1945; prime minister of Great Britain, 1916–22; leader of the Liberal Party, 1926–31. When Hitler came to power, he advocated frontier concessions over the Saar, Danzig, Polish corridor and the Rhineland. He even visited Hitler at Berchtesgaden, describing him as the ‘George Washington of Germany’. In the wake of the Munich Agreement, he recognized the case of the Sudeten Germans but pressed for the end of appeasement and the launching of a vigorous policy of rearmament. He championed an alliance with the Soviet Union. Hindsight tends to overlook his powerful position well into the war; his speech in the Commons on 8 May 1940 was a major contributory factor in Chamberlain’s downfall and Churchill’s rise to power. He declined offers to join Churchill’s War Cabinet and the ambassadorship in Washington. On the 50th anniversary of his entry into parliament, Maisky, who had cultivated particularly close relations with him, sent him an exhilarated letter thanking him for their conversations ‘which will undoubtedly for ever remain in my memory as events of outstanding interest and pleasure’; RAN f.1702 op.4 d.994 ll.11–13, 12 April 1940.

but not MacDonald. He said of the premier, with a slight grimace: ‘You know, he is not exactly…’ Then he told me that only today he had attended an exhibition of machine-tools and had been delighted to learn that the USSR was a very loyal consumer of British machinery. I confirmed this and cited a few figures. He asked me about our process of reconstruction and the successes of the five-year plan, and remarked that he hoped for a further increase in Soviet orders placed in Britain. I responded with a smile: ‘Agreed, but give us appropriate conditions of credit.’ The prince made a gesture as if to say, ‘That is not really my business.’ He then moved on to international politics, speaking at length about the threat of war and the complicated international situation, before finally concluding: no one wants war – not England, not France (‘she only stands to lose by war!’) and not even Germany. I expressed my doubts as to the peaceful intentions of the latter, as well as of Japan. The prince did not object, but he began to argue emphatically that England strives only for peace, and that militarist ideas are alien to the spirit of the British nation. ‘When I have to say some parting words to a regiment or battalion headed to China or any other place in Asia,’ the prince continued, ‘I always tell them: I hope you will never need to use your weapons.’ He then praised the British soldiers and sailors, describing them as nice lads, amiable gentlemen, etc. For my part, I stated that Soviet foreign policy was a policy of peace, and that I was glad to hear from the prince of Wales that Great Britain seeks the same aim. This pleased the prince, who repeated that nobody really wanted war and that the forces of peace were far more numerous and mightier than the forces of war. I remarked, however, that the forces of war were much better organized, especially arms manufacturers, so the threat of war was very serious indeed. The prince agreed and added musingly: ‘You mention arms manufacturers… True, they do well out of war, but they could do no worse in peace time. Take the plan to build floating aerodromes in the Atlantic to facilitate the movement by air of passengers and mail between Europe and America. Wouldn’t that be good business for metallurgical companies? You could find many other similar opportunities.’ I entirely agreed with him and added that the forces of peace must be also well organized in order to combat effectively the forces of war. The states that oppose war must cooperate in safeguarding peace. The prince agreed with me. Towards the end of our conversation he inquired about my past, so I described my career in diplomacy. He then asked: ‘Where did you learn English?’ I answered that for five years, between 1912 and 1917, I had lived in England as a political émigré. The prince laughed and exclaimed: ‘And now you are the ambassador! It’s a sign of the times. We are living in an astonishing epoch!’

Maisky told Beatrice Webb (but did not report home) that the prince of Wales had actually intimated his wish to visit the Soviet Union. See N. MacKenzie and J. MacKenzie (eds), The Diary of Beatrice Webb (London, 1985), IV, p. 345.