(Due to arrive Canberra 18.8.29)

My dear P.M.,

I am afraid. this will be a scrappy letter, owing to extreme
pressure here. I have had the utmost difficulty in keeping my head
above water for months, going at high pressure from 9.15 a.m. till
6.30 p.m. Expedition business mainly responsible, and it cannot be
sidetracked-otherwise, although I say it, the ship wouldn't get
off in time.

There are a number of important matters in the wind-Singapore,
naval armaments, Egypt-apart from tariffs and preference.

To get an understanding of the present position here, you have to
realise that this Labour Government are rather suspicious and
distrustful of the C.I.D., the resolutions of which they think
(probably rightly) will conflict with the pure milk of the Labour
doctrine-and they therefore hesitate to put matters up to the
C.I.D., get their recommendation and then fly in the face of it.

They are therefore rather disposed to turn a blind eye to the
importance of certain 'political' questions being vetted by the
C.I.D.

The Foreign Office (in the shape of Sir Ronald Lindsay [1]) have
tried to take advantage of this in the matter of Egypt. They have
tried to rush the Anglo-Egyptian treaty negotiations straight from
the Foreign Office to the Cabinet-short circuiting the C.I.D.-and
Hankey [2] has had great difficulty in combatting this. It may be
necessary for me to telegraph you in this regard.

The comments of the Dominions are proving very valuable in the
matter of urging the Government into the right path-this really
means your telegraphic comments, as the other Dominions (except
New Zealand) never say anything worth saying. There is some reason
to think that it was your telegram and that of New Zealand that
made the Government decide to let the C.I.D. comment on the
Singapore and naval reduction questions. [3]

If the Egyptian business looks like going wrong, I will telegraph
you and perhaps again a telegram from you will tend to put it back
on the rails.

I am afraid, as I told you last week, that they are out after
Lloyd's [4] blood. It is a most underground machination and I
think much to the discredit of the Foreign Office. [5] Of course,
it is impossible for you to say anything by telegram that would
help Lloyd, as he is the servant of the Government here, but when
they begin to institute a policy in Egypt that represents a
reversal of Lloyd's policy, then you may be able to take a hand in
the business. As usual, the Foreign Office want to give away the
position-they are all for accepting Mahmoud's (Egyptian Premier)
proposal for us to evacuate all troops from Cairo and Alexandria
and defend the canal from the canal banks. [6]

However, you will get the gist of all this by telegram before this
letter and I will try and see you don't miss anything.

There has been a slight storm at Geneva. On the 8th July the
'Manchester Guardian' published a telegram from their Geneva
correspondent in which it was stated with reference to Sir
Granville Ryrie [7] and the Mandates Commission-'He appeared to
know much less on the situation in New Guinea than most of the
members of the Commission, and in many instances avowed his lack
of knowledge'.

This was telephoned to the High Commissioner at Geneva and he was
very disturbed about it, but was induced to ignore it and to make
no public reply.

This came about by reason of there having been a lot of questions
put to Sir Granville to which he could not reply and on which he
asked leave for Fuhrman [8] to reply for him-which arises out of
the fact that he won't read the papers with which he is supplied.

We hope we have managed to keep the above incident out of the
Australian papers by requesting the two Australian Press Agencies
here not to mention it. [9]

A company with a capital of 7 1/2 millions is being formed with
Sir Robert Horne [10], Inchcape [11], Sir Cecil Budd [12], the
Baillieus [13] and others on the Board. They will carry out zinc
and other non-ferrous smelting in this country and abroad. They
have applied to His Majesty's Government for the right to call
themselves the Imperial Smelting Corporation Limited.

Your telegram about the letter that Dame Janet Campbell will carry
to you from the Queen came too late to be effective, as the Queen
had already seen her and given her the letter. [14] However, the
letter that we drafted here included all the points that you
wanted. I would suggest that when Dame Janet gives you the letter,
you should hand it to the Governor-General [15] for 'release' to
the press. In any event I am told that constitutionally the Queen
could not send a letter of this sort to the Governor-General.

You will have seen from the Press Thomas' [16] scheme for
assisting the development of Crown Colonies and protectorates.

Briefly it is as follows-1,000,000 is to be found annually by the
Treasury for helping non-self-governing territories in various
small ways, such as straight out grants (e.g. to Fiji to buy a
ship for the Governor to move about in), contribution towards the
interest on Colonial loans and even in some cases finding money
for development where small and impoverished Colonies cannot raise
loans.

There is also to be the innovation of extending the benefits of
the Colonial Stock Acts to certain Crown Colonies-making their
loans Trustee securities. Permission also is sought to allow Crown
Colonies to add interest to capital indebtedness in cases where
their expenditure on public works does not bring them adequate
return (to meet service of the loan) for say five to ten years.

Most of this was contemplated rather vaguely by the Conservative
Government but never got on to paper-and this Government has
stolen their subdued thunder.

Kylsant [17] and his brother St. Davids [18] have had a public
controversy over the conduct of the affairs and finance of the
Royal Mail Steam Packet. I have not seen any of the Steamship
princes or anyone who can tell me the inside story of it, but I
enclose you a cutting.

I enclose a typical article on Australian Finance from the
'Financial Times' of 17th July. This sort of damaging article is
appearing with great regularity in the 'Financial Times'-which, as
you know, is owned by the Berry group, who should be open to
reason about this sort of thing.

I have met and talked to Marr [19]-and I have in consequence some
idea of your difficulties.

I am still learning to fly an aeroplane in odd moments but the
difficulty is to get lessons without too big gaps in between. I
landed a machine last Sunday for the first time-certainly with an
instructor on board too-bounced heavily but I did no damage-and
have had difficulty in not considering myself rather better than
other men ever since, but I suppose this will wear off.

We have actually started building a house in Westminster. Acquired
the freehold of the site a month ago and have just finished
demolishing the old houses on it.

I am, Yours sincerely,
R.G. CASEY