(Due to arrive Melbourne-1.5.26)

My dear P.M.,

I have had several conversations with Dr. Riddell [1] (Canadian
permanent representative at Geneva), with regard to the Canadian
attitude towards the Empire. He says that the Canadian slogan is
'Equal partnership status within the British Group'. He says that
Canada has the tradition of a running fight with Downing Street to
extract 'rights' from H.M.G. and that this fight is not yet ended.

He says that the only reason that Australia has not also this
traditional attitude towards Downing Street is that Canada, by
reason of being 50 years or so older, won the battles with Downing
Street first and Australia, reaching manhood after Canada, came in
for the resulting benefits without any effort. This minor twisting
of the lion's tail, he says, is as much ingrained in the Canadian
people as White Australia is in Australia, and that any politician
who could be made by his opponents to appear to be giving away a
privilege already acquired would be considered a backslider. This
attitude, he says, will make Canada fight for an individual
position at Geneva and she will not recognise that she is included
in the representation of the 'British Empire' on the Council.

Referring to the discussion in this regard at a combined British
Delegation meeting at Geneva (see my LON. 293 [2], page 4),
Riddell spoke of Chamberlain's [3] words at the Rome session of
the League Council in December, 1924, when the Protocol [4]
discussion was postponed.

Chamberlain said:-

H.M.G.... has not had time to study a question of this importance
and to instruct its delegates fully as to the lines that they
should take.

I must add that in the case of the British Empire there is the
additional difficulty, which will be present to your minds, that
their representative here speaks the mind not of one Government
only but of five or six Governments widely divided by oceans and
seas, and with whom communication is necessarily slower than if
the Government of the British Empire were wholly centralised in
our capital city of London.

The form of the above declaration seems to have rankled in the
Canadian mind.

2. As you know, Lord Cecil [5] is regarded as a fanatic on the
subject of the League and is kept on a very tight rein on League
matters. In fact at Geneva this month, Chamberlain gave him hardly
anything to do at all, which seemed rather a waste of a good
brain. It was quite evident, even to me, that Cecil was being
muzzled and it must have been very galling to him.

Cecil has been making rather a fuss about it since this last
League Assembly. He has asked for an office in the Foreign Office
where papers on League matters can be marked and passed to him.

However, Chamberlain has refused and Cecil is in rather a pet
about it. Hints of his resignation have been heard.

3. There are several things of interest in the press cuttings
going to you this week.

A good picture of the domestic situation in Italy is given in the
leader in the 'Daily Telegraph' of 25.3.26.

The Debate on Allied Debts in the House of Commons on 24th March
(see press cuttings of 25th March).

Schacht [6] (President of the German Reichsbank) made a speech
before the German Colonial Society on 'a new Colonial policy', as
reported in the 'Times' of 26th March.

Mr. Moody's letter to the 'Morning Post' of 26th March on
America's moral position with regard to Europe. [7]

4. I spent the night with Sir Hugh Trenchard a few days ago at his
house just out of London.

As you know, Trenchard, as Chief of the Air Staff, controls only
the military side of flying. Sir Sefton Brancker is Controller of
Civil Aviation and answers directly to Sir Samuel Hoare, Minister
for Air. Trenchard has but little time for Brancker or for civil
aviation. He thinks that civil aviation will never pay its way in
our generation, but that if you want it, you can have it if you
can afford to pay for it. He thinks people are fooling themselves
if they think that the subsidies to civil aviation companies can
ever be reduced or eliminated. He would like to see the work now
done on civil air routes carried out by military air units and so
enable them to earn something towards their maintenance.

As you may know, this system is to a great extent in vogue in
Canada. Without wishing for a moment to interfere in our affairs,
he infers that the same scheme might well be introduced in
Australia.

This, of course, is a matter of high policy and I take it that you
would want to be very fully convinced of the merits of the
Canadian system before you would make the great reversal in policy
entailed.

In this regard, I have looked up a report I made in 1923 to the
Chief of the General Staff in Australia after a three months'
attachment to the W.O. I stopped at Ottawa on the return journey
for a little. I attach hereto a brief extract regarding the
Canadian air policy as it was explained to me by the Canadian
General Staff.

Trenchard is pessimistic about any 'air throughout' service to
Australia materialising in the next ten years. He thinks the
Ismailia-Karachi route may be started by March, 1927. As all his
remarks about the extension of this section hinged on its
extension to Singapore, I thought it right to suggest to him that
an extension from Karachi to Colombo was probably a more useful
measure, in order to give us some immediate advantage in
shortening the voyage for official mail and Government servants to
and from England and Australia.

He agreed with this, which, to my surprise, was a new idea to him,
and is to take it up with Hoare.

Trenchard has not got any great faith in Airships and apart from
his stating that the two now under construction would not be
finished inside 18 months, he had not much to say about them.

He is in process of crystallising his views with regard to how
Australia can best co-operate with the Imperial Air Force in
connection with Singapore. I will advise you well before the
Imperial Conference of his views and suggestions.

5. I told Amery [8] in confidence that you had it in mind to come
home via America. He thought it a good plan and said that if
Meighen [9] chanced to become P.M. of Canada through a successful
General Election between now and September, he hoped that you
would try and see something of him in Canada, even if you could
not travel over on the same ship. He realised that it wasn't much
good your wasting your time on Mackenzie King.

6. I enclose, for your confidential information, copy of the
Imperial Conference Agenda Committee's Report. As you will
realise, this paper is not being sent to the Dominions.

The 'Inter-Imperial Relations Committee' is so called because it
would have created a panic in Canada and South Africa if it had
been called its real name-'Committee on Imperial Constitutional
Questions'. It really consists of the legal advisers of F.O. and
D.O. plus Harding. [10]

They are trying to thrash out a statement of the constitutional
position that all members of the Empire can subscribe to.

Personally, I am rather sceptical about a useful form of words
being evolved but both Harding (Dominions Office) and Malkin [11]
(Assistant Legal Adviser, F.O.) are reasonably optimistic. They
think that there is a lot of loose talk on the subject that
doesn't mean much in Canada, South Africa and the I.F.S., and
that, when it comes down to bedrock, they will not be found to
want to break the Imperial chain.

The starting point of their labours is the 1923 Imperial
Conference resolution with regard to signature and ratification of
treaties.

They do not now, I understand, propose to circulate their
conclusions to Dominions before the Conference. However, you can
rely on my getting you a copy or at least a digest of it.

The 'Foreign Policy and Defence' Committee has barely got going
yet.

7. Toynbee's [12] 'Survey of International Affairs, 1924' is
recently out. It is a very useful publication. You will not read
it all, but I should read the section on 'Movements of
Population', especially with regard to the Italians. It would be a
good book for you to take on the ship with you in August.

8. I will not attempt to give you a picture of the Coal position
as I have not got it in proper focus myself. Tom Jones [13] (who
is in the very thick of it, at the P.M.'s [14] elbow) has given me
several 'close-ups' but I haven't sufficient background to pass it
on to you intelligibly. By next week, so T.J. says, the matter
will have been practically decided.

9. The story goes about that Joynson-Hicks [15] was lately
inspecting one of H.M.'s Prisons, when he came across Bottomley
[16], sewing up sacks. 'Well, Mr. Bottomley, sewing?' 'No,
reaping.'

I am, Yours very truly,
R. G. CASEY