(Due to arrive Canberra 24.11.28)

My dear P.M.,

Amery [1] is concerned at his inability to think up a few suitable
men to act as Governors-General. He has told Batterbee [2] to
produce him a short list of possibilities but he is finding some
difficulty in even starting a list. If you have any suggestions,
they would be welcomed.

Admiral Sir Charles Madden (who took Beatty's place as First Sea
Lord at the Admiralty) is spoken of by those who are in close
association with him as not being an inspired person.

Whitehall has been crying out for Field [3] to return to the
Admiralty and it is an open secret that he will return shortly as
First Sea Lord. He was previously Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff.

But, as he (Field) said to an informant of mine lately, they must
let him have a year or two with the Mediterranean Fleet to get
himself up to date again on the practical problems of the sea. As
he says, he has to learn for himself at first hand the
possibilities of the submarine and the air before he can come back
with confidence to the Admiralty.

Admiral Sir Roger Keyes is Field's competitor for First Sea Lord.

There is a section of the Navy who thinks that he was the only man
who showed the 'Nelson touch' during the War. But he was
responsible for bringing the recent disciplinary scandal
(Commander Daniel and Captain Dewar) at Malta to the light of day
when it might have been hushed up and dealt with as a Service
matter without publicity and without bringing the Navy into
disrepute. In any event, it is fairly generally recognised that
Field is the better man. [4]

I went to the annual Motor Show last week and was rather
disappointed with the British cars showing. Apart from the grande
luxe cars (Rolls, Lanchester, Daimler, Bentley and, possibly,
Sunbeam) in which we lead the world, and excepting Morris and some
of the tiny 7 h.p. class-the rest are uninspiring. The average
English bodywork of low to medium price is awkward and amateurish.

The bulk of British cars for the masses are getting very 'tinny'
looking in their artificial effort to build down to a price
without the output that makes low prices possible for the
Americans. A couple of hours at the Show sends one away with a
feeling that the average brains of those engaged in the motor
industry here must be far from first class.

I find that a good test question to anyone in the British motor
industry is-'How does the performance-price of such-and-such an
English car compare with that of the relevant sized Chrysler?' It
is an unfair question, of course (and irritates them intensely!)
as no English car can approach the Chrysler performance at
anything like the price-and the old-time reply that American cars
don't last is no longer applicable.

One would have thought that the English manufacturers would have
used the American cars as a stalking horse-learnt from them,
picked them to pieces and gone one better, but apart from Morris's
strenuous efforts and success, they have apparently learnt very
little from the Americans.

The social stir of Whitehall lately has been E.J. Harding's
engagement to Miss Huxley. [5] She is one of the well-known family
of Huxleys and lives at the intellectual centre of gravity of the
world, Boar's Hill near Oxford. She is a young woman of obvious
mental attainments. They are to be married in January.

I lunched with Batterbee and Barrington-Ward, the Assistant Editor
of the 'Times' today. The lunch was arranged for the purpose of
informing the 'Times' confidentially but quite fully of the
Antarctic position so that they would be in possession of
sufficient facts to enable them to exercise discretion as to what
they print. I had personally taken it on myself to go and see them
in this regard, and Amery approved of the procedure and inspired
this lunch to complete the process.

One hears Barrington-Ward spoken of as the natural Successor to
Geoffrey Dawson as Editor. [6] He is a decent, honest fellow, with
balance and commonsense, but not, I should say, inspired.

The future of the cinema intrigues me a great deal. As an
educational medium and as a means of getting ideas about, its
possibilities are practically untouched. My interest in the
subject has been whipped up by using an amateur machine for these
last six months. The technique of professional production has
reached a very high state-one might almost say perfection, but the
industry seems to lack ideas either for social recreation films or
for educational or propaganda purposes. Other arts progress in the
reverse way-ideas worth presentation breed initiative in
perfecting technique, but the movies, on the other hand, are 'all
dressed up and nowhere to go'.

I have been holding back a certain amount of material until this
mail which should reach you a reasonable time after the election.

The result is that the mail is a very heavy one, and is the
result, in some cases, of work that I have had in hand as a side
issue for several months.

The material that I refer to particularly is as follows. A long
memorandum on 'The Economic Impact of America' that I have put
together in spare time over the last few months; a Set of 12
sheets of curves in which I have tried to show the more important
Australian statistics in graphic and comparable form; a set of
curves showing in the mass and in detail the trend of Australian
trade with America and Canada. If you think fit to let the
Commonwealth Statistician see these two sets of curves, I would be
most interested to hear in due course what he has to say about
them.

I would very much like to have your authority to take from two to
three weeks' leave from December 16th, as I have had only a week
during this year. We give up the short lease we have had of our
house on that date, and propose to park the baby and nurse on a
relative and go to Switzerland.

I am, Yours sincerely
R.G. CASEY

P.S. I enclose cutting showing that Haden Guest [7] has plans for
your future.