I am discussing with His Majesty's Government the possibility of
obtaining further aircraft for our forces here. You and I are of
course both aware of the very great difficulties of securing
supply from home, particularly in the present circumstances. It
occurs to me to ask whether, at any rate in emergency, if we were
to find ourselves badly placed there would be any possibility of
getting some planes from Australia from among those now being put
together there, with of course the concurrence of His Majesty's
Government but without interfering with His Majesty's Government's
general programme or plans, and if so, subject to what period of
notice. I should be most grateful for any private advice which you
could give me on this.

2. I hope very shortly if His Majesty's Government agree, to be
addressing you officially in connection with the organisation of
war supply in the area bounded by Australia, New Zealand and India
and South Africa and the Middle East.

What I have in mind and what I gather would fit in well with the
ideas of His Majesty's Government is that India (which is of
course geographically well situated) should be developed as a
supplementary supply base for the whole of this area. We are
intensifying production as much as we possibly can and as you know
we are already dealing with very substantial orders from the
Commonwealth of Australia as well as from South Africa, New
Zealand, the Middle East and Malaya. The idea to be aimed at would
be that we should make ourselves so far as possible self-contained
within this area (there are obvious arguments for this in the
event of severance of communications with home) and so far as one
can judge we ought to be able to a large extent to do so and still
leave some surplus production which could be passed on to His
Majesty's Government. For your own information what I have
suggested to Amery [1] is that if His Majesty's Government see no
objection, I should be authorised to ask die Dominions Govenors-
General concerned to nominate an officer of high rank to be a
member of an Eastern Group Supply Board in India who would be
fully familiar with the requirements and also with the resources
of his Dominion and in a position to take decisions on behalf of
the Dominion. The object of the Board would be to co-ordinate
efforts so that needs of each area should be met according to the
changing strategic position, and also that the fullest use should
be made of the available resources. I hope very much that
something of this nature may prove practicable.

3. You will I hope forgive this entirely informal approach which
is designed really to let you know how one's mind is working. Once
I am in a position to do so, I will of course put the whole matter
on an official basis as between my Government and yours. But you
may see some advantage in having advance information as to the
direction in which we have been thinking here; and I need not say
how very grateful I should be for any help that you can give
personally if these ideas come to anything. [2]