Item 149 - Letter from George Macaulay Trevelyan to R. C. Trevelyan

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Garden Corner, West Road, Cambridge. - Has seen [Sydney] Roberts [at the Cambridge University Press], who would like to hear Bob's proposals as long as he is ready to pay for printing himself. The Press cannot take on financial risks, but are carrying on otherwise as usual, though cannot make promises on publication dates due to current and possible future staff reductions. Roberts likes printing for Bob, and his books too. Sometimes agrees with Bob, rest of the time thinks it is 'no good breaking off now as [Germany] would only go for some other country, or prepare a vast fleet of submarines against us'. Is ' more inclined to think we ought not to have guaranteed Poland than that we can break off now', but has no definite opinion. Tends to think that the 'only chance for Europe including ourselves to escape utter ruin' would be for the U.S.A. to play a role in negotiating peace, but that this will not happen. Last thing Edward Grey said to George after the Nazi revolution, shortly before his death, was that he saw 'no hope in the world'; there is less now. George is partly detached, as 'the "world" that is threatened is not my world, which died years ago'; feels himself to be 'a mere survivor'.