Chamberlain took a chilly view of any such meeting and on March 24, in the House of Commons, publicly rejected it. “The inevitable consequence of any such action,” he said, “would be to aggravate the tendency towards the establishment of exclusive groups of nations which must… be inimical to the prospects of European peace.” Apparently he overlooked, or did not take seriously, the Rome–Berlin Axis or the tripartite Anti-Comintern Pact of Germany, Italy and Japan.
