January m9} THE PEACE CONFERENCE AND AFTER

further talk with Sheldon, who told me that there has been a
good deal of friction between Reading and Hoover.1

26™ (SUNDAY).—To Amiens by car with the P.M. and
party. Lunched at Foch's old headquarters, a ruined chateau.
L. G. showed me the room where he lunched with Foch when the
latter was residing there. I drove in the same car with Winston,
who spoke much of the Bolsheviks, against whom he is very
bitter. He would like military intervention in Russia by means
of British, French and American volunteers* I said the British
public would not agree to their Government organising
another war in order to interfere with the domestic affairs of
Russia. Winston agreed, but said their view might alter. I said
I saw no prospect of such a change.

WINSTON : The war is over. I mean the period of joint
united effort for a common purpose. It will never recur. Now
we are all fighting each other again. I want to build up the
nation with the gallant men who have fought together. I want
them to form the basis of a great national effort. I want them
to combine to make an even greater England.

R. : But now-a-days they will want something more than
high-sounding phrases. They will want better conditions and
they will not submit to vast disparities between the conditions
of individuals. The men who do the hodwork of the world mean
to assert themselves. They are sick of promises,

Winston agreed, and spoke strongly in favour of better
conditions—cheap houses, higher wages, etc.. He spoke
frankly about himself. He says that he has learned much in
the war ; that he can speak better and more easily than before.
He chaffed me about being a teetotaller and laughingly insisted
on the merits of a reasonable quantity of strong drink. " It
alters " (said Winston) " one's outlook on life. At the end of a
troublesome, gloomy day it makes things look happier and it is
invaluable as an adjunct to oratory and social intercourse/'
I reminded him that Falstaff had expressed similar views in
more detail. Winston said that he is often gloomy and
abstracted when thinking things out. I said, " It does not do to
look so. This is the smiling age. In former days, statesmen

1 Herbert Clark Hoover, Chairman of Belgian Relief Commission, 1914-19 ;
Food Administrator, U.S.A., 1917-19 ; President, 1929-33,