Extract from a confidential report from Josephine McNeill to Frederick H. Boland (Dublin)

Dear Secretary,
I have the honour to report that at present I am mainly occupied with the formal calls on my diplomatic colleagues which are de rigueur.

[matter omitted]

Ambassador of India
I had a long conversation with the Ambassador of India. It hinged naturally on our respective countries' fight for freedom - and the Ambassador really talked in a very free and frank way. He was most anxious to have exact information about our Partition question. I told him what he wanted to know as fully as I could and I shall send him the pamphlet on Partition without delay. We had a talk too about my husband, James McNeill¹ and the latter's friendship for an early Indian champion of freedom - Gokhale.² And we spoke of John McNeill³ - his political life, his scholarship etc. He had mixed up James with John or rather had thought I was John's widow.

Dr. Mehta⁴ (Indian Ambassador's name) asked me where de Valera stood now. He was anxious to know how he stood vis-à-vis the present Irish Government. I told him that the present Government and Mr. de Valera were at one in all fundamental matters (such as Partition, relations with England, the Republic etc.) and that their differences represented the natural difference of opinion and policy to be expected in a democratic country.

He seemed relieved that the differences were not of a fundamental kind.

[matter omitted]