COPY.
"Llanfair",
16 Park Road,
Beckenham, Kent.
18th June, 1940.
40
My dear Gater,
I was glad to see that you had gone to the Ministry of Supply where I am sure your services will be invaluable during war time, but where, I imagine, Colonial Office affairs will not bother you for the time being.
I feel, however, impelled to write to you to ask if you know of any work I could do, or position I could fill, that would be of direct war value in this hour of great national need.
You know of my qualifications and my long business experience (and of course Mr. Herbert Morrison himself does) and I feel that given the opportunity, I could do good work. I need hardly say that my full time services are at the disposal of the Government if they will avail themselves of them.
So far as the mission to Hong Kong is concerned, I am prepared to go at the appointed time, as I promised, and, indeed, I should not like to miss the opportunity of fulfilling that task, but I cannot help feeling, and you, knowing well the whole circumstances, will probably agree with me, that that is not really an urgent matter and could very well wait over even until the end of the war.
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It seems to me, and I feel sure you will sympathise with the feeling, that all our efforts should
now