Cleveland St., a wretched place once flash and now sordid, in a miserable street. It is the head-quarters of what I should call the orthodox Anarchists: Victor Dave the leading spirit there. Of course there were many 'foreigners' there, and also a good sprinkling of our people and I suppose of the Federation also. It was rather hard work getting through all the speeches in the unknown tongues of French and German, and the natives showed their almost superstitious reverence for internationalism by sitting through it all patiently: the foreign speakers were mostly of the 'orthodox Anarchists'; but a Collectivist also spoke, and one at least of the Autonomy section, who have some quarrel which I can't understand with the Cleveland Hall people: a Federation man spoke though he was not a delegate; also Macdonald of the Socialist Union: the Fabians declined to send on the grounds of the war-scare being premature: but probably in reality because they did not want to be mixed up too much with the Anarchists: the Krapotkine-Wilson people also refused on the grounds that bourgeois peace is a war, which no doubt was a genuine reason on their part and is true enough.... On Wednesday I went to lecture at a schoolroom in Peckham High Street.... Thursday I went to the Ways and Means Committee at the League: found them cheerful there on the prospects of Commonweal. I didn't quite feel as cheerful as the others, but hope it may go on. Friday I went in the evening to finish the debate begun last week: the room full. Sparling made a good speech; I didn't.
"Feb. 16th. Sunday I spoke on a very cold windy (N.E.) morning at the Walham Green Station: the people listened well though the audience was not large, about 60 at the most.... I lectured on 'Me-
