Two days ago Sir Harry McGowan

Harry Duncan McGowan (1st Baron McGowan), vice-president of the Society of Chemical Industry, 1931–34; president of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), 1926–30 and its chairman, 1930–50.

invited me to lunch. He is a big shot, head of the famous firm Imperial Chemical Industries, one of the most powerful British concerns and one which exercises great influence on foreign policy. I had heard that McGowan was a pillar of the Japanophile group in Great Britain – and all of a sudden he invited me to lunch tête-à-tête in his luxurious mansion on the Embankment. We had never met before and knew about each other only by hearsay. What had happened?

This emerged during our conversation. McGowan is most apprehensive about the future of the British Empire, especially in the Far East. Japanese aggression frightens him in the extreme. Japan is becoming a terrifying prospect for Great Britain economically and politically. McGowan visited Tokyo last year and negotiated the market carve-up in chemicals (in China, the Dutch and British Indies, the Middle East and Africa). The Japanese ministers made very good speeches and swore eternal friendship with England, but the Japanese industrialists refused to make any concessions. The negotiations failed, but McGowan still entertains the pious hope of coming to an agreement with his Japanese rivals in future. Nor did the English reach a compromise on textiles with the Japanese. Politically, Japan strives to subjugate China – what will happen to the British positions in Asia then? In short, the storm clouds have gathered. What hope is there? McGowan sees only one: close cooperation in the Far East between England, the USA and the USSR. Clearly, it was with the aim of communicating this brilliant thought to me that McGowan decided to invite me to lunch.

But there was also one further consideration: could Anglo-Soviet trade not be expanded? I explained that this was possible only on the basis of at least a five-year loan. McGowan had a think, nodded his head meaningfully, and then replied that my idea was very interesting and that he would discuss it with his friends in the City.

We shall see what we shall see.

Melchett told me an interesting fact. As a Zionist, he has many dealings with Palestine. Well, it turns out that the best colonists in this new Jewish homeland are the Russian Jews. Why exactly he could not satisfactorily explain, but he stated categorically that the fact itself was beyond any doubt. ‘Unfortunately,’ Melchett added, ‘many of the Russian Jews wanted to go back to the USSR.’

Oh, how the English desire it, how they wish to make a cat’s-paw of us in the Far East! Nothing doing. Please join in within the frame of ‘collective security’ – then something might be arranged.