My dear P.M.,

I spoke to Tom Jones [1] recently about the value of broadcasting
in an election. He agreed with Amery [2], but went on to say that
it has much greater value for a man like Baldwin [3] than for a
good controversial speaker. Baldwin cannot inflame a crowd from a
platform as he is more or less tied to his notes, but he is at his
best in a quiet Wireless Studio with his deep hearts-of-oak voice
and his (or Tom Jones'!) notes beside him. A lot of this sort of
thing will be done by the Prime Minister in the course of the next
General Election here-the controversial answering-back of Lloyd
George [4] will be left to Winston [5] and others who can do it
better.

In the course of a long conversation with a man prominently
connected with Egyptian affairs in the Foreign Office, he
expounded to me his ideas about Lord Lloyd. [6] He thinks Lloyd is
a round peg in a square hole. He admits his many qualities but
thinks that they would be best directed towards the rigid
governing of a backward race over which we had complete
sovereignty and control. He has the fortiter in re but lacks the
suaviter in modo. He let it be known when in London, before going
to Cairo, that he considered the 1922 resolutions were a mistake
and he has never since failed to impress on the Egyptians that he
is not on their side. [7] My friend said that, in his opinion, the
type of man who was wanted for Egypt was a man with high
diplomatic qualifications, who would guide and persuade instead of
forcing and bullying-a man who would be willing to stand in the
shadow and forego the kudos-a kindly man who would not insist on
making every post a winning post. Lloyd wants to govern and
administer, which is not our function in Egypt. The Egyptians are
unstable, highly emotional, cunning people, not unlike the Irish.

If they are impressed daily by the fact that the British High
Commissioner is out to counter them at every turn, they will
obstruct and intrigue to an unlimited extent. Added to this, Nahas
[8], the Prime Minister (ex-Prime Minister since I wrote the
above), is a fool and probably a knave, and Fuad, the King, is
vain, weak and greedy.

My friend asked me what interest had Australia really got in
Egypt. I said that we were not interested in the details, although
we had to understand some of the background in order to get the
situation in the proper perspective. Our only interest was in the
preservation of the Canal as an Imperial route and we realised
that Great Britain was fully seized with the importance of this,
and we were quite content to leave it to them and not to meddle
with the means taken to achieve it, as they knew the business much
better than we did.

The Prime Minister recently publicly disavowed any governmental
sponsoring of Rothermere's [9] spectacular backing of the
Hungarian cause, which has pleased the French press. [10] Baldwin
will have none of Rothermere. Winston, on the other hand, sees him
a good deal and is putting in some work on him to get the support
of his (the Rothermere) press for the General Election. It appears
(I hear confidentially) that Rothermere is as yet undecided as to
whether to support Lloyd George's Liberals or the present
Government.

Birkenhead [11] still has feelings of loyalty and regard for Lloyd
George which he will not allow current party politics to embitter.

Birkenhead was asked recently to go to Wales to speak in Lloyd
George's constituency in favour of the prospective Conservative
candidate, but refused in a well-worded letter in which he stated
his intention never to speak in his constituency against Lloyd
George in view of his services to the country during the war.

Sir Hilton Young is back from East Africa where he has been
Chairman of an East African Commission on Closer Union. He is a
man of many parts, with a brain that is far above the ordinary. He
has brilliance combined with a well-developed intolerance which
finds expression in an icily cutting manner. He turned over to
Conservatism from being a Liberal in the last few years and was
given a G.B.E. and a minor Government post almost at once. He was
Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the Coalition Government
after the war, but I am told that it is unlikely that he will be
able to claim much more than this grade of post in the next
Government, as he is too lately an ex-Liberal and the Conservative
Party would not stand for too many favours to those so lately
converted to the faith. [12]

Amery had him in mind for the Big Four [13] but he had been on so
many missions abroad that it was thought unfair to ask him to go
away again.

You will be glad to hear that I have had one English car for the
six months that I have been back here, and have just sold it and
bought another, a 'Sunbeam' this time.

The story goes that an American on being introduced to the Aga
Khan tried to ingratiate himself by saying that whereas he had
never had the pleasure before of meeting the Aga Khan, he had
known Otto Kahn [14] for many years.

The new Ford in my opinion is an Event. As an American friend of
mine said to me lately: 'You folks just can't laugh it off.' In
appearance and performance it is wonderful value for money. It
remains to be seen whether Ford can go on producing it for the
price.

My wife is in danger of embracing communism. She had set her heart
on a certain china figure at a Chelsea Exhibition and had ordered
it, to be delivered after the exhibition ended. Meanwhile the
Queen went there, wanted the same figure and, not unnaturally, got
it, in spite of its being earmarked for us. As Maie says-this is
what comes of living under a Monarchy: this sort of thing couldn't
happen in Moscow!

One of the notorious Joels [15] has a peculiarly twisted neck.

Seeing him in a restaurant lately someone remarked it, to which
someone else replied: 'Why, good heavens, that's nothing; it's the
straightest thing about him.'

I am, Yours sincerely,
R.G. CASEY