While Horace Alexander's activities took place in a world different in so many respects from that of the early twenty-first century, they have a clear bearing on current issues. His characteristic technique of listening attentively to participants in a conflict, and thus discerning ways of resolving it, deserves much more examination than in practice it has received. One reason for this, apart from the huge investment in military methods which makes other methods seem of marginal relevance in the real world, is that such an approach depends so much on the personality and previous record of each individual mediator. Alexander was immensely strengthened in his role by his familiarity with Gandhi and Gandhi's combination of intractability and friendliness, mixed with a certain deviousness which some (like Alexander's father-in-law John William Graham) believed put his integrity in question. Richard Symonds told me that British officials found Alexander ‘slippery’. They had, he said, a better opinion of his co-worker Agatha Harrison, who was ‘straight’, though misguided. This, too, was an effect of personality. No one who knew her could ever forget the irresistible assurance with which she accepted the integrity of those she encountered, and their ability to resolve the conflicts in which they were engaged.

Alexander himself had a curiously detached, almost judicial manner, which suggested a personality that was never flustered or thrown off-balance. His Cambridge friend Nick Bagenal regarded him as the embodiment of ‘pure reason’. This was an acquired manner, for his impatience with people close to him like his fellow Quakers could be explosive.