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I got no impression as to what Roosevelt's impression might have been. There was no trace that I could find of an expression of opinion on his part. We all knew that he was deeply sympathetic to the British, and so were we all - at least I think all of us were. He felt that it would be a horrible thing for the British to be knocked to smithereens. The loss and damge of British prestige in Asia certainly evoked concepts of not so much the weakening of the British Empire, as the weakening of western civilization in the East. Whatever any of us might have thought about it we knew that all other western nations really were sheltered behind the strength of the British Empire in Asia, whether it was military strength, naval strength, civil leadership strength, educational strength. Other western nations had some relationship with the East largely under the protection or behind the general protective wall of British power and British prestige, which had not been badly abused except in spots.

There had been lots of previous talk about the difference between the British colonies and the Dutch colonies for instance. The general condition of the Dutch colonies had been discussed by somebody in Cabinet. There had been talk of the general deterioration of the prestige of the Dutch in their own colonies, which was almost contrary to what the position of the British was. The British had taken native peoples more and more into their government, into