[Lord Haldane [Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane], Lord Chancellor.] Autograph Letter Signed to 'Mr Hurd' (i.e. the future Sir Archibald Hurd), regarding his essay on defence against German invasion, and Sir Arthur Wilson.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of a bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with the blank second leaf carrying some traces of pink paper mount. Written a couple of months before Haldane’s acceptance of a peerage, so that he could become leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords, and in response to Hurd’s essay ‘The New Policy of Imperial and Home Defence’, published in the January 1911 number of ‘The Nineteenth Century and After’. The present item begins: ‘Dear Mr Hurd, / It was only at the end of the week that I got hold of the “Nineteenth Century” for January. I have read your admirable article & need not say that I entirely agree with it. It is a most friendly and useful contribution to the Controversy. / Yours truly / R B Haldane / P. S. A new edition of the little book is coming out containing a paper written by Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson on the navy view of Invasion.’ The ‘little book’ is Sir Ian Hamilton’s ‘Compulsory Service’, the second edition of which contained ‘notes on the Admiralty view of the risk of invasion’ by Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson (1842-1921), who was half-way through his disastrous two-year tenure of the position of First Sea Lord. In his memoirs Haldane paints a devastating picture of Wilson’s behaviour at the CID meeting over the Agadir Crisis.