Cablegram unnumbered LONDON, 4 October 1939, 2. 50 p.m.
MOST SECRET PERSONAL
My telegram of 2nd October [1]: Appreciation of military position, as requested in your telegram of 30th September [2], is being prepared as rapidly as possible, and we hope to send this on Friday. [3]
As regards the second point in your telegram, the position is that no proposals have yet been made to me and it cannot be assumed that any of a comprehensive character will be made. It is therefore exceedingly difficult to say in advance what would be the best line to take. This must depend on the nature of the proposals. But you may like to know that the feeling here is that the more the German Government could be forced to make public the extent to which they would be prepared to go to assure peace, the better this would suit us since any public declaration by the German Government would be regarded as a confession of weakness and may give added strength to the forces in Germany hostile to the present regime.
I am sending you by separate telegram extract from statement made by the Foreign Secretary [4] in the House of Lords today.
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1 Document 258.
2 Document 255.
3 6 October 1939 4 Lord Halifax. See House of Lords, Parliamentary Debates, fifth series, vol. 114, cols 1324-30.
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[AA: CP 290/6, ITEM 4]