Corbin reported the British public opinion had supported the Munich Agreement, but he noted as October 1938 went on, public opinion was "in disarray". In the fall of 1938, Corbin reported to Paris that several right-wing newspapers, most notably the newspaper chain owned by the Canadian media magnate Lord Beaverbrook, whose flagship paper was The Daily Express, were calling for a peacetime conscription, which he took as a sign that the British public was turning against appeasement. Corbin was following his own agenda in his dispatches, as he wanted to convince Daladier and other decisio-nmakers in Paris that the British public and government were starting to favour "firmness" towards the Reich as a way to undercut Bonnet's foreign policy of giving Germany a "free hand in the East" in exchange for leaving France alone. Corbin reported that there was a growing demand in Britain for "if not conscription pure and simple, at least a form of 'national service'". In November 1938, Corbin reported that one public opinion poll showed that most British people favoured a "national registry" of young men. At the same time, Corbin told Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax that there was growing defeatism in France and that Bonnet had his own agenda of reaching an understanding with the Reich that might very well be at Britain's expense.
