My dear P.M.,

I must thank you for your long and interesting letter of 14th
April [1], together with handwritten letter about America. [2] I
appreciate the position in this latter regard.

I enclose a personal letter from Sir Hugo Hirst [3] that he asks
me to forward to you.

You will be appalled to hear that Sir Harry McGowan [4] has
dropped out of the Big Four. [5] I was told some days ago on the
strict understanding that I did not tell you until they had had
opportunity to approach some others, so that they would be able to
tell you and suggest alternatives at the same time, as they knew
how disappointed you would be. [6]

Whilst Hirst is a very good man, I do not think that it would do
for him to lead the delegation if only because of his rather thick
German accent. [7] My dinner for Hirst next week has grown. Sir
Ernest Clark [8] is coming too, and six other men connected with
Australia to meet them.

The season has apparently started as we have been to two balls.

The Astor's performance must have cost between 500 and 1,000,
and I don't believe more than a dozen people really enjoyed it.

The law of diminishing returns, with a vengeance.

I met Palmstierna (Swedish Minister) at lunch this week. I know
him well enough, and I said that some of us hoped that the visit
of his Royal Princess might be of great interest. [9] He looked up
quickly and smiled, and said that he very much hoped so too, but
that it was very 'chancy'.

I enclose a further reference to the use of Broadcasting for
educational purposes.

I am going to try and put something down on paper with regard to
the general subject of liaison, which I hope to send you, for what
it is worth, by next mail.

From time to time when I look back from indiscretion to
indiscretion through my file of personal letters to you, I am
rather appalled by the consequences of unauthorised people having
access to them. If and when I leave this office, I propose to take
them with me amongst my personal records, merely letting my
successor look through them (if I like the cut of his jib) to see
the sort of information I have been in the habit of sending. This
also applies to all telegrams to and from you that I think should
not form part of the regular office records.

We have taken a rod on a good bit of fishing on the Kenner, about
70 miles west of London, and are enjoying, the short week-ends
there immensely. We can get there in two hours, door to door,
leave London at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and get back at 10 p.m. on
Sundays; we stay at the local inn in Ramsbury, right on the river.

I take the reviews and a book and a light, collapsible chair and
read while my wife fishes, and vice versa. And I am on the
telephone to the office should you become unwarrantably active in
the week-end. We usually manage to get half-a-dozen or so trout of
about a pound each, and drop some on the Amerys [10] and others on
the way home. We get a day and a half in the open air in the most
pleasant surroundings, I get a lot of reading done, and we have a
good, practical, defensive alibi against week-end parties that we
want to avoid.

I enclose rather an amusing German election cartoon, which I
expect you will destroy as soon as seen.

Regarding the point you raise in your letter of 14th April about
an Imperial Conference in 1929 and preferably in June. [11] I
brought this matter up in conversation with Harding [12] in this
last week. His point of view is that June and July are so taken up
with social activities, to say nothing of the tremendous rush of
Parliamentary (and consequently departmental) work at the end of
the session, that it would be very difficult to get the undivided
attention of Ministers if an Imperial Conference were to be added
to their other labours. This being also the state of affairs in a
number of other countries, Harding tells me that it had a bearing
on the selection of the month of September for the League Assembly
meetings.

As you know, August is a slack month, with the result that the
preparation for the work of the Imperial Conference can be taken
in hand seriously ready for the start of the Conference early in
October. Departmental officers have a reasonably free time in
August to grapple with the problems of the Conference to come.

Hankey's [13] point of view, in general, is that as the Conference
used to be in June, there is no reason that it should not be held
again in June. He agrees with Harding generally but thinks it
could be arranged all right. However, as regards 1929, the British
General Election will be held, he thinks, some time between May
and October. The registers for the 'flapper vote' [14] Will not be
ready until May and, on the other hand, he sees reasons why it
might be as late as October. It apparently used to be a tradition
to hold an election if possible 'between hay and harvest', which
really means about July, and he has heard this slogan revived
lately.

I will talk to Amery and others at an early opportunity.

For your convenience, I repeat below the due dates of Dominion
elections:-

Canada September 1931.

South Africa June 1929.

New Zealand November 1928.

I.F.S. June 1931.

Newfoundland June 1928.

The I.F.S., of course, may have an election at any moment. If de
Valera [15] got a majority, he would have, I suppose, to be asked
to come to the Imperial Conference, but it is doubtful if he would
accept, although you never know what change in outlook the
responsibility of office may effect.

Yours sincerely,
R.G. CASEY