(
Betic re
Government Hanse,
Huong song.
21st July, 1923.
252
Dear Sir James,
This letter relates to your secret despatch of June 20th about my proposal to lend certain officers to the Government of
Klang Tưng. I don't propose to answer the despatch officially
because the proposal is necessarily dead for the moment owing to
circumstances having changed, as their way is in this Kaleidoscopic land, even before you answered my telegram: but I want to explain
my position in case I find it desirable to resurrect it later on,
in which event I should like you and Wellesley (if you would be so
good as to send this on to him) to understand my views without a
mass of telegraphy.
The diplomatic soul of Macleay is disquieted within
him because my telegram on this subject does not fit in with my
telegram of January 6th (really 7th) in which I wanted to take very
definite action to prevent Sun's return which I considered would be
disastrous to British interests.
Who was the great statesman who said 'Consistency,
when circumstances are altered, is not consistency, but inconsistency
-
besides being damned silly'? It sounds like Bacon, amended by
Winston, but perhaps it was Chalmers.
AB
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