ment whether commercial or political, it became clear to us that the Soviet Government were not prepared to negotiate in view of their [anxiety not to introduce any embarrassments into their relations with Germany.
"We, on the other hand, never had any intention to conclude any agreement with the Soviet Socialist Republic except on the basis of mutual interests and on the basis of reciprocity, and in the light of the Soviet Union's pact with Germany no such basis existed, "That shows how completely devoid of any foundation in fact is Herr Ribbentrop's statement.
"There is also another aspect to the matter, The Prime Minister has told how some time ago he warned the head of the Russian state of the peril which he rightly saw was impending, That was some time before the events of the lost few days. We as the Foreign Office were already convinced, from information at out disposal, that Hitler, true to his usual technique, was going to attack Russia from behind the smoke screen of his nonaggression pact.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.