My dear P.M.,

Hankey [1] has had the reading of Ronaldshay's [2] three volume
biography of Curzon [3], in order to censor any references that it
might be ill-advised to publish from the point of view of His
Majesty's Government. The first volume is out and has attracted
great attention; there have been front page reviews in all the
papers. The general consensus of opinion seems to be that Curzon
was a really first-class second rate man, with great ambition and
an inferiority complex. This Hankey confirms. He reminds one that
Balfour [4] once said to him: 'You know, I would never describe
George as an English gentleman.' Hankey says you never felt quite
comfortable in putting yourself entirely in Curzon's hands as you
were so often let down.

Balfour has had all his teeth out and it has set the old man back
a good deal. He is in his 80th year and Hankey, who goes to see
him, says he is rather worried about him.

I enclose letter I have had from Gregory [5] to whom I wrote
saying how sorry I was at his misfortune.

On the general and entertaining subject of wars and how to pay for
them, Dean Inge, in his book 'England' [6], says:-

... But it is certain that in the next great war all who have
anything to lose will lose it, and the bureaucrats who in 1914
fancied that war would be an antidote to revolution made a
tremendous miscalculation. It seems, therefore, unlikely that we
shall see any more wars favoured or supported by capitalists; nor
is it easy to see how a great war could be made without the
support of capitalists ...

The book itself is rather remarkable for the amount of material
and opinions that can be got into a small space. I am sending it
out to the External Affairs Library with a number of other books
by this and the next mail. It would interest you to look through.

I have looked through several books on the modern economic
position lately, but without any great measure of profit to
myself. They seem to be an indigestible mixture of the obvious and
the unintelligible.

If the subject has any interest for you in Australia, you will see
by the 'Times' of recent date that His Majesty's Government has
lifted the ban on controversial questions being broadcast by the
British Broadcasting Corporation.

I saw Amery [7] today.

With regard to the proposal that was telegraphed to you regarding
the utilisation of 25,000 of the Empire Marketing Board's grant
for the British Industrial Exhibition, he is, of course, very much
against any such precedent and says that the suggestion would have
been nipped in the bud at birth had he been here. However, he was
able to influence matters and is very glad that it has ended
happily. [8]

Sir Hugh Denison [9] has had a talk to Mr. Amery and has put his
arguments to him for the establishment of an Australian Legation
at Washington. Amery has an open mind on the subject and says that
he is not now appalled by the idea (as he infers that he once was)
of all the Dominions eventually having Legations at Washington.

However, he thinks that it is not a procedure that need be unduly
hastened. He likes the idea of an Australian Counsellor in the
British Embassy at Washington in the meantime and said that if
this was done, the Australian Counsellor should undoubtedly have
some measure of authority over the Australian Trade Commissioner's
office in New York.

He rather warmed to the subject as he talked about it and said
that the Australian Counsellor in the Embassy would be able to do
all the useful work that an Australian Minister could do, at a
fraction of the expense. He would be able to make for himself a
special position in the Embassy as the Ambassador would realise
that he was there to carry through, with the help and prestige of
the Embassy, any particular diplomatic business that specially
concerned Australia. He would be able to put words into the mouth
of the Ambassador that would be more valuable and far-reaching
coming from the British Ambassador, than they would be in the
mouth of an Australian Minister.

With regard to the 'Big Four' [10], I told him what J. H. Thomas
[11] had said about a 'Big Labour Four' going to Australia after
the British elections. [12] He at once took to the idea of an
'Industrial Relations Four' and said that it might have the germ
of a good idea in it. But he said that at first sight it appeared
to him that a better scheme would be to have two intelligent
employers and two intelligent and enlightened Labour men. He
inferred that it was probably just as necessary to have two
employers with their feet on the ground to talk to some of our
rather sticky and conservative Australian employers as it was to
have sensible Labour men to talk to our labour people.

The state of the judicial Committee of the Privy Council is rather
on Amery's mind. He says that it is notoriously weak owing to the
age and decrepitude of its members (as he said, Mr. Latham [13]
well knows) and that it is overdue for reform. He has sympathy
with the Dominions' idea of unifying the system of appeal to the
Lords and to the Privy Council. As he worked himself into this
subject, he said that he wished that Australia would send one of
its judges to London to sit as a permanent member of the Judicial
Committee. There are two members of the Federal High Court (Knox
[14] and Isaacs [15]) who are Privy Councillors. He would like to
see all the Dominions follow such an example.

Mr. Amery said that he had seen and talked to Hancock (Professor
of History in the University of Adelaide) when in South Australia
and that the latter had told him that he had it in mind to apply
for a vacancy in the External Affairs Department. [16] Amery
encouraged him in the idea and thinks that he would be an
admirable man for our work.

I am, Yours sincerely,
R.G. CASEY